Howl

“Stories are medicine,” says Cynthia Pelayo in her story, “We Women Speak of Wolves” from Howl, the new werewolf anthology edited by Lindy Ryan and Stephanie M. Wytovich, and reading these stories made me feel the truth in that.

Howl is a powerful collection by women authors with a thread of werewolves, but they’re really about power, strength, love, hate, bodies, sex, hunger, desire, loneliness, fear, rage, and the aspects of those that are inherent to womanhood.

A look at those who’s who of women in horror in the table of contents will tell you this is a strong collection, so I’m going to highlight a couple that really spoke to me.

“All the Men who Cried Wolf” by Ai Jiang is a heartbreaking illustration of how men try to mold us into their expectations of beauty - shape your nails, shave your hair, ladies - from the perspective of a little girl who loves and fears her father.

Maybe it’s about the choice between werewolf and vampire, but maybe “Werewolf Girl Swallows the Moon” by A. C. Wise is about that time in 7th grade when your best friends suddenly thought you were too weird with your charity shop clothes and free school lunch and story writing which suited you fine because you always preferred black to pink and reading a book over giggling at boys.

“When We Run, We Are Free” by Christina Henry was just a really satisfying read about women protecting women.

Phrases that delighted me: “We’ll run the world with our teeth.” Yes, we will, Stephanie Valente.

“spatchcocked his ribs” - wonderfully gruesome description from Kailey Tedesco

Thank you to NetGalley and Black Spot Books for the advance copy for my honest review. Pub. Date 11/4/25

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