Need to cool down this August? We’ve got horror at its most imaginatively blood-chilling. Wordfest presents an evening with Indigenous fright-liters  Shane Hawk and Jessica Johns (Bad Cree) to celebrate the launch of Back for Blood, the follow-up to 2023-‘s “un-settling” bestseller Never Whistle At Night (which spent 60 weeks on the ABA Indies bestseller list). The lively conversation, hosted by Wordfest’s Creative Ringleader Shelley Youngblut, includes an audience Q & A and book signing. Nocturne Books, Calgary’s indie horror bookseller, will be on site, stocked with both authors’ delightfully creepy backlists. Want to beat the signing line? Pre-order your copy of Back for Blood (which comes out on Aug. 18) here for pick-up at the show.

Shane Hawk

Shane Hawk is a horror writer, editor, and creator of the Native Horror Index. He serves as a contributing editor at Counterpoint Press, where he exclusively acquires and edits works by Indigenous North American writers. Hawk is the coeditor of the bestselling anthology series Never Whistle at Night and cowriter of the horror stage play The Land Has Spoken. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife and daughter, and is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

Website: shanehawk.com

Jessica Johns

Jessica Johns is a queer nehiyaw aunty and a member of Sucker Creek First Nation. Her debut novel, Bad Cree, was a Canada Reads finalist, and won the WGA Fiction Prize, Alex Award, and MacEwan Book of the Year Prize.

Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II
Edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr

The bestselling Indigenous dark fiction anthology returns with a new selection of even more daring and sinister stories. From monsters to mutilation, Never Whistle at Night is back for revenge.

As any savvy horror fan knows: the monster never truly dies. The team that brought you the bestselling dark fiction anthology Never Whistle at Night has risen, hungry, from the grave to summon more dark delicacies for your delectation. In these twenty-one brand-new, groundbreaking, gruesome stories—authored by both established and newly unearthed Indigenous talent and illustrated by renowned Cheyenne and Arapaho painter Brent Learned—the contributors are fully embracing horror: both supernatural horrors and the everyday horror of living under colonialist rule.

Featuring stories of unspeakable yet satisfying terror, from twisted psychological tales to gore-filled monster hunts, this new selection of sinister stories will sate your darkest appetites and leave you slavering for more. Never Whistle at Night, Part II: Back for Blood is a further celebration of Indigenous survival and the enduring tradition of transforming adversity into art.

Featuring stories by:
Jessica Doe • P.C. Verrone • Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. • Jim Terry • Jessica Johns • A.J. Eversole • Sonia Marie Barry • Shane Hawk • Stephen Graham Jones • Alicia Elliott • Mat RudeWalker • Shaawan Francis Keahna • Billy-Ray Belcourt • Jake Arrowtop • Alina Pete • Debra Magpie Earling • Joshua Whitehead • Tommy Orange • Ramona Emerson • Erica Tremblay • Kimberly Blaeser

Never Whistle At Night
Edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

Featuring stories by:
Norris Black • Amber Blaeser-Wardzala • Phoenix Boudreau • Cherie Dimaline • Carson Faust • Kelli Jo Ford • Kate Hart • Shane Hawk • Brandon Hobson • Darcie Little Badger • Conley Lyons • Nick Medina • Tiffany Morris • Tommy Orange • Mona Susan Power • Marcie R. Rendon • Waubgeshig Rice • Rebecca Roanhorse • Andrea L. Rogers • Morgan Talty • D.H. Trujillo • Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. • Richard Van Camp • David Heska Wanbli Weiden • Royce Young Wolf • Mathilda Zeller