About Us
Women and gender-diverse people have always shaped horror, but they have not received equitable access to the systems that decide whose work is promoted, funded, distributed, stocked, taught, and remembered. WIHAMA exists to change the conditions around the work. We create pathways for creators and scholars to be visible, taken seriously, connected with audiences, and supported in building sustainable careers.
Our work connects advocacy with action: public programming, education, mentorship, media, publishing, film, funding, recognition, residencies, local community, and industry engagement. We also invite audiences and allies to participate in ways that are consistent and material, from reading and reviewing to booking, stocking, hiring, funding, and publicly championing the work.
Mission Statement
Women in Horror Arts and Media Association (WIHAMA) advances equity across horror arts and media through advocacy, education, and the amplification of women, including cis and trans women, while also uplifting nonbinary and gender-fluid creators, scholars, and industry professionals. With particular commitment to BIPOC, working-class, independent, disabled, and neurodivergent voices, WIHAMA creates pathways to visibility, professional opportunity, sustainable careers, and meaningful audience support across publishing, film, scholarship, and the broader horror landscape.
Our History
WIHAMA began with a grassroots idea during Women in Horror Month. Founder KJ Brantley was inspired by women throughout the horror community who consistently used their platforms to champion one another, including Gwendolyn Kiste, Wendy Dalrymple, Laurel Hightower, Grace R. Reynolds, Lindy Ryan, R.J. Joseph, E.A. Broadbent, and many others.
At the same time, Brantley saw how visibility and opportunity remained concentrated among a limited number of creators while many marginalized, BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, working-class, independent, and emerging voices continued to be overlooked. Women at every stage of their careers were often treated as less serious artists, offered fewer professional opportunities, asked reductive questions, or expected to navigate harassment and unsafe spaces. Many emerging writers also lacked access to mentors who understood the barriers women encounter within publishing and the broader arts.
Brantley envisioned an event that would bring established and emerging women writers together, allowing them to share audiences, build relationships, and increase visibility for one another. That vision became the inaugural SoCo Women in Horror Fest, held on March 28, 2026, hosted at a local bookstore and presented both in person and by livestream.
The response was overwhelming. Support arrived from horror communities across the United States and the United Kingdom, affirming that the festival addressed a genuine and widespread need. The Uncanny Women Podcast followed as a way to continue these conversations throughout the year, introduce audiences to women working in horror, and support creators between events.
In June 2026, Brantley formally established the Women in Horror Arts and Media Association as its sole founder and convened its first board. WIHAMA is now formally established as a nonprofit and is completing the tax-exemption process. What began as one community-centered festival is growing into a lasting organization dedicated to creating greater visibility, connection, opportunity, and equity throughout horror arts and media.
Our Staff
KJ Brantley
Founder, President of the Board, Volunteer Executive Director
KJ is a BIPOC (Indigenous-mixed) and neurodivergent horror author. Her work explores motherhood, feminism, identity, neurodivergence, and psychological horror. Her current novel-length work is a finalist for the 2026 Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Rush Award.
An active leader in the horror community, KJ is the co-owner of Broom Book & Candle, a horror bookstore, café, and wine bar opening in Denver in fall 2026. She also serves as host of the Uncanny Women Podcast, and founder of the SoCo Women in Horror Fest. She lives in Colorado with her husband, two toddlers, and an ever-growing stack of spooky books.
Sonora Taylor - Sonora Consults
Contract Web Designer & Manager
In addition to being an author, Sonora Taylor is a digital communications professional with over a decade of experience managing websites, building email programs from the ground up, and overseeing digital marketing via social media, blogs, and more. She has a long career in Washington, D.C.’s nonprofit sector, where she increased email engagement from single to double digit percentages and updated websites to maximize engagement in a forever-changing technological environment. She also has extensive experience building, maintaining, and refreshing websites for several authors, including V. Castro, Christopher Golden, J.A.W. McCarthy, Laurel Hightower, and more. Check out her portfolio and schedule a FREE consult at sonoraconsults.com.
Stefanie Olivola
Contract Community Manager
Stefanie acts as a Community Manager for various groups, including Talking Scared Podcast, Micro Squad, and Broom Book & Candle Society. She posts on social media under @opinionnoted, sharing artistic book journaling reviews and hosting live events teaching readers how to creatively document loved books.
Her passion for community building and horror has brought her to WIHAMA as our Discord Community Manager. For inquiries on community management or in person/virtual book journaling events, DM her on Instagram @opinionnoted
Board of Directors
Amanda Schafer –
Vice Chair of Organization & Operations
Amanda Shafer is co-owner of Broom Book & Candle Bookstore, Cafe, and Bar in Denver and a horror writer raised by wolves and late-night double-feature fright night hosts in the swamps of eastern North Carolina.
When she isn't crafting her own chilling narratives, she’s bringing the horror community together for the ultimate immersive experience, taking the terror off the page and into the woods for Creepaway Camp —an in-person slasher summer camp designed for genre lovers to sharpen their prose, meet some of their favorite creators, and survive the night together.
Rachel Redd – Vice Chair of Brand Strategy & Communications
Rachel Redd is a digital content creator, avid reader, and host of the Talking Horror Podcast. With 15 years of experience in publishing and creative writing, she is passionate about every stage of storytelling, from the first spark of an idea to the many ways writers share their work. Through interviews with the creative minds shaping dark fiction, Rachel explores what draws authors and readers to the shadows. Backed by a community of more than 120,000 followers, she is on a mission to prove that anyone who says horror and thrillers aren’t for them simply hasn’t found the right book yet. She believes dark storytelling offers a safe, powerful lens for building empathy, reflecting the human experience, and understanding ourselves more deeply. Rachel lives in Colorado with her husband and two children and is rarely seen without a book in her hand.
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KC Grifant – Mentorship Program Chair
KC Grifant is an editor, instructor and award-winning author based in Southern California. She writes internationally published horror, fantasy, science fiction and weird west fiction, including the award-winning Monster Gunslinger series. Dozens of her short stories have appeared in podcasts, anthologies and magazines. She is the editor of the Women of the Weird West anthology as well as a writer for various horror games. In addition to her day job in science communications, KC also serves as a writing instructor for the University of California San Diego, an associate editor for Stars & Sabers Press, a mentor for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) and the co-chair of the San Diego Horrors Writers Association (HWA) chapter, which she founded in 2016. Learn more at www.KCGrifant.com or on social media at @kcgrifant.
Kaitlyn Kessinger – Treasurer
Kaitlyn Kessinger is a poet and the managing editor of CLASH Books. Her work can be found in Bullshit Lit and the 13th edition of Hypersaturation. She is a recipient of The State University of New York at Albany’s Shields McIlwaine Award. She lives in Albany, New York.
Catlyn Ladd – Secretary
Catlyn Ladd (she/her) grew up roaming the Ozark Mountains, spinning stories among the woods, rocks, and rivers. She loves lyricism, rhythm, the sibilant slip of similar sounds. A former stripper turned professor of philosophy, religion, and women’s studies, her work moves between lived experience and layered imagination, drawing on the shadow self and the monsters gestating there. Her fiction appears in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her nonfiction book Strip: The Making of a Feminist is published by Changemakers. Her novels As Those Above Fall and The Jehovah Project are published by Winding Road Stories. Find samples of her fiction at www.catlynladd.com. Find her on the socials @eclecticacademic. Catlyn lives in Colorado with her partner and cats.
Mo Moshaty – Programming Chair
Mo Moshaty is a multi-award-winning horror author, editor, producer, and international lecturer whose work spans fiction, criticism, and scholarship. A Bram Stoker Award nominee, two-time Shirley Jackson Award nominee, and Wonderland Book Award winner, her fiction has been published by Bridgid’s Gate Press, Tenebrous Press, Flame Tree Press, and 1428 Publishing Ltd, while her academic and critical work has appeared in volumes from Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and Lexington Books. Founder of Mourning Manor Media and Editor-in-Chief of NightTide Magazine, Mo has lectured internationally for the British Film Institute, the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, the University of Sheffield's Centre for the History of the Gothic, and the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference. Her work focuses on the intersections of mental health, folklore, trauma, race, gender, religion, and the Gothic, and she is featured in 160 Black Women in Horror.
Kenya Moss – Chapter Development Chair
As a child, Kenya realized that her entertainment choices leaned more toward ghosts and goblins than princesses and fairy godmothers. She didn't know of any Black authors who wrote the kind of adrenaline-fueled stories that I enjoyed reading, so she read books by authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Jack Ketchum. Although she may occasionally write something with a HEA, her real passion is weaving stories about monsters – both the kind that come from the pits of hell or the kind that may live right next door.
Lorin Dearing - Chair of Publicity & Community Relations
“Lorin Dearing, aka @paperbackbish, is an obsessive reader of all genres, but her favorite stories have both horror and heart. She lives in Denver, Colorado, where she cultivates a bookish community based on authenticity and a shared love of the unhinged. She champions horror and dark fiction by and about women—hosting author events, spotlighting new releases, and proving that final girls make up the best book clubs.”
Elizabeth Copps - Industry Relations Chair
Elizabeth Copps launched her publishing career in New York City at a boutique literary agency, where she honed her eye for bold & distinctive voices. A decade later, she founded Copps Literary Services in Englewood, Colorado, and in 2026 helped lead its evolution into Confluence Literary Agency through a merger with The Bond Agency.
With 16 years of experience and an award-winning client list, Elizabeth brings both expertise and vision to her work. She is a passionate advocate for horror and dark fiction whose agenting approach is grounded in a commitment to fostering equitable, transparent, and enduring industry relationships.
A.E. Santana – Diversity & Inclusion Chair
A.E. Santana is an educator, editor, and author who writes horror and dark fantasy. She's also the owner of Grimalkin Press. Her works can be found in Latin American Shared Stories, Latinx Screams, and other speculative anthologies. She is the moderator for the horror book club, Creepy Story Collective, the co-chair of the Colorado Chapter of the Horror Writers Association, and is on the steering committee for Denver Horror Collective. She received her MFA in fiction from the University of California, Riverside. Her perfect day consists of a cup of black tea and her cat, Flynn Kermit.
Carina Bissett - Membership Chair
Carina Bissett is a writer and poet working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. She has written numerous short stories, many of which are featured in her debut collection Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations (2024), and she is also a co-editor of the award-winning anthology Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas (2021). She is a Shirley Jackson Award nominee for psychological horror. Her poetry has been nominated for the Rhysling Award, the Pushcart Prize, and Sundress Publications Best of the Net. And her nonfiction has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award®. Links to her work can be found at http://carinabissett.com.
Rachel Dempsey – Development & Fundraising Chair
Rachel Horak Dempsey is the author of the novella PN0K0, a sci-fi/horror retelling of Pinocchio. Her work appears in TriQuarterly, Creepy Pod, Brigids Gate Press, Twenty Bellows (Pushcart nominated 2024), Stars and Sabers, and others. Rachel is also the editor of the anthology Horizons 2 from Twenty Bellows. She currently serves on the Executive Boards of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Women in Horror Arts and Media Association. Rachel holds a BFA in Drama and English from NYU, a Master’s in Journalism from Georgetown and an MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University in Denver where she lives with her family.
Christina Bergling - Volunteer Committee Chair
Drawn to the monstrous and macabre, Christina Bergling has been weaving nightmares since childhood. Her tales slither from dystopian and post-apocalyptic (Savages, Invisible Girls, Screechers) to monster (Red Walls) psychological (The Waning) to comedy (The Rest Will Come) to mystery (Followers) and anything in between (various anthologies and zines including The Horror Collection series, 96th of October, Graveyard Girls, Demonic Wildlife). Bergling is a member of the Horror Writers Association, Denver Horror Collective, and Midnight Monster Club and a dedicated voice in the horror genre. She has been featured on panels at Colorado Festival of Horror. She devours horror in all its forms—movies, books, festivals, conventions, stores, haunted attractions.
By day, she is buried in the IT world. By night, she turns trauma into art. When she’s not writing, she hikes rugged Colorado trails, dances wildly, and sucks out all the marrow of life with her family.
Kalvin Ellis - Voting Member & Safety Program Advisor
Kalvin Ellis is an independent author from the Denver, Colorado area. Kalvin has published multiple books in the thriller, suspense, and horror genres. Kalvin's professional career has had a focus on health and safety with an emphasis on leadership development. Kalvin has spent 30 years working with non-profit organizations. Some of that service includes becoming a CASA in 2019, serving as the Vice President of the Board of Directors for Pop Culture Classroom, and as the current Co-Chair for the Colorado Chapter of the Horror Writer's Association.