Trembling With Fear 10/03/21
Please note: We are temporarily closed to short flash stories (unless for one of the Specials) but open to drabbles, unholy trinities and serials. We hope to reopen later in the year once we have caught up with the publication of those already accepted. Please also remember to read our guidelines, especially on word counts!
The season has very definitely slid from summer into autumn, the past few days have seen more grey skies than blue and the wind has been howling more often than not. Despite the chill in the air we are holding out against putting the central heating on – knowing the bills are going to be horrible this year. One antidote is reading and I read a book set in the UK during the drought of 1976 – oh yes, I remember that well. The stifling heat described in those pages kept me oblivious to the cold around me for a while!
It’s been a good week for writing and for a few publications. I was delighted to see Scott J. Moses’ What One Wouldn’t Do hit the No.1 Hot New Releases on amazon. I’ve got a story in it, Cry Me A River, which has been very well-received but I think Scott deserves a huge amount of credit for this anthology. It’s his first and he has been very open about the trials and tribulations he went through to bring it into being. Considering all he has undergone, I hope this book brings him great success and a big sense of achievement. Creating, editing and formatting an anthology is no easy job.
Whilst I know Stuart is always giving a shoutout for more drabbles, I’d like to throw in we need more drabbles by women! Normally there’s a good balance but as I went through what we had, I’ve noticed a more definite leaning to the male side.
The first story in Trembling with Fear this week is Blood by Harry Wilding. This tale is told as much through its layout as its words, life ebbs away, blood drips and so do the words, pouring down the page like liquid. The flow is punctuated with the crime of which the victim is condemned, the crimes of others in our world also brought to book. A quite powerful – and poetical – way to tell the story. [Please note – it has been very difficult to replicate the formatting in the original document on WordPress but I’ve done my best, Steph]
Banned by R.J. Meldrum shows how a subtle alteration of wording isn’t always a mistake and perhaps, should not be questioned!
It’ll Be Different by Andrea Allison draws you in by demanding you sympathise with suffering but … is it all that it appears to be?
Pretty Bird by Patrick Winters uses a known safety device, the canary down the mine, and then adds an ‘aah’ moment amongst all the horror. I found it strangely touching!
Enjoy our stories and send in yours!
Steph
I hope that everyone is having a great weekend so far!
As Steph mentioned, today our story is a bit visual on top of being an interesting read which makes it a bit more interactive than usual, mentally at least.
A quick update on the site, moving forward our guest posts are becoming a more personalized as bios located on those posts will target the actual writer and not Horror Tree (or once upon a time myself.) For those of you with multiple works featured on Horror Tree, it should also allow readers to easily find their other posts! While, it is currently going to be on posts moving forward, I eventually would like to update all of our old guest posts, blog tours, and WiHM posts as well. However, that will be quite time consuming so it could take a bit. (We’re talking late next year not in by the end of 2021. I, unfortunately, just don’t have the time to do this quickly.)
Finally a couple of reminders:
- Trembling With Fear is open for our Halloween Edition until October 13th, so be sure to get your stories in! Full details can be found here.
- If you run a website and would like to write an article about Horror Tree or Trembling With Fear, we’d really appreciate that! Please reach out with any questions for facts in the article (who does what, when sections were started, etc), any promotional artwork, or with a link once it is live so we can feature it on the site and on our social media.
