Yearly Archive: 2023

Trembling With Fear

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Trembling With Fear 9-17-23

Hello, children of the dark. I’ll keep it short this week as we have some superb offerings for you on this week’s menu and my ramblings are not what you come here for. I have just three things to share/offer/beg:

First of all, I’m currently in Birmingham for the UK’s FantasyCon, so I’ll be sure to update on all the shenanigans in the coming weeks. Yesterday I was part of panels on marketing and on contracts, and today it’s my first British Fantasy Society AGM as the new PR and Marketing Officer. From today, that work begins in earnest! (And I’m definitely flying the flag for the UK’s horror and darker speculative writers.)

Secondly, if your dark leanings tend towards the blood-thirsty and fang-based, you might be interested in the second edition of my Writing the Occult events happening on Saturday 28 October. This time we’re talking vampires, and have a bloody good line-up of authors, essayists, poets, academics, and folklorists ready to inspire and give you something juicy to sink your (pointy) teeth into. Our guests include a wide range of emerging, established, and iconic writers, including Jewelle Gomez, Scott J. Moses, Katalina Watt, Beverley Lee, Nicole Eigener, AW Earl, Dawn Kurtagich, and more!  All the details are over here, daily updates are featured on the Society of Ink Slingers Instagram/my own social accounts, and you can get your tickets here. It’s timed to allow those in the UK, Europe, and on both coasts of the US enjoy at least some of the programme. (It’s a bit late for Aussies, but don’t let that stop you!) Consider it a Halloween present to yourself. 

And finally a quick reminder, at risk of my sounding like a broken record: if you’re looking for something to flex those creative muscles, do consider popping out a drabble or two, please. Our cupboards are looking a bit bare on that front—though we are very grateful for all the short story submissions we’ve been getting since reopening last month!

But for now, let’s turn to this week’s TWF menu. Susan E. Rogers is losing time. This is then followed by three delicious quick bites:

  • Julie McNeely-Kirwan’s grandma returns,
  • Georgia Cook embraces the ocean’s cruelty, and 
  • David Alan Owens seeks sweet agony.

Over to you, Stuart.

Lauren McMenemy

Editor, Trembling With Fear

Trembling With Fear: Year 6 update: The first and second revisions to the cover have happened! We’ve got the back cover sorted, the spine sorted, and are just making some last-minute tweaks to the front. I’m really hoping that by the time you read this, it has already been finalized. Fingers crossed! 

Shadowed Realms update: We’re SO CLOSE to out first round of answer. I swear, we are! Truly! 

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 / Interviews

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An Interview With Scott Leeds On Schrader’s Chord

Melody E. McIntyre’s Interview Questions for Scott Leeds

Scott Leeds lives in the Pacific Northwest and his debut novel, Schrader’s Chord comes out September 5, 2023 from Tor Nightfire. It’s a gripping tale about a man who returns to clean up his father’s estranged estate and inadvertently opens a portal to the underworld when he and his friends play four cursed records. It’s a fun, scary horror thriller and I was happy to read and review an ARC for The Horror Tree, and now I’ve had the opportunity to interview Scott Leeds himself.

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Articles

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Indie Bookshelf Releases 09/15/2023

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 / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson

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: Bloom
Author: Delilah S. Dawson
Publisher: Titan Books
Genre: Horror, Thriller, LGBTQIA+
Release date: 3rd October, 2023

Synopsis: A sweet sapphic romance takes a deadly dark turn in this sharp-as-a-knife novella with the slow build menace of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber―from a New York Times-bestselling author hailed by Chuck Wendig as “a storyteller working at the top of her class.”

Rosemary meets Ash at the farmers’ market. Ash―precise, pretty, and practically perfect―sells bars of soap in delicate pastel colors, sprinkle-spackled cupcakes stacked on scalloped stands, beeswax candles, jelly jars of honey, and glossy green plants.

Ro has never felt this way about another woman; with Ash, she wants to be her and have her in equal measure. But as her obsession with Ash consumes her, she may find she’s not the one doing the devouring… Told in lush, delectable prose, this is a deliciously dark tale of passion taking an unsavory turn…

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Articles / Interviews

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Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend – Parsec Ink Explores Labor Automation

Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend

Parsec Ink Explores Labor Automation

By Angelique Fawns

Parsec Ink published Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend, its 20th collection of short stories in July of this year. The theme embraces what life would be like if we could all live a seven-day weekend. Containing 37 stories and poems from around the world, including one from yours truly called “The Time Modules”, this anthology draws on multiple genres, like fantasy, science fiction, and horror for its exploration.

 

Humanity craves efficiency, subconsciously forming habits to make each portion of our day more comfortable, allowing us the time and ability to expand our horizons. From Neanderthals learning migration patterns for hunting food to coding scripts to streamline processes to the dream of roads filled with fully autonomous vehicles, we push boundaries to make our lives easier. What does the world look like when jobs are automated to the point that the labor force is non-existent? What happens when our lives become as easy as they can be?

 

Greg Clumpner, the editor, is a fellow speculative writer and member of Parsec, Pittsburgh’s premier science fiction and fantasy organization. He has a Mechanical Engineering Degree and MBA. I sat down with him to learn more about the genesis of this project.

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Artwork / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Poetry / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: NonBinary Review #35

Deadline: February 1st, 2023
Payment: Fiction: 1¢ per word, Poetry: $10 flat fee, Artwork: $25 flat fee (Cover art is $50)
Theme: Lies for Children

NonBinary Review is open for submissions on the theme of “lies for children.”

“If you keep making that face, it’ll freeze that way.” “We found you under a cabbage leaf.” “If you drink coffee, it’ll stunt your growth.” “If you go to sleep with wet hair, you’ll catch pneumonia.”

Adults tell children some outrageous lies. Think back to your own childhood and explanations your parents gave you for things you didn’t understand or superstitions they perpetuated. Why do adults feel that children need credulity-straining fictions rather than objective truths? What things do we find so uncomfortable that we can’t explain them to children? How do those lies affect our relationship with the children we lied to, or the adults who lied to us? Some of these lies are benevolent (although kind of weird), but some can be trauma-inducing. We want to hear the stories behind those lies, and the consequences they engendered.

We’re NOT looking for fairy tales, re-tellings of children’s bedtime stories, tall tales, Santa Claus/Easter bunny/tooth fairy origin stories, or any other fictions that even children know are stories told for fun.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Citadel of Bureaucracy by J.D. Mitchell

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: The Citadel of Bureaucracy
Author: J.D. Mitchell
Publisher: Fighting Reality Books
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Political Satire, Speculative Fiction
Release date: 1st June, 2023

Synopsis: Part story, part game, this is a book in which YOU make all the decisions!

The Citadel of Bureaucracy holds dark and dangerous perils for civil servants unprepared for its labyrinthine cubicle walls, but enter you must. The Albatross Pay System has shorted you, money’s tight, and long hours have left you ragged and in desperate need of a vacation. You’ve just got to make it through one more day. But it won’t be easy. Packed with asbestos, bad wiring, and with air quality equivalent to a dank, rat-infested dungeon, the Darby Complex, known as “The Citadel” to its hapless inmates, is riddled with appalling hazards and frantic civil servants to test you beyond all reasonable limits.

Working against the clock, you must fight unreliable transit, dodgy I.T., the dreaded Canada goose, and a rising sense of nihilism in an effort to get paid and clear your desk before your vacation. YOU decide which paths to take, which dangers to risk, and which colleagues to confront. May the blessings of the Janus-faced God of Finance and H.R. be with you, for you’ll find little succour in the Citadel’s unhallowed halls.

Collects The Never-Ending Party #1–#5 from the ComiXology original digital series, in print for the first time!

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Best of British Science Fiction 2023

Deadline: December 17th, 2023
Payment: 1p a word up to £50.00 and a contributors copy
Theme: Science fiction stories published by British authors in 2023

Best of British Science Fiction 2023
is now open for submissions.
We are seeking science fiction stories (not fantasy or any other flavour of genre in this instance) that were first published during 2023. Authors must be British, Irish, British-based or ex-pats.
This is a reprint anthology, so we are not interested in seeing previously unpublished work on this occasion.

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