Tagged: Fiction

Greetings, children of the dark. Keeping it short as it’s been Arctic here in London this week and I am definitely feeling worse for wear. So, just two quick reminders from me before we get stuck in.

First up, we’re now closed to short story submissions until our next window in April. You’ll find details of all the windows over on our submissions page, as well as other opportunities to be published on this here site. Big and important note: we’re open to drabbles 24/7. Insatiable. Etc, etc. 

Also—and this will be the last time I mention it!—my next Writing the Occult event happens this Saturday, 27 January. This is all about ritual, so if you’ve got any interest in folk horror, faith horror, or occult horror, or even just dark magic, you’ll likely find something to inspire your next story. All the details are over at writingtheoccult.carrd.co. Tix are here.

But that’s enough plugging; let’s get to why you’re here. This week’s TWF main course is a car crash unfolding in front of us, thanks to Damien Exton. Then we’ve got three fabulous tasty morsels for dessert:

• Ryan Van Ells found a loophole, 
• SG Perahim is called out on her own prank, and 
• Lauren Kessinger has an unwelcome visitor.

BTW, the boss and I had a rare virtual catch-up last weekend. Much to talk about. Much to come. Make sure you stay tuned in 2024!

Now it’s over to you, Stuart.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: We’ve had some great responses so far but are open to more ideas – What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]! We’ll be really working on expanding the channel late this year and early into next.

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.

Greetings, children of the dark. How’s your 2024 treating you thus far? I hope well. Me, after spending a few weeks in intensive family catch-up mode (our first festive season together in 12 years! This is what happens when you live on the other side of the world…), I’m now fully in alone-recharging mode. My hubby (and sometime-Horror Tree contributor Chris Hawton) is currently in Minneapolis, USA, appearing as a special guest (alongside his podcast co-host Matt) at the CONsole Room Doctor Who conference. It’s the first time he’s met his co-host in more than seven years of hosting together, so he’s been rather excited. By the time you read this, he’ll be on his last day at the con, but good vibes are always welcome so do send them his way.

It feels like January is the time for these new starts, for obvious reasons. I’ve vowed (yet again; but I’ve kinda cleared more of a path this year!) to get my writing habit under control and start subbing shorts to wet my nose, so to speak. But what to write about, that is the question! I’m hoping two upcoming events will help to inspire me.

First, I’m helping to host the British Fantasy Society’s “Inspirations” event this coming Saturday, 20 January. It will not only feature readings from SFFH authors, but also an interview with the brilliant CJ Cooke, gothic author extraordinaire (her latest, A Haunting in the Arctic, is now available), as well as three panels looking at how we can get inspired by different aspects of culture: Fairytales, Gods & Monsters (including our own Steph Ellis as a panellist!); Music, Movies & Media; and finally, History & Current Affairs. I’ll be moderating that last panel, and will be chatting with Mary Robinette Kowal, Benjamin Langley, and Olivia Atwater. It’s free for BFS members and just £5 for non-members, so get your ticket here.

A week later, on Saturday 27 January, I’ll be hosting the latest in my Writing the Occult series of events, presented in partnership with Alex Davis Events, and this time we’re talking about ritual. If you have any interest in folk horror, faith horror, or aspects of the occult in fiction, come and join us! You’ll hear from the likes of Tracy Fahey, LMK Sheppard, Adam Scovell, Dr Helen Frisby, and Eden Royce, and we’ve got a big panel finale where Lee Murray, Robert P Ottone, Stephanie Ellis (again!), and Kev Harrison will chat about their own ritual inspirations in folk horror. I’m so damn excited! Details are over at writingtheoccult.carrd.co, and early bird ticket prices (£35+bf) end tomorrow, 15 January, so get in quick! Tix are here.

But that’s enough plugging; let’s get to why you’re here. This week’s TWF menu features a delicate warning about the dangers of pick-up culture from Michael Subjack. Then we’ve got three fabulous tasty morsels for dessert:

• Joshua Diabo is all-in on body horror, 
• Brian McAuley has some terrible neighbours, and 
• Robert Allen Lupton goes around in circles.

Finally – today is the last day to submit a short story in our Winter Window. Anything submitted after midnight tonight will unfortunately be returned unread, with a note to resubmit in the next quarterly window if you’re still interested. 

Now it’s over to you, boss man.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: We’ve had some great responses so far but are open to more ideas – What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]! We’ll be really working on expanding the channel late this year and early into next.

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.

Greetings, children of the dark, and welcome to the first TWF of 2024! No, I can’t believe it either. I’m currently entertaining the family, who’ve come over from Australia for the festive period, so I’m keeping this first one short and jumping straight into it. More from me next week. 

The first dark and speculative TWF menu of 2024 kicks off with a gorgeously chilling (and very BIG) short story from Mackensie Baker. Then we’ve got three fabulous tasty morsels for dessert:

• DJ Tyrer twists a fairy tale, 
• Chris Clemens battles in space, and 
• Cassandra Daucus speaks from the shelf.

Finally – two quick notes.

First, our Winter window for short story submissions is open for just one more week, so get in quick! 

And secondly, and relatedly, I have totally been dropping the ball on the TWF inbox (work and life commitments converged to leave me with no breathing space whatsoever), so please bear with me while I catch up over the next couple of weeks. If you haven’t heard back and you submitted or emailed us more than a couple of weeks ago, please drop us a line to help jog our collective memory. 

Over to you, boss man.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: We’ve had some great responses so far but are open to more ideas – What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]! We’ll be really working on expanding the channel late this year and early into next.

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.

Well, children of the dark, that’s another year almost done and dusted. I don’t know about you, but 2023 has been both enlightening and exhausting in equal measure. I’ve learned so much about myself this year… but I’m so damn tired of all of it. Just, y’know… *waves hands* all of that. So as I’m winding down the year and thinking of what the next one holds, I’m manifesting good things for us all. (Except for you—I know what you did.)

I missed out on the Solstice rituals for leaving the darkness behind, so I’m going to do it tonight instead: join me, won’t you, in saying good riddance to bad rubbish, and welcoming all sorts of good stuff into our lives for 2024. And if that good stuff includes more submissions and hoping for more publishing—or maybe even your first publishing credit!—I’m pleased to say our Winter submissions window for short stories opens tomorrow, 1 January, and will last for two weeks only. Anything received in our inbox after 15 January will be returned unread with a suggestion to resubmit it in the next window. Remember, we’re only reading short stories in four separate 2-week windows now as our tiny volunteer team was struggling to keep up with demand. We love your work, but we want to give it the attention it deserves! 

Now, for the last time in 2023, allow me to present the dark and speculative TWF menu. We’re ending this year with a super strong (and super creepy) bit of spec fic from Maura Yzmore. Then we’ve got three fabulous tasty morsels for dessert:

• Nikki Anderson feels some side-effects of medication, 
• Samantha Lee Curran finds some comfort in the dark, and 
• Lauren Kessinger fixates on a bridge.

OK—over to you, Stuart.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: We’ve had some great responses so far but are open to more ideas – What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]! We’ll be really working on expanding the channel late this year and early into next.

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.

Hello, children of the dark. As I write this, we are one week away from the Winter Solstice in the UK. The days are getting VERY dark indeed, and the wind has a chill that goes through your bones. Some people revel in this time of year, and you’d think I was the same given my penchant for dark tales—but actually, I’m a child of Australia, and I do need a decent balance of light and dark for me to feel alive. At this time of year, I am lethargic. Even more so than usual! I struggle to get out of bed. I crave cosy blankets and a giant mug of steaming hot tea. But then, as I was saying to a colleague yesterday, we’re made to be hibernating at this time of year. These things are natural!

So the year is winding down well and truly, but I take solace in knowing the light will soon return. I hope you and yours have been enjoying the season, whatever your beliefs.

For your holidays, this week we bring you the dark and speculative TWF menu. The short story comes from regular contributor Addison Smith, a terrifying take on tech horror—but not for the reason you think. Then we’ve got three fabulous tasty morsels for dessert:

• D’vorah Shaddai has a shower, 
• Epiphany Ferrell makes a final wish, and 
• Nicolette Ward seeks the crossroads.

Finally, submissions are now closed for the Christmas special. TWF special editions editor Shalini is going through the (frankly) huge amount of stories we’ve received, and submitters will hear from her over the course of the next week. Keep an eye out for this one on Christmas Day—aka a week tomorrow! 😱

Now, it’s over to you, Stuart.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: We’ve had some great responses so far but are open to more ideas – What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]! We’ll be really working on expanding the channel late this year and early into next.

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.

Hello, children of the dark. This last week has been a bit fraught on the Horror Tree socials, so I just wanted to take this opportunity to address what’s been going on on other parts of this site. 

You’ll have heard and seen Stuart talking about how super-overloaded he is right now, between MBA and job and family and running the behemoth that is Horror Tree and all his other extracurriculars. Having hit a particularly tricky patch of deadlines, he had taken a few articles from long-time and trusted contributors on trust, not giving them the usual review. Unfortunately, one of these articles turned out to espouse the virtues of using ChatGPT to edit your work, which is very much against everything we stand for—and, quite rightly, caused a Twitter furore as writers felt let down and disappointed in the site they’d trusted for more than a decade. As soon as Stuart realised what had happened, he jumped to attention, addressed the issue, took down the story, and made his views on the matter clear. But some still weren’t happy with this, so I just wanted to make it 10,000% clear:

Trembling With Fear does not condone nor accept work that has been generated by AI, including in the editing process. 

This of course becomes more nuanced when you start to consider the tools we use everyday that are driven by AI—things like Grammarly, for starters. But the spirit remains true: if you ask AI to write your story, then you tidy it up and submit it under your name, you’ll be banned. If you write a story then input it to AI and ask it to edit it for you, you’ll be banned. Human endeavour is what we’re looking for here, and is what we celebrate and embrace. 

And if you missed Stuart’s post addressing the issue, you’ll find it on Twitter here, and the new version of the article is here.

With that out of the way, let’s just jump straight in with this week’s dark and speculative TWF menu. Our short story offering from Laura Stone is totally twist-tastic. Then we’ve got three fabulous tasty morsels for dessert:

• Joshua Ginsberg goes meta, 
• Lauren Kessinger waits in the asylum, and 
• DJ Tyrer returns to the nursery..

Finally, submissions are now closed for the Christmas special. TWF special editions editor Shalini is going through the (frankly) huge amount of stories we’ve received, but you’ll likely hear from her much closer to the date of publication as to whether you’ve been successful.

Over to you, boss.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: We’ve had some great responses so far but are open to more ideas – What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]! We’ll be really working on expanding the channel late this year and early into next.

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.

Hello, children of the dark. How’s your week been? Mine has been so crazy busy and overwhelming that I absolutely, honest-to-god nearly forgot to put together this week’s issue. The boss likes to have these mid-week so he has plenty of time to do his thing and schedule it all in. This week? I’m sitting at my desk at 1pm on Saturday afternoon, prepping Sunday’s edition. Whoops. Sorry, Stuart!

With that in mind, let’s just jump straight in with this week’s dark and speculative TWF menu. Our short story offering from Alyson Faye sees a young woman find her forever-soulmate. Then we’ve got three fabulous tasty morsels for dessert:

• Robert Allen Lupton will make all the writers groan with this one, 
• Jordan Kocevski is rushing to escape from something, and 
• Ron Capshaw writes this one in tribute to the late, great Shirley Jackson.

Finally, we’ve been getting an absolute influx of subs to our 🎄Christmas special🎄. The deadline for submissions to this one is the end of this week, so get ‘em in quick. TWF special editions editor Shalini is going through the (frankly) huge amount of stories we’ve received, but you’ll likely hear from her much closer to the date of publication as to whether you’ve been successful.

Now, it’s over to you, Stuart.

ATTENTION YOUTUBE WATCHERS: We’ve had some great responses so far but are open to more ideas – What type of content would you like to see us feature? Please reach out to [email protected]! We’ll be really working on expanding the channel late this year and early into next.

For those who are looking to connect with Horror Tree on places that aren’t Twitter, we’re also in BlueSky and Threads. *I* am also now on BlueSky and Threads.

If you’d like to extend your support to the site, we’d be thrilled to welcome your contributions through Ko-Fi or Patreon. Your generosity keeps us fueled and fired up to bring you the very best.