The Horror Tree Recent Markets, Articles, Interviews, and Fiction!

Anthology / Events / Pro

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Taking Submissions: Human Monsters (Early Listing)

Submission Window: February 15th-March 15th, 2022
Payment: $0.08 per word
Theme: Human Monsters, Horror

A new horror anthology edited by Sadie Hartmann and Ashley Saywers of Night Worms.

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” -Stephen King

Dark Matter Magazine is proud to announce our first foray into trade publishing with a new horror anthology edited by Sadie Hartmann and Ashley Saywers of Night Worms. The anthology will include at least 80,000 words of new horror fiction curated by Sadie and Ashley, and the book will be included in a future Night Worms book box. The tentative publish date for the anthology is October 2022.

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Anthology / Events / Flat Amount / Token Payment

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Taking Submissions: Vampires And Such

Deadline: May 31st, 2022
Payment: $5
Theme: Vampires

In celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the first publication of Dracula, the grandaddy of them all, we are courting vampire stories of all kinds.

So, send us your very best vampiric tales – gothic, contemporary, speculative – chill our bones and have us panic-buying garlic and wooden stakes…

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Articles

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Creation of an Original Monster for a Book: Rules to Follow

How to Come Up with an Unusual Monster for Your Book that You Wouldn’t Be Ashamed of

In the context of a modern globalized society, rethinking the moral and aesthetic principles of life and values, there is a growing interest in everything “non-standard”, “veiled”, “whimsical”, and “terrible”. So, speculative fiction is now very popular among readers. Its main goal is to entertain the reader. The means of this genre is the feeling of fear. Through it, the authors manage to get the necessary response from readers.

Distinctive Features of Speculative Fiction

Like any other genre, speculative fiction has its own distinctive features that distinguish it from other literary trends. Among them are:
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Anthology / Events / Flat Amount / Token Payment

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Taking Submissions: They Come by Night: Original Vampire Stories Based on Traditional Lore

Deadline: April 1st, 2022
Payment: $10 or a contributor’s copy
Theme: Vampire stories based on traditional folklore from around the world.

Title: They Come by Night: Original Vampire Stories Based on Traditional Lore

 

Deadline: April 1st 2022 or until filled.

 

Payment: 10 USD via PayPal upon acceptance or contributor’s copy in printed form upon publication. (We know this is an insult to your talent and hard work, but it is all we can offer at this time.  We hope to offer more on future projects.)

 

Theme: Vampire stories based on traditional folklore from around the world.

 

3000-10000 words, double spaced, Times New Roman font, 12pt.

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Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Semipro

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Ongoing Submissions: Tree And Stone

Payment: $0.02 per word
Theme: Speculative (SF/F, not really horror) and Literary Fiction

Year-round Submissions – OPEN!

What we want

We want all forms of original fiction! For encouragement:

  • All writers are welcome, but we would love stories from self-identified QTPOC and BIPOC writers.
  • Second person narratives!
  • Surrealism, magical realism, fabulism, slipstream, anything that might be deemed unconventional.
  • Cross genre or genre-bending stories, especially works that blend literary and speculative elements.

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Articles

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Generational Trauma and Gothic Horror: a personal essay.

Generational Trauma and Gothic Horror: a personal essay.

 

I have written of my love for all things gothic time and time again. My longing for the past, for things I never knew and never experienced has been with me since I was a child. Born in New Hampshire to secretive and damaged (though still loving) parents. I always knew there were stories about their pasts that I was not told. There were things that I knew I was never allowed to ask. 

“What happened to daddy in the war?” “Why are you scared of wind?” “Why does mom cry if I leave the orange nightlight on in the hallway?”

Childhood is a mystery, my parent’s childhood’s were a mystery. Truth be told, even the names of my father’s ten brothers and sisters were a mystery. They were people I didn’t know, and only saw most of them once when they all showed up at his funeral twenty years ago.

That is all of them except one—a brother who had gone missing. Someone who was mentioned only once to me, and then never again.

Maybe I had a gothic childhood. Maybe my love for gothic didn’t stem from the gothic romances I bought at a flea market. Maybe I inherited it, like an illness passed down from generation to generation.
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Articles

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How do Authors Use Direct Characterization in a Story?

How do Authors Use Direct Characterization in a Story?

By Melody E. McIntyre

 

Characters are the heart of any story and characterization is how authors tell us who those characters are. The methods authors use fall into two broad categories: direct and indirect. Direct is when an author tells you something about their character such as “she is smart”. Indirect characterization presents the same information, but through the character’s actions or dialogue instead of outright stating it. This can also be phrased another way, show vs. tell. 

One of the most common pieces of writing advice is to avoid “telling” in favour of “showing”, and often this is true. However, to develop strong, relatable characters, it’s important for writers to know how to use both styles in their fiction. 

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Anthology / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: For Whom the School Bell Tolls

Deadline: February 28th, 2022
Payment: £15
Theme: Horror set at school, college, university, or somewhere in-between
Note: Any harm to children (of any age) must be sensitive and well-considered.

For Whom the School Bell Tolls

edited by Jay Alexander

Submissions open from January 8th to February 28th. Selected authors will receive a £15 fee.

We’re looking for stories between 1,000-6,000 words. The theme is HORROR IN THE CLASSROOM – whether that’s horror set at school, college, university, or somewhere in-between.

You could even set your story at a nursery, but please bear in mind: any harm to children (of any age) must be sensitive and well-considered. We appreciate that this is a risk of the subgenre but ask all authors to be considerate of age when dishing out horror to their characters.

After all, there are plenty of teachers within these walls…

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