The Human Adventure is Just Beginning!

DreamForge Year 5 Kickstarter

By Angelique Fawns

DreamForge is my favorite positive Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. Not only do I belong to the DreamCasters writing group, but I am a member of their Patron and love the rewards in their Kickstarters! What better way to start the summer than with a new campaign? We have till Wednesday June 21st to help bring another year of fantastic stories and art into world. The goals this year are to:

 

• Add an extra anthology-sized Mega Issue with the theme “The Grand Uplift.”
• $500 Bonus for Best Story of the Year, voted by Readers.
• Setting a Stretch Goal of raising their pay rate to $0.08/word.
• Present more positive worlds to optimistic readers and with webinars and the DreamCaster writing group, help more hopeful writers find their voice and improve their fiction.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scotnoel/dreamforge-magazine-year-5/

 

Scot Noel, editor and publisher of DreamForge gave me some insights on the magazine and campaign. 

(more…)

Juliana Rew & The Rhapsody of the Spheres.

By Angelique Fawns

Since opening its doors more than a decade ago, Third Flatiron has been producing award-winning anthologies and providing a unique voice in the speculative world. Their last collection, After the Gold Rush had numerous top ten finishers in this year’s Critters Awards, and many stories on the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List. (Including my story, “The Last of the Gen Xers.”)

Juliana Rew, a writer herself, has recently released a new short story collection Twelve All in Dread: The Twelfth Witch and Other Stories. An imaginative group of medieval-inspired tales, you can sample it on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQFVDQT9

I’m very excited to hear Third Flatiron is producing another anthology called The Rhapsody of the Spheres, which will be open to subs the latter part of May. Doesn’t the title get your imagination working in overdrive? What does it even mean? 

Hint: Read the interview below to find out more.

(more…)

Lloyd Penney & Amazing Stories Magazine

By Angelique Fawns

 

Amazing Stories had its 97th birthday in April. This juggernaut of magazines credits itself as the very first science fiction magazine started in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback. Stephen King talks about receiving rejections from this publication at the beginning of his career. Lloyd Penney has taken over at the helm of Amazing Stories and would like to encourage authors to send him the hardest science fiction stories they can create. I sat down with this fellow Canadian editor to learn more. 

(more…)

I was hard pressed not to talk all things cat rescue when sitting down to have a “Spooky Six” chat with Haunt Jaunts founder Courtney Mroch, but I brewed up a pot of catnip tea for us . . . and our respective cats, of course!

Since 2009 Courtney Mroch has put her passion as a globe-trotting restless spirit to use as the host and guide at Haunt Jaunts. She may come by her obsession with true crime, horror, and the paranormal honestly, too. It could be in her bloodline. Tracing her family roots has so far yielded the exciting revelation that she’s related to occult royalty. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. That also might explain her infatuation with skeletons.

Besides creating blog posts, podcast, and video content for Haunt Jaunts, Courtney also indulges her love for horror as a contributor at 1428 Elm.

In addition to having been a senior blogger at Families.com and a contributor at Netflix Life, her work has also appeared in Horror Curated, TAPS Paramagazine, Haunted Magazine, and the Feminine Macabre anthology vol. 1, as well as in six Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Her first romantic suspense novel, Beneath the Morvan Moon, was published in 2004. Her second, The Ghost of Laurie Floyd, was published in 2015. Any year now she plans to release her first suspense thriller…as soon as she can decide on the title.

When she’s not creating content or traveling, it’s a safe bet you’ll find her in one of four places: a pickleball court, a park path somewhere, on Percy Priest Lake attending to her first mate duties aboard the Restless Spirit (the sailboat that was her husband’s pandemic purchase), or on the couch watching either the latest true crime doc or horror movie or show.

She’s lived in Nashville, Tennessee with her high school sweetheart-turned-husband Wayne since 2005. But they grew up in Denver, Colorado, and lived in Arizona and Florida before Life landed them in Tennessee. They’re also fierce animal lovers but are currently down to a one-cat household. Mr. G, a tuxedo (hence the formal title of his name) found their way to them as a feral stray. He’s since been domesticated but doesn’t like Wayne, who swears Mr. G is plotting his demise. He often warns people if anything happens to him, don’t blame his wife…the cat did it!

(more…)

I’ve made sure to have plenty of lemon slices to accompany J.P. Alters’s “cup of tea”!

J.P. Alters is a writer of paranormal fiction, and the debut author of paranormal thriller: A Psychic Subterfuge. A bi-racial woman, J.P. grew up in London, England, in the eighties. Attitudes towards the black community and mixed-race relationships were very different at that time, causing many challenging experiences for J.P. and her family. However, as a second-generation migrant, in a predominantly Jamaican household, J.P. embraced the Bob Marley motto of “one love.” This is a common expression of unity and inclusion, and a message that she hopes to spread within her writing. In 2023, J.P. published her debut novel: A Psychic Subterfuge. The book, is a paranormal thriller, appealing to fans of the recent film: Get Out, or readers of M. Scott Swanson, or John Connolly. A Psychic Subterfuge, features a bi-racial protagonist: Mary Obosa Jameson, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia. Mary, raised in foster care, is hostile and combative. Besieged by the voices, Mary’s life is out of control, until she is taken to a private psychiatric hospital called: The Rainbow Unit. Everything seems perfect, and Mary gradually relaxes, but is everything as it seems?

The first in the series, this book incorporates J.P.’s joy in creating paranormal fiction that includes multi-cultural elements, and protagonists from minority groups. Many of the characters in this story are from the BAME community, and this is no accident. J.P. created this dynamic, so that it reflected the latest UK government statistics regarding the BAME community, and the likelihood of diagnosis of schizophrenia. In addition, J.P. also aimed to present the characters in the story not only as sufferers of mental health conditions, but as individuals who exist apart from their diagnosis.

If you are suffering with mental illness, there is support out there for you. Please don’t suffer in silence. There are GP’s, support groups, befrienders, and lots of mental health or social care professionals who genuinely care, and who could refer you for some treatment, or support.

At the moment, A Psychic Subterfuge is free to read on Kindle Unlimited, or available to buy on Kindle or paperback from Amazon in the UK, US, Canada, or Australia.

(more…)

Spec Fic for Newbies: Why Sub-Genres Matter

By Lauren McMenemy

 

Genre is just a marketing construct, right? It’s not helpful, just a way to direct booksellers on which shelf to put the novel on? Well, no – especially not if you’re in the world of speculative fiction. What would you say to a splatterpunk writer whose book was put next to the latest YA paranormal romance? Sparkley vampires aside, speculative fiction is so far-reaching that its many varied subgenres can be more help than hindrance to all involved in this world.

 

Which is why Tiffani Angus and Val Nolan have brought us Spec Fic for Newbies: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, which is now out on Luna Press Publishing. Fear not the academic-sounding title and the fact it was written by current and former academics; this is a fun trek through the history, the tropes, the necessities and the WTFs of 30 spec fic subgenres. It’s designed as a welcoming embrace for both new and seasoned spec fic writers looking to learn a little more about what’s out there in this wide world (and beyond).

 

To celebrate the book’s release, I had an equally fun chat with the authors over Zoom, which you can watch over on Horror Tree’s YouTube channel. Or, read the transcript below. (Thanks to otter.ai for transcribing so I didn’t have to; this has been edited for clarity.)

(more…)

Join me for bagels and iced coffee as I interview Robert P. Ottone for this edition of the Spooky Six Q&A!

Robert P. Ottone is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Triangle. His other works include Her Infernal Name & Other Nightmares (an honorable mention in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 13) as well as the suburban folk horror novel, The Vile Thing We Created.

His short stories have appeared in various anthologies as well as online. He’s also the publisher and owner of Spooky House Press, which is committed to publishing stories and novels by authors Robert is a huge fan of, published or unpublished.

After realizing that writing horror can be a therapeutic exercise, Robert began writing in his spare time. Finding inspiration in the writings of Paul Tremblay, Lee Murray, Alan Moore, Linda Addison, John Langan, Robert Aickman and many others, Robert celebrates the past as well as the future of the genre.

When not writing, Robert can be found smoking cigars, drinking cocktails and enjoying quality wine. His all-time favorite bottle is the 2009 Hundred Acre. His favorite cigar is the Gloria Cubana Serie R. In terms of cocktails, nothing tops an Aperol Spritz.

Robert has been fortunate enough to read at many venues, as well as online. He has been interviewed by Steve Talks Books, Brad Proctor, Mike Davis and many other talented individuals in the genre.

His goal is to buy a home nestled in the woods of upstate New York where he can roam the grounds nude, glass of wine in hand, cigar dangling from his lips, puffing away in the gathering gloom of a fall evening, listening intently for the movement of leaves in the thick of the verdant ocean of forest around him.

He can be found online at SpookyHousePress.com or on Twitter/IG: @RobertOttone.

He delights in the creepy and views bagels solely as a cream cheese delivery device.

(more…)