RJ Joseph (Hell Hath No Sorrow like a Woman Haunted), Jessica McHugh (Rabbits in the Garden) and Daniel Kraus (Whalefall) are the guests of honor at the next Ghoulish Book Festival. Credit: Courtesy Photo / Ghoulish Book Festival

Homegrown horror-fiction convention the Ghoulish Book Festival is returning for a third year.

Scheduled for March 15-17, the gory gathering will feature 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. If Kraus’ name sounds familiar, it may because he’s collaborated with director Guillermo del Toro on work including the concept for the Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water.

The Ghoulish Book Festival will include panels, author readings, contests, autograph sessions and more, according to its organizers. A book fair featuring roughly two dozen publishers and authors will be open to both to paid attendees and free to the general public.

Author and artist Bettty Rocksteady created new artwork for the festival. Credit: Betty Rocksteady

As with previous incarnations of the fest, it will haunt three floors of downtown’s early 1900s-era Hermann Sons building.

The Ghoulish Book Festival is the brainchild of San Antonio publishers Max Booth III and Lori Michelle, the couple behind Ghoulish Books, which is both a horror small press and a horror-themed bookstore in Selma. For transparency’s sake, Booth is an occasional contributor to the Current.

Authors and publishers included in the book fair include Ghoulish Books, 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 Nov 15-28, 2023.

Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...