Wendy N. Wagner 🎃
LightNews LightNews
banner
wnwagner.bsky.social
Wendy N. Wagner 🎃
@wnwagner.bsky.social
9.8K followers 3.4K following 8.6K posts
Horror writer (GIRL IN THE CREEK due out 2025, Tor Nightfire); editor-in-chief of NIGHTMARE MAGAZINE, senior editor, LIGHTSPEED. Rep'd by Lane Heymont. 🏳️‍🌈
Portland, OR - plant nerd, foot traveler - she/her, they/them
https://linktr.ee/wendynwagner
Posts Replies Media Videos
wnwagner.bsky.social
Tonight's the night!!! If you're in Portland, stop by the Rose City Book Pub between 4 and 9 pm to hear nine amazing authors read and to share your own work! Let's gather to raise money for hungry people in Oregon -- and to have a really terrific time.
In peach, pink, and greens, a flyer reads: STORYTELLING AGAINST HUNGER! A FUNDRAISER FOR THE OREGON FOOD BANK. OPEN MIC - AUTHOR READINGS - RAFFLE PRIZES. ROSE CITY BOOK PUB, 11/10, 4 PM - 9 PM
November 10, 2025 at 5:24 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
If you can't make it to our awesome OPEN MIC fundraiser for the Oregon Food Bank on Monday (4 pm - 9pm at the Rose City Book Pub), you can still donate at the link in my bio!
November 7, 2025 at 9:25 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
My husband went to the coast with some friends. They planned to stop at North Coast Pinball in Nehalem, but they couldn't get inside because the king tides had flooded the street in front of the building!
(For reference, Nehalem is about 2.5 miles inland, but on a tidally affected river.)
Shot of a flooded intersection in Nehalem, Oregon: the water is a few inches deep on the sidewalk.
November 6, 2025 at 10:23 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
PDX peeps! What are you doing next Monday? How about attending STORYTELLING AGAINST HUNGER, a 5-hour marathon of author readings & open mic fun that's a fundraiser for the @oregonfoodbank.bsky.social ????
Rose City Book Pub, 4 pm - 9pm. bit.ly/43i9s8D
Flyer for STORYTELLING AGAINST HUNGER, at the Rose City Book Pub 11/10 from 4 pm - 9 pm.
November 3, 2025 at 5:36 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! We celebrated with a small handful of friends. There was definitely cherry pie and a viewing of the pilot of TWIN PEAKS.
Wendy (wearing a hat) in a selfie with a giant paper mache interpretation of David Lynch's sculpture "Clay Head with Turkey, Cheese, and Ants" -- a white head with inset orange eyes, nostrils, and gaping mouth, with a large black paper ant on its cheek. A small diorama of the Black Lodge, showing off a black-and-white chevron-patterned floor, The Arm, and middle-aged Agent Cooper holding a cup of coffee.
November 1, 2025 at 7:03 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Last week I learned that Edward Gorey loved to make and sew little critters based on his art! You are connected to a great lineage of Weird sewing.
Photo taken at the Houghton Library.
4 of Edward Gorey's little stuffed animal creations on display at the Houghton Library.
October 28, 2025 at 3:42 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Holy smokes, GIRL IN THE CREEK is #10 in Amazon's Cosmic & Eldritch Horror category!!!!
Screenshot from Amazon, showing the orange #10 banner above GIRL IN THE CREEK.
October 26, 2025 at 5:22 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Had a LOT of fun at the @powells.bsky.social Halloween Party last night! I should have gotten a photo of all of us authors before things got started, but here are a few shots from the evening.
Wendy wears a black veil pulled back to frame the face. Beside a column of black and orange balloons, a skeleton carries a black Powell's Books tote. An end-cap display of QUEER HORROR novels.
October 26, 2025 at 4:19 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
In 1692, bad weather, economic struggle, and political turmoil served as the background to New England's witchcraft panics. Hundreds were jailed. 19 people were hanged. One man was tortured to death.
Today, same background. Today the witches are immigrants & trans people, and the numbers are bigger.
From the Salem Witch Museum: a glowing red sigil lists the names of those who died in the witch panics of 1692.
October 22, 2025 at 4:16 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
On November 1st, millions of Americans lose their SNAP benefits. 1 out of every 6 Oregonians gets extra help to keep food on their table.
Meanwhile, the destruction of USAID and the devastation of a Middle Eastern nation (rhymes with Calvin Klein) means famine is killing millions across the globe.
Base of Cambridge's Irish Famine Memorial reads: NEVER AGAIN SHOULD A PEOPLE STARVE IN A WORLD OF PLENTY.
October 22, 2025 at 4:10 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
If I had visited Boston ten years ago, the historical sites would have just been history. Today, citizens of Chicago, LA, and Portland are patrolling their streets to protect their neighbors from ICE.
The famous red brick line and marker for Boston's Freedom Trail. From a display at the Paul Revere house: "In the fall of 1774 and Winter of 1775 ... we frequently took Turns ... to Watch the Soldiers, By patroling the Streets all night." From a plaque at Faneuil Hall: "May Faneuil Hall ever stand a monument to teach the world that resistance to oppression is a duty ..." - General Lafayette
October 22, 2025 at 4:05 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
I'm getting so excited -- this Saturday I'll be at the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival, where I'll get to hang out with a ton of other fabulous horror writers!
I can't wait to hug @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social while I'm there. :)
www.mvhbf.com
The headless horseman carries a book in the logo for the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival.
October 13, 2025 at 5:24 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
I had a fantastic time last night at Broadway Books, chatting with Keith Rosson about his terrific new book, COFFIN MOON. When I got home, I couldn't believe I forgot to get any pictures!
At least you all can still read his book:
broadwaybooks.net/book/9780593...
The cover of Keith Rosson's novel, COFFIN MOON: a stylized black highway winds through the open mouth of a yellow human skull. The skull has fangs!
October 8, 2025 at 3:42 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Less than a month until the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival!! I can't wait to visit with friends (the author list is epic) and see New England for the first time. 🦇🎃⚰️
www.facebook.com/MVHBF/posts/...
The Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival's event imagery: A jack-o'-lantern-headed rider hoists a fat book.
September 23, 2025 at 4:14 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Spent yesterday afternoon moseying around Hood River and Timberline Lodge; spent the night filling water bottles and serving ramen at mile 72 of one of Oregon's most gorgeous 100-mile races.
Dawn always looks better when you stayed up all night!
The grey peak of Mt Hood stands above the stunted green whitebark pines and subalpine firs at the timberline.
September 21, 2025 at 9:35 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
My novel is a staff pick at Third Place Books, where Lauren really understood what I was doing:
www.thirdplacebooks.com/staff-picks/...
Screenshot of the Third Place Books website, with this quote by Lauren: "This book is magnificently grotesque. In a picturesque town along the Columbia Gorge, something perverse and sinister lies in wait. Under the pretext of a journalistic endeavour, Erin travels to Mt. Hood National Forest to look for her missing brother. Switching between the perspectives of an unfamiliar presence dubbed the Strangeness and Erin, we are plunged into a lurid sense of madness which pervades everything like rot."
September 8, 2025 at 4:24 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
I should probably remind people that I had a novel called GIRL IN THE CREEK come out about a month and a half ago. It got a star in the Library Journal! And look at this awesome blurb from @keithrosson.bsky.social:
Against a green background and just to the left of the cover for GIRL IN THE CREEK, a blurb: Dazzling. GIRL IN THE CREEK is unflinching eco-horror, steeped in the pitch-perfect setting of the rainswept Pacific Northwest. I devoured it even though it gutted me, and it solidifies that Wagner is an absolutely electrifying writer. — Keith Rosson, author of FEVER HOUSE
September 2, 2025 at 5:10 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Sunday is usually a work day for me, but yesterday I went hiking with a good friend. It was my first time crossing a creek on a log, which was scary (see photo below of stream), but all the delicious berries & cool stuff made up for it. We also visited the ruins of a former fire lookout!
An alpine stream rushes along a rocky channel, with vibrant green trees climbing up the banks. In the background, the white and gray peak of Mt. Hood interrupts a blue sky. View from a sloping trail with dead white and charcoal-stained trees interrupting the foreground. At the midpoint, a large yellow-green is surrounded by green forest. The gray flanks of Mt Hood rise to a point in the background.
September 1, 2025 at 4:28 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Sunday is usually a work day for me, but yesterday I went hiking with a good friend. It was my first time crossing a creek on a log, which was scary (see photo below of stream), but all the delicious berries & cool stuff made up for it. We also visited the ruins of a former fire lookout!
An alpine stream, pale with glacial silt rushes between rocks. A variety of green trees frame the banks. Behind it all, the top of Mt Hood shows white & gray against a clear blue sky. As we began the descent of Elk Mountain, we looked down into the Elk Meadows, a yellowy-green patch in the center of this photo. In the foreground of the photo, there are lots of white & black dead trees, and in the background, a mostly gray Mt Hood fills up most of the sky.
September 1, 2025 at 4:25 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Before I started running 2019, I never wore shorts. Then when it got hot, I started buying long running shorts. Last year I found these much shorter Janji shorts on clearance, and they're so comfy I kind of forget to be worried about what someone might think of my squishy body parts.
Beansy, an adorable brown dog, lays on the couch beside Wendy's shorts-clad legs.
August 28, 2025 at 7:54 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
If you like pet pictures and writing pep talks -- or the occasional horror essay -- then check out my Patreon! patreon.com/WendyNWagner
Beansy, a small brown dog with a fluffy tail, stands on a beach looking at the camera.
August 28, 2025 at 4:00 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
As seen at an Ybor City vintage shop last Friday:
In a vintage photograph, a beautiful Black woman reclines against a sofa. Across her white dress, it reads: I JUST WANT TO BE ABLE TO SAY, "THINGS COULD BE WORSE," AND MEAN IT.
August 5, 2025 at 6:36 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
Making friends and being touristy in Tampa this morning.
A large koi and some of its smaller buddies swim beneath waterlilies. The dark shadow of a tower interrupts the sky's reflection on the surface of the water. Old fashioned gold foil text on a glass window reads: WRITING AND READING ROOM at Tampa's Plant Museum.
August 1, 2025 at 5:20 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
This weekend I'll be at the TAMPA BAY COMIC CON!!! I'm really excited about it, and I'm hoping to meet lots of fellow horror lovers.
Here's my schedule at the con:
winniewoohoo.com/tampa-bay-co...
Wendy's headshot next to the covers of three books: GIRL IN THE CREEK, THE DEER KINGS, and AN OATH OF DOGS.
July 30, 2025 at 8:42 PM
wnwagner.bsky.social
That's so cool!
Speaking of cool, look what I saw while I was at the Clackamas Town Center Barnes & Noble:
Shelf tag beneath THE LAST NIGHT TO KILL NAZIS by David Agranoff: "Inglorious Basterds meets Dracula!"
July 20, 2025 at 8:27 PM