San Antonio’s Ghoulish Book Festival to fill this weekend with literary scares

The Ghoulish Book Festival, a homegrown convention celebrating horror fiction and other dark diversions, will haunt downtown San Antonio this weekend.

Scheduled for March 15-17 in the Hermann Sons building, the fest’s third annual iteration will include New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Kraus, two-time Stoker Award nominee Jessica McHugh and Texas-based writer and professor RJ Joseph as guests of honor. Kraus is a frequent collaborator with director Guillermo del Toro, including on the concept for the Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water.

Organized by Max Booth III and Lori Michelle, owners of Alamo City-based small press Ghoulish Books, the event will include panel discussions, author readings, contests, autograph sessions and more. While the Ghoulish Book Festival is a ticketed event, a book fair featuring some two dozen publishers and authors is free to the general public.

For transparency’s sake, Booth is an occasional contributor to the Current. 

Authors and publishers scheduled to appear at the this year’s Ghoulish Book Festival include October Nights Press, Little Ghosts Books, Broken River Books, Tenebrous Books, Salt Heart Press, Victoria Nations, Curious Corvid Publishing, Grace R. Reynolds, Madness Heart Press, Preston Fassel, Robert Saucedo, Tom Deady, Matthew M. Bartlett, Wile E. Young, Wesley Southard, Celso Hurtado, Chris Panatiar, Tiffany Meuret, L.P. Hernandez, Michael Tichy, Sonora Taylor, Andrew Hilbert, My Horror Confessional and House of Blood.

Badges for Ghoulish Book Festival are available for sale online. 

$75, Friday-Sunday, March 15-17, 2024, Hermann Sons Home Association, 525 S. St. Mary’s St., (210) 570-7224, ghoulishbookfest.com.

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This article appears in Mar 6-19, 2024.