The Horror Tree Recent Markets, Articles, Interviews, and Fiction!

Artwork / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Olit Fall 2022 Window

Deadline: November 1st, 2022
Payment: $10
Theme: The artfully weird. Strong preference for Orlando based writers/submissions about Orlando and surrounding areas.

While we prefer writers with a connection to Orlando or the greater Central Florida area, Olit will accept quality writing meeting our aesthetic and criteria from writers anywhere around the world. What do we mean by aesthetic and criteria? We’re glad you asked.

Olit seeks the following:

Genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Hybrid, Artwork, Photography. Send us all kinds of stuff. We love the artfully weird.

Strong preference for Orlando based writers/submissions about Orlando and surrounding areas.

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Articles / Interviews

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David Hankins: A Writers of the Future Winner Spills His Secrets

David Hankins: A Writers of the Future Winner Spills His Secrets

By Angelique Fawns

 

David Hankins, aka The Lost Bard, is an example of what determination, focus, a good mentor and a unique voice can achieve. A recent third place winner of The Writers of the Future contest, Hankins will be packing his bags for Hollywood and becoming one of the rarified talents learning the ropes from the best in the science fiction/fantasy world and then attending the annual awards ceremony. A member of the Wulf Pack, Wulf Moon’s writing group specifically geared to helping authors win this contest, Hankins talks about his journey and future plans.

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Poetry

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Taking Submissions: From The Yonder Volume IV

Deadline: October 31st, 2022
Payment: $5 (USD) per poem and $10 (USD) per short story and a contributors copy depending on location
Theme: Horror stories of regional legends and tall-tales from around the World.

Volume IV
A horror, short-story collection of regional legends and tall-tales from around the World.
We’ve loved doing these, now it’s addiction, so, we’ve decided to keep doing it.

We are seeking short story submissions (1000-7500 words) for this anthology. The stories must be based upon a regional/cultural legend or tall-tale from any location or culture in the World. “Regional” can be a specific place (Loch Ness) or a larger region (Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest).
We are seeking stories in the horror genre. Inclusion of elements of other genres is welcome, so long as, overall, the story is an horror story. The subject of the story can be based on any legend, so long as it has a horrific flavor. Ghosts, hauntings, alien abductions, monsters, demons, spirits, witches, etc, all are acceptable, as long as the subject is based on an actual legend or tall-tale.
We want an original story involving the legend. Don’t rehash the legend itself or write an essay on the tall-tale. Instead, for example, WOW us with a new fable of some poor unfortunate who finds out that legends are sometimes all too real.
For more examples; read our first three FROM THE YONDER Volumes.

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Articles

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Authors to Read to Improve Your Writing

Authors to Read to Improve Your Writing

As a writer, you should never stop improving. Your goal should be to hone your craft for the rest of your life. Time, experience, and creativity will all help with that. You’ll learn from mistakes, focus on aspects of your writing you’d like to change, and determine where you would like to grow.

 

However, improvement often requires inspiration. 

 

Reading is essential for writers. It can help you learn new and different skills. Whether you want to read pieces that teach you how to become a better writer, or you’re more interested in fiction stories that improve your communication and emotional intelligence, you should never stop soaking up the works of other notable authors. 

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Events / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: riddlebird September 2022 Window

Deadline: October 1st, 2022
Payment: $100
Theme: Literary fiction, personal essays, or Well-written genre-writing, especially mysteries, sci-fi and westerns.

Submission Guidelines:

We are happy to publish work that celebrates the joy of reading and writing across different reading preferences. The marketplace can divide us based on our reading tastes, but riddlebird can strive to make a space for more diversity (of interest, of authorship, of meaning).

 Please carefully read what we are looking for below, and follow the submission guidelines.

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Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Unhappy Endings by Alan Moskowitz

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

When Dreams Come True

Arlo was cursed. He could never catch a break unless it was a limb or a relationship.  

In spite of this, Arlo still had a life to live and a dream to realize: To become a policeman of unquestioned bravery. In other words, a hero.

A renowned TV psychic promised his dream would come true.

Upon graduating the Police Academy, Arlo crowed happily how he was going to spend his life protecting and serving.  

On his first patrol he drew his gun, stumbled and shot himself through the eye.  

At his funeral an embarrassed Police Chief declared Arlo a hero. 

All’s Fair

Alyssa inserted the single bullet, spun the cylinder, and held up the coin, “heads or tails?” 

David pleaded, “Can’t we just keep sharing the water?”

Alyssa’s voice rasped, “Then we both die of thirst.” She flipped the coin.

David called heads. The coin landed, tails. A tear slid down David’s cheek. “I can’t.”

She took the gun, pointed it at herself. “I can.”  

“I love you!” David cried. 

“You cheated,” Alyssa answered, turned the gun and shot David in the head. She wiped the telltale tears from his face, kissed him, then sat back to wait for the rescue craft.

After Life

“Any questions?” Marcus had only one. How long did he have before the Big C ended him? The answers he got were vague: Three to five months.  Maybe a year. Maybe never. Live in the moment. 

‘Vague’ was Marcus’s nightmare. “How can I live in the moment when I don’t know how many moments I have to live in?” 

A precise man, Marcus devoted all his time and effort trying to find the exact amount of time left to him.

Finally, about to expire six months, two days and twelve hours from his diagnosis, he smiled. He had his answer.  

Alan Moskowitz

Alan has worked as a successful screen and TV writer for over forty years. Recently retired he began writing short genre fiction. So far he has been published in several online venues. New to the art of short fiction writing he welcomes feedback. He may be reached at [email protected] or his Facebook page under his name.

Trembling With Fear

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Trembling With Fear 08/28/2022

Hello, children of the dark. I’m curious: what’s been your relationship with the darker side of fiction?

It’s a question that’s been on my mind a lot these last few weeks – really, since I took over this column from the wonderful Steph Ellis. I had the usual inferiority complex issues about the role (who am I to take this on, etc etc), but amongst all that lurked a different sort of inferiority. It’s the one that criticised me for my on/off relationship with dark fiction. 

For most of my adult life, I told myself I didn’t get along with horror. My 20s were spent in the era of torture porn films, and I was very averse to it. Like all good Australians, I saw Wolf Creek at the cinema and had to look away for most of the last half. That was the last scary movie I saw in the theatre for years and years; I concluded I’d lost my mettle. 

Over the last decade, though, as I’ve been getting back in touch with my own fiction writing – and let me tell you, writing copy and articles for a living had ruined that love, too! – I’ve been re-embracing my dark side. Since the pandemic, even my wardrobe has changed and I’m back to celebrating Halloween fashion all year round. I’m rediscovering myself, and it’s been a journey… Still, I thought, I’m too new to this to be taken seriously yet. 

Then I was stuck on the couch for a week with the much-talked-about injury (I really am not a good patient, you might have noticed!). I picked up my copy of Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell and read it cover to cover. I began to remember these books and ones just like them. I remembered them in my hands, on my library request list, in our home book shelves. I remembered how much I devoured horror fiction as a kid. Point Horror, of course – I was a teenage girl, after all – but also more adult fare. Stephen King short stories. Discussions of Flowers in the Attic. Friends obsessed with Anne Rice. 

One book and one week stirred so many emotions and reawakened so much of myself that I can’t quite believe it. I spent 15-20 years hiding my spookiness so that I could fit in with the real world. Now I can’t wait to escape it and be with you all, dark ones. Maybe this is just a homecoming, after all.

But enough of that. Let’s get to this week’s feast of darkness. Our trembling main course from Lancaster Cooney finds plenty hiding in the dark depths of the earth.

For the quick bites, we have three delicious offerings:

  • Dustin Mills channels the oppressive heat of recent times to bring us some body horror
  • Carson Fredrikson can’t quite make it to the end of a challenge, with dire consequences, and
  • Pauline Yates puts a very different sort of meal on the table

If these stories inspire you to get writing, you’ll find details on how to submit to us over here on our freshly-updated submission guidelines page. 

Over to you, Stuart….

Lauren McMenemy

Editor, Trembling With Fear

Since we’ve last spoken, my MBA program has started back up, so I’m currently back at it and in another class that will involve math and formulas that won’t apply to what I actually do at my job… 🙂

Our site update is on hold this week as our designer had a scheduled holiday. Hopefully, more on that next week. That isn’t to say that we’ve been standing still! For those of you who submit to Trembling With Fear, we’ve slightly updated our contract to be more inclusive and rephrased a couple of lines that were a bit vague.

A quick reminder that we’re now on MSN and would LOVE it if you can throw us a follow on MSN! We should have more content coming soon!

For those looking to support the site, we’ve recently launched a Ko-Fi and always have our Patreon going.

As always, I hope you had a great weekend.

Stuart Conover

Editor, Horror Tree

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Articles / Interviews

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Ty Drago: An Author’s Journey and ALLEGORY

Ty Drago: An Author’s Journey and ALLEGORY

By Angelique Fawns

 

Ty Drago has been writing fantastic fiction and creating a home for speculative short stories for almost 25 years. With the recent release of his latest YA novel RAGS, and a career shift to full-time writing, Drago opens up about the next chapter of his life.

 

You can check out his new novel here:

http://www.tydrago.com/index.html/

 

In my own personal writing journey, ALLEGORY ezine has been a beacon of hope and encouragement. I’ve been submitting to this biannual speculative fiction market since 2018.  ALLEGORY sent me several personalized rejections which were thoughtful and encouraging. Four years later, I finally sold them my slipstream fantasy “The Guanche, the Iguana, and the Kidnapping of Anita Brown.” 

https://www.allegoryezine.com/stories/fiction/theguarche

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