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Word of the week: Petrichor: the scent of rain after a long dry spell.
I hope this week is treating you well. If you don’t know me by now, my name is Holley Cornetto. I am a librarian and English professor. You can find me (usually lurking) on Twitter @HLCornetto. I’ve been gathering the best news and stories I can find from the web and curating them here for you to read and enjoy. This week’s articles tackle everything from screenwriting to writing burnout.
Horror Tree Update:
A quick request: If you run a website, we'd love to see more of Horror Tree in print and would truly appreciate any articles written up about Horror Tree, Trembling With Fear, the staff, etc. If you do a write-up, please send in a link to contact@horrortree.com (If you need any promo art or clarification on dates of when things happened for the site such as when HT or TWF launched, staff members joined, etc, let us know!)
Last week I mentioned that there were a LOT of positive responses to the Horror Tree sticker Stuart posted on Twitter. The return of the store isn't ready quite yet though I'm happy to confirm that our print shop HAS added stickers so we'll be able to add them in when we return!
Trembling With Fear update:
The Summer Edition just needs a couple of minor tweaks and it will be ready to go in plenty of time for being posted on September 22nd when Summer comes to a close!
We're still open for our Halloween Edition of TWF as well and you can read the details right here.
Articles:
Here are the latest articles on writing from around the web. I’ve continued sorting these by category, so you can find articles of importance to whatever stage you are at in your writing journey.
On craft:
LitReactor: “Screenplay Lessons Learned Adapting My Own Fiction”
Helping Writers Become Authors: “Archetype Antagonists for the Maiden Arc: Authority and Predator”
On writing in general:
Writing in the Dark: “How I Write a Lot (and How Maybe You Can too)”
Fiction University: “Struggling with Writing Burnout? Try These Tricks”
Free Fiction Roundup:
This was another exciting week of free reading. The new issue of The Crow’s Quill featured witches and cauldrons. What better way to get into the fall spirit? Luna Station Quarterly also released their latest issue. This week’s new-to-me publication is Dream of Shadows, a London-based website that publishes horror and fantasy fiction. I hope you enjoy this week’s stories!
“Come Rapture or Ruin” by Mary Rajotte. The Crow’s Quill. (pp. 40-44)
“Jinli Yu” by Ali Jiang. Luna Station Quarterly.
“The Summer of BSSZ” by Marta Balcewicz. Catapult.
“End of the Line” by Chrissie Rohrman. Dream of Shadows.
If you post any writing content during the week and think it would be a good fit for us to feature, do reach out and let us know at contact@horrortree.com
Thank you Patreons! As always, the site's lifeblood is in your hands and we truly appreciate your support.
Looking To Help Horror Tree?
Here are the main things we're looking for:
- Advertising and either Site or Contest sponsorships!
- Someone to help create videos for social media (we have tools, but not time!)
- Article writers (articles, interviews, reviews, crowdsource compilations, etc.)
- Sharing guest posts with us or reaching out for us to be a blog tour host.
- The obvious one here is also to become one of our Patreons!
If you're interested in contributing and think you have something that would help out PLEASE don't shy away from contacting us! (contact@horrortree.com)
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Excerpts:
Submission Window: November 1st, 2021, to November 30th, 2021. Payment: $0.02 per word plus a physical copy upon publication Theme: Horror stories that explore the complex relationships between artists and models. We didn’t know if we’d do it again, but Weirdpunk is finally publishing a new anthology with an open call. Stories of the Eye will be edited by Sam Richard (Sabbath of the Fox-Devils, Wonderland Award-Winning To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows) and Joanna Koch (The Wingspan of Severed Hands, Shirley Jackson Award-Nominated The Couvade). It will be published in 2022. Read on for info. Weirdpunk Books is seeking horror stories that explore the complex relationships between artists and models. Go beyond the male gaze. Show us the queer gaze, the disabled gaze, the un-colonialized gaze, the intergalactic gaze. Turn the model’s gaze on the artist or audience. Explore the power of images, why we bring them to life or destroy them through duplication and representation, and how the act of creating changes them and changes us. Invent a future art form or resurrect a forgotten handicraft. Define “model” as widely and surprisingly as you like: people, objects, trees, oceans, ideas. Examine obsession, violence, commitment, love, or indifference. Give us a botanical illustrator on an unknown planet, a modern-day Gericault shipwrecked in a studio with body parts becoming medical waste, a necromancing choreographer, or a performance artist looking for that one special element to transcend reality in a final postmodernist feat of madness. **Given the title of the anthology, we’re seeing a lot of folks talk about eyeball stories. This anthology is not about eyeball horror. Please fully read the submission guidelines to see what we are looking for, which is not—I repeat, not—horror stories about eyeballs. Additionally, the Bataille reference is intentional as we’re both fans, but...
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Anti-Social Skills for Improve Your Writing In reality, it is important to improve your social skills to interact with other people better. But a writer needs some anti-social skills to pull off excellent writing. For instance, if you want to describe horror scenes, you need to set your unsocial side to work to describe better. It sounds weird, right? Don’t allow it to be. Writers are typically introspective. They perceive the world with depth. So it helps them to carve out stories from their thoughts and contemplations. In most cases, writers are often viewed as idealists who lose themselves to the reflections in their minds. They bear untold stories in their hearts every step of the way. However, some novice writers can’t even tell when their minds are creating a story. So the real challenge is to translate untold stories into a character’s words. You can find out about it on Ninjaessay. They offer essay samples that can help you to see the light. It comes to what your anti-social skills are and how to channel them to your writing. What Are Anti-Social Skills? First things first—what are anti-social skills? Let’s be honest. It’s challenging to create a meaning for anti-social skills in this context. It is because they are not typically described as skills but harmful behaviors that disrupt societal activities. In many cases, the phrase “anti-social” is often associated with personality disorders.” But in the world of writing, anti-social behavior is a skill and not a harmful behavior. Social skill is the ability to communicate with others. But an anti-social skill is the ability to communicate with yourself. What sets writers with excellent anti-social skills apart is that their self-awareness skills are at the highest level. If you are self-aware, you can track your reactions...
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Payment: $25 Theme: Crime and Mystery The Dark City is dedicated to the love of story, and in particular, the rough and tumble of the world of crime and violence. We are fans of story that has roots in reality but we do consider humorous situations and characters to be part of reality. We hope to acquire stories that leave readers thinking about the characters and their dilemma. We are seeking stories in the range of 1000 to 7500 words. We pay writers honorariums of $25 upon publication for first rights (electronic as well as physical) and archival rights (for back issues). Stories appear in the on-line version, in limited physical editions and in archived editions. After the stories appear in the magazine the rights revert to the author though we ask that you not publish the work elsewhere for at least a year. We collect some stories into anthologies and will pay separately for the story’s appearance in such publications. We prefer exclusive submissions rather than multiple submissions. Please don’t send previously published work. Email submissions should have “Story Submission” in the subject line. Send your query or submission in plain text in the body of your email, rather than as an attached file. Thank you for your interest in The Dark City. Via: The Dark City.
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Deadline: November 30th, 2021 Payment: 5 cents per word Theme: horror/dark fiction QUARTERLY PRINT MAGAZINE Breakdown of content: 8 fiction pieces (approximate word lengths) – 1x 5000, 1x 3000, 1x 2500, 2x 1500, 3x 500 3-5 non-fiction pieces – 1 article, 1-2 briefs, 1 interview and/or review – Fiction We are looking for horror/dark fiction pieces between 500-5000 words firm. Common sense when submitting please. We do not accept stories that involve the sexual abuse/exploitation of minors direct or implied. We are not looking for pure shock value. All components of your story should have merit. Gore for gore’s sake is not what we are looking for. Our pay rates: 5 cents per word All payments are made in US funds via PayPal. We accept submissions during the following reading periods , with an expected response time of up to 12 weeks. This way we are able to accommodate all the submissions we receive. If you have not heard back from us after 16 weeks, please feel free to send us an update query. WINTER ISSUE: September 01 – November 30 (current reading period) SPRING ISSUE: December 01 – February 28/29 SUMMER ISSUE: March 01 – May 31 FALL ISSUE: June 01 – August 31 All submissions must be sent via e-mail to: submissions@darkrecessespress.com as an attached word document with the word “Fiction Submission – STORY TITLE” in the subject line. Please also include if you wish your story considered for both the quarterly print and the website publication. Note compensation rates are different for website so be certain. MANUSCRIPT FORMATTING: 12 point standard font standard margins left side of header: name, contact info right side of header: word count top of first page: title, author Variances from traditional manuscript format: single spaced NO INDENTS use bold, italics and underline as they are to appear...
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Sebastian Vice & Outcast Press: The Dark Side of Transgressive Fiction By Angelique Fawns What do you do if your stories are so edgy even the publications who profess to like experimental fiction won’t take them? If you are Sebastian Vice, you start your own press. Vice is looking for literature that dares to explore themes most editors consider taboo. This is his mission statement: “Outcast Press wants stories cut from the bone, written from the gristle that sticks to your soul, based off brain-burning images scorched onto paper. We like raw, honest, dark, in-your-face, tales. The ethos at Outcast Press is a rejection of sacred cows.” Outcast Press is currently open to poetry submissions that explore “raw, dark, honest and shocking themes.” Submissions for short stories and novels will reopen in January 2020. I sat down with Vice to learn more about his first anthology and vision. AF: How did Outcast Press get its beginnings? SV: I’d flirted with the idea for about a year until I pulled the trigger. Until recently, I was primarily a short story writer. The problem I ran into was finding magazines that would take my material. It’s one thing to get rejected (that’s fine, every writer gets rejected—a lot). But to come up empty, over and over, on places that will consider really dark, taboo pieces, is disheartening. It’s one thing to get rejected a lot (all writers need to live with that), it’s quite another if there’s an almost complete void (unless you dig really, really deep). I suppose one day myself, and members of my team just snapped. We saw one too many fake edgy, fake dark fiction magazines, with a laundry list of caveats of what they don’t take. We worked out some preliminary details, and started...
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Submission Window: September 15th – November 15th, 2021 Payment: 6¢ (USD) per word Theme: dark, quiet horror Note: You must be able to say “If accepted, this would be my first pro-sale.” Note: SFWA considers 8 cents per word as pro, HWA is 6 cents per word Special Call: New Writers “If accepted, this would be my first pro-sale.” For the reading period of 15 September – 15 November 2021, we are having a special call—writers who have not yet had a professional sale. In your cover letter, please add the following statement: “If accepted, this would be my first pro-sale.” See this blog post for more information and a FAQ We have published writers of all backgrounds from all over the world in LampLight, but not everywhere, nor all shapes and sizes of writers. Help us to shine a light on greater diverse writing and keep LampLight a showcase of the best dark fiction out there by submitting and encouraging others to as well. We go for stories that are dark, literary; we are looking for the creepy, the weird and the unsettling. For inspiration, we suggest “The Twilight Zone”, “The Outer Limits”, and LampLight, Vol1 Issue 1 which is free. We do not accept stories with the following: vampires, zombies, werewolves, serial killers, hitmen, excessive gore or sex, excessive abuse against women, revenge fantasies, cannibals, high fantasy. Edition and Rights The quarterly is published as print and ebook, and at the end of the year all the quarterlies are bound together in an annual collection. We are asking for non-exclusive, worldwide, serial rights to your work for both electronic and print. We want to publish it, we don’t want to own it. Payment 6¢ (USD) per word 5100 words MAX (firm) Note: we will not be accepting reprints for...
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Deadline: December 31st, 2021 Payment: 8 cents per word Themes: Noir: Science fiction, fantasy, or urban fantasy stories with a detective/private investigator set-up and a noir atmosphere Shattering the Glass Slipper: Stories of known fairy tales that have been upended, gender-bent, or twisted around in some way. Brave New Worlds: Science fiction stories set along the pathway of us leaving Earth for the stars. The NOIR, SHATTERING THE GLASS SLIPPER, and BRAVE NEW WORLDS anthology Kickstarter (back us at tinyurl.com/ZNB2021) has hit its goal! If you have a story idea that fits one of the anthology themes, write it up, revise it, polish it, and send it in for consideration. I’ve posted the guidelines below. The NOIR, SHATTERING THE GLASS SLIPPER, and BRAVE NEW WORLDS Submission Guidelines Zombies Need Brains LLC is accepting submissions to its three science fiction and fantasy anthologies NOIR, SHATTERING THE GLASS SLIPPER, and BRAVE NEW WORLDS. Stories must be submitted in electronic form as an attachment with the title of the story as the file name in .doc or .docx format. The header of the email should include the name of the anthology the submission is for along with the title of the submission (for example: NOIR: Private Detectives Gone Wild!). The content of the email should also include which anthology the manuscript is intended for. Please send multiple manuscripts in separate emails; you may submit to any or all of the anthologies as many times as you wish. Manuscripts should be in manuscript format, meaning double-spaced, 12pt font, standard margins on top, bottom and sides, and pages numbered. Please use Times New Roman font. The first page should include the Title of the story, Author’s name, address, and email, word count, and Pseudonym if different from the author’s real name. Italics and bold...
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Deadline: November 1st, 2021 Payment: 8 cents a word Theme: a horror anthology showcasing BIPOC and other ethnically marginalized writers and artists from around the world. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES What is horror to those living in the margins? Where terror is systematized and in the very air everyone happily breathes? A misheard word. The thud of boots. An impossible color. A foreign growth. DEATH IN THE MOUTH is a horror anthology showcasing BIPOC and other ethnically marginalized writers and artists from around the world. It will feature twenty prose stories spanning from the distant past to the far future, real and fictive worlds, all while exploring new and unique manifestations of horror. Each story will also be accompanied by an original black and white illustration by a unique artist. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR: Original manifestations of horror, dread, grief, fear, and anxiety. Embodiments of mania and displacements of faith. Harrowing ecstasy and debilitating hope. Consuming, relentless love. Transgressions of the body, the spirit, and the community. Quiet, creeping absurdities. Unique and terrifying alien mythology from the future. Weird and unsettling folklore from secondary worlds. Quiet contemporary techno-panic. If that sounds broad, that’s because it is: our tastes run wide wide. We want to see stories written from places of boldness and tenderness. Stories that nauseate or introduce the smallest of psychic itches. Stories that span interstellar time or small, restrained fragments. Mixes of other genres (speculative, contemporary, “literary”, historical, etc) are great, but horror should be the focus. A few writers with the vibe we enjoy: Tananarive Due, Helen Oyeymi, Kazuo Umezu, Augustina Bazterrica, Brian Evenson, Yoko Ogawa, Nathan Ballingrund, Carmen Maria Machado, Toni Morrison, Richard Van Camp, Octavia Butler, Stephen Graham Jones, Samuel R Delaney, Junji Ito WHAT WE DON’T WANT: Overused tropes and story shapes.Didactic, fable-like stories.Generic or “classic”...
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Payment: $50 for a poetry collection and $75 for a novelette, an author copy, plus extra items at the publishers discretion. Theme: Open to most speculative fiction genres Novelettes and Poetry Collections should be 8k-15k for poetry and 15k-30k for Novelettes. All work must be edited to the best of your ability. Payment is $50 for a poetry collection and $75 for a novelette, an author copy, plus extra items at the publishers discretion. -Novelettes should include a query letter. DO NOT SEND THE MANUSCRIPT. Submitting authors will receive an email based on the content of the query letter whether or not to send the novelette in parts or in its entirety. – Author Collections should send a query letter along with the first three pages of one featured story. Authors will be emailed for further information based on the work provided. -Poetry should send a query with an estimated word count along with two featured poems of any length. Authors will be emailed for further information based on the work provided. Email submissions to unitedfaedompublishing@gmail.com. Title the email as either Author Collection, Novelette, or Poetry Collection. *NOTE: Our editors provide free editing services as needed for all our publications. United Faedom Publishing also provides a book cover for your ebook and paperback. You will be provided with teaser ads to share and a pre-order date with a link to share. Novelettes are subject to perks such as, but not limited to; bookmarks, t-shirts, keychains, and more. Send all submissions to the email provided on our submissions page. Via: United Faedom Publishing.
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How To Start Writing Your Own Horror Blog A horror blog is an excellent opportunity to combine your passion for such a genre and be useful to other lovers of the horror world. Surely you know what fans of this genre want to get, and this is a starting point in blog creation. If you do not know where to start your blog, then in this article, you will find tips that will help you start writing horror stories and trigger readers’ interest. Top 5 Tips How to Start Your Horror Blog Newbies in such a direction as horror blogging face difficulties to start content creation. Even though there are a lot of those who prefer horror topics, this direction requires a reasonable approach to conquer their audience. Below you will find tips that will help you to start writing a horror blog. Determine the Purpose of Your Blog Before you start creating a blog, it is worth it to determine the goal. Maybe you desire to write horror stories? Maybe you are dreaming of making horror or book movie reviews? You can combine all these in one blog, but it is worth choosing a priority direction to competently draw up the structure of your blog. In addition to determining the goal, you need to understand who your readers will be. Get started by highlighting the next characteristics of your target audience: Age (children, teens, or adults). Interest (the key goal of the blog). Psychology features that take age into account. This data will help you to create engaging stories. Develop Your Tone of Voice When writing content for your blog, it is recommended to work out your style. In the future it will become a key feature of your blog that makes it distinguishable. Readers quickly get used to...
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Deadline: October 5th, 2021 Payment: US: $40 and a contributor’s copy / non-US: $45 Theme: Short stories that give Grimm’s Fairy Tales a unique and creative twist Quill & Crow Publishing House is putting together their third anthology just in time for the end of the year when the leaves are dead and the wind becomes chill. For this anthology, we are looking for short stories (5,000 – 8,000 words) that give Grimm’s Fairy Tales a unique and creative twist – extra points for maintaining a Gothic feel. We are excited to see some of the less common stories come to life and even more excited to see some of the horrific aspects of the original tales come back in a fresh way. Things we are looking for: deconstructed Grimm’s tales gothic horror historical horror dark folklore gothic/macabre elements modern adaptations considered ONLY if they maintain a Gothic feel Things we are not looking for: young adult extreme horror rape/child abuse heavy sci-fi overtly modern adaptations Submission Requirements Please note: Submissions that do not follow requirements will not be considered. 1. We are accepting original works only. You must own the copyright to your submission. 2. Submissions period is from August 20 – Oct 5, 2021. Please submit all stories to submissions@quillandcrowpublishinghouse.com with the subject line: Grim & Dread / Your Title / Genre / Title of the Tale You’re Retelling/Twisting. 2. All submissions must be in English and follow standard MLA formatting (double spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font). Work must be polished and edited (to the best of your ability). Please submit as a .docx file and include your name, title, and word count on the front page. 3. Story length is 5,000 to 8,000 words. Submissions below 5,000 words and above 8,000 words will not be considered. 4. Accepted authors...
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Payment: 2¢ CAD per word advance (up to $2000), plus royalties Theme: science fiction, fantasy, quiet horror and literary works with speculative elements (see below) What is a Stelliform story? We are seeking to publish science fiction, fantasy, quiet horror and literary works with speculative elements, such as novellas (17,500–39,999 words), novels (60,000–100,000 words), and short story collections and non-fiction books/collections (40,000–60,000 words) which build narratives around climate change and its resultant ecological destruction, and acknowledges the work necessary to live within the problems Western lifestyles have created. All manuscripts submitted must have a science fictional or fantastic element; non-fiction must be speculative. Narratives should be interrelational, demonstrating some ways in which the environment changes us (and others) just as we change it. Please see our About the Press page and our blog for more information. How much do we pay? Currently, we pay a 2¢ CAD per word advance (up to $2000), plus royalties. These rates are in line with other small Canadian publishers. As a new press, we are working on securing grants and planning fundraising campaigns in order to increase these rates in the future. What rights are we buying? Currently we are buying first world English electronic and print rights. As we grow, we will also consider audiobook rights. Our contract includes clauses for rights reversion should the author and/or publisher wish to terminate their relationship. Manuscript Wish List The following are some approaches we would love to see in our Inbox: Fiction MSWL Stories written by Indigenous authors which bring Indigenous and Western science into conversation (even if the conversation is difficult and unresolved). Stories written by BIPOC authors which fuse specific cultures and/or ways of life rooted to a specific community with a means of ameliorating or coping with life in a climate changed world. Stories written by trans and...
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