Happy Halloween everyone. Today is the end of our 31 Days together, but as usual we end with a look forward. Today is the announcement marking the beginning of Summer Scares 2025!
This will be the last you hear from me on the Horror blog until 11/14 when I will return with a new #HorrorForLibraies Giveaway.
The Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with Booklist, Book Riot, iREAD, and NoveList®, a division of EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO), is proud to announce the sixth annual Summer Scares, a reading program that provides libraries and schools with an annual list of recommended horror titles for adult, young adult (teen), and middle grade readers. It introduces readers and librarians to new authors and helps start conversations extending beyond the books from each list, promoting reading for years to come.
Summer Scares is proud to announce the 2025 spokesperson, #1 New York Times Bestselling author Kendare Blake:
"As a proud member of the club of people who read Stephen King too young, I am both honored and absolutely psyched to be this years' Summer Scares Spokesperson. Long ago, in elementary school, I had a beloved librarian with hair as black as night and teeth like Nosferatu. On dreary, wintry afternoons she would gather the children near and read to us from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, her eyes brightening with our every small whimper. She was, in short, THE BEST. I hope to meet many more librarians this year with her same, spooky spirit. So come along, folks of all ages, and let's read the scary stuff all summer long! It's not just for October anymore."
Blake, along with a committee of six library workers, will select three recommended fiction titles in each reading level, totaling nine Summer Scares selections. The program aims to encourage a conversation at libraries worldwide about the horror genre across all age levels and ultimately attract more adults, teens, and children interested in reading. Official Summer Scares designated authors will also make themselves available to public and school libraries.
The committee’s final selections will be announced on February 14, 2025, Library Lover’s Day. Blake, along with some of the selected authors, will kick off Summer Scares at the 9th Annual HWA Librarians’ Day, Friday, June 13th, during StokerCon® 2025 at the Hilton Stamford Hotel in Stamford, CT. Tickets for this in-person event are available now: https://www.stokercon2025.com/librarian-s-day.
Additional content, including podcast appearances, free webinars with Booklist, and lists of suggested titles for further reading, will be made available by the committee and its partners beginning in March of 2025 and continuing through the Spring and Summer.
Of special note is the annual Summer Scares Programming Guide, courtesy of HWA Library Committee Co-Chair Konrad Stump and the Springfield-Greene County Library, which provides creative ideas to engage horror readers. Centered around the official Summer Scares titles, the guide offers tips and examples for readers’ advisory, book discussion guides, and sample programs, enabling librarians, even those who don’t read or especially enjoy the horror genre themselves, to connect their communities with Summer Scares.
To see past year’s Summer Scares titles, spokespeople, and programming guides, please visit the program archive: http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares-archive.html.
This year, Summer Scares is excited to announce a brand new sponsor– iREAD, an all ages Summer Reading Program developed by librarians for libraries. iREAD is used by libraries across the United States and around the world through their partnership with the US Department of Defense, bringing Summer Scares to our military families stationed across the globe.
iREAD Content and Development Manager Becca Boland shared her excitement:
“As a new sponsor of Summer Scares, iREAD is thrilled (and chilled) to support the Summer Scares program guide that will help libraries ‘unearth’ a love for reading. As part of this partnership, every summer you'll find one spine-tingling book for each age range and category that aligns with the iREAD theme. iREAD will also help to provide programming assistance for the guide ensuring everyone has a ‘fang-tastic’ time! Let’s conjure up some excitement and make this summer a real ‘scream’ with Summer Scares and iREAD."
Keep your eyes peeled for more updates coming soon from Booklist, Book Riot, iREAD and NoveList®, as well as at the HWA’s website: www.horror.org and RA for All Horror: http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares.html.
Questions? Reach out to HWA Library Committee Co-Chairs Becky Spratford and Konrad Stump via email: libraries@horror.org.
Summer Scares 2025 Committee Members:
Kendare Blake is the author of several novels and short stories, most of which you can find information about via the links above. Her work is sort of dark, always violent, and features passages describing food from when she writes while hungry. She was born in July (for those of you doing book reports) in Seoul, South Korea, but doesn’t speak a lick of Korean, as she was packed off at a very early age to her adoptive parents in the United States. That might be just an excuse, though, as she is pretty bad at learning foreign languages. She enjoys the work of Milan Kundera, Caitlin R Kiernan, Bret Easton Ellis, and Richard Linklater. She lives and writes in Gig Harbor, Washington, with her husband, their cat son Tyrion Cattister, red Doberman dog son Obi-Dog Kenobi, rottie mix dog daughter Agent Scully, and naked Sphynx cat son Armpit McGee.
Becky Spratford is a library consultant and the author of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror, third edition which was released in September of 2021. She reviews horror for Booklist Magazine, is the horror columnist for Library Journal and runs the Readers’ Advisory blog, RA for All: Horror.
Konrad Stump is a Local History Associate for the Springfield-Greene County (MO) Library, where he co-coordinates Springfield-Greene's popular “Oh, the Horror!” series, which attracts hundreds of patrons during October. He created the Donuts & Death horror book discussion group, featured in “Book Club Reboot: 71 Creative Twists” (ALA), and co-created the Summer Scares Programming Guide. Library workers who are interested in cultivating horror programming can contact him at konrads@thelibrary.org for free assistance.
Carolyn Ciesla is an academic library director in the Chicago suburbs. She has worked as a teen librarian and reference librarian, and has reviewed horror titles for Booklist Magazine. She’s currently teaching horror to first-year college students. You can find her all over the internet as @papersquared.
Kelly Jensen is an editor at Book Riot, the largest independent book website in North America. She covers all things young adult literature and has written about censorship for nearly ten years. She is the author of three critically-acclaimed and award-winning anthologies for young adults on the topics of feminism, mental health, and the body. She was named a person of the year in 2022 by Publishers Weekly and a Chicagoan of the year in 2022 by the Chicago Tribune for her anti-censorship work. She has also earned commendation from the American Association of School Librarians for her censorship coverage. Prior to her work at Book Riot, she was a public librarian for children, teens, and adults in several libraries in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. She is currently enrolled in a clinical mental health counseling master's program to bolster her work with mental health.
Julia Smith joined the Books for Youth team at Booklist in 2015, where she is now a senior editor. Her love of middle-grade literature and all things unsettling and strange draws her to creepy children's stories. You can follow her at @JuliaKate32 on Twitter.
Yaika Sabat (MLS) comes from a background in public libraries of various sizes. She now works at NoveList as the Manager of Reader Services, where she trains library staff nationwide on readers’ advisory, creates genre-focused content, and works on reader-focused products and services. As a Horror Writers Association’s Library Advisory Council member, she works to help librarians understand and embrace the horror genre. Her other passions include writing, graphic novels, film (the scarier, the better), and folklore.
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