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Articles / Guest Post

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Scaring Children for a Living: Writing Horror for Middle Grade and Young Adult

Scaring Children for a Living: Writing Horror for Middle Grade and Young Adult

By Ty Drago

The release of my novel RAGS through eSpec Books in the coming weeks marks my fifth published horror novel targeted to YA or Middle Grade readers. RAGS tells its story through the eyes of 16-year-old Abby Lowell, who must navigate through one supernatural terror after another in order to save the people she loves. Her journey is harrowing, suspenseful, and often a bit gory. But that’s horror in the nutshell, isn’t it?

The challenge arises when the writer has to balance traditional horror elements with the demands of a younger audience. Miss the former and the story comes off as more of an adventure than true horror. Miss the latter and readers will shy away. 

Let me elaborate.

Traditional horror novels are paced slow. Don’t believe me? Have a gander at Stephen King (back when he was still penning the scary stuff). Then check out Joe Hill, Dean R. Koontz, and even H.P. Lovecraft. In horror, one builds tension by “filling in the reader’s blanks,” describing the texture of the air, the nuance of a thrumming heart, the bitter coppery tang of blood. Every sensory experience of the character in the thick of things drags the reader from scene to scene. Anticipation is the order of the day—and all else, including action, takes a back seat to it.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Pro / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: Immigrant Sci-Fi Short Stories

Deadline: August 30th, 2022
Payment: 8 cents/6 pence per word for original stories, 6 cents/4 pence for reprints
Theme: stories from a diverse range of writers who have direct or familial experience of immigration and migration and its complex issues.
Note: Reprints Welcome

We are seeking stories from a diverse range of writers who have direct or familial experience of immigration and migration and its complex issues. Writers with origins from all over the world, including but not limited to Latinx, Caribbean, Asian, African, Arabic, North American and East European, are invited to challenge the reader with stories that spill out into space, parallel realms or just hidden in plain sight. The stories will explore the world from the gaze of the incoming, whether forced through slavery, economic choice, necessitated through war or oppression, or hope for a better future, examining the perspectives of displacement in a future or fantastical setting. The new stories will be set alongside older narratives – real and speculative – by Frederick Douglass, Sutton Elbert Griggs, Harriet E. Wilson, Sui Sin Far and more. An intriguing view of the conflict and anxiety between the settled and the unsettled.

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Contest / Events / Flat Amount / Online

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Taking Submissions: Short Story Substack September 2022 Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: September 1st-30th, 2022
Payment: $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue
Theme: Any genre, short story

Changing the world, one story at a time

Mission = Revive the art of the short story, support artists, and produce something wonderful.

Payout = Base Pay of $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue to be sent by Paypal, Zelle, or check.

Wait, you mean if this substack gets thousands of subscribers, the winner would get thousands of dollars?

Yes! The New Yorker pays roughly $7,500 per story and I sincerely hope to go way past that.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Name of Fear Collection by Scott Harper

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 Name of Fear Collection Tales of Anton the Undying
Author: Scott Harper
Publisher: Input/Output Enterprises
Genre: Occult
Release Date: 11th March, 2022

Synopsis: Rome may have fallen, but its greatest hero still fights to keep the supernatural world in check.

Once a powerful gladiator, Anton is now a vampire enforcer tasked with eliminating creatures that expose the secret supernatural society hidden within our world. But not all monsters are willing to lay low—some passionately yearn for a return to the good old days when they fed openly and dominated humanity. These diehards will go to any lengths to achieve their goal, even if it means destroying Anton. But Anton guards a terrible ancient secret, and those foolish enough to challenge him soon discover there are things even monsters fear.

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Trembling With Fear

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Trembling With Fear 08/14/2022

Howdy, writers of the dark. You are my favourites, each and every one of you. How else can we process what’s going on in this world if not through writing our darkest fears, through exploring the possibilities and exorcising our demons on the page?

In the spirit of processing through writing, I asked Twitter the other day for recommendations. As I sit here, an Australian in London, watching everyone trying (and failing) to deal with this new threat of constant heat, I realised I want to read more climate-based fiction, both of the dystopian and of the solarpunk variety. It’s something I’ve dabbled in, and I’d love to do more exploration myself. 

And you know what? Twitter is a dumpster fire most of the time, but sometimes the tweeters really come through. My notifications were flooded for days with recommendations from all over the place; so much so that I now feel a need to pull together those recommendations into a document that I can share, just to spread the love. Maybe you have your own beloved CliFi pieces? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter, and let’s keep building this list of greatness

Not much climate stuff for you this week, but as it’s my birthday (yes, today, the 14th) I have decided to indulge myself and bring you stories that align with my own mission: folk horror, the natural world, the mythic, monsters and… ghosts. Of a sort, at least. 

This week’s trembling main course is an exploration of religion, nature and faith through the eyes of a child and a very intriguing woodland. This was actually one of the first pieces I read when I took over from Steph, and it took my breath away. Thanks, Matthew Crowder!

For the quick bites, we have three delicious offerings:

  • Regina Beach puts her own twist on an old Welsh myth
  • Paul Latham hides in the closet, waiting for his moment, and
  • Deborah Sheldon shows why you should always help when asked

Enjoy my birthday selection – and be sure to share your own stories with us, too! You’ll find details on how to submit over here. 

Over to you, Stuart….

Lauren McMenemy

Editor, Trembling With Fear

Lauren has been just an amazing new resource for Horror Tree! Not only is she keeping me on track with Trembling With Fear’s incoming stories, she has also helped us update our Trembling With Fear Submission Guidelines! Behind-the-scenes, she’s also helping us get a bit more organized in other areas, though that isn’t really something front-facing but will be hugely beneficial to the site on the whole. We’ll have a few other page changes coming up and I should be seeing the first preview of the new layout by next Monday which isn’t a full preview but will be a framework and I’m thrilled to check it out.

In other realms of working on expanding the site… Did one of our recent Author Interviews end up on Microsoft Start?! We would all LOVE if you can throw us a follow on MSN!

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 / Guest Post

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The Adage Still Applies: Never Judge a Book by its Cover

The Adage Still Applies: Never Judge a Book by its Cover

Daemon Manx

Never judge a book by its cover. It was my mother who first taught me this valuable life lesson. The adage resonates like a divine mantra or a proverb gifted to me by a wise sage. (Which mom certainly was) 

As authors, I would like to believe we are an accepting lot with open minds and humble hearts; that we don’t make assumptions about others and are not judgmental on first impressions. I would also like to believe that the world is progressing and that our community is blazing the trail. At the end of the day, we are all different in our unique way. It might be the color of our skin, our race, religion, our sexual identity, or our gender. Still, with all these wonderful flavors and varieties, we are more alike than we are not. And judging someone by any of these identifiers or their cover would be impossible. 

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Articles

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Belinda is back with the second week of August 2022’s Market Round Up!

Hello everyone! A couple neat things to talk about today, first up: we’ve updated our Trembling With Fear Submission Guidelines! These haven’t been touched in a couple of years, and we really wanted to clarify a few points on them. Secondly, one of our recent Author Interviews ended up on Microsoft Start! We would all LOVE it if you can throw us a follow on MSN!

Now, to show off some of our favorite open calls from the week:
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Anthology / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Tumbled Tales 1: Stories that Upend Genre Conventions

Deadline: December 1st, 2022
Payment: $25
Theme: Cross-Genre stories

We’re looking for genre authors who cross boundaries. Authors whose stories twist the tropes to showcase in a cross-genre anthology of stories that entertain, but read fresh and new. Send us the story that you can’t classify: a story that can’t be pigeon-holed into a single subgenre, or that pushes against your genre’s boundaries. We want to showcase authors who write uncommon fiction. For example:

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