Author Event: Taylor Grothe | HOLLOW

Horror fans! Join us for a discussion between authors Taylor Grothe, Ivelisse Housman, and Andrew Joseph White for the release of Grothe's YA horror debut HOLLOW. The event will take place at at Bards Alley Bookshop on October 7 at 6PM.

Copies of all of the authors' books will be available for purchase at the event, and they will be signing their respective books after their discussion.

About the authors:

Taylor Grothe is a neurodivergent (ASD) NB horror writer with an MFA from Fairfield University. Their work has appeared in Haven Speculative, Shortwave Magazine, Coffin Bell, and more, and an anthology published by Bag of Bones Press. Taylor acted as a special editor for the  Brevity special issue Trans Experience in 2022. Hollow is their debut novel.

Ivelisse Housman is a Puerto Rican-American author and illustrator. She was diagnosed with autism at 15, which made everything make a lot more sense. When she isn't writing, she can be found making soup or tending to her houseplants. Unseelie is her debut novel, with its sequel Unending releasing in September 2025.

Andrew Joseph White is the trans, autistic, and bestselling author of Hell Followed With Us, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Compound Fracture. Born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley, he received his MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and lives in Virginia with his wife and their antisocial cat. His adult horror debut is releasing in September 2025.

About HOLLOW:

After a meltdown in her school cafeteria prompts an unwanted autism diagnosis, Cassie Davis moves back to her hometown in upstate New York, where her mom hopes the familiarity will allow Cassie to feel normal again. Cassie’s never truly felt normal anywhere, but she does crave the ease she used to have with her old friends.

Problem is that her friends aren’t so eager to welcome her back into the fold. They extend an olive branch by inviting her on their backpacking trip to Hollow Ridge, in the upper reaches of the Adirondacks. But when a fight breaks out their first night, Cassie wakes to a barren campsite—her friends all gone.

With severe weather approaching and nearing sensory overload, Cassie is saved by a boy named Kaleb, who whisks her away to a compound of artists and outcasts he calls the Roost. As Kaleb tends to her injuries, Cassie begins to feel—for the first time in her life—that she can truly be herself. But as the days pass, strange happenings around the Roost make Cassie question her instincts. Noises in the trees grow louder, begging the question: Are the dangers in the forest, on the trail, or in the Roost itself?

In a world where autistic characters rarely get to be the hero of their own stories, Cassie Davis’s one-step-back, two-steps-forward journey to unmasking makes Hollow as much a love letter to neurodiversity as it is a haunting tale you’ll want to read with the lights on.

Host or Publisher Bards Alley Bookshop