About

HOWL Society, located on Discord, is the most active horror book club on the web. With hundreds of members, the club offers readers the chance to join a supportive community where they can enjoy books alongside other horror-lovers while engaging in meaningful discussions and forming long-lasting friendships. Aside from serving as an organized platform for discussing books, HOWL Society is also home to a tight-knit group of horror writers. Additionally, members can participate in tangential conversations about horror films, horror games, and much more. Because the club aims to provide equal access to all readers and writers around the world, membership is 100% free.

• No membership fees
• All club activity for HOWL Society takes place on Discord
• Each month, club members vote on the horror titles that will be read in the following month
• The club reads one book per week, members obtaining copies of physical books, ebooks, or audiobooks according to their preferences
• Physical books can be purchased through our Bookshop.org affiliate storefront, which will pay a 10% commission to HOWL Society and give a matching 10% to independent bookstores. HOWL Society uses these funds for website maintenance and publishing costs
• Members are not expected to read every title
• Each book is separated into three sections and assigned to an individual channel
• Discussions for each section initiate on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 12:00pm EST
• During discussion, members use spoiler tags to ensure a safe discussion for those who choose to read at their own pace
• At the end of each discussion, members may participate in a survey to share a personal blurb which may later appear in the official HOWL Society review

As told by user @Mantis Shrimp: On April 5th, 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, a young woman named Emily—hereafter referred to as “The Sleeping Queen”—posted on /r/HorrorLit, a subforum of Reddit, asking whether anyone wanted to start a “quarantine book club” that would be hosted on Discord. Within 24 hours, the brave Redditors who heeded her call joined the server and voted on the first book: The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay. 

The initial conversations were chaotic, spread as they were among dozens of time zones with no clear rules as to pacing or spoilers. The Sleeping Queen, in her wisdom, elected one among the many to be her fellow admin: the Lord Mordi, who came to be known as “THOT Father.” Following the sudden disappearance of The Sleeping Queen, THOT Father rose to power and restructured the server into the organized club now known as “HOWLS,” or the Horror-Obsessed Writing and Literature Society.