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Articles

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Writing Prompt Wednesdays: Zombie Flies

Writing Prompt Wednesdays: Zombie Flies

Welcome to “Writing Prompt Wednesdays,” a haven where your imagination can roam free in the realms of speculative fiction. As we embark on this weekly journey, it’s thrilling to think about the untold stories waiting to be penned in the domains of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Whether you’re a seasoned author or a budding wordsmith, these prompts are your gateway to unexplored worlds and untapped potentials.

Every Wednesday, we’ll serve up a fresh, thought-provoking prompt designed to ignite your creative spark and challenge your storytelling prowess. Think of these prompts as a key, unlocking the doors to uncharted territories where your creativity is the only limit. From eerie, shadow-laden corridors of Gothic horror to the farthest reaches of interstellar space, and the mystical depths of high fantasy, our prompts are a kaleidoscope of possibilities.

Remember, there’s no right or wrong way to approach these prompts. They are mere stepping stones, guiding you towards the vast landscapes of your imagination. Use them to break free from writer’s block, to experiment with new ideas, or simply as a fun exercise to keep your writing skills sharp.

This week’s writing prompt:

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Anthology / Events / Pro / Royalties

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Taking Submissions: Skull X Bones

Deadline: June 30th, 2025
Payment: 0.08 USD / word and royalties
Theme: Science Fiction or Fantasy pirate stories

Avast, ye scurvy dogs! It’s time to plunder! Pirates have enchanted and haunted readers for generations, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island to the ill-fated Firefly. Whether it’s Blackbeard, Mal, or Han Solo, we love our swashbucklers, our One-Eyed Willies, and our scruffy-looking nerfherders. In SKULL X BONES, we want writers to give us their best science fiction or fantasy pirates, whether they be on the sailing ships of the deep wide ocean or the spaceships of the black void!

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Events / Magazine / Poetry

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Taking Submissions: SpecPoVerse Second 2025 Window

Submission Window: May 1st – June 30th, 205
Payment: $5
Theme: Speculative Poetry

SpecPoVerse accepts poems with or without known formalism and also experimental forms. An illustrated poem in which the illustration was created by the poet is also acceptable; this must be submitted as a .pdf file with the embedded illustration.

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Articles / Guest Post

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How fantasy built the foundation for my horror stories

How fantasy built the foundation for my horror stories

I’m frequently asked how it is that I became interested in horror as a creator.

It’s one of those questions that I tend to immediately internalize as if it’s coming from a place of judgment (in fairness, more than once it has).

But it’s an honest question also, and the answer is rather mundane, but I think it is useful for us as creators.

Here’s the big (read: boring) reveal: I come to horror by way of fantasy. If anything, fantasy is homebase for me and horror came a bit later.

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Articles

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A Stolen Livelihood – LibGen, Meta, and The Atlantic

A Stolen Livelihood – LibGen, Meta, and The Atlantic

Like many authors, the ongoing battle against AI has been at the forefront of my mind. In the UK, the focus has been very much on the direction our government appears to be taking towards allowing access to copyrighted materials for AI training. The onus it seems will be on the creator—whether musician, author, or artist—to opt out. The White Paper consultation, which closed in February of this year, can be read in full here. The message overall is that whilst the creator should be able to reserve their rights so that AI cannot be trained on their output, the rights of the AI industry are given an equivalence and must be supported. In fact if you look at the government’s position it seems to favour AI at the expense of the creative sector: despite the responses from the likes of the BBC, The Information Commissioner’s Office, authors, artists, and musicians (who marked their protest with the silent album ‘Is This What We Want’ consisting of recordings of empty studios).

But all this discussion and consultation strikes me as pretty much pointless when the industries using AI are simply going ahead and scraping data before the copyright discussion has been settled legally. This hit home when I spotted a series of posts by a huge number of authors who had found their work on the LibGen Pirated* Books database. US magazine The Atlantic had provided the link. The latter is currently carrying out an investigation into the data set used by Meta to train its AI. It provides the database link here. Are you in there?

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Articles

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Creating a Perfect Antagonist for Your Student Horror Story

Creating a Perfect Antagonist for Your Student Horror Story

Horror stories thrive on fear, and at the heart of every great horror story is a terrifying antagonist. Whether it’s a supernatural entity haunting a school dormitory, a deranged professor with a dark secret, or a sinister force lurking in the library basement, your antagonist is the driving force behind the fear. A well-crafted antagonist does more than just scare readers; they create tension, challenge protagonists, and make your horror story unforgettable.

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Trembling With Fear

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Trembling With Fear 3-30-25

Greetings, children of the dark on this second-to-last day of March—which, btw, WTAF?! How does time work these days? I am, as ever, back to being behind on life because my brain is refusing to do its job lately, so I’ll just pop one note in here and then let you go about your merry ways…

Our April short story submission window shall be declared open on TUESDAY. Yes, that’s April Fool’s Day, but I promise you this is no prank. 

We’re right up to date on our slush pile now, so come on and fill it right up again! We want your best and brightest (well, darkest) speculative fiction. Your gothic tales and mythological beasts. Your killer-on-a-spaceships and your dystopian futures. Your dark dabblings with magic and your haunted happenings. Come on and submit—just make sure you read our submissions guidelines first, and please please please submit a clean, plain Word document. Bonus points if you do the following:

  • 1.5 or double spacing
  • 12pt font size
  • Arial or similar font
  • Word doc – not pasted into the submission form; not a Google doc link; not a PDF
  • Have your name and story title on the first page

We’re not asking you to follow any strict particular formatting here; just the basics of helping us be able to open and read the document, identify what the story is, and who wrote it. Honestly, it’s formatting issues that have delayed the anthology publication because we now need to go through and proofread it carefully and check it for consistency, so do us a solid and let’s start out with the consistency, yeah?

But now, it’s time for this week’s edition of dark speculative fiction. For our main course, we have a gorgeously dark and haunting morsel from John Dougherty. That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

  • Catherine Berry’s trash,
  • Sean MacKendrick’s possession, and
  • Gideon Smith’s bargain.

Want to join these four in the illustrious pages of TWF? Here’s what we’re looking for:

  • Always, always with the drabbles – those short, sharp bursts of exactly 100 words. Make it dark and make it speculative (scifi, fantasy, horror). We publish three of these every darn week of the year.
  • Unholy Trinities – that’s three drabbles that are connected in some way. Sarah Elliott awaits your tales.
  • Serials, or dark speculative fiction that can be serialised on the site over several weeks. Vicky Brewster is ready for ‘em.
  • Finally, our next submissions window for general short stories opens on Tuesday!

Send your submissions via the form at the bottom of this page (and you may as well read the content of that page, since it tells you our guidelines).

Over to you, Stuart.

Lauren McMenemy

Editor, Trembling With Fear

Hi all.

This week I had 3 full days of training (and next week I have 2), so I hate to say this, but I wouldn’t expect much progress on the new layout for 3ish weeks. 

That being said, more proofing has been done on the next Trembling With Fear print addition! As I’m not currently in charge of getting that together, something IS being done. 

Now, for the standards:

  • Thank you so much to everyone who has become a Patreon for Horror Tree. We honestly couldn’t make it without you all!

Offhand, if you’ve ordered Trembling With Fear Volume 6, we’d appreciate a review!

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree as we’re not really active on Twitter anymore, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

Stuart Conover

Editor, Horror Tree

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