Hello, children of the dark. The end of the year is fast closing in, and I hope it finds you in a fine state. For those who celebrate Christmas, may your tree be bright and your homes merry next weekend. 

Next week – next Sunday, in fact, our regular Trembling With Fear day – is Christmas Day, so our humble publication will defer to the much bigger beast of the Christmas Special for the final issue of the year. Yes, final issue of the year. I know I keep saying it, but WTF 2022! Where did you go?

It’s that time of year when many reflect on where they’ve been and where they’re going, and for my part I am leaving 2022 in somewhat of a better state than I entered it. This here publication is a big reason behind that; I feel more and more like I’ve found my tribe, my community, you children of the dark. I love reading what your imaginations bring forth, and I find it really inspiring, so thank YOU. 

As for what 2023 holds for me, I have one very concrete plan: I’ll be in Derby, England, in mid-February for the UK Ghost Story Festival. I’ll run a couple of workshops – one on writing spooky drabbles, and one on giving and receiving feedback on writing – and I might even get to slip into the interviewer’s chair for some of the main sessions. It’s promising to be a HUGE event – more than 50 individual things over four days, encompassing workshops, interviews with writers (Michelle Paver! Laura Purcell! Emma Stonex! CJ Cooke! Dan Schreiber! Stephen Volk!), and theatre performances – so if you’re anywhere near the area, I’d love to see you. And if you’re on the other side of the pond, there are a  couple of virtual events happening to kick it all off, including a discussion of Asian ghosts to launch the Unquiet Spirits essay collection. Check out the official website for speaker details, and get your tickets over here.

For now, let’s turn to this week’s menu. Our Trembling main course has James Kowalczyk encounter *something strange* in the basement. This is followed by three delicious quick bites, all continuing that theme of household dread:

• RJ Meldrum ponders the loss of a pet
• Finbar Hussey is kept awake by a knocking, and
• Mike Rader has a very different take on the term “nuclear family”

If these stories inspire you to get writing, you’ll find details on how to submit to us over here. Remember, we’re still CLOSED to short story submissions – full transparency, we’re scheduled well into the new year so it will be a while yet – but are always seeking drabbles of exactly 100 words. 

Over to you, Stuart.

For those who celebrate the holiday season. Happy holidays! For those who don’t. I hope you have a wonderful season and some time off of work or school. I’m currently in between MBA classes and, at the time of writing this, chewing on my fingernails to find out what my most recent grade is. I’m also getting a surprising amount of writing in!

‘It sounds like we’ve got a few more new writers joining Horror Tree soon as well as our new specials coordinator. We’ll be doing the full slate of introductions quite soon!

As mentioned last week, we’re exploring new hosting. This will occur in January of 2023, we’re also hoping to launch the new layout (very similar to the current one with more features) also in January of 2023. Not much new to report on. More is coming!

Brief Updates:

• If you’ve got any features or areas that you’d like to see Horror Tree add, please reach out!
• We’re currently making a major push for more author interviewers! If you love to talk to authors, please reach out!

For those looking to support the site, we’ve recently launched a Ko-Fi and always have our Patreon going.

As always, I hope you had a great weekend.

Hello, children of the dark. I hope you are all doing well, and if not well, then I send strength and hope you are managing. As for me, I have returned from the land of pizza and pasta, from the place where the history comes from, and I am energised. Renewed. 

The other half and I enjoyed a whole week in Rome and I tell you what – my legs are paying for all that walking! Oof. Someone who has barely left the house since the UK lockdowns began in March 2020 should probably have eased up to doing 20,000 steps a day up and down hills. I’m lucky to walk 3,000 steps per day lately! Yikes. 

And while it was wonderful to see – and I am privileged to have been able to experience – all those ancient things and storied places, I have to admit my favourite sites were the more macabre ones. We stumbled across the skull of St Valentine in a church. We wandered around the surprising ruins of Pompeii. And, the thing that absolutely mesmerised me, we visited the crypt of the Capuchin friars. If you’ve never heard of this place, it is truly remarkable: an ossuary of sorts, the crypt is decorated with the bones of more than 4,000 friars. Some of these are full skeletons dressed and standing in pose, but most of them are used as artwork to decorate the crypt. It was truly, truly something else. Head to Atlas Obscura to see images of this place in its full glory.

Not all of us have the opportunity to experience these places, but it is important for our creativity to get out and experience new things if and when we can. I’d love to hear about the strangest place you’ve felt inspiration – let me know in the comments below?

For now, let’s turn to this week’s menu. Our Trembling main course sees Ariadne Zhou head to a forest camp that’s not quite right. This is followed by three delicious quick bites:

• Chelsey Pippin Mizzi contemplates original sin
• Abra Hanen contemplates the dark, and
• Corinne Pollard contemplates revenge

If these stories inspire you to get writing, you’ll find details on how to submit to us over here. Remember, we’re currently CLOSED to short story submissions, but are always seeking drabbles – that’s a complete speculative story in exactly 100 words. And our Christmas special is still – just – open for submissions, too.

Now it’s over to you, Stuart.

We should have an announcement coming up in the next week or two as to who will be joining our team to take over Amanda Headlee’s role as our Specials Coordinator! We also have Belinda who does our weekly roundups on Horror Tree’s YouTube, dipping her toe into our book review pool, and we’re in talks with 5ish potential new writers for the site to help cover articles, book reviews, and author interviews! Hopefully, that means we’ll see an even great influx of those in the near future. 

In the new year, we’ve got a pile of changes being added. Not only are we looking into that new website theme, but we’ll also be exploring faster hosting and potentially other fun-filled technology to make things faster and easier to access everything on the site on all forms of browsers. 

Brief Updates:

• If you’ve got any features or areas that you’d like to see Horror Tree add, please reach out! 
• We’re currently making a major push for more author interviewers! If you love to talk to authors, please reach out!

For those looking to support the site, we’ve recently launched a Ko-Fi and always have our Patreon going.

As always, I hope you had a great weekend.

Hello, children of the dark. As you read this week’s issue, our American readers will likely still be recovering from Thanksgiving. I hope you all had a wonderful week, whatever you choose to mark. Thank you for allowing our humble zine into your lives every week, and thank you to Stuart for taking a chance on this unknown 40-something kid this summer when Steph Ellis stepped down. It’s a lot more time-intensive than I could ever have guessed, but I do enjoy talking to our writers and working with them to polish their stories. So thanks also to you, brave creators, who take the time to write and submit work to us and the open calls we list on Horror Tree. I firmly believe creatives make the world go round, and without us… well, let’s just not go there.

Anyways. I’m an Australian in England and all this open gratitude is making me feel icky, so let’s move on. I’ll keep it short and sweet for this, our first issue of DECEMBER (how did that happen?!), but shall take the time to remind you our Christmas themed special edition is still open for submissions to both short stories and drabbles. Check out the submission guidelines here (it’s about half way down the page), then send over your most festively dark works for Amanda’s final edition as specials coordinator. Yes, next year you’ll have a totally new crew for TWF (well, apart from Stuart who can never leave or the whole site will fall apart). More on that soon, I’m sure.

In this week’s Trembling main course, Jake Jerome has a divorced father take his uninterested teen to the insect house. This is followed by three delicious quick bites:

• Christina Nordlander should’ve reconsidered that family walk
• Alan Moskowitz is on the hunt for revenge, and
• Ron Capshaw gets in trouble in space

If these stories inspire you to get writing, you’ll find details on how to submit to us over here. Remember, we’re currently CLOSED to short story submissions, but are always seeking drabbles – that’s a complete speculative story in exactly 100 words. I used to think WTF about that, but I’ve run some workshops on drabbles since taking over at TWF and I’ve quickly grown to appreciate the form.

Now it’s over to you, Stuart.

First off, huge shout out to Lauren. She is so on top of things she had this post set 2 weeks in advance in preparation for her vacation. I feel like I’m struggling just to get my day to day duties done as of late 😉

Next up, more congratulations are in order! Amazing work to all of my author friends and acquaintances who have made Ellen Datlow’s Recommendations for Best Horror #14-long list! A huge shout out for our very own -! Also, authors we’ve featured in the past include Lee Murray for a variety of her work including some found in ‘Tortured Willows‘, Angela Yuriko Smith, S.P. Miskowski, Jeff Strand, and Bruce McAllister!

Brief Updates:

• We’re still interviewing the potential replacement for our Specials Editor Amanda Headlee, with the holidays, communication from my side has been slow.
• We’re currently making a major push for more author interviewers! If you love to talk to authors, please reach out!

For those looking to support the site, we’ve recently launched a Ko-Fi and always have our Patreon going.

As always, I hope you had a great weekend.

Hello, children of the dark. I hope those of you who mark Thanksgiving (in whatever form) had a fruitful day; I certainly have many American friends who go all-in!

As you read this, I will actually be out of the country for the first time since early June 2019. The husband and I are finally going on a post-covid trip abroad, settling in Rome for a week. And I am so excited. We both desperately need this break, so that’s what I’m thankful for!

Despite growing up surrounded by Italians and attending an all-girls Dominican convent school, I have yet to spend much time in Italy. It was the one place people back home thought I’d head for when I moved to Europe but, beyond the odd day trip and a week in Sicily, I’ve seen very little of the country. On the other hand, my husband has seen pretty much all of it. Rome is his favourite city, and there is much he wants to show me. For me, there was one stipulation for the trip: I had to do a day trip to Pompeii. I HAD to. I was obsessed with the story of that ill-fated city throughout my young years – Pompeii and the Bermuda Triangle, for some reason (of course I would write the dark stuff, huh?) – and I’m so glad we have the time to do it. 

Personally, I’m also looking forward to an injection of fresh air, fresh thinking, fresh creativity. The last few years have been really stagnant for me creatively, which is no surprise given all that’s been going on – burnout and lockdown included – so I’m hoping to soak up inspiration in the Eternal City. Come back renewed, reinforced. Ready. 

What are your Rome tips? Tweet me @novicenovelist or – if you are among the hordes leaving the newly-crowned Muskland – I’m also now on Mastodon at [email protected].

To this week’s Trembling main course, and Matthew Tyrer brings us the creepiest of little boys. This is followed by three delicious quick bites:

• Cassandra Daucus gets in the motherly spirit
• Josh Clark takes us below the surface, and 
• Akshay Patwardhan is taken over by the spirit of running.

If these stories inspire you to get writing, you’ll find details on how to submit to us over here. Remember, we’re currently CLOSED to short story submissions, but are always seeking drabbles – that’s a complete story in exactly 100 words, and a real test of your craft. We’re looking for anything darkly speculative in genres including horror, scifi, fantasy, mythology, folklore. What makes you tremble in the dark? Let us know.

But now, it’s over to you, Stuart.

For everyone living in the United States – I hope you had a filling Thanksgiving and didn’t spend too much on Black Friday which is the messiest of made up holidays (and not really the best time to find deals anymore.)

Quick round up:
– We’re currently making a major push for more author interviewers! If you love to talk to authors, please reach out!
– Still exploring who will be replacing Amanda Headlee for our specials, we have a few potentials that all seem like they would be a good fit!
– Currently exploring alternative social media options in case Twitter bites the dust. Hive, Mastadon, post are all contendors. That being said, You can also follow us at:

YouTube: http://youtube.com/horrortree

Instagram: http://instagram.com/horror_tree

Facebook: http://facebook.com/horrortree

Tumblr: http://tumblr.com/thehorrortree

For those looking to support the site, we’ve recently launched a Ko-Fi and always have our Patreon going.

As always, I hope you had a great weekend.