Tagged: Free Fiction

Greetings, children of the dark. This has been an up and down week at TWF Towers and I’m feeling super drained, so I’m mustering the last of my energy to send this missive before I collapse in a heap for the UK long weekend. The good news? The next edition will be the first of the official summer in this part of the world. The sun has been out more than not, and I’m soaking up all that vitamin D every time I can.

This week’s speculative fiction offerings are a mixed bag, kind of like the London weather has been this week. Our main course from Harris Coverley is a short but deeply gothic offering that ticks all the right boxes for me. That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• Bernardo Villela’s lupine wonderings,
• Melody E. McIntyre’s desperate humanity, and
• Trevor Steel’s terrible consequences.

Finally, a quick plug for the next edition of my Writing the Occult events: we’re talking about connection to the land on 15 June. There will be land myths, ritual landscapes, and spirits of place; how to use the land to spark fantasy creations or be the driving force in your story; how to connect when it’s hostile as well as beautiful; and we’ll ask how the climate crisis is impacting the writer’s connection to the land. I’m super excited about the line-up that’s assembling; it might even be our biggest one yet! All details, etc, over at writingtheoccult.carrd.co—tickets are on sale now! We meet on 15 June, starting at 1pm UK / 8am ET. (Sorry, Antipodeans, but it is all recorded for ticket holders to watch back at more convenient times)

Over to you, Stuart.

Greetings, children of the dark. Before we get to the good stuff, let me give a quick update on our progress with submissions: I think I’ve now contacted everyone who submitted prior to the most recent submissions window. There are a handful I had marked as needing to discuss edits, so if you haven’t heard from me yet, that’s probably you. Next up: reading all of those who submitted in the April window. It really does take a long, long time to get through all of your fabulous work! We are mere mortals and volunteer ones at that, but I do thank you for your patience with us. If you’ve found a home for your story since you submitted it to us and you haven’t yet heard, do let us know so we can take it off our reading pile and save us all some time and heartache.

And now to this week’s TWF menu. Jordan McClymont takes us into the Scottish wilderness for a frightful look up at the stars (and what’s down below, too). That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• Emily Holman’s thunderous terror,
• Hannah Foster’s creature in need, and
• Ryan Van Ells’s single-minded maniac.

Finally, I announced the next edition of my Writing the Occult events this week: we’re talking about connection to the land for the week of the Solstice. There will be land myths, ritual landscapes, and spirits of place; how to use the land to spark fantasy creations or be the driving force in your story; how to connect when it’s hostile as well as beautiful; and we’ll ask how the climate crisis is impacting the writer’s connection to the land. All details, etc, over at writingtheoccult.carrd.co—tickets are on sale now! We meet on 15 June, starting at 1pm UK / 8am ET. (Sorry, Antipodeans.)

Over to you, Stuart.

Greetings, children of the dark. ‘Tis a dark week in TWF Towers as yours truly deals with a death in the family on the other side of the world, so it’ll be short and sweet this week. Let’s dedicate this edition to the strong women who move mountains for a better life for their family. I’ll miss you much, Granny M. Rest in peace.

Anyways, this week’s TWF menu is really quite devilish, thanks to the Armenian flavours brought by short story writer Robert Nazar Arjoyan. That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• Siân O’Hara’s lovesick lament
• Liam Kerry’s airborne issues, and
• Weird Wilkins’s poetic darkness

Quick reminders:

• We’re technically open for the summer special edition, but Shalini won’t be looking at those subs for a few months yet so maybe hang on to them—early entry does not guarantee a spot!
• We’re not open again to general short stories until July, so any we receive before then will be returned unread.
• I know quite a few are still waiting to hear the result of your subs to the last short story window; I’ll get to you ASAP.
• And we’re always, always looking for drabbles, Unholy Trinities, and serialised serial killer stories! Like, 24/7 needs. Details over on the submissions page.

Over to you, Stuart.

Greetings, children of the dark. I’m writing this fresh off my happy place: a f*cking awesome gig in a great venue. Live music is a real lifesaver for me, and totally helps to replenish the batteries – something that’s much needed right now. (My therapist says I’m totally burned out and need a break, but when has that ever stopped me 😂)

I’d love to hear more about how you get creatively recharged – drop a comment below, or hit us up on social media! I’ll leave all the tagging details at the bottom of this week’s missive.

But before we get to the good stuff, I’ll repeat this plea:

Our drabble cupboard is looking awfully bare right now. Thanks to everyone who saw the plea and sent some in—it’s all much healthier now, and you definitely hit that arbitrary goal I set last week. Thank you! But it’s a neverending task, and a very hungry beast. We need more, and more, and more. Bloody insatiable! Keep it up, keep subbing, keep being brilliant. 

And speaking of submissions, I’ve noticed a few subs for the summer special starting to drip through. That’s great, but you’ll be waiting a while for any sort of feedback—Shalini won’t even start thinking about the summer special for another couple of months. Maybe keep them on the backburner for a little while longer? 

Anyways, this week’s TWF menu is inadvertently on a theme, for the most part. We start with the beautiful lamentation on loss (until it’s… not) that is Chip Houser’s short story. That story is followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• Alan Moskowitz’s apocalypse,
• Evelyn Morgan’s denial, and
• Sean MacKendrick’s escape

Feel free to jump onto socials and have a chat – about your creative recharging, the stories you’ve read this week, or just to say hi!

• Twitter: @horrortree / @novicenovelist 
• BlueSky: @horrortree.bksy.social / @laurenwrites.bsky.social    
• Instagram & Threads: @horror_tree / @lozthewriter 
• Mastodon is just me! @[email protected] 
• Or follow HorrorTree on Facebook

Over to you, Stuart.

Greetings, children of the dark. Hope you’re all enjoying the shorter / longer days (delete as applicable according to your hemisphere). I’ll tell you what: this has been a massive energy-draining week for me for various reasons, and I’m sure glad I’m staring at the weekend. I had wanted to get started on reading your (I’m sure all amazing) short story submissions, but I need a day off already! I’ll get to working through them ASAP, though.

What I do need, though, is MOAR DRABBLES. Our drabble cupboard is looking awfully bare right now. We’ve got some going through the process now, but it’s only a couple of weeks worth. And that means I’m challenging you, dear reader, to get your drabble hats on. I’d love it if next week I can report that I’ve had a ton of drabble subs. Shall we set a goal? I would like to see at least 10 drabbles in the inbox before I write this column for the first issue of May. Can you make that happen? Get ’em ready and head to the submissions page. Remember when you’re using the form (here) to choose TWF from the first dropdown menu, and then choose ‘drabbles’ so it can be routed to the right place. 

Anyways, this week’s TWF menu is kicked off by a nihilistic museum visit with Adrian Fahy. That story is followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• Michael Bettendorf’s hunter-gathering,
• JB Riley’s imaginary friend, and
• Lynn Kristine Thorsen’s tortured experiments

Over to you, Stuart.

Greetings, children of the dark. Sad to say our April short story submissions window is now closed, and I thought I’d bring you a very real statistic to show why we moved our submissions process to this strange quarterly beast. 

The statistic is this: in that 2-week window, we got more than 50 submissions.

Yes, 50 stories. Each of you should have now received an email to acknowledge your story is in the system, but if you haven’t and were expecting one, please do get in touch. We are very old-school here at TWF Towers and there is no automated email immediately going back to you to say “hey, we got it!”—it does take an actual human (i.e. me!) to go into the inbox and fish them out, catalogue them, and put them into our system—but I’ve now moved every submission into the next step of the process. From here, Stuart, Shalini and I get to reading, reviewing, analysing, arguing, and finding those stories that we’d like to accept. Of course, with 50+ stories for essentially about 12 spots, we’re going to have to be very critical and maybe let go of something that would’ve made it once upon a time. For that, I’m sorry.

Before the move to a staggered submissions process, we would be getting around the same number of submissions every single month. And there are just a handful of us, all volunteers, trying to make our way through those submissions. And we can only publish one short story a week, alongside our three drabbles. (If you want us to be able to afford more, get to supporting us on Patreon!)

If we didn’t try to limit the opportunity to submit, we would currently be scheduling stories several years in advance—and no one wants to wait a decade to see their story in digital print! (And yes, we still haven’t made our way through all of the stories from the last window, and there’s actually a handful of stories I need to edit and send back to writers who submitted in the last half of 2023. Life, sorry, etc.)

This process is to protect our writers from frustration as much as it is to protect our tiny team from burnout. We do, of course, have many other opportunities within the Horror Tree ecosystem to flex your creative muscles and submit your works. Your story might fit one of the many open calls we list on this site—the very reason for our being!—or maybe you’d like to write for a special themed edition or submit a story for serialisation. We also have our short sharp speculations, aka the drabbles, of which we publish three every single week! Maybe try your hand at some teeny tiny stories, or stringing three of those together on a theme to tell a longer story as an unholy trinity? 

Anyways, this week’s TWF menu. Our main course is a silent one, and it comes from the dark mind of Mitchell Strickland Jr—and it’s so great to put a strong disabled protagonist on these pages. That story is followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• SG Perahim’s monsters under the bed 
• Santiago Eximeno’s stranded mermaid, and
• RJ Meldrum’s renovation surprise.

Over to you, Stuart.

Greetings, children of the dark. First things first: short story subs will CLOSE tonight. Anything submitted after today will not be read, and will not be kept on file until the next window at the beginning of July. Please take note of our submission windows, which you’ll find in the deadlines section of the submissions page, here. 

Why do we do it this way? Quite frankly, because there were way too many submissions! Not long after I took over this column, it became clear that if we didn’t close to submissions every now and then, we’d have writers waiting literal years for their story to be published. I love that you’re all so keen and ready to submit to us, and that we get so many great stories, but it just became unmanageable. The windows help us to keep on top of things. We still have people waiting several months to be published, but months is better than years. 

If you can’t wait for the quarterly window, fear not! There are plenty of other opportunities. Your story might fit one of the many open calls we list on this here site—the very reason for our being!—or maybe you’d like to write for a special themed edition or submit a story for serialisation. We also have our short sharp speculations, aka the drabbles, of which we publish three every single week! Maybe try your hand at some teeny tiny stories, or stringing three of those together on a theme to tell a longer story as an unholy trinity? 

See: lots and lots of opportunities out there. The spec-fic beast is hungry and never, ever satisfied…

Anyways, this week’s TWF menu. Our tasty main course comes from David Bradley, who’s dealing with a weird mouth thing. That story is followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• Cassandra Daucus’s dirty secret 
• Patrick Winters’s hidden meanie, and
• DJ Tyrer’s existential angst

PS, the fae stuff went really bloody well, thanks for asking! Keep an eye out for the next one—Writing the Occult: Connection to Land will take place on 15 June, just before the solstice.

Over to you, Stuart.

Greetings, children of the dark. I’m neck deep in fairies as I write this, getting ready for my big Fae Day event which, by the time you read this, will be over. I feel like I’ve been less engaged in this edition of my Writing the Occult events, and I’m not sure why: life, probably, but maybe also I’m just not a fairy person? Who knows. Maybe by the time you’re reading this, I will have been converted and will be looking under rocks and behind bark for evidence. I’m feeling like a bad Celtic-blooded human right now!

But for that reason, we’ll go straight to the good stuff this week.

Well, first I should remind you that our April short story submissions window is open for just one more week! They are coming in thick and fast, and we are going to have to make some tough decisions. We just can’t run more than one short story a week for many, many reasons, and we get dozens and dozens submitted in each window. We used to get dozens every week, which is why we had to move to the windows! Submissions guidelines are here, and you submit by using this form, making sure to choose TWF from the drop-down box underneath the name field. Please, please upload your story in an editable document format, not a PDF and not posted into the form. And our process is not automated, so it might take me a while to acknowledge receipt of your sub. I will get there, I promise. TWF is powered by human volunteers. 

Remember, though, that we are definitely open to drabble submissions every day of the year, so if you’re not successful with your short, maybe go shorter? Give it a try?

Anyways, this week’s TWF menu. Our tasty main course comes from J.L. Royce, who’s gone off for a hike in the Michigan wilderness. That story is followed by the short, sharp speculations of:

• Brian Maycock’s lazy long weekend, 
• Noah Wood’s collective creep-out, and 
• Richard Meldrum’s meeting in a dark alley.

Speaking of the boss man, he’s one of the panelists at Saturday’s British Fantasy Society online event day. The whole day is about “the book journey”—all those things besides the writing!—and I’ll be moderating the panel on marketing featuring Stuart, Jenn Hanson-dePaula from Mixtus Media, and indie writers and promo machines Beverley Lee and Nicole Eigener (aka Nicoverley). Ever wondered how to get your writing *out there*? Join us! It’s free for BFS members, and just £5 for everyone else, plus it will also be recorded if you can’t make any/all of it live. Details are over here.

Over to you, Stuart.