Horror writers take their craft seriously and professionally – people get a thrill out of being scared, not necessarily being grossed out, but frightened by things they know cannot harm them in reality. Horror can but doesn’t have to be violent or bloody or disgusting; what it needs to do is to create fear in the reader.
The Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) is a non-profit organisation that formed unofficially in 2003 as a way of providing a unified voice and a sense of community for Australian writers of dark fiction, while helping the development and evolution of this genre within Australia.
AHWA held its official launch during Continuum 3 in Melbourne on July 17th, 2005, where a full house greeted the proclamation by Richard Harland, author of the 2004 Aurealis Awards best horror novel and Golden Aurealis winning “The Black Crusade” that the AHWA was “well and truly up and running!”
