Trigger Warning: This piece addresses mental health
The HWA is pleased to launch its Mental Health Initiative, a coordinated roll-out of events, resources, and activities intended to promote positive mental health, foster the concept of hope, and challenge the stigma of mental illness in the horror genre. The initiative, run by the organization’s Wellness Committee, launches in June, and includes the following blog posts from Of Horror and Hope, a downloadable anthology of poems, flash fiction, and personal reflections on mental health by HWA members.
UGLY SWEATER POEM Jessica Drake-Thomas
Depression is a heavy wool sweater, drenched by spring rain—clinging, clammy, weighted, hot. A turtleneck sweater, strangling me with tightening, clutching fingers. With long, droopy sleeves that hang like handcuffs. Feels like a hair shirt—scratching til I bleed, soaking up my pain sacrifice. It’s in my skull, attempting to shove out through bone walls, migraine haze of fireworks. Orange and green, it oozes ugly, devours what’s left of me with toothless mouth, a hand-knit straightjacket, wants me subdued, secret serial killer goes until I’m red-wrecked: a pile of cherries, stone hearts torn out. https://staging.horror.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/HWA-MENTAL-HEALTH-INITIATIVE-LOGO.jpgHWA-MENTAL-HEALTH-INITIATIVE-LOGO.jpg