Deadline: January 15, 2019
Payment: $75 + print & digital contributor copy

ould But Time Await:
An Anthology of New England

Edited by Scott T. Goudsward and K. H. Vaughan

Ulthar Press is seeking original, unpublished short stories for an anthology of folk horror with New England ties, scheduled for release at Necronomicon-Providence in 2019. For the purposes of this project, we are defining folk horror as horror literature in which the present (in the story, not necessarily current day) collides with the history, folklore, traditions, and psychogeography of a region. The term “folk horror” came to prominence in describing a subgenre of film represented best by the “unholy trinity” of Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and The Wicker Man (1973). In general, themes include:

❖ Psychological and physical Isolation
❖ The effects of geography on emotion and behavior
❖ Old and strange traditions that persist despite the encroachment of the modern world
❖ Contrast between folklore and formal, academic, or “official” knowledge
❖ Conflict between the urban outsider and the rural insider
❖ Supernatural strangeness hidden beneath the surface of civilization

Some excellent discussion of what does and does not constitute “folk horror” can be found online (see links below), but there is no source that we consider authoritative. If your story can convince us that it is folk horror, then it is. We want to see fresh takes on old tropes.

We are looking for work that uses the physical, historical, and social landscapes of New England as a focal point (rather than a story that could be set anywhere else but just happens to be set in New England.) There is a long and rich history of horrific and strange folklore in New England but that doesn’t mean a writer needs to restrict themselves to it and writers are perfectly welcome to invent their own folklore, traditions, and fictional New England locations. Although Lovecraft certainly wrote stories that could be considered folk horror, we do NOT want Lovecraft pastiche.

A few examples of what we consider Folk Horror in literature:
Stephen King- ‘Pet Sematary.’
Stephen King- ‘Bag of Bones.’
Peter Straub- ‘Ghost Story.’
Peter Straub- ‘Floating Dragon.’
Toni Morrison- ‘Beloved.’
H.P. Lovecraft- ‘The Picture In The House.’
M.R. James- ‘View From a Hill.’
John Farris- ‘All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By.’
T.E.D. Klein- ‘The Ceremonies.’
Gary McMahon- ‘All Your Gods Are Dead.’
Thomas Ligotti- ‘The Last Feast Of Harlequin.’
Michael Mcdowell- ‘Blackwater.’
Adam Nevill- ‘The Ritual.’
Adam Nevill- ‘Last Days.’
Shirley Jackson- ‘The Lottery.’
Alain Mabanckou- ‘African Psycho.’
Shirley Jackson- ‘The Summer People.’
Matthew M. Bartlett- ‘Gateways To Abomination.’
Arthur Machen- ‘The White People.’
Flannery O’Connor- ‘A Good Man Is Hard To Find.’
Marjorie Bowen- ‘What Remained Behind.’
Chinua Achebe- ‘Things Fall Apart.’
Gemma Files- ‘We Will All Go Down Together.’
Susan Cooper- ‘The Dark Is Rising.’
Mary Buchanan- ‘The Dark Backward.’
Kingsley Amis- ‘The Green Man.’
Ray Bradbury- ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes.’
Josephine Poole- ‘Moon Eyes.’
Josephine Poole- ‘Billy Buck.’
Daniel Mills- ‘Revenants.’
Clive Barker- ‘In The Hills, The Cities.’
Clive Barker- ‘The Forbidden.’

PAYMENT.
We will be paying a flat rate of $75USD within 30 days of publication for first rights in print and digital, plus a physical and digital contributor’s copy.

STORY CRITERIA.
Length:4,000 – 6000 words.
No reprints.
No simultaneous or multiple submissions.
Standard MS format

Send all submissions with a brief cover letter to [email protected] by January 15, 2019.

SOME THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE SUBMITTING:
New England is an ethnically diverse region of the United States with a long (and often sordid) history so please keep the contemporary effects of that history in mind when submitting and avoid work that portrays the indigenous people and tribes of New England in a racist, bigoted, or stereotypical sense and please avoid stereotypes of the poor, and economically disenfranchised, all races, genders, sexes, sexualities, (dis)abilities, faiths, and anything that targets marginalized people.
In general, we are looking to avoid depictions of sexual violence (unless written with extreme care, an actual point beyond the simple violence of it, and, above all, empathy toward victims of sexual violence.)

Via: Ulthar Press.