Trembling With Fear 10-1-23
Hello, children of the dark. It’s our time of year: officially spooky season. What plans do you have this October? Me, I’m kicking off a month-long celebration of the horror genre for the British Fantasy Society’s website (I know! Who knew they covered all of speculative fiction? That’s something I’ll be embracing in my new role as the Society’s PR, Marketing & Online Content Officer). I’m also–and I think told you this before—running another online event at the end of the month, and this time we’re dedicating it to fangs. Writing the Occult: Vampires happens on 28 October in the UK afternoon/East Coast morning, and I’d love to see you there. Unfortunately the early bird price expired yesterday, so you’ll be up for the full amount—but that’s just £45+bf, and you get six sessions and eight hours of vampiric delights for your money. Full details and lineup over here.
Talk of Spooktober and vampires brings us to this week’s edition. We’re excited to present a short story from Chris McAuley, the founder of the StokerVerse. Back in July last year, when our own Steph Ellis stepped down from these pages, I was due to be joined by Chris in the editor’s chair. But Chris’s life got crazy, and he had to step aside quickly so he could dedicate his time to all the amazing writing opportunities he was being presented with. It’s nice to be able to have him in these pages again, even if only for the weekend.
So in this week’s TWF menu our short story delivers a peek at vampires along the Western Front. This is then followed by three delicious quick bites:
- Cassandra Daucus makes a discovery on Arthur’s Seat,
- Virginia Hayes deals with a dognapping, and
- Sarah Elliott stares into the eyes of the muse.
Finally, a quick note on the short story submissions. We have been honoured and excited to see the submissions come in thick and fast since we reopened last month, but we are getting multiple subs from individual authors. Given the volume of submissions we’re receiving, we will only be able to accept one story per author for now. Make sure you’re giving us your very best to maximise chances of acceptance!
Now it’s over to you, Stuart—and I think you might have news?
HAPPY OCTOBER! May the spooky shenanigans begin my friends.
As I opened this intro up to write (Thursday afternoon) on my lunch break, the final approved artwork for ‘Trembling With Fear: Year 6’ has hit my inbox. I am slammed with meetings and MBA work today, however, I’m hoping to have the pre-orders up and running by the time you read this. (If so, I truly hope I’ll also have time to edit this and stick the pre-order links in. There will also be a post with the details.)
Shadowed Realms update: EVERYTHING has been read. I’m hoping we can start sending out initial rejections this weekend while we finalize which of those in the ‘yes’ pile are going to be making the cut. There has been a LOT of great stories here and so many of the rejections were hard to say no to. Finalizing this is going to be painful on saying no to so much good work. You have all really shined on your stories that were published in 2022.
ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: I’ve had a few responses to this and am eager to more! Here is what I typed last week: 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]!
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