The Horror Writers Association voted to strip Sèphera Girón of her trustee position after a column she wrote for the organization’s official member newsletter argued the group’s anti-AI culture had curdled into hypocrisy and witch-hunting. HWA confirmed the removal in a board statement posted by author Tim Waggoner on Facebook, less than a day after the piece went out to members in the August 2026 “In the Trenches” column.
Girón’s column, in full:
The real enemy isn’t your buddy who is using AI to make a book cover; the enemy is the Powers-That-Be who thrive on dividing everyone, especially in the United States. Look at how divided everyone in the US got over politics over the past ten years, and it’s now trickled to other countries. No more, are you a fellow human? Nope, it’s who did you vote for? Well, then you must be a hateful asshole. Instant block.
But who’s the asshole?
Every week, the gatekeepers of horror writers have some new witch hunt. Sometimes it’s a good thing to suss out shitty publishers, editors, and agents. Yet, not ALL shitty ones are sussed out because, you know, there are consequences to getting all the shitty people shut down. Some people still like the opportunities to get published or represented even if it means going with the most despicable people because the gatekeepers didn’t get them shut down, or sometimes, don’t even notice. It all depends on who is buttering the toast.
The past few weeks have been so tedious with all the gatekeepers out in full force. They are whipping people up into a frenzy, and more division is happening when it comes to AI. Of course, the irony is that the gatekeepers are denouncing AI, yet they are doing it on Facebook, which uses AI. They are likely typing their pretentious screeds on their phones, which also use AI. They likely sell their books on Amazon, which also uses AI.
AI is here. It’s been coming since I was typing on a manual typewriter. You can let the robots win by becoming less human by cutting out all your friends, fans, family, and readers because they dared to try out AI, or you can be a human being and let people explore and figure things out for themselves.
Hollywood is already embracing AI.
Many companies use AI.
AI can be useful for tedious tasks such as creating listings on eBay or Poshmark. Do you shop or sell on those platforms? They totally use AI now, so you’d better boycott them too. I went to the AI panel at Stokercon, and of course, most of the panelists were vehemently anti-AI. An audience member stood up and pointed out that they learned about the panel because they saw it on Sched, which is the app that the HWA/Stokercon uses, and THAT is AI. Doesn’t HWA have an anti-AI stance? Oh, but of course, THAT is okay; it’s all the other AI stuff that isn’t.
We’re a writers’ organization, and we should be exploring ways to be more cohesive, not more divisive. If you are confused about AI, ask for help. If you aren’t sure if you are even using AI, you should be able to ask for help without a huge witch hunt shutting you down. You should be allowed to experiment with this new technology without fear of your fellow writers accusing you of terrible things whether you’re tinkering with your avatar or creating a book trailer. As writers, editors, and educators, we should be more tolerant of one another rather than trying to shut each other down. The witch hunts are exhausting and quite embarrassing, really, not the best look for professional authors. You can choose to be a gatekeeper, or you can choose to have some humanity for your fellow human beings who are just trying to figure things out. No one has the answers yet, so why do you think you do?
She is 100% right in what she says, and the blanket freak out by aspiring writers over AI is becoming beyond ridiculous in different media. However, she’s being canceled in real time because of her stating truth, as does anyone who goes against mobs like this.
HWA’s Response
The backlash was fast. Within hours, HWA’s Board of Trustees issued a formal statement, posted to the organization’s Facebook page and reposted by author Tim Waggoner, announcing Girón’s immediate removal as trustee.
The board’s statement, in full:
Statement from the HWA Board of Trustees:
The Executive Leadership and Trustees on the Board of the Horror Writers Association has voted to remove Sèphera Girón from her position as Trustee effective immediately.
The Horror Writers Association is committed to the promotion of Horror and Dark Fantasy literature and the broadening of intellectual and cultural horizons by way of good works in these genres. In support of this mission, the Board established a robust artificial intelligence policy, following input from all levels of membership. This policy emphasizes the organization’s sincere commitment to not only uplifting creators but also protecting a culture of labor compensation in the arts, aligning with principles that safeguard our community.
To this end, the HWA Board firmly and resoundingly rejects the opinion piece of Trustee Sèphera Girón as included in the August 2026 installment of the HWA Member Newsletter in the “In the Trenches” column. This piece does not meet the standards of care and support to which we hold ourselves as elected members of this writer’s organization. We regret that it was published in our newsletter without proper vetting. The HWA will review all newsletter submission procedures, including those submitted by Trustees.
Further, we reject the assertions in the piece, particularly those calling authors with genuine and sincere concerns regarding the proliferation of genAI (more commonly referred to as simply AI) Luddites and/or gatekeepers. Additionally, in keeping with the organization’s ongoing commitment to the uplift and promotion of diverse voices in Horror literature, we firmly denounce the comparison of concerns over AI data center proliferation to the ongoing struggles over Indigenous water rights and ways. As the leadership of the Horror Writers Association, we sincerely apologize for the hurt that these words have caused.
We have heard your concerns and write today with a full understanding of the severity of the error made by way of this opinion piece’s publication. It is not in keeping with opinion of the HWA, the Board, and the general consensus of membership. In the future, we will do more to better to review and vet material included in the newsletter so that a repeat of this incident does not occur.
Given that the column in question fails to uphold the principles of the organization, does not reflect the consensus of leadership and membership alike on the subject, and demonstrates a failure to fulfill the responsibilities of a Trustee, the Board has voted to remove Giron from her position effective immediately.
We have always been an organization meant to protect writers and that is what we will continue to stand for.
— The Board of Trustees of the Horror Writers Association
A removal simply for her writing an opinion piece has to be one of the worst cases of cancel culture in recent history.
The Reaction From Chuck Wendig
Horror and thriller writer Chuck Wendig used his blog, Terribleminds, to blast the newsletter for reaching HWA members he says are “the people whose necks are first under the boots of the AI companies.” He said the episode was one more reason he’s glad he left the organization entirely.
Wendig didn’t stop at criticizing the column’s argument. He dismissed Girón’s piece as an unhinged, poorly reasoned outburst rather than any kind of serious position, disagreeable or otherwise, and floated openly not bothering with a real rebuttal because he didn’t think the piece deserved the effort of being taken seriously. That dismissiveness fits a pattern. Wendig has spent the better part of the last two years building a public identity almost entirely around profanity-soaked AI hatred, routinely describing the technology in his posts as something that “pukes” and “shits out” stolen writing, and framing anyone who defends AI use, even a fellow horror writer experimenting with a book trailer or an author avatar, as something closer to an enemy combatant than a colleague with a different opinion.
It’s worth remembering what Wendig’s own prose looks like when he’s not busy raging at other people’s. His 2015 Star Wars novel Aftermath became a minor legend of bad tie-in writing for its fragment-choked, present-tense style, most infamously the line describing a ship dodging TIE fighters as “herky-jerky up-and-down left-and-right,” a description so widely mocked that reviewers took to parodying his sentence structure in their own critiques rather than just describing it. A decade later, the internet has plenty of tools that can generate cleaner, more readable action prose than that on command, which makes a writer with Wendig’s track record positioning himself as horror’s foremost AI scold a little rich.
He also noted the piece never went up publicly. It reached him and the wider horror community only after author Holly Lyn Walrath shared it on Bluesky, meaning HWA’s internal newsletter content ended up circulating well outside the membership that received it.
Does an organization built to represent horror writers have room for a member who thinks AI shouldn’t be an instant excommunication offense, or has HWA just answered that question for good?
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