My Book is Coming Out This Month. Here are Ten Things I Learned on the Way to Getting Published.

For all you writers out there currently embarking (or getting ready to embark) on this potentially soul-battering journey, I hope this helps you get your book on track. At the very least, just know you’re not alone in this. 

By Luisa Colón

My horror novel, Bad Moon Rising, is coming out this month. How many years have I waited to be able to say those words? I can tell you exactly, because I’ve been counting. It’s been almost eight years since I started writing my book. The path to publication, while ultimately resulting in the most rewarding creative project I’ve ever done, has been, quite frankly, torturous. Here are some things I learned along the way that might be helpful. 

(more…)

The Horror of it All

by J L Hill

There are two genres of writing that lends itself to every other, romance and horror. Every story contains a love story. But even more, every story has suspense and fear, the basis of horror.

You can dissect any story, be it sci-fi, fantasy, or romance and you will find suspense that moves the plot along. And a fear of not knowing what will happen next that keeps you reading. I am not a horror writer. I started out as a science fiction and crime author, but my two biggest influencers and favorite authors are Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. Both men include the five elements of horror in their stories, suspense; fear; violence; gore; and the supernatural.

(more…)

Set Your Sights On Adventure

By Michael Clark

Creativity! How does it happen? For me, it always starts with a spark of inspiration: a seed, a kernel of something that stirs in my gut. But how does that seed grow into a full-length novel? The quick answer is “slowly,” but that’s no help. In order to explain better, I’ll use my adventure-horror novel Hell on High to help spell it all out.

(more…)

Five Folk Horror Favourites To Get You Started…

By: Kelly White

There is something about folk horror that runs deep. Rooted in landscape, religion and ritual, it speaks to our primal fears. But if you’re new to the genre, welcome! Here are just a handful of recommendations to get you started…

(more…)

10 Tips on How Not to Lose Your Mind While Self-Editing Your Book

Editing your own work can be an overwhelming and mind-boggling task. The words may seem to swirl on the page, and the initial spark that ignited your passion for writing can fade away amidst the frustration. 

However, it needn’t be like that.

With a wealth of tips and tools at your disposal, you can navigate the journey of self-editing while preserving your sanity and emerge with a finished book to be proud of. 

Let’s dive into 10 invaluable tips that will guide you through this challenging endeavor and help you stay on track when creating a polished masterpiece.

(more…)

In 2006, at the urging of my wife, I began writing young adult fiction. Not horror per se, but books that featured teenage werewolves where the conflict was more about teenage problems than supernatural horror. The first book in the series, WOLF PACK was a big success, winning both the Aurora and Silver Birch Awards. The Silver Birch was a big one because there had to be 5,000 copies in print for the book to be on the award ballot, and there were four printings and 10,000 copies in print by the time the award was presented. That made the book the bestselling title for Tundra Books that year and encouraged the publisher to allow me to write three other books in the series,  LONE WOLF, CRY WOLF, and WOLF MAN.

But, without the Silver Birch Award, sales of the follow-up books weren’t nearly as good as the first, averaging sales of around a thousand copies each.

It was a good run while it lasted, but by 2008 the last book in the series had been published, and a few years later, they were all out of print.
(more…)

How to Write Submission Guidelines for Your Anthology

by Deborah Sheldon

Let’s get my bona fides out of the way first. I’ve curated three horror anthologies. Midnight Echo 14 (AHWA 2019) won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Edited Work’ Award, and one of its stories was nominated for the Australian Shadows ‘Best Long Fiction’ Award. The anthology I conceived and edited, Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies (IFWG 2021), was critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning, and multi-award-nominated. My latest anthology – that I also conceived and edited – is Killer Creatures Down Under: Horror Stories with Bite (IFWG, 2023), released this month.

Here are my suggestions on how to write a submission callout that will (a) get you the kind of stories you want in order to (b) create a knockout anthology. These tips apply whether your anthology is open call – meaning unsolicited submissions – or by invitation only.

(more…)

Listen here. I’ve been asked to write a little about my writing process, and, this being the internet and your attention being tugged at by the siren call of your busy lives, I reckon I don’t have much more than 750 words to do my duty. So here’s what I’ll do; I’ll try to define the sort of speculative fiction audience I’m hunting for, then I’ll tell you what I think they’re thirsty for, and then I’ll try to wrap it up with my tricks for slating that thirst. How does that sound? Good. Let’s dive in.

Speculative fiction is just a name, a relatively recent buzzword, for stories that seem to lean more heavily on the writer’s imagination in the writing— and the readers in the reading. A story about a Wall Street hedge fund manager absconding with the hard-earned retirement funds of poor old ladies, for example? Well, that takes no imagination at all. Things like that happen every day of the week. Writers who write about those stories are usually called journalists if the names haven’t been changed or literary fiction authors if they have.

There are a few branches on the Speculative Fiction family tree. They are more alike than you and your Thanksgiving dinner guests. They all start with the same unspoken question in the storyteller’s mind: What if? How elaborate the rest of that question defines whether a story is science fiction or fantasy. But to me, the ground truth of speculative fiction is in that core question. What if women were forced by the state to bear children against their will? What if cities became alive at some point in their development? What if you could send IP traffic back in time?

(more…)