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

Articles / Guest Post

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What THIS Editor Wants…and Doesn’t Want

What THIS Editor Wants…and Doesn’t Want
By Ty Drago

 

Twenty-Four years ago, I founded the ezine that is, today, known as ALLEGORY (www.allegoryezine.com). Since that fateful day in June 1998, I have published almost 70 issues featuring at total of over 800 short stories and articles by new and established writers worldwide. In the process of doing so, my staff (which began as just me but now includes five senior editors and seven associate editors) has reviewed roughly 50,000 unsolicited submissions—or, to use the colloquial industry term: “slush.” If you don’t feel like doing the math, that averages out to about 2,100 slush pieces per year, about 175 per month, or somewhere around 5.8 a day.

That’s quite a lot, especially considering that we all are, and always have been, volunteers.

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Articles

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Apex Magazine has launched their 2023 Kickstarter

Apex Magazine, the strange, surreal, shocking, beautiful publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror has launched their 2023 Kickstarter campaign starting July 27, 2022 with a goal aimed at $12,000. Funding from the campaign will secure the first three issues of the bi-monthly e-zine for next year, pay writers and artists, and cover the magazine’s overhead costs, which include Kickstarter fees, website and podcasting hosting, and paying editorial staff.

Through Kickstarter, backers will be able to purchase an issue, subscription, or bundle at a discounted price with a range of add-ons and rewards also available. Tiers for the campaign start low and offer rewards and add-ons such as post cards, subscriptions, bookmarks and swag packs. Also, there are signed book add-ons, subject to availability. As an additional perk, Apex has announced they will provide submission guidelines for a long sought-after eBook of strange and dark cocktail recipes once they’ve reached a goal of 200 backers. Strange Libations: Dark Cocktails by Apex Magazine will be offered free to all Kickstarter 2023 backers.

Works by authors Jordan Kurella (I Never Liked You Anyway, When I Was Lost), Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Son of the Storm, Warrior of the Wind), Christopher Rowe (Telling the Map, The Navigating Fox), Sarah Hollowell (A Dark and Starless Forest), Sara Tantlinger (The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes Cradleland of Parasites), And Aurelius Raines II (Dead Inside: Poetry and Essays about Zombies, Black Power: A Superhero Anthology) are noted to feature upon funding.

Headed by co-editor-in-chief Jason Sizemore and co-editor-in-chief Lesley Conner with additional editors Marissa van Uden, Rebecca Schibler, ZZ Claybourne, and Maurice Broaddus, Apex Magazine is well known for dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror, stylistic cover art, and a dive into the unknown and surreal. Past issues from Apex have won or been nominated for major industry awards, such as Hugo, Nebula, Stoker, Locust, Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, and others.

Apex Magazine is an SFWA certified online magazine of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction. They publish a bi-monthly eBook issue, and a gradual release of an entire issue online over a two-month period. In addition to short fiction, there are interviews with authors and nonfiction essays about current issues. Additionally, they produce a monthly podcast of narrated original short fiction. Pay for accepted submissions is professional and competitive at $.08 per word with an additional $.01 per word if they choose to podcast the story.

To check out and support the Apex Magazine 2023 Kickstarter campaign for yourself, go to  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/apexpublications/ apex-magazine-2023.

For submissions information, go to Submissions – Apex Magazine (apex-magazine.com).

Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Magazine / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Weird Horror Magazine September 2022 Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: September 1st-30th, 2022
Payment: 1.5¢ per word (one and one-half cent), with a $25 (U.S.) minimum and 2 contributor’s copies
Theme: horror and weird fiction

Weird Horror has two reading periods each year – March and September.

FICTION GUIDELINES

OPENS: Sept. 1, 2022

CLOSES: Sept. 30, 2022

We are seeking first publication rights. Fiction must be in English, and previously unpublished in English anywhere, in any format, on any platform, including your blog, website, newsletter, Patreon, etc. Please do not query about reprints.

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Articles / Interviews

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NEW BLOOD: The Rebirth of Indie Horror – A Conversation with Laurel Hightower

NEW BLOOD: The Rebirth of Indie Horror

A Conversation with Laurel Hightower

By Matt Micheli

 

These interviews are intended to be very candid and conversational. There is nothing off limits.

 

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“There’s a single note that plays through all of Laurel Hightower’s Crossroads, and in that note you can hear a mother’s justified devastation, a lover’s acceptance, and the haunting displacement of a ghost. Refreshingly nuanced character, down to earth in the rightest of ways, Crossroads will sincerely move you. There is a big mind, and an even bigger heart, behind this book.” — Josh Malerman, New York Times best-selling author of Bird Box and Malorie

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Trembling With Fear

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Trembling With Fear 07/31/2022

Hello, hello. I’m still trying to figure out how to start these things every week. Do I greet you all by name? What’s the collective noun for horror and speculative writers? (Got an idea? Let me know in the comments or tweet me @novicenovelist!)

It’s been a strange week in the London-based TWF Towers. We don’t talk about the heat anymore. There’s an election campaign for a new Prime Minister going on but less than 1% of the population can vote in it. Everyone I meet is a bit out of sorts all round. Is it plague fatigue still? Who knows… But that’s why I’m proud of myself for actually getting off my behind and starting the damned new novel. Not research, not thinking – actual writing of made-up wordage.

Those who know me know my fraught relationship with my writing. It’s like the proverbial will-they/won’t-they romance: writing is my life, my love, my eternal frustration. As someone living with chronic depression and recovering from severe burnout, I can find it difficult to muster the energy to do *stuff*, especially the stuff that is important to me. Work deadlines get met because other people are relying on me; my own deadlines though? Fat chance. So I’m telling you here [insert collective noun], partly so one day someone might ask me how it’s going and I will have to have something to tell them. 

It’s one of the great things about taking on this role at Horror Tree; I get to read great pieces by all of you, to hear about your own writing journeys, and be inspired to make my own inroads. Let’s get there together, ok?

Turning to this week’s trembling menu… Our short story comes from Katie Conrad. Flesh Unknown is that perfect mix of sinister and visceral; a bit of a speculative horror that really makes the skin crawl. 

For the quick bites, we have three delicious offerings:

  • Greg Von Dare’s Winsome is lovely… until it’s not.
  • Sundown by Alan Moskowitz is the kind of real-world frightening that doesn’t involve violence or blood – just the mind, and
  • An Eager Shelter by Joyce Jacobo takes us to the horrors of space

Oh – and before I forget, I’ve bitten the bullet and will be at the UK’s FantasyCon in September. Let me know if you’re there so we can say hi.

Over to you, Stuart….

Lauren McMenemy

Editor, Trembling With Fear

Whew! A lot going on as always. Currently, we’re working on expanding on our video offerings, more on that soon. We hit 500 subscribers on Horror Tree’s YouTube channel! Now to live up to my promise, I won’t mention it here for a few weeks 😉 At least, until some of the new video offerings are available. At that time I’ll just plug those but not keep begging you to subscribe! (At least, not here, for a while.) Much of my focus is currently on working with our designer for the future layout. There will be more on that and potential speed increases for the site, very soon!

For those looking to support the site, we’ve recently launched a Ko-Fi and always have our Patreon going. We’re still recovering from losing a few Patreons as of late so any help is appreciated there.

As always, I hope you had a great weekend.

Stuart Conover

Editor, Horror Tree

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Undead Redhead by Rachel Roth

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 Undead Redhead: The Girl in the Mall
Author: Rachel Roth
Publisher: House of Honor Books
Genre: Horror/Folklore
Release Date: 11th June, 2022

Synopsis:Her love has endured for over 2,500 years without signs of waning as she gathers cast-off children to call her own. The undead redheaded girl living in a Tennessee mall is something the world has not seen before or since. She turns the unwanted and the unloved into a family of the undead.

Follow her drawing of three disaffected and abused teens into her world. In a dark code of justice, they feast on the abusive and oppressive while fighting off all who get too close to the truth with ruthless savagery.

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Articles

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Indie Bookshelf Releases 07/29/2022

Got a book to launch, an event to promote, a kickstarter or seeking extra work/support as a result of being hit economically by Covid or life in general?

Get in touch and we’ll promote you here. The post is prepared each Thursday for publication on Friday. Contact us via Horror Tree’s contact address or connect via Twitter or Facebook.

Click on the book covers for more information. Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page – there’s all sorts lurking in the deep.

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