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

Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Astral Alien Fiction Second 2024 Window

Submission Window: July 7th – 28th, 2024
Theme: Stories that are told from an alien perspective (See below for more details.)
Payment: $20 per story

Here you will find all you need to send us your stories. We look forward to reading them. As a reminder: we only publish five stories per issue. Magazines like ours generally receive submissions numbering in the hundreds. Don’t be too hard on yourself if we do not take yours. There is a lot of competition and it mostly comes down to individual editor opinion (which is unpredictable and not a reflection of quality of writing necessarily). We know the submission process is hard and we wish you the very best in your writing.

When to Submit

Submissions are open:

  • January 7th–28th (closing at 10pm PST on the 28th)
  • July 7th–28th (closing at 10pm PST on the 28th)

What to Submit

Astral publishes short stories ranging from 1,000–7,000 words. We want stories that are told from an alien perspective. By alien we usually mean extraterrestrial… but other perspectives can also qualify, such as Lovecraftian horrors, plants, bacteria, etc. Send us weird and surreal stories that challenge our notions about ourselves and the universe.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Being Followed by Derek Muk

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: Being Followed
Author: Derek Muk
Genre: Horror, thriller
Publisher: Demain Publishing
Publication Date: 31st January, 2024

Synopsis: Claire Goldman is a strong, independent woman with a pro-feminist background to substantiate it. She doesn’t like to be pushed around or intimidated. But when she starts receiving threatening letters because of a book she wrote it gives her pause. And she is human, after all!
Enter her ex-husband and college sweetheart, Albert, who will do whatever it takes to protect her from harm’s way and wants to rekindle that flame of romance and love they once possessed from when they were younger.
Will the two of them get over the stigma of being each other’s ‘ex’ and reunite successfully and will they manage to escape from the wrath of dark evil that threatens to smother and destroy not just Claire and Albert but the rest of the nation as well?
Derek Muk says of ‘Being Followed’: “My book is a topical, modern-day, real-life, current events horror story (mixed in with mystery, suspense, thriller, and romance) that mirrors what’s going on in the U.S. and I think readers will relate to that. The book was inspired by racial tensions sparked by the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia rally, the January 6 coup/storming of the U.S. capitol, the murder of George Floyd, and the fascist atmosphere of the Trump Presidency.”
(cover by Adrian Baldwin)

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Articles

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Zombie Horror Media to Anticipate in 2024

Zombie Horror Media to Anticipate in 2024

Since its inception, the zombie genre has become a massive part of thriller/horror themes. It is available in regular movies and TV shows such as The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, and many have been adapted into games.  

Several zombie horror franchises are set to be released in 2024. We’ve explored upcoming titles you can look forward to throughout the year.

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Trembling With Fear

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Trembling With Fear 6-30-24

Greetings, children of the dark. Two bits of (I hope!) good news for you all for this final day of June. 

First of all, the team has now made its way through allllll the spring short story submissions, and you should’ve heard back by now. If you haven’t, check your spam before you chase us! Thanks to everyone who submitted to the spring window; we had about 6 times as many submissions as we had spaces to fill, so please don’t be disheartened if you didn’t get good news from us. We had to make some difficult decisions. 

Related to that good news (and the flipside for us, kinda!): the summer submissions window opens tomorrow, 1 July. You’ve got two weeks to get your darkly speculative short stories to us for consideration. Please, please make sure you check our submissions guidelines first; we can tell when you don’t, and it doesn’t put us in a good mood. Also note that, as has been the case for at least the last 18 months, we are veering very much towards the speculative side of fiction. That means real-world horror like torture p*rn, serial killers, crime, etc etc, will need to find a different home (and there are plenty out there for this stuff). Instead, send us your supernatural and paranormal tales, your grimdark, your space horror, your dark fantasy/folklore/fairytales, your eco-horror—basically, anything that falls under “speculative”, or stories set in something other than the real world as we know it in our day-to-day. 

Finally, thanks to everyone who responded to our call a few weeks ago for more hands on deck to help steer the good ship Horror Tree. The boss has been chatting to lots of great people, and I myself am excited to say we’re expanding the TWF Towers team—even getting a new admin helper, which will hopefully mean you don’t have to wait so long for responses from us. It’s going to be a game-changer. I’ll introduce you to them all once we’ve had a chance to do a proper kick-off amongst ourselves, but as a little teaser: Horror Tree representation on this side of the pond is about to get a major boost!

For now, though, let’s tuck into this week’s menu of dark speculative fiction. Our centrepiece, from Simon Kewin, contemplates whether that image in the mirror can truly be trusted. That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

  • Weird Wilkins’ universal contemplation,
  • Jacek Wilkos’ fairytale flip, and
  • Jameson Grey’s quiet warning.

Over to you, Stuart.

Lauren McMenemy

Editor, Trembling With Fear

Hi all! 

This week and next are going to be a lot of behind-the-scenes work. The short story I was hoping to finish for an upcoming deadline? Sadly, it won’t be finished. However, a lot of progress on Horror Tree shenanigans and I’m excited for the future! 

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! 
  • If you’re into digital copies of books, don’t forget to order Shadowed Realms on Amazon, Which will go up once the paperback goes live! 

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

 

Stuart Conover

Editor, Horror Tree

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Articles / Guest Post

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To Punch Me Is to Know Me

To Punch Me Is to Know Me

By Howard Blaise

 

How do you portray conflict in a horror story? Perhaps more than any other genre, horror fiction tends to offer antagonists (vampires, werewolves, zombies, &c.) that turn us into them. At what point does this strange ambivalence swing from the risk of being transformed to the desire of being transformed? Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a horror protagonist.

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Events / Flash / Magazine / Pro

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Taking Submissions: If There’s Anyone Left Volume 5

Deadline: July 15th, 2024
Payment: 8 cents per word
Theme: science fiction and speculative fiction

GENERAL (i.e. non micro-fiction) GUIDELINES

We are currently OPEN to GENERAL flash submissions. For Volume 5, we will remain open until July 15, 2024. Proceeds from Volume 5 will go toward Palestinian relief organizations.

We want science fiction and speculative fiction. So long as it falls into one of these categories, we will happily read it. If other elements are present, that is fine, but it must include science or speculative fiction.

NOW ACCEPTING TRANSLATIONS (MORE INFO BELOW)

  • No more than 1000 words. This is a firm limit. Please no queries about longer pieces.

  • NO AI-GENERATED/ASSISTED STORIES

  • Pay rate is professional – $0.08 US/word

  • This is for marginalized members of the sci-fi/spec community—this includes people of color, the LGBTQ2S+ community, members of marginalized genders, and disabled and neurodiverse people. If you are not a person of color, LGBTQ2S+, neurodiverse, disabled, or of a marginalized gender, please DO NOT send us your work. Authors of all accepted pieces will have the option to include a short bio in the anthology. We understand the sensitive nature of gender identity and sexual orientation, so if you wish this status to remain unwritten and/or if you prefer to be anonymous, we will print only what you wish to be printed. If you would like your piece published under a pseudonym, please indicate this on your submission. If you would like your pronouns included, please indicate those as well.

  • DO NOT send us anything hateful. No gratuitous violence, torture, rape, or any work that promotes an ideology unbecoming of an inclusive society – no stories supporting racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, or any other of the many forms of hate.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Madness and Greatness Can Share the Same Face by Amanda Headlee

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: Madness and Greatness Can Share the Same Face
Author: Amanda Headlee
Genre: Horror, Collection
Publisher: Woodhall Press
Publication Date: 2nd September, 2024

Synopsis:  The line between madness and greatness is as delicate as a golden silk thread.

It’s a tricky balancing act to dance upon this fragile line for those seeking greatness. An outsider may perceive the endeavor as wandering a road toward insanity and crumbling dreams. However, in the eyes of the beholder, they don’t see themselves as walking a tightrope between genius and insanity but rather paving a road to success— where no expense is spared.

Madness and Greatness Can Share the Same Face is a collection of thirteen dark fiction tales that spiderweb across space and time to explore the line where, with a step, one can be pitched into the realm of greatness or depths of madness.

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Articles

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Indie Bookshelf Releases 06/28/2024

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