So, this just happened: I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been awarded the inaugural Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF) Writers Grant, which was funded by indie author Steve Stred. I’m a fan of the Ladies of Horror Fiction, and I love the work they do to promote women horror writers. When I saw an announcement about the grant, I tossed completed my application and hoped for the best. I got that and so much more. Steve Stred funded the grant through the sales of his poetry collection The Night Crawls In. I love this idea, and I have decided to follow Steve’s example when I finally get around to publishing a poetry collection of my own.
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!
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! – Steve Stred, Ladies of Horror Fiction
Carina Bissett 
Congratulations!