Women in Horror Month: Welcome Message
Hello, dear friends, and welcome back to our yearly celebration of Women in Horror! A time when the site focuses on the amazing women working in the genre, whether they’ve inspired us or given us moments of joy. The last year has been incredibly difficult for anyone marginalised, but we hope we’re able to shine a light during our celebrations and remind everyone that most women working in genres like horror have fought battles to get to where they are, whether they’re at the top or bottom of their career, and despite it feeling like progress is made in some areas, it feels like it’s gone backwards in others. So if you’re an ally, please take a moment to reflect on the challenges those in marginalised communities face often. If you can, please lend your support via buying books, donating to charities, or just raving about your favourite folks! It all helps.
Wasn’t WIHM last month?
A lot of folks celebrated Women in Horror Month in March this year, but there’s no ‘official’ month to celebrate after it was moved from February, and though we did celebrate in March last year, this year a decision was made to move it to April for our own site-wide celebrations. The truth is, 2023 has proven to be a different year already, and we wanted to ensure there was plenty of time for folks to submit their pieces for 2023.
And it’s not too late to do so, either! Maybe you’ve been inspired by WIHM, or have reviews for books you read during March – you’re more than welcome to send over any WIHM content you’d like to see on the site, and we accept reprints, so if it’s something that’s been on your own blog or maybe an essay you’ve published elsewhere, feel free to send these, too. Just make sure you include a link to the original and a short bio with any relevant links – send it over to dhrfeatures[at]gmail[dot]com.
We also made a change last year to our events, opening these up for year-round submissions, so if you are stumbling across this at the end of April or start of May, and have a burning idea for a listacle (or review or article or anything else!) contact us and we can talk either getting it up another time or for next year.
So, let’s draw the focus back to WIHM 2023, shall we? It’s so nice to see the Horror Community embrace the change and celebrate in March, and there were so many fantastic posts shared across social media. It’s great to see folks dedicating time to reading women in horror, but as always we’d like to point out reading diversely shouldn’t be reserved for specific months, and there are so many excellent books out there that deserve celebrating year-round.
Also of note – celebrating Women in Horror means celebrating all women in horror. We strive for inclusiveness here at DHR, and there are always benefits to reading diversely – it’s not enough to make sure you have femme names on your shelves, but to include writers from different communities than yourself. To read trans women, Black women, disabled women, etc.
Reading diverse and marginalised voices is an absolute joy, and although issues persist within traditional publishing, with the rise of self-publishing and indie publishers, it has never been easier to fill up your physical or digital bookshelves with a wide range of voices. And we hope, year-round, we’re able to convince you to pick up at least some of the books we review here at DHR.
For this month, we hope as always to bring you the kind of DHR content you know and love from us, and we have some exciting things planned. We’d also love to hear from you if you celebrated WIHM in any way, shape or form, or even if you’d like to tell us a little about what you’ve done for previous years. Drop us an email or tag us on Twitter with your comments, recommendations, or which women in horror you’re currently loving, from artists to podcasters to writers to actors, we want to hear them all.
We hope you enjoy our April Women in Horror Month, and find plenty of reasons to keep coming back throughout the month and beyond.
-Love,
Elle
