When did the HWA become so expensive?

I used to be a member of the Horror Writers Association and found it very beneficial.  Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to keep my membership going at the time, and had to cancel both my HWA and HSA (Haiku Society of America) memberships.

While browsing around online today, I decided to check out the HWA to see if maybe I should join back up.  Dues when I was a member -- probably around 2009 or so -- were about $30 or $35 at the time.  I was more than just surprised to discover that since then, the membership fee has doubled.

For an Affiliate or Active membership, among others, it now costs $69.00 per year.  When did that happen?  The HWA was pretty darn cool to be a part of, but for someone who couldn't justify it at $35 a year, that price is way out of reach.

For any HWA members out there, when did the fee go up so drastically?  I know inflation and all that will  cause some increase, but this seems excessive -- at least to me.  I was happy to discover that the HSA is still only $35 for a year's membership.

Trick or Treat: Haiku and Its Place in Dark Poetry

Marge Simon, who edits and writes the "Blood & Spades" column for the HWA newsletter, was kind enough to ask me to write a guest column a while back. The column appeared in the October issue of the newsletter, and thanks to a suggestion by Josh Gage, here it is. Any comments (agreeing or disagreeing) are always welcome.

Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side

Marge Simon

My guest for this month, Greg Schwartz, is a copier technician and bartender. Of course, that's not all he does! His clever poems are popping up everywhere I look. Some of his poems have been published in Anomalous Appetites, Talebones, Horror Carousel, Modern Haiku, Scifaikuest, and Aberrant Dreams. Two poems have been nominated for Rhysling Awards, and one was nominated for a Dwarf Star Award. His chapbook of horror poems, Bits & Pieces, was published by Spec House of Poetry in 2007. I asked him for a column about haiku, and he has delivered it in fine style. Read on!

Trick or Treat: Haiku and Its Place in Dark Poetry

Greg Schwartz

When people think of haiku, they tend to think of ancient Japanese poets, cherry blossoms, and old ponds. When people think about dark poetry, they tend to think about zombies, werewolves, and killer dolls. Yet the two concepts fit together snugly, and haiku has managed to carve out a small corner of dark poetry and claim it for its own.

Dark haiku (which can be science fiction, horror, or fantasy) has been around for years, and it doesn't appear to be leaving any time soon. There is a popular magazine (Scifaikuest) devoted solely to speculative haiku and its related forms (with a section for just horrorku), and Sam's Dot Publishing and Spec House of Poetry both continue to support the publication of books of dark haiku. Magazines like Star*Line and The Shantytown Anomaly consistently publish both dark and speculative haiku.

morning shave--
trapped eyes watch with envy
from the mirror

There are many fine horror poets writing haiku--Josh Gage, Aurelio Rico Lopez III, Deborah Kolodji, and R.H. Fay, to name just a few. These names are probably familiar to most fans of speculative poetry.

It's interesting to contrast this level of popularity with the mainstream poetry community. Most poetry readers (and probably many editors) wouldn't recognize the names of some of haiku's elite: John Stevenson, Jim Kacian, Cor van den Heuvel, or Lee Gurga.

toys put away
she goes to bed
toybox lid creaks

Mainstream poetry journals are also a lot less receptive to haiku than speculative journals are. Very few speculative poetry magazines won't accept haiku, yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a mainstream poetry journal with even one haiku between its covers. I've submitted a lot of haiku to poetry journals over the years, and almost all have been rejected. (This might say something about my writing ability, but we'll pretend to ignore that possibility.) Only a few magazines that I've seen have gone against the grain (notably, Cold Mountain Review and New York Quarterly) and published haiku. One prominent poetry magazine's editor told me she won't even consider haiku, and the editor of another journal said I should check my syllable count because it wasn't 5-7-5.

The 5-7-5 syllable count is no longer followed by the majority of haiku poets. Some (such as R.H. Fay) can mold their poems into it and make the syllable count work for them, but most have shed it like an old skin. Haiku today generally fall into the 10-14 syllable range, but even this is not a rule. It was depressing to learn that the editor of a popular poetry journal is so far behind the times, and thus missing out on a lot of good poetry.

In contrast to these biases held by mainstream poetry editors, I've seen scifaiku or horrorku published in almost every speculative magazine I've read. It makes me wonder why haiku is so much more accepted by the speculative community.

midnight tea party
saucers clinking--
haunted dollhouse

One answer is that as speculative poets (and editors), we're more open to new ideas and new forms of poetry, and less constrained by tradition. We are more at ease using our imaginations and creating not only poems or stories, but whole new worlds. When we're used to thinking up fantastic new monsters or imagining the thought processes of a killer, a new poetry form or an experimental style is no big deal.
Another explanation is that mainstream editors receive a lot more drivel, and they're simply tired of wading through it. Or, maybe speculative poets are simply better at haiku.

Whatever the reason, the speculative community has been very accepting of haiku. Haiku poets are submitting high-quality work, and editors are accepting and publishing it. And that's good, because haiku is a form that works very well for dark poetry.

Christmas Eve--
the toy soldiers
check their weapons

Haiku and dark poetry have similar goals. Both strive to capture in words a moment that the reader will never forget. Of course, instead of birds or flowers, dark poetry tends to focus on dreadful or frightening moments, like the moment when you wake up in the middle of the night and swear you heard a noise coming from the closet.

Writing a horror poem can be hard--using just the right words to elicit fear or shock or wonder from the reader--but it gets even harder when you whittle that poem down to a mere three lines. With less room for error, you (the poet) have to be sure to pick exactly the right word, every time.

But when you do pick the right words, you've created something magical--a fierce little demon with sharp claws, ready to pounce on anyone who gets too close. Haiku is an apt form for horror poetry because you have enough room to create a sense of dread in the reader without having to stick around too long and watch it be dispelled.

Some longer poems read like roller coasters, with ups and downs and breathless moments followed by a flat straightaway, a chance to catch your breath. But a haiku is too short for all that. There is just enough time to lead the reader up that first hill, pause at the top, show them the hellishly steep drop that awaits them, and watch their eyes go wide.

bankrupt
the farmer feeds his nephew
to the pigs

Then it's over. That's all the time you have with the reader, so you have to make it count. You have to make their eyes go wide and their hearts rise in their throats with just a handful of words.

That's the challenge of dark haiku, and when it's done right, it can be powerful. Because of its brevity and its focus on one particular moment in time, haiku is suited to the horror genre like no other form of poetry. The good poets not only recognize that fact but take full advantage of it. (See some of Joshua Gage's horrorku in various online magazines or Charles Gramlich's chapbook, Wanting the Mouth of a Lover, for good examples.)

For those of you writing dark haiku, keep writing. For those horror poets who haven't tried their hand at it, give it a shot. It can be challenging, but it can also be very rewarding.

And you just might scare someone.

("morning shave" was first published in Anomalous Appetites, March 2009. "toys put away" first appeared in Dreams & Nightmares, July 2008. "midnight tea party" is from Twisted Tongue, June 2008. "Christmas Eve" is from Twisted Tongue, January 2009. "bankrupt" is unpublished.)

Sentry

Wizened little face perched atop his tiny doll-sized body in his garish yellow shirt and threadbare bright red trousers peering 'round the bedroom door down the hallway alert for any signs of life. His stomach rumbles and his back is to the action the giant creaking bed where the other gnomes are busy feasting on the human boy.

("Sentry," by Greg Schwartz, originally published in Niteblade, 2008. Artwork by Marge Simon.)

some markets & stuff to read

Ghostlight, the journal of the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers, opens for its next reading period on December 1st. This is a good market for writers of horror or dark fiction -- response time is only one month, and they accept reprints. Payment rates are $5/story or $4/poem. There is also an Editor's Choice award given for each issue, which comes with $10 and a year's membership to the GLAHW. Stories should be 500-6000 words.

Emerald Tales is a fiction and poetry journal out of Florida. The editors will accept both snail mail and email submissions, and they pay $40/story or $20/poem. Each issue has a theme; the "Winter Solstice" issue has a deadline of November 1st, and the "Carnivale" issue is open until January 1st.

For Horror Writers Association members, writer and publisher J. Bruce Fuller had a well-written and intriguing article in the September issue of the HWA newsletter (available in the newsletter archives) on "Imagination and Persona in Horror Poetry." I had the unfortunate luck to follow him with my article in the October newsletter, "Trick or Treat: Haiku and Its Place in Dark Poetry." (Marge Simon came up with the title -- thanks Marge!)

Here are a couple of good haiku, courtesy of tinywords (which is hopefully making a comeback) -- one by Ed Markwoski and one by Helga Härle.

Newsletters for writers

Newsletters are a great way to pick up information, be it a helpful writing tip or a new market to submit to, or even an organizational hint. Here are several email newsletters for writers (and they're all free):

- Worldwide Freelance Writer: Weekly newsletter. Contains a feature article, several writing markets, and related ads.

- Flash Fiction Newsletter: Monthly newsletter dealing with flash fiction (and some poetry and nonfiction). Contains markets, tips, subscriber news, and an "editor's pick" online venue.

- WritersWeekly: Weekly digest of website content from WritersWeekly.com. Contains article excerpts, letters to the editor, a "Whispers and Warnings" section, paying markets, and writing-related jobs.

- Food-Writing Newsletter: Bi-weekly newsletter "for writers who love food and food lovers who write." Contains an article or two on food writing, and prospective markets and jobs.

- The Poetry Market Ezine: Monthly newsletter. Contains publishing news, upcoming poetry contests, markets, and an in-depth poetry book review.

I subscribe to all of these newsletters and read as much of them as I can. You never know where you'll find that perfect new market.

On a side note, I just found out this week that I've been accepted into the Horror Writers Association. That's pretty cool.