Yearly Archive: 2023

Articles

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Indie Bookshelf Releases 09/29/2023

Got a book to launch, an event to promote, a kickstarter or seeking extra work/support as a result of being hit economically by life in general?

Get in touch and we’ll promote you here. The post is prepared each Thursday for publication on Friday. Contact us via Horror Tree’s contact address or connect via Twitter or Facebook.

Click on the book covers for more information. Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page – there’s all sorts lurking in the deep.

 

Before you scroll down through the books however, please could you consider checking out the ‘Creatives in Crisis’ section. This has been added to help those who need additional support at this time. Thank you!

 

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Articles / Interviews

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REMAINS TO BE TOLD: An interview with Kiwi author Denver Grenell

REMAINS TO BE TOLD: An interview with Kiwi author Denver Grenell
 

In this unique interview series, we chat with the contributors of Kiwi horror anthology Remains to Be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, edited by five-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Lee Murray (Clan Destine Press, 1 October). 

 

Today, we welcome Denver Grenell, whose action horror short story “Ngahere Gold” [Bush Gold] appears in the anthology. 

 

What, in your view, are the core elements of Aotearoa horror? What makes Kiwi horror unique? 

 

Our landscape, our history, and our voice—all of which are intertwined like a complex raranga / flax weaving. There is a darkness to the history of Aotearoa, which hangs over us like a long (white) cloud and often seeps into our art—from the cinema of unease to certain musical stylings and, of course, our written word. 

 

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: A Scream Full of Ghosts by Jane Nightshade

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: A Scream Full of Ghosts
Author: Jane Nightshade
Publisher: Dark Inn Books
Genre: Horror literature and Fiction, Short stories
Release date: 20th May, 2023

Synopsis: Jane Nightshade updates the traditional Victorian ghost story for the age of the Internet in her debut collection of stories, A Scream Full of Ghosts. With 12 terrifying paranormal tales, there is a haunting story for every lover of the macabre.
A young couple trying to figure out why the hardwood floors in their brand-new tract house appear to be haunted: an unemployed single mom who cancels her home meals subscription service but can’t get rid of the delivery man; a couple of YouTubers whose plans to make a viral video go darkly awry; and a jilted young lawyer who finally finds the perfect woman, except that there’s something terribly wrong with one of her arms. These and other ghostly delights are just a few shuddery pages away in A Scream Full of Ghosts.

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Articles / Interviews

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REMAINS TO BE TOLD: An interview with Kiwi author Debbie Cowens

REMAINS TO BE TOLD: An interview with Kiwi author Debbie Cowens 

 

In this unique interview series, we chat with the contributors of Kiwi horror anthology Remains to Be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, edited by five-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Lee Murray (Clan Destine Press, 1 October). 

 

Today, we welcome award-winning author Debbie Cowens, whose Lovecraftian short story “The Reaper Beetle” appears in the anthology. 

 

Please tell us about your story, Debbie.  

 

My story “The Reaper’s Beetle” was a hybrid of two separate story ideas. One was the horror version of an incident from my youth when a friend disappeared during the night on a school camp, and we found her out in the bush after she’d apparently sleep-walked of the cabin. The other was more focused on tensions that can arise when old school friends reunite, especially when the relationships haven’t matured, and people’s lives have gone in very different directions. The story also in some way reflects my aversion and discomfort with funerals. Ever since my father’s funeral when I was younger, I’ve found them an anxiety-inducing blend of overwhelming, personal grief and a polite, formal ceremony.  

 

The story is also inspired by Lovecraft, his tradition of dangerous consequences befalling those who delve too deeply into the study of dark, ancient mythos, and the reaper beetle itself owes part of its creation to his story ‘Winged Death’ amongst others.   

 

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Flash / Ongoing Submissions / Royalties

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Ongoing Submissions: Eye Tales

Payment: 50 cents per short story sold
Theme: Single short stories from authors, primarily horror but open to most speculative fiction

Pyschotoxin Press is now open to short stories in an ongoing effort for their Eye Tales production. The Eye Tales store focuses on single short stories from genre authors. We format and create a cover, (if we need to) and we sell it for $1.25. The author gets $.50 per each copy sold.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Frost Bite by Angela Sylvaine

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: Frost Bite
Author: Angela Sylvaine
Publisher: Dark Matter INK
Genre: Horror, Cosmic Horror, Creature Feature, Outbreak
Release date: 10th October, 2023

Synopsis: Remember the ’90s? Well…the town of Demise, North Dakota doesn’t, and they’re living in the year 1997. That’s because an alien worm hitched a ride on a comet, crash landed in the town’s trailer park, and is now infecting animals with a memory-loss-inducing bite–and right before Christmas! Now it’s up to nineteen-year-old Realene and her best friend Nate to stop the spread and defeat the worms before the entire town loses its mind. The only things standing in the way are their troubled pasts, a doomsday cult, and an army of infected prairie dogs.

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Trembling With Fear

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Trembling With Fear 9-24-23

Hello, children of the dark. Are you as tired as I am? Nay, are you as darn exhausted as I am? It’s been a big couple of weeks for me both on the homefront and out in the world, and I really just need a big long lie-in. So I won’t keep you this week. Let’s skip to the end. But first…

…big congrats to those behind the UK’s FantasyCon, which was held in Birmingham last weekend. The con covers the full spectrum of speculative fiction—scifi, fantasy, and horror, of both the dark and less so variety—and it was great to see many of the horror community I chat with online or have met at other events. If you’ve never been to a SFFH con, I highly recommend it. I was joined on Saturday by one of Horror Tree’s own writers, Sarah Elliott, and it was her first time at anything like it. I think we’ve converted her to the cause…

But for now, let’s turn to this week’s TWF menu. Our short story comes over the waves from Greece, and finds Akis Linardos in an unusual situation. This is then followed by three delicious quick bites:

  • Ceferino Ruiz has issues with his aunt,
  • Alyson Faye is nesting, and 
  • Adam Ehrenberg didn’t return his keys.

Over to you, Stuart.

Lauren McMenemy

Editor, Trembling With Fear

Trembling With Fear: Year 6 update: I know I said that last week that we were going to be done by last weekend. We had one last tweak to the spine that ended up coming up so revisions are happening. I’m really hoping that THIS weekend means we’ll be set and I’ll be able to get the rest of it sorted and ready to go by the time that you’re reading this update!

Shadowed Realms update: By the time that you’re reading this, I’m hoping we’ll be at a point where initial rejections are starting to go out. We’re pretty much done with reading at this point so its just time to narrow things down. There has been a LOT of great writing here and I think our entire ‘maybe’ pile is going to unfortunately be swept into the rejection list just from how many have really risen to the top. I honestly wish I could afford to publish two volumes as the final culling is going to be extremely difficult.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: I’m one month away from my current 2-class MBA workload and another two and a half months from being done with the program as long as my math is right. So, one of my focuses will be to grow our YouTube channel. What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]!

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.

Stuart Conover

Editor, Horror Tree

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Articles / Blog Tour

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The Gauntlet Runner Blog Tour – Real AI

Real AI

J. Scott Coatsworth

 

With all the talk of Generative AI these days – ChatGPT, MidJourney and the like, I think we lose sight of what “real” artificial intelligence is.

 

Generative AI really isn’t intelligence at all, or at least not yet – some people think it could be a springboard for true intelligence at some point. But for now, it’s just an advanced version of the thing that powers your phone’s text predictor – that thing that shows the next word(s) it thinks you might be about to type based on what you’ve already typed so far.

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