HWA teams up with ‘Curtis’ and Ray Billingsley to promote YA literacy

The Horror Writers Association is proud to announce a new literacy partnership focusing on Young Adult (YA) readers. Beginning immediately, the HWA will be working with renowned cartoonist Ray Billingsley, creator of the comic strip CURTIS, to promote reading in general, and horror in particular, at conferences, speaking engagements, and libraries.

Ray has graciously created the attached promotional piece for the HWA, for official use at any event where members represent the HWA in some capacity, including booths, panels, library appearances and readings. This piece will be premiered at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in January 2012 and will also be prominently featured on the HWA’s new Young Adult Horror webpage, also set to premier in January.

CURTIS is one of the nation’s most popular comic strips, appearing in more than 372 newspapers daily. Its namesake main character has long been a devoted fan of horror movies and graphic novels, and as part of this new literacy project he will also become a fan of novels. Like his character Curtis, Ray Billingsley is a lifelong fan of things frightening and terrifying, and is a collector of classic horror books and movies.

This partnership offers a unique opportunity for the HWA to reach a completely different audience – one that might not yet be reading novels or short stories. The popularity of the horror and dark fantasy/sci-fi genres continues to grow more rapidly among the YA age groups than among adult readers, and by bringing the HWA and its member works to the attention of children, teens, and YA librarians, we are not only promoting reading in today’s youth, we are building the cornerstone of future adult readers.

HWA thanks JG Faherty for his proactive work in bringing this to fruition. Ray has also joined HWA as an Associate Member.

The CURTIS comic strip ran two panels about HWA and JG’s work recently, which was great exposure!