The Ladies of Horror Fiction team is proud to announce our new partnership with Steve Stred and the LOHF Writers Grant.
Letter from Steve Stred
Hey, gang! Hope all is well!
My name is Steve Stred, and I’m an indie author. You may have seen me kicking around, either from my releases, my guest posts on Sci-Fi & Scary, Ink Heist, Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews, or over at my usual haunt, Kendall Reviews. Heck, you may even recognize me from pictures on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook of my super large behind trying to frequently ride/fit in small objects as me and my son goofily play!
Whatever the reason, hello again, and I’m really excited for what this thing I’m writing today, is all about.
To cut to the chase – I’ve partnered up with the superb team behind LOHF to announce the first annual LOHF Writers Grant! Look – I write and release for the joy of writing and releasing. At the end of the day I want my books to inspire my son or my nieces and nephews to use their imagination, and know they can accomplish anything. But I also like to try and use my writing as a way to give back. And what’s a better way to give back than to reward a fellow author a grant that they can use to aid their writing career! Maybe they can use it to pay for a cover for their book, or for editing or to buy some paper for their printer, or heck, even use it to help pay for a class or whatever it be. Or maybe it’s just used to pay their internet bill or buy their kids some clothes, it’s a grant to help, and that’s what us authors should work and strive to do – promote each other and help where we can.
So here’s a little background about how I got to this point and to announce some of the details.
In mid-2018 I read a book from Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi called ‘Breathe… Breathe.’ It was outstanding, and totally kicked me back to thinking about writing poetry. So I worked on some poetry stuff, and then realized I had enough for a little mini-collection which I called ‘Dim the Sun.’ As I prepped to surprise release ‘Dim the Sun,’ I had lunch with a friend of mine, Rob Derman. Rob and I had been connected through my prior athletic life when I was a bobsledder. When we met for lunch, and I heard Rob’s plan to try and qualify for the 2022 Winter Olympics, I knew I needed to help. So I launched ‘Dim the Sun’ with all proceeds from the pre-orders going to Rob and his goals.
When 2019 dawned, I was prepping the release of my novella ‘The Girl Who Hid in the Trees.’ I had developed my own marketing/promotion plan and had got the eARC’s out to a large group of folks. As the reviews were coming in and word of mouth was spreading, a good buddy of mine announced his mom was diagnosed with cancer. It was a no brainer for me. I launched my pre-orders for ‘The Girl’ early with all proceeds going to their Go Fund Me.
It felt great to use my writing as a way to give back, and if you bought my book because of the pre-order donations, and never plan on reading my work – I still give thanks. You’ve helped somebody else and that’s amazing.
Which brings us to this announcement. I was recently chatting with my friend Miranda about ‘Dim the Sun’, and she asked if I was going to do another poetry collection. I said I was thinking of doing it annually, and doing it purely to have all of the pre-orders go to charity. She said this was an outstanding idea, and she hoped I would do it.
So I am.
Every year, I’ll be releasing a poetry collection, and my hope is to have an annual partnership with LOHF to deliver this grant. When I started to think of where I would want to donate pre-order proceeds towards, I first thought of an autism charity. My nephew Gabe has autism, and I thought it would be great to donate in that direction. But after chatting with my sister, she said it would be tough to make sure the money would actually be used towards something good, so she suggested looking for an after school cause or project. I looked around the area here, and found that most of the community groups were not very receptive towards teaming up. Not sure why, but all I received were standoffish phone calls, or cold email replies.
Then I thought about the writing community, and how I could do something to give back to such a warm, caring and fantastic group of people. I took a look around the various feeds I follow, and one group kept popping up time and time again, working hard to increase visibility for a group of writers who are often overlooked. So I approached the Ladies of Horror Fiction, and it was a go!
So, on August 1st, 2019, my second collection of poetry will be available for pre-order. This one will feature poetry and drabbles (100 word stories) and will be called The Night Crawls In. It will officially be released on September 1st, 2019. The cover art was once again done by my go to cover artist Mason McDonald, and is fantastic! While a month is typically a long time for pre-orders, I want to give it adequate room to breathe and be seen.
The collection will be priced at $2.99 and proceeds from the pre-orders will go towards the first annual LOHF Writers Grant at a guaranteed amount of $100/USD. That’s right – even if only 10 people pre-order this thing, I’ll still guarantee that it’ll be $100.
My goal will be to have 50 offerings in the collection; I’m currently at 39, and you can expect the normal bleakness that all of my other writing provides!
As I said previously, I want to make this an annual thing – to provide a LOHF Writers Grant every year, so I’ve already begun plotting next year’s release, and I’ll be reaching out to some other writers to see if they’d like to contribute, and help grow this thing even bigger!
So thanks to the awesome Ladies of Horror Fiction for being so kind to team up, and to all of you out there who will pre-order and help support an author – thank you!
The team behind the Ladies of Horror Fiction will decide who is the lucky recipient, and they will announce the first winner on September 15, 2019!! The lucky winner will also receive a physical copy of the collection!
Eligibility Requirements
To be eligible for the LOHF Writers Grant, you must identify as female, and have reasonably demonstrated your commitment to writing in the horror genre. All grant provided funds must be used in a manner that will help develop the applicant’s career.
Application Process
In order to apply for the LOHF Writers Grant, you must fill out this form by 11:59pm August 31, 2019.
Selection Process
The grant recipient will be selected by members of the LOHF Writers Grant Committee consisting of non-disclosed members of the Ladies of Horror Fiction.
Grant Disbursement
The Ladies of Horror Fiction team will announce the recipient of the LOHF Writers Grant on September 15, 2019. At this time, the LOHF Writers Grant Committee will also notify Steve Stred of the recipient.
Contribute to the LOHF Writers Grant
If you would like to contribute to the annual LOHF Writers Grant, be sure to preorder a copy of The Night Crawls In! Every preorder of The Night Crawls In between August 1 – August 31 will help contribute to the LOHF Writers Grant fund.
The Ladies of Horror Fiction team is only involved in assisting with the selection of the LOHF Writers Grant recipient. All funding and disbursement of funds are at the sole discretion of Steve Stred.
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