Name: The Fearsome Final Girl
Start: 2025-06-13T13:00:00-0400
End: 2025-06-13T13:45:00-0400

Welcome to the premiere horror literary convention presented by the Horror Writers Association. Registration for StokerCon 2025 is now available! This year the convention is being hosted by the city of Stamford, Connecticut, at the Hilton Stamford Hotel and Executive Meeting Center. We’re taking over from June 12th through the 15th, 2025.

Friday June 13, 2025 1:00pm - 1:45pm EDT

Grove Ballroom 2

A fan-favorite trope, final girls channel hope, grit, and vindication in fearsome fights for survival—but these novels offer even more to cheer on with their original portrayals of horror’s favorite heroes. Whether it be a late-70’s grandmother sleuthing around a retirement home, a good Catholic teen thrust into the rapture, or a struggling actress saddled with more responsibilities than she bargained for, these novels reimagine the convention and allow us to root for final girls that don’t fit the mold. In this panel, authors will discuss their own favorite final girls throughout horror history, their inspirations for these original characters, and their predictions for how this trope and the horror genre writ large might evolve in the future.

Moderators

Aaron Dries

Aaron Dries is a Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award nominated, and Ditmar, Australian Shadows and Aurealis Award-winning author based in Canberra, Australia. His novels include HOUSE OF SIGHS, THE FALLEN BOYS, A PLACE FOR SINNERS, WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE (with Mark Allan Gunnells... Read More →

Speakers

S. A. Barnes

S.A. Barnes works in a high school library by day, recommending reads, talking with students, and removing the occasional forgotten cheese stick as bookmark. Barnes has published numerous novels across different genres under the pen name Stacey Kade. She lives in Illinois with more... Read More →

Philip Fracassi

Nat Cassidy

Nat Cassidy writes horror for the page, stage, and screen. His acclaimed novels Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings were featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, and more, and he was named one of the... Read More →

CJ Leede

CJ Leede is a horror writer, hiker, and Trekkie. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, and a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School, where she studied Mythology and the Middle Ages. When she is not driving around the country, she can be found in LA with her boyfriend... Read More →

Grady Hendrix

Friday June 13, 2025 1:00pm - 1:45pm EDT
Grove Ballroom 2

Convention Event, Livestreamed Session

Attendees (99)

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StokerCon 2025