District Haunts

Join us at Long Dark House for an afternoon celebrating horror, dark fiction, and the incredible writers creating it right here in the DMV. We’re bringing together six horror and speculative fiction authors for a day of book signings, conversations, and two live panels exploring everything from the haunted history in our own backyard to the very real fears that inspire horror fiction. Come for a panel, meet your favorite author, discover someone new—or spend the afternoon with us. 🖤 MEET THE AUTHORS Tracy A. Cross (@tracycrosswrites)Author of Rootwork and A Gathering of Weapons, Tracy writes historical horror exploring racial violence, ancestral memory, and Black women’s supernatural traditions. Her forthcoming collection, Sinner Man Hand and Other Folk Horrors, arrives October 2026. Jessica McHugh (@thejessmchugh)Three-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated poet, novelist, and playwright whose work spans horror, speculative fiction, poetry, and the wonderfully bizarre. Her books include The Quiet Ways I Destroy You, The Green Kangaroos, and The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy. Grace R. Reynolds (@gravereynolds)Speculative fiction writer and poet whose dark work includes Lady of the House, The Lies We Weave, Midnight Blue, and her 2026 novella Neon Moon. Drew Starling (@scarystarling)Bestselling horror and dark-fiction author whose work has twice reached #1 on Amazon’s U.S. Horror Fiction list. His latest novel, AFTER: An Anatomy of Fracture, is nominated for a Kirkus Indie Award. His one rule of writing: the dog never dies. Sonora Taylor (@sonorataylor)Award-winning horror author, co-manager of Fright Girl Summer, and board member of Scares That Care. Her fiction has appeared in Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror Vol. 1, and her work spans short fiction, collections, and nonfiction. L. Marie Wood (@lmwoodie)Bram Stoker Award®-winning psychological horror author, horror scholar, professor, founder of the Speculative Fiction Academy, and president of the Horror Writers Association. THE PANELS District Haunts: The DMV’s Rich Legacy of HorrorFrom forgotten graveyards to buildings that have watched generations come and go, the DMV has no shortage of stories—or ghosts. Tracy A. Cross, Jessica McHugh, and Sonora Taylor explore how the region’s layered history finds its way into horror and why writers continue finding fresh dread in familiar ground. Politics & Woes: The Horror in Our PoliticsHorror has long given writers a way to examine power, inequality, corruption, and the institutions we're told to trust. Grace R. Reynolds, Drew Starling, and L. Marie Wood discuss transforming real-world anxieties into fiction—and why horror remains such a powerful way to talk about the things that frighten us. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24 12:00–3:00 PM — Author SigningL. Marie Wood • Grace R. Reynolds • Sonora Taylor 3:00–3:30 PM — District Haunts Panel 3:30–4:00 PM — Politics & Woes Panel 4:00–7:00 PM — Author SigningTracy A. Cross • Jessica McHugh • Drew Starling Drop in throughout the day, grab a book, meet the authors, stay for the conversations, and celebrate the strange, scary, and wonderfully dark stories coming out of our community.