Taking Submissions: Speakeasies and Spiritualists
Deadline: September 2nd, 2016 Payment: 5% of the gross profit Anthology Curated by Nicole Petit “Most mediums, with their spurious and specious methods, with their ghostly trumpets and spectral hands, hold few secrets—and fewer terrors.” ~Rose Mackenberg, “Exposing the Weird Secrets of ‘Mediums’ and ‘Spirits’” ADVICE TO THE SPOOK-BUSTERS By Annabelle Lovelace Chicago’s Daily Star, September 28th, 1928 War is boom time for the frauds. Concentrated human misery is a sure-fire way for charlatans of every stripe to find easy marks among bereaved mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and wives. As we have recently survived the war to end all wars, today is a gold rush for fraud. Women rapping tables with their toes convince the bereaved that husbands and wives have found peace in the higher realms, and men with collapsible trumpets are all the evidence some need that departed children are not so departed. Every cause has a trick, all performed with the finest materials your corner store has to offer: painted balloons for spirits, corn flour for otherworldly smoke, or tambourines hoisted on black poles. Despite the petroleum jelly ectoplasm, and haunted hands piloted by a man under the table, and all the tricks of the false spiritualist--there are stranger cases. For example, I’ve been called in on three such cases in the last month: The upper crust is beset by fads. A fad for speakeasies and a fad for séances. One enterprising hostess set out to combine them all--inviting her guests down to their favorite speakeasy for a night of summoning. In one of the back booths things progressed a bit further than normal, spirits coming up and running free among the spirits. It’s quite a thing for cowed gangsters to show up at your door, begging for help. While lecturing in England, I came across the...
