Category: Articles

Articles

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Writing at Frightmare in the Falls

Frightmare is an annual horror convention that takes place in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. It began in early 2017 as an offshoot of Niagara Comic-Con when co-owners James Ponce and Chris Dabrowski decided to create a horror-only event for Niagara Falls. Each year horror fans, icons, and celebrities gather to celebrate the scary side of fiction. This 3-day event takes place at the Niagara Falls Convention Centre each year featuring more than 50,000 square feet of “all things horror” including panels, photo ops, displays, celebrities, cosplay, memorabilia and more. 

What did I think of it?

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: An Aliens Search-and-Find Book: Find the Xenomorph by Kevin Crossley

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: An Aliens Search-and-Find Book: Find the Xenomorph
Illustrator: Kevin Crossley
Genre: Horror; Science Fiction; Fantasy; Fantasy & Sci Fiction Coloring Books for Grownups
Publisher: Titan Books
Release Date: November 14, 2023

Synopsis: Official Aliens search-and-find puzzle book, based on the movie, featuring a host of highly detailed full-colour illustrations by artist Kevin Crossley set in familiar film locations.

‘Find The Xenomorph’ is a gorgeous puzzle book that will entertain and terrify Alien fans of all ages. Fourteen original illustrations present our well-known characters in new and horrifying situations – from colonists hiding in egg chambers to marines hunting for facehuggers, this beautiful search-and-find book gives fans a new way to interact with the classic movies.

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Articles

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Can ChatGPT Be Your Developmental Editor?

Editor’s note: Hi all! Your friendly neighborhood editor, Stuart, here. This doesn’t reflect the views of Horror Tree, just one of our staff members. I’m going to take full responsibility for this piece going live. Anyone following our newsletter or TWF updates knows that I’m slammed with my MBA classes at the moment. While I have editorial coverage on our fiction section, I, unfortunately, do not have editorial coverage on our articles, so I have been allowing some of our long-term writers to have their pieces go up without the usual due diligence that they deserve.

This is 110% on me.

It is a mistake I made as I should have done an approval on all topics and not just time slots, and I should have figured out some extra steps in our editing prior to this.

I’ll be writing something a bit longer to take full responsibility and post this to the site within the next week. I cannot do this today as the deadline for a huge paper I’m working on right now is literally tomorrow. I understand anyone who will want to stop reading the site over this and agree with your decision.

This post will be removed soon.  

I apologize that I let this go through; if it had been a clickbaity headline that ended with the answer being no, I would have let it be a valid post. Horror Tree’s views on AI do not agree with this one, and I apologize.

Can ChatGPT Be Your Developmental Editor?

Edited: The short answer is No.

Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Wrapped in Plastic and Other Sweet Nothings by Robert P. Ottone

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: Wrapped in Plastic and Other Sweet Nothings
Author: Robert P. Ottone
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Horror
Publisher: JournalStone
Release date: 27th October, 2023

Synopsis: Seventeen stories claw at you from that dark space in the corner of your eye in this new collection by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Robert P. Ottone.

In “Only That You Are Still Sane,” uncover the accidental and bizarre discovery of time travel. Meet an ordinary couple with sexual desires that are anything but ordinary in “Nibble.” Follow the harrowing story of Sleepy Hollow’s town constable in “A Mourning in Sleepy Hollow.” Tread carefully along the precipice of darkness in “A Most Curious Tome.” And in the title story, meet a lonely civil service worker who comes face to face with the darkness eating away at him.

Featuring six previously unpublished stories, Wrapped in Plastic & Other Sweet Nothings will force you to stare into the darkness within. Pray you don’t blink first.

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Interviews

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Spooky House Press Author Series: A SCREB with TJ Price

In each installment of this author series, we begin with a mini-Q&A with Spooky House Press publisher, Robert P. Ottone.

 

Jacque Day: The Disappearance of Tom Nero is a novelette of eighty pages with a distinctively surprising design. TJ Price himself intimates it could be a challenge to market. Why was it important for you to embrace this book and give it a home?

 

Robert P. Ottone: I like a challenge, but more specifically, I like to be challenged. Marketing isn’t a problem if the author pushes themselves, so I wasn’t worried there. The work speaks for itself; it’s a fantastic, intelligently designed piece of work brought to life not only by TJ’s masterful writing, but by Alexis Macaluso’s fantastic interior design.

 

JD: We’re not to be fooled by the length of Tom Nero—it is an intense book, and its impact far outlives the time it takes to read. How did you react to the manuscript when you first read it, both as a publisher and a reader?

 

RPO: I smiled, nodded, and knew I wanted it. I was very lucky in that TJ was kind enough to trust us with the book, so I was just filled with excitement about it. Still am. We didn’t execute everything I wanted to, vision-board wise, solely because my time has been focused in so many different places and on so many projects, personal and for Spooky House. But in the end, I think we have a fabulous book that I hope TJ is proud of.

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Interviews

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Check out the second part of our interview with Stacey Thomas!

Stacey Thomas is a contributor to Bad Form Review. She is an alumna of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course where she was awarded the Clare Mackintosh Scholarship for Black Writers. In 2021, she was announced as one of the three winners of HarperCollins’s inaugural Killing It Competition for Undiscovered Writers.

The Revels is her debut novel.

Below, you can watch the second part of our interview with Stacey:
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Articles

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Paying Markets For Speculative Fiction Authors | Top Open Calls November 20th-24th, 2023

Welcome, crafters of cosmic tales and futuristic sagas! 🚀📚 As we chart our course through the week of November 20th to the 24th, let us embrace the inventive spirit and sharp wit emblematic of John Scalzi’s work. In this segment of our interstellar journey, your narratives have the power to traverse not just galaxies, but the intricate complexities of human (and perhaps non-human) interaction, all with a keen eye for humor and insight.

This week’s catalog of opportunities offers a galaxy of potential, each link a wormhole leading to new realms of possibility. Dive in and let your creativity be as boundless as the universe itself.
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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Haunting of Velkwood by Gwendolyn Kiste

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: The Haunting of Velkwood
Author: Gwendolyn Kiste
Genre: Gothic Fiction; Horror Literature and Fiction
Publisher: S&S/Saga Press
Release Date: 5th March, 2024

Synopsis: From Bram Stoker Award–winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a chilling novel about three childhood friends who miraculously survive the night everyone in their suburban hometown turned into ghosts.
The Velkwood Vicinity was the topic of occult theorists, tabloid one-hour documentaries, and even some pseudo-scientific investigations as the block of homes disappeared behind a near-impenetrable veil that only three survivors could enter—and only one has in the past twenty years, until now.
Talitha Velkwood has avoided anything to do with the tragedy that took her mother and eight-year-old sister, drifting from one job to another, never settling anywhere or with anyone, feeling as trapped by her past as if she was still there in the small town she so desperately wanted to escape from. When a new researcher tracks her down and offers to pay her to come back to enter the vicinity, Talitha claims she’s just doing it for the money. Of all the crackpot theories over the years, no one has discovered what happened the night Talitha, her estranged, former best friend Brett, and Grace, escaped their homes twenty years ago. Will she finally get the answers she’s been looking for all these years, or is this just another dead end?
Award-winning author Gwendolyn Kiste has created a suburban ghost story about a small town that trapped three young women who must confront the past if they’re going to have a future. 

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