Author: Stephanie Ellis

It is with great sadness and shock that Horror Tree heard of the passing of writer Patrick Winters following a battle with ill-health that we all thought he had won.

Patrick had been a longstanding contributor to Trembling With Fear (TWF), and when I did a quick check of TWF’s emails, I saw possibly his first submission was to Stuart back in January, 2017. His last submission was early 2024. This means he is someone who has worked with all three editors at TWF: Stuart, myself, and Lauren!

His writing was always enjoyable, often with a good twist, and he was certainly skilled at his art. He was also able to home in on an editor’s interests. I recall an Unholy Trinity written as an homage to the rock band Dio, and Patrick was fully aware of my love of metal (this can be read here). So it was with great delight that we watched him move beyond TWF, with wider publishing success, including his novelette, Seeing, which I reviewed on its publication. Even more poignant now was his very recent announcement sharing the news of his upcoming debut short story collection, Ghosts Will Haunt My Bones, with Baynam Books Press. And he continued all this whilst hitting ups and downs of serious illness and personal loss. I honestly think he had a lot more to offer the writing world – if only he had been given more time. He was a man of resolution, determination, and not an ounce of self-pity, and will always be a part of the TWF family at Horror Tree.

You can find full details of his writing on his website Publications – Patrick Winters, and this includes those published on TWF.

If you have a memory you wish to share with his family and friends, you can do so here.

Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this time.

A Stolen Livelihood – LibGen, Meta, and The Atlantic

Like many authors, the ongoing battle against AI has been at the forefront of my mind. In the UK, the focus has been very much on the direction our government appears to be taking towards allowing access to copyrighted materials for AI training. The onus it seems will be on the creator—whether musician, author, or artist—to opt out. The White Paper consultation, which closed in February of this year, can be read in full here. The message overall is that whilst the creator should be able to reserve their rights so that AI cannot be trained on their output, the rights of the AI industry are given an equivalence and must be supported. In fact if you look at the government’s position it seems to favour AI at the expense of the creative sector: despite the responses from the likes of the BBC, The Information Commissioner’s Office, authors, artists, and musicians (who marked their protest with the silent album ‘Is This What We Want’ consisting of recordings of empty studios).

But all this discussion and consultation strikes me as pretty much pointless when the industries using AI are simply going ahead and scraping data before the copyright discussion has been settled legally. This hit home when I spotted a series of posts by a huge number of authors who had found their work on the LibGen Pirated* Books database. US magazine The Atlantic had provided the link. The latter is currently carrying out an investigation into the data set used by Meta to train its AI. It provides the database link here. Are you in there?

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Is it Downhill After 50(+) for Women in Horror

Part Three

by Stephanie Ellis

Recap: I recently wrote a blog post of this title (which can be read here) because I wanted to find other older female writers in the genre and see if any of their experiences mirrored mine. I wanted to see if I was making assumptions and if my perceptions were misconceived, or if my experiences were shared by others. I asked a number of questions and several writers volunteered their answers and I’d like to give the following a huge thank you for giving their time to respond. These include: Alma Katsu, Alyson Faye, Beverley Lee, Catherine McCarthy, CC Winchester/Carla Conorino, Erin Al-Mehairi, Ruthann Jagge, and Valerie B. Williams. In addition, a handful of writers also offered one or two comments online. This continues from the previous post.

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Is it Downhill After 50(+) for Women in Horror

Part Two

by Stephanie Ellis

Recap: I recently wrote a blog post of this title (which can be read here) because I wanted to find other older female writers in the genre and see if any of their experiences mirrored mine. I wanted to see if I was making assumptions and if my perceptions were misconceived, or if my experiences were shared by others. I asked a number of questions and several writers volunteered their answers and I’d like to give the following a huge thank you for giving their time to respond. These include: Alma Katsu, Alyson Faye, Beverley Lee, Catherine McCarthy, CC Winchester/Carla Conorino, Erin Al-Mehairi, Ruthann Jagge, and Valerie B. Williams. In addition, a handful of writers also offered one or two comments online. This continues from the previous post.

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Is it Downhill After 50(+) for Women in Horror

Part One

by Stephanie Ellis

I recently wrote a blog post of this title (which can be read here) because I wanted to find other older female writers in the genre and see if any of their experiences mirrored mine. I wanted to see if I was making assumptions and if my perceptions were misconceived, or if my experiences were shared by others. I asked a number of questions and several writers volunteered their answers and I’d like to give the following a huge thank you for giving their time to respond. These include: Alma Katsu, Alyson Faye, Beverley Lee, Catherine McCarthy, CC Winchester/Carla Conorino, Erin Al-Mehairi, Ruthann Jagge, and Valerie B. Williams. In addition, a handful of writers also offered one or two comments online.

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