Curating Spooky Vibes With Night Worms' Ashley Saywers and Sadie Hartmann

Welcome back to Scare Me! a weekly horror newsletter. Today, we’re speaking with Ashley Saywers and Sadie Hartmann, co-owners of Night Worms, a monthly horror book subscription.

Midway through this week’s interview, a raven chimed into the conversation. I can hear it on my voice recorder, a loud and rasping squawk. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the raven carries potent cultural meaning: “creation, transformation, knowledge…and the subtlety of truth.”

It was a fitting coincidence, given who I was speaking to. Ashley Saywers (@coffeeandcuentos) and Sadie Hartmann (@mother.horror) are two of the best-known creators on Bookstagram. Together, they run Night Worms, curating monthly packages featuring two horror books, something nice to drink, and a handful of stickers, magnets, and bookmarks created by independent artists.

I’ll confess: I was starstruck going into this interview! But Ashley and Sadie put me at ease with their warmth, generosity, and laid back vibes. Listening to them banter, it’s obvious they have a long history as friends and collaborators. Their thoughts flow seamlessly back and forth, picking right up where the other leaves off.

Together, they offered me a glimpse behind the curtain of Night Worms—including how they curate packages, how their business supports debut authors, and what they’re currently reading.

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This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and concision. All links and emphasis are my own.

Michelle Delgado: From what I've gathered, you began as online friends. Could tell me a little bit about how you met and how you ended up creating Night Worms together?

Ashley Saywers: We both joined Bookstagram almost 10 years ago, and she was living down in California. It was really random—I mentioned where I lived, and she was like, “Oh, I've been there before. My family loves it!” I was like, who's ever been to Gig Harbor, Washington?

They were actually thinking about moving, so they came up here to visit. We met and had lunch together, just for fun. And then, when did you move up here?

Sadie Hartmann: I think in December of 2017.

Ashley: We'd both been wanting to do something in the bookish space, and we brainstormed a lot of things that never happened. And then, all of a sudden, a space opened up in the horror book community, and Sadie had come up here, and it was perfect timing. It worked out, and here we are.

Sadie: Both of us repped for a horror subscription company that ended up imploding. I think Ashley and I learned a lot about what we wouldn't want in a subscription company that focused on horror. A lot of the stuff that they sent us was trinkets and useless things. [We’d] talk about it, like, "Ugh, the t-shirt in this package is so ugly, I never wear that ever!”

It was a good crash course in figuring out how we would do that on our own. We learned a lot about what not to do more than what to do.

It seems like your collaboration came together really naturally. Do you have opposite strengths, or do you like to work on tasks together?

Sadie: We have really good, different strengths that we get to play toward. We're both pretty introverted, but I can do some of the more public-facing things: going to cons, book events, author events, that kind of thing. A lot of the networking. Also, my house is in a better area for receiving and shipping. The trucks can get here, whereas Ashley's house is more rural.

She's way smarter than I am with numbers and remembering dates and timelines. She handles a lot of the paper trail stuff. We never really set out to do certain things, but over the years it sorted itself out.

Ashley: I didn't know anything about running a business prior to this, so it's been [a process of] trying to figure out all the little things that you don't really consider until you get a bill in the mail. Then you have to figure out all these things you're supposed to be tracking.

Like Sadie said, we both have our specific things that we're good at, and that keeps the business going every month. At this point, we've been doing it so long, it's a well-oiled machine. For planning, we can usually pop things out in a couple hours for four to six months at a time.

What’s your favorite part of working on Night Worms? Which task is most fulfilling or rewarding?

Ashley: For me, it’s seeing people get their packages. Sometimes it's hard to know what people expect, because we've been looking at what's going to be in this package for three months. And then it all comes together, and people are excited about it.

Sadie: Curating the packages, obviously, with Ashley—and then seeing it all come together in the photos, the whole color scheme and everything. We're really intentional about having everything match and look good together.

We also just started a book club—I'm reading the books with our customers. That has been way more rewarding than I thought it was going to be, because people are so insightful! You think you're reading a book and having similar thoughts to everybody else, but then you get in a book club situation with people from all over the world, and and they have totally different worldviews and different opinions and different thoughts. That's been really rewarding, to actually make that connection with the customers.

I’m interested in online conversations about overconsumption, and consumption in general. I watched several Night Worms unboxing videos this week, and I was struck by how manageable the packages are. I could absolutely read two books, drink a few cups of tea, and use or gift a few stickers each month. I don't think that's common any more!

I’m not sure if I really have a question there, but I’m curious about your thoughts on overconsumption, versus creating something that feels manageable and curated.

Sadie: Part of what we wanted to do was have one time use product. We also wanted to support small vendors—that was really important to us. So, we're not going to buy Twinings tea, because you can get that at the grocery store. But we did want to have private vendors, and to support artists, especially in this time of AI.

We have three in-house artists we work with every single month, who provide original artwork for our box, custom bookmarks, and custom stickers. And then the tea is locally sourced.

For books and publishers, we work with indie publishers sometimes. We support women authors and marginalized authors, because we have the control to do that. A lot of the other book boxes are more focused on special editions of really popular books, so I feel we have our own little niche where we're creating more of an experience. [You can] get a blanket, cozy up with some tea or some hot cocoa, and read this book we picked out.

When a publishing company does a print run of, let's say, 12,000 books, Night Worms is the largest purchaser, [which helps] the author earn out. Other companies that are doing special editions do not count toward their sales, though.

Wow, I didn't realize that at all. For debut authors especially, it seems as though sales for a first book are so important. I imagine that pressure is even more intense for authors from marginalized communities.

Sadie: We do a lot of debut authors, so it's very important for them. I think it's pretty typical for a debut author to get a $2,000 to $10,000 signing bonus. To earn out, they have to sell that amount of books. If they do a print run, you're not making that much money off of each sale of the book. Really, every order counts.

So for our company to buy a large quantity of books, that helps her bottom dollar—and then she's more likely to get a bigger advance on an upcoming book, and for that publisher to invest in her.

We don't necessarily intentionally think about that when we're picking out books, but it's there in the back of our mind. We've done tons of debut authors, especially this year.

Ashley: We try to pick books we are excited about. And, I mean, sometimes it's because it's pretty. That is a big contributing factor, because we like pretty things!

This year we've largely done women authors and a lot of marginalized authors. That's just something that we're passionate about. We haven't ever really made it a thing, but if you look through [the books we’ve chosen], that's pretty much what we do.

More About Night Worms: “Each month, we work closely with our tight knit network of indie & traditional publishers to bring you the best in horror fiction. We curate a package of books, magazines, publisher freebies, goodies, coupons, collectibles etc. and a few Night Worms exclusives for a reasonable price.”

In addition to bringing diverse and emerging voices to your subscribers, are there any qualities that make something a “Night Worms” book? An aesthetic, a narrative quality…

Ashley: Honestly, a lot of it is based on vibes. We see a book and we're just excited about it! This is going to be a spoiler, but for our September package, we're doing What Hunger. As soon as we saw the cover, we were like, “We need this book.”

I'm pretty sure we picked that book first—Sadie? I can't remember. But anyway, we tried to find something we thought had a similar vibe. So that's how our September package came together. We see something, we like the cover, we like the synopsis, and we think that people will like it, too. We'll pick one thing and then build around it.

Sadie: That's the fun thing. Sometimes we'll read the synopsis, and we'll be like, “Oh, both of these are female rage books.” So they go together, easy peasy.

But then sometimes the two books we want don't have a really clear theme at first. We’ll read through the synopsis, or I'll pre-read the book or Ashley will, and then we'll be like, “Oh, there's actually this whole connection we didn't anticipate!” It's fun for the customers to find that, too. They'll be like, “These are tied together!” Not necessarily by an overarching theme, but by a character development that was very similar, or something not immediately transparent.

Ashley: I remember when we did one of the Nick Medina books, and we put a vampire tea in [the package]. I know nobody cares, but for me personally, I was like, “There's not even any vampires in this package!” But then there was a vampire in the Nick Medina book, and I'm like, “Oh my god, it actually worked out great.”

Sometimes, honestly, we do things on accident, and it works out. Was it the Sun and Moon package that we did in May? Yeah? I was like, these books are have nothing to do with each other. And then one was sun, and one was moon, and they do go together.

Sadie: Sometimes we just like to confuse our readers. I mean, honestly, sometimes we send stuff out and we'll say that the books are going to be an alien-themed package, or whatever.

Ashley: We just liked the name of that theme, so that's why we did it. But I don't think anyone's ever really questioned it, except that one alien theme. What was it? “Take us to your leader.”

Sadie: Take us to your leader, yeah! One of the books was from Adam Neville, and it had themes of hell or something. It was definitely an alien theme. But the other one was about transient people coming through a town.

Ashley: Yeah, I don't remember, but that was the only time. I remember a couple people being like, “These books weren't even alien horror.” I was like, “We never said that they were!”

I've heard tales about an infamous Twitter beef about whether horror can be set in space.

Sadie: There's been some huge Twitter beefs. Another one people still talk about is cozy horror. So I like to talk about it all the time, because I'm like, “Screw everybody and their ideas of horror not being cozy!”

There's so many horror movies that I watch that give me cozy vibes, and that's not going to be the same for somebody else. It's so weird that people gatekeep a genre. You can't! It's all in our brains. I don't know how you can gatekeep that shit.

Ashley: Everyone has their own comfort stuff that says to them “that's cozy.” I agree, I think there's cozy horror, and I think there's a huge market of people who are into that.

It's very funny seeing these beefs from a distance, because they kind of make no sense. None of the detail filters out!

Sadie: Instagram is our home base, for sure. Also, our customers know to find us there. Even though we're present on other platforms, Instagram is where we talk about books one hundred percent.

Before we move on: Cozy horror. Do you have a pick? I think mine might be Hell House LLC. There’s something comforting about those creepy clowns.

Sadie: For me, it's anything by Grady Hendrix, because I feel some authors have a narrating voice that I can easily sink into. I never have to struggle or try to find my way.

Ashley: I'm gonna always say Nightmare Before Christmas. I love turning that movie on from around September to December as background noise. That soundtrack is amazing.

Ashley, you curate an incredible variety of books by Latin American authors and Spanish language authors. Scrolling through your feed, I was introduced to so many authors I haven’t seen elsewhere. Who are some authors you feel more people need to have on their radar?

Ashley: Well, that's good to know, because I always feel I'm posting the same books over and over! I'm like, okay, how many times can I talk about Hurricane Season and Pink Slime? But every time you post the books, you reach a new audience.

I would say Fernanda Melchor—I really want everyone to read Hurricane Season. Her other book, Reservoir Bitches, is another one I've been talking about a lot recently. I love Charco Press. I post about them a lot, and their books are just amazing. I think they deserve a lot more credit than they currently get online. Of Cattle and Men, that's a really great one, which is similar to Tender Is the Flesh. So whenever people are like, “I love Tender Is the Flesh!” I'm like, “Well then, read this one. I think you'll like it, too.”

Latin American literature is not a lot of supernatural or cosmic type things. It usually is more human, everyday horrors—violence against women, everyday things that are actually happening. But they're scary in that sense.

Sadie, I believe you have a book coming out very soon: Feral and Hysterical, on August 19.

Sadie: It does come out on the 19th. Our Night Worms customers are getting it now, however! We sent it out on Tuesday, so those are starting to arrive. I signed all of their books for them, and they get it early. That's one of the benefits of being a Night Worms customer!

It's a guide through curated lists that I made, and it's all dark and disturbing books—not just horror—from women and nonbinary authors.

Ashley influenced an entire list in the book, because those books were not on my radar [before]. They're social horror, and so the list that I made was about femicide in Latin America, what women authors have to say about that, and how they're using fiction to tell a very real story.

They're not biographies or semi-autobiographical books, but they're all using fiction to tell the story of femicide in their country. It's probably the most messed up, frightening list in the entire book. Even though they're not necessarily considered to be horror books, they are horrific. 

Ashley: The best chapter in the whole book, honestly.

Did it have an effect on you, being in that space while you were writing the book?

Sadie: Researching for that book, and reading books primarily by women and nonbinary creators for over a year—it rearranged the furniture in my brain. Literally, when I'm reading a book by a man, I can see the male gaze. Whereas before, I cut my teeth on Stephen King, and that voice was just what I was used to.

When you prioritize other voices, then suddenly a male voice comes in, it disrupts your whole way of thinking. You're like, “Oh, this is a male gaze.” A man is trying to write a woman's experience, and it's not working out. You can definitely see the flaws a little bit more.

That's what I want. I just read Hell House by Richard Matheson and had a similar experience to what you're describing. Immediately before, I’d read The Lamb, which is a very feminine book in a wonderful way, and then I was like, “Richard! I love some of your Twilight Zone episodes, but what are you getting up to in Hell House?!”

Sadie: Yeah, you're like, “Why are you writing lesbians right now?!”

Ashley: I think especially in the older ones like Hell House, it's more jarring. Like, “Wait, why did you say that?!”

I have one more question: What are you reading right now?

Ashley: I'm reading The Days of Abandonment. Have you guys read that? You can't judge books by what they're categorized, okay? I got this book so long ago. It's been sitting on my TBR, and I'm like, “It looks boring.”

But people have been talking about it a lot recently, because it's Women in Translation Month. And so I was like, “Fine, whatever, I'll start it.” And this book is crazy. This is an unhinged, angry woman book, a woman scorned. It's really good, and definitely not what I expected. I thought I was gonna pick up some dry old book from the olden days, but it’s not that at all.

Sadie: Definitely selling it to me, definitely selling it to me.

Ashley: I feel so many people pass on books because of the cover. They're just like, “This looks a weird literary book,” or something.

Sadie: Ashley, what's your audio book? And what's your e-book?

Ashley: I'm listening to The House of Madelaine. I just started it today. It's pretty quick, and it's supposed to be a fever dream. There’s so many weird characters and things going on. She's all in her head, from what I can gather.

For my e-book, I'm reading Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight, which is translated from Japanese. I think it's supposed to be a crime thriller, but I'm not that far yet.

Sadie: You're also reading Fish Soup for your book club. 

Ashley: I finished that one! 

Sadie: I have Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang for the Night Worms book club, because that's we sent that out a couple months ago. And then I have The Possession of Alba Díaz from Isabel Cañas. Both of our books release on the same day, so I have an event [in Seattle] with her.

And then my ebook is Grimdark by Shannon Morgan. She's an Irish author who does Gothic, and it's giving me the vibes for days, the cozy horror.

And then on audiobook, I am reading The Corset by Laura Purcell. Laura Purcell is the queen of Gothic, in my opinion, at least for scary Gothic. This one is supernatural—it reminds me of Like Water for Chocolate. In Like Water for Chocolate, she can emote through cooking, and then people feel what she feels. The Corset is about a poor, young girl living in this really abusive situation. When she's stitching garments, everything she feels goes into the garment. Then whoever wears it, it happens to them. She ends up killing all these people, until she figures out what she's doing.

Laura Purcell, queen: The Silent Companions, The Shape of Darkness, all of it so good.

Next Up: Podcast Playlist! 5 Conversations About Horror Movies

I’m going to be traveling for work next week, so I’ve scheduled a short little post featuring some of my favorite podcast conversations about horror movies. It’ll be a perfect little binge if you’ve got a trip coming up!

The first time I went to one of these corporate onsites, I persuaded a bunch of employees to go on a ghost tour of Salt Lake City with me. (Shoutout to friend of the newsletter Maya, for being my co-ringleader on that escapade!)

This time, I’m hoping I might find time to steal off to Sandy—a short drive from the office—to see some filming locations featured in Hereditary. But it’s just as likely that I’ll collapse at the hotel every night. I’m planning to bring a few spooky books with me, but if I see Chuck Tingle’s newly released Lucky Day at the airport, I will nab it faster than you can say “Mr. Jackpots.”

Scare Me! is a free weekly horror newsletter published every Thursday morning. It’s written by Michelle Delgado, featuring original illustrations by Sam Pugh. You can find the archive of past issues here. If you were sent this by a friend, subscribe to receive more spooky interviews, essays—and maybe even a ghost story or two.