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Increase Your Literary Body Count in 2024

by Mathew Gostelow.

"In my slut era," I whispered, sending the story out on its ninth simultaneous submission.

At the most recent count, I wrote 60-odd things in 2024 and submitted them a total of 202 times in all. 42 of them were published in some form. Along the way, I racked up 90 rejections. All in all, I published somewhere around 44,000 words in 2023.

I was whoring my stories all over, like some sort of village bike made of ink and shamelessness. I spent a year subbing sluttily. I had a blast doing it too. I got a fair few publications under my belt, made new friends, and learned some lessons as well. Here’s just a few of them…  

Change horses midstream

I’ve discovered I work best when I’m juggling multiple projects at once. It sounds counter-intuitive and I guess it might not work for everyone, but I reckon everyone should try it.

The idea is to have several stories on the go at one time. Three feels ideal. I find that I will inevitably run out of steam on a piece – my interest or focus always flags at some point. Switching to something new acts as a vital palate-cleanser. I’m able to return to each project afresh, bringing new energy and perspective thanks to the time I spent away.

Follow the fun 

Don't be afraid to mix it up. Move out of your comfort zone.

If your latest flash isn’t quite working, why not rewrite it as a poem? Or mash it together with another half-finished piece and see what happens. In a longer piece, it’s okay to jump straight to the scene that's exciting you in that moment. Fill in the gaps and the preamble later.

Try things out. Write flash, write microfiction, write a poem. Seen a shiny prompt? Go for it. Plunge into a genre that you'd normally avoid. You might have fun, you might learn something. You might even end up with a story worth submitting.

Lean into your weird

I'm not saying you're weird, but… you’re totally weird. The way you tell stories is uniquely yours. You understand the world through the filter of your own personal experiences. And you express those observations in wonderfully idiosyncratic ways. 

One thing this prolific year taught me is that I love my writing more when I delve into those quirky parts of me. It could be sharing an oddly-specific fear in a horror story, or playing with words in a way that feels pleasing and musical to me.

Putting those unusual parts of yourself out into the world can be scary, but it's also fun. And I've found that readers and editors seem to respond to it as well.

Sim-subbing is addictive - but tread carefully

Simultaneous submissions are great. Is that one mag taking a bit long to decide on whether they want you piece? Send it somewhere else. Feel those sweet endorphins coursing through your veins. Oh yeah. That’s the stuff.

Here’s what I learned from a year of very heavy simultaneous submissions: Send a piece out to as many places as you like – but only if you're equally happy with ever possible outcome. That’s the important bit.

If you have your heart set on a specific home for a story then for gawd’s sakes don't sub it anywhere else until they have decided. Otherwise you risk tying yourself in knots if/when one of the lesser mags accepts it before your dream publisher has decided.

Play fast and loose!

Themed calls are great. They can be inspiring, sparking fresh ideas in our minds. Or help us to see our existing stories in a new light. But here’s what I learned this year: don’t be afraid to come at the theme from an obtuse angle.

Editors must get tired of reading 50 different permutations of the same story. Your off-kilter take could be just the breath of fresh air they're looking for.

And if you have a story already written when a call comes along and it feels like it's close-ish to what they're looking for, then you should throw it in the mix. What have you got to lose?

A true story from this year:

I had a story accepted after misunderstanding what a themed call was all about. I didn’t read the instructions carefully enough and subbed the wrong thing. I realised immediately after pulling the trigger and considered withdrawing my piece. For some reason, though, I didn't. (Slut era!) The editors saw something in my story and accepted the piece.

Moral: Don’t slavishly follow the theme. Go crazy.

Dilute the sting

Rejections can hurt, especially if you have your sights set on a specific magazine or anthology. But you know what helps? Rebound sex. Er… I mean, rebound submissions. Get that same piece back out there. Heck, send it to two places. Go crazy. You get closure by moving on. Also, the more you submit, the more rejection notches you get on your bedpost. And you know what, after a while you’ll find it starts to sting a lot less. 

So there you go. Lessons from a promiscuous wordmonger. Why not try to up your literary body count in 2024? You might like it. Repeat after me: “Slut era”.

Mathew Gostelow (he/him) is the author of two collections; See My Breath Dance Ghostly, a book of speculative short stories (Alien Buddha Press) and Connections, a flash fiction chapbook (Naked Cat Publishing). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. @MatGost

#essay #submissions #writing #writers #writing advice #literary submissions #lit mags #publishing advice #publishing #horror anthologies

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BOOK REVIEW: Jolie Toomajan & Carson Winter's Posthaste Manor

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Carson Winter (Soft Targets, also from Tenebrous) and Jolie Toomajan (recent editor of my favorite anthology this year, Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic, Cosmic Horror Monthly) bring their A game to Posthaste Manor (Tenebrous Press), a collection of one novella and several short stories—that are a continuation of the novella? Certainly an integral part; calling them “short stories” seems a misnomer.

While I loved both authors’ previous works, I’m sort of obsessed with Posthaste, and it’s cemented its spot in my top five new releases of 2023. Winter and Toomajan wrote the book together, the perfect combination for this dual-timeline novella. One wild ride of weird, it’s a haunted house story perhaps best compared to House of Leaves—but while House of Leaves emphasizes theme, this book’s prose is the show-stopper. It’s rare to find a book with such different voices that both serve up such precise, lyrical language. For that alone, it’s worth the cover price (and more).

Winter’s spare, brutal words have the space to shine, and Toomajan’s lyricism take center stage. I resisted sending both authors quotes with “WOW!!!!” next to them—no joke.  

Another House of Leaves comparison: if you want a light, brainless read, steer clear. This book demands attention for its literary merit in this most wonderful way. With its shifting, blurring timelines, it doesn’t quit. Pay attention, or it’ll snow plow you—and that’s the furthest from a bad thing. 

While it’s voice- and prose-driven, its rich, multifaceted characters also gleamed. For the record: Winter writes Otho and Toomajan Adira; both styles are distinctively, delightfully theirs—if “delightfully” is a word you can apply to Posthaste (Generally, I’d give that a hard no.) This book is strange, creepy, and weird as all hell.

You want a maze-like liminal space? They deliver. I’d love to see a StokerCon panel discussing it, especially one hosted by author and moderator extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan (did you miss his panels at the Dracula Concert 2023, dubbed so by the Swifties also invading our hotel? Too bad for you, and make sure to catch him next time.) 

This book cements both authors as two of the top voices in the genre. I’d rank it with The Marigold and Tell Me I’m Worthless. Posthaste Manor, somewhere in the sticks of Pennsylvania, will stay with you. It writes in both the grand tradition of horror’s haunted houses, from Hill House to the Navidson residence, and conversation with them. You can’t do better than that. 

Buckle up, buttercup: you’re in for a new weird take on the gothic. 

On Twitter: @ JolieToomajan, @ CarsonWinter3, @ TenebrousPress

On Instagram: @ JolieToomajan, @ WinterCarson, @ tenebrouspress

#review #gothic fiction #fiction #book review #horror books #fiction review #horror fiction #indie lit #indie press #indie horror #small press horror #horror novella #gothic horror

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BOOK REVIEW: P.L. McMillan's Sisters of the Crimson Vine

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

There’s a certain uncanniness to nuns. Their habits and wimples subsume identity; they’re set apart, tied by their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They hold the world at an almost timelessness remove. In Sisters of the Crimson Vine (Timber Ghost Press, 2022), P. L. McMillan nails those creepy vibes. She captures the visceral weirdness and spookiness of the Catholic Church—maybe it’s best to say the Church’s mystery, both as narrative and theology.

If you didn’t grow up Catholic, the Church is a harrowing confusion of strange ritual. Sisters is enough to set my old Catholic school nuns on an extended rant about faith, respect, and chastity (which is to say that former Catholics will catch something gleeful about it). 

After protag Mr. Ainsworth wrecks his car, he wakes up in a strange convent where barefoot nuns dote over him, then ply him with the homemade wine. Sister Helena Rose, a pretty woman with uncovered blonde hair, seems particularly devoted. But there’s a problem: just as a villager brought Ainsworth to them, some priests showed up on a mission to set the nuns straight. They haven’t been kicking the Church any profits for their wine sales, and “musty-smelling” Father Griffith has arrived from London to audit their finances.

Caught between his growing loyalty to the nuns and the priests’ presumptions, Ainsworth has to choose: are the sisters good, or something else? And what’s with that wine?

McMillan’s masterful at character, and she does a fantastic job of making Sister Helena Rose the real heart of the novel. By eclipsing Ainsworth, she emphasizes both his passivity and her own vitality. Her evocation of heat-soaked lassitude underscores the novel’s tone, and that setting underscores both theme and mood, recreating the effects of the nuns’ wine. This novel examines the hypocrisy of the Catholic (it sort of has to), and McMillan delivers the daring finish you were hoping for, but not in the way you’d expect. 

As an ex-Catholic, I really did take some vicious glee in this book. The nuns are what I always wanted nuns to be: daring, vivid, devoted to each other rather than the Church. The priests are fussy rule-sticklers, the type I always resented; and the protag, wonderfully vague, is easy for the reader to identify with. I’ve rarely seen an author pull off this type of characterization (rules say that the protag has to be interesting). It’s a Nick Carraway type of move, and McMillan nails it. 

With its fast, twisting plot, this novel never went in predictable directions, and McMillan’s a sure driver. Ex-Catholic or not, you’ll love these nuns as much as I did. Read this with a glass of red wine at your elbow.

Get the book here

Find PL McMillan: Twitter @ authorPLM Instagram @ authorplm

Find Timber Ghost Press: Twitter: @ press_ghost Instagram: @ timber_ghost_press

#book review #review #horror novella #religious horror #catholic horror #horror lit #indie lit #indie horror #small press horror #gothic lit #gothic fiction #novella review #horror fiction #female horror #female horror books

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BOOK REVIEW: Ivy Grimes’s Star Shapes

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Ivy Grimes’s Star Shapes (Spooky House Press, coming Jan. 9, 2024) starts with every woman’s nightmare: a small boy lures her into a kidnapping. A man and a teenage boy tie her up, stuff her in a trunk, and drive her to a house where she’s—cue the weirdness. Once she’s forced into watching The Sound of Music, you’ll be hooked. Promise. By the time she’s escorted to a pretty room (windows nailed shut) and given a book full of odd constellations, you’ll tear through til the end.

Spooky House editor Robert Ottone seems to have a knack for pulling great talent. He published Patrick Barb’s first novella, Helicopter Parenting in the Age of Drone Warfare, and now Barb’s everywhere. He followed it with Kathleen Palm’s Into the Gray, an awesome middle grade novel, then hit it out of the park with The Disappearance of Tom Nero. (I’m not intentionally omitting Her Teeth, Like Waves; I haven’t read it—can you send that to me again, Robert? I somehow missed it.) That’s at least three for four, and Star Shapes makes at least four for five, possibly five of five. These are all first long works for the authors, and each one is a stellar breakout talent. 

Star Shapes keeps that trend going. Grimes pulls off a narrative voice alternatively hilarious and poignant. The story’s propulsive, unique, and ends with a bang. I never saw this one coming. It winds in unexpected ways, never predictable, an uncanny tale at home in the high strange. A crackjack of a debut for Grimes. I’ll look forward to seeing what she does in the future—and to the next release from Spooky House. 

+ Find the author on Twitter

+ Spooky House's Twitter and Instagram

#review #gothic fiction #book review #horror fiction #indie horror #indie press #small press #horror novella #southern gothic #gothic lit

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BOOK REVIEW: Salt Heart Press's Space Horror Anthology, The Darkness Beyond the Stars

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

The Darkness Beyond the Stars (ed. P.L. McMillan, Salt Heart Press) has a simple but compelling premise: space horror. Space horror makes for a good sci-fi/terror mash-up, and this anthology dishes out stories that scream into the void. I expected aliens, and I got some aliens, but modern indie horror is too good for tired tropes to fly. So is this anthology, which takes high strangeness into the unknowable reaches of space. 

There’s far worse up there than little green men; in the hands of writers like Dana Vickerson, Rachel Searcey, and Patrick Barb, those aliens become weird, their terror twisted into heartbreak (if you’ve read more of Barb’s stories, especially Haunting Lessons, printed in a limited edition by Shortwave Publishing in a limited edition and available online from The Arcanist, you’re not shocked). In “The Weight of Faith,” Carson Winter, author of Soft Targets and Posthaste Manor (Tenebrous Press) delivers an emotionally devastating story about belief as tense and visceral as his longer works. You need this collection because you need this story, full stop.

But space holds more terrors than exobiology, and Darkness Beyond doesn’t stop at aliens. Bob Warlock serves up an itchy little tale about something in a space suit; several stories, including Jessica Peter’s “The Wreckage of Hestia” and Lindsey Ragsdale’s “A Voice from the Dark” play with emptiness and solitude—is it more frightening to be alone in the universe, or to find we have company? I can’t articulate a proper trigger warning for the horrors of Bryan Young’s “Son of Demeter” other than “I have children,” but it left me a weeping puddle of goo (a warning for “excessively heroic parenting,” maybe?). Bridget D. Braves yokes second person POV to amnesia in “Last Transmission from the FedComm Sargasso,” which gives this already great tale a kind of haunting sorrow. 

Packed with plenty of feeling, this tight anthology’s transmissions reach across worlds to find the same human feelings we left behind: the terror of the unknown, the fear of solitude, the heartbreak of loss. These authors use the void of space as a blankness on which to impose our darkest fears. What’s up there? Nothing is—and that’s the scariest part. Unless something is, and maybe that’s even scarier. 

Buy The Darkness Beyond the Stars:

#gothic literature #review #fiction #book review #horror fiction #horror anthology #horror collection #indie horror #space horror #small press horror #indie lit #horror books #small press

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Author reading + open mic: Briar Ripley Page (16/09/23)

Also featuring:

Sera Miles

Alexandrine Ogundimu

Buy a copy of Traveler's Tales from Wrong Publishing:

#reading #author reading #author event #poetry reading #specfic #book reading #virtual reading #open mic #indie lit #small press #sci fi

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BOOK REVIEW: A.V. Wilkes’s Jamie Hallow and the End of the World

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

I was skeptical of this one from Cemetery Gates Media; after a steady diet of adult literary horror, did I really want to return? But the blurb pulled me in; Jamie Hallow owes more than a little bit to the Silo trilogy, one of my favorite dystopian futures (common sense: wait out the Four Horsemen in a missile silo). I couldn’t resist.

I’m glad I gave in to temptation. While Jamie Hallow’s comparison to Wool is inevitable—there’s a crumbling silo full of humanity’s last stand; they’ve lost touch with other silos; their group’s been wracked with civil wars—similarities end there. Rather than a hardboiled “We can’t go out and we’re miserable,” Jamie has other problems. His group, the “Legion,” are religious fanatics who worship the Old Gods with blood-sacrifice, and they’re counting on their magic to save them. While the Legion can go outside, the world’s wrapped in nuclear winter, and the only survivors are ragged, desperate people—except the Shoggoths, massive, uncaring monsters who destroy everything in their path. Raised in Legion orphanages, Jamie’s an unbeliever in the group’s mission, but he joins their adolescent task force after merciless bullying. During his first venture outside with them, he finds they’re raiding the dregs of society to steal a child. Worse, they won’t tell him why.  

Wilkes knocks it out of the park with Jamie Hallow’s queer representation. As the mama to three boys, I’m always trying to find queer books that don’t center the character’s sexuality. I want my kids to see queerness as another part of life’s landscape, not a never-ending source of romance. While there’s some romance here, it’s not the book’s point—Jamie’s far more than a swooning ex-boyfriend. It’s important to have books that center queerness, but it’s just as vital to have books like Jamie Hallow, which may do more to normalize the spectrum of human sexuality than the romances. Jamie’s gay. Big deal. Next, please. I’d hand this book to my sons for the characterization alone.

Jamie also has a compelling, fast-paced plot that sinks its teeth in and won’t let go. With a backdrop of fantastic world-building that never goes explain-y, this horror/fantasy mashup will send YA lovers into a tizzy, and its throat-punch of an ending seals the deal. Sequel, please?

I’m in love with Cemetery Gates’s recent releases. Their scope alone is fantastic, and they seem to have a knack for finding stellar world-building. Here’s to hoping I get my hands on more.

Twitter: @ UnheimlichManvr / @ CemeteryGatesM

Instagram: @ av_wilkes / @ cemeterygatesm

Bluesky: @ unheimlichmananvr.bsky.social / @ cemeterygatesmedia.bsky.social

#review #fiction #book review #horror books #horror fiction #indie lit #indie press #indie horror #small press horror #queer horror #dystopian horror #post apocalyptic horror #YA horror #horror novella #ya sci fi #post apocalyptic fiction #eco horror #occult horror #cosmic horror #religious horror #lgbt horror

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BOOK REVIEW: Nicole Willson’s The Shadow Dancers of Brixton Hill

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

The Shadow Dancers of Brixton Hill (Cemetery Gates Media) takes place outside of Richmond, Virginia, so as a resident of the South’s second-snarkiest city, I was already biased (Charlestonians, all you have are churches. We have Edgar Allan Poe. We win). I also love historical horror, and I was delighted to find that the novella takes place in 1937. The cover’s also fab, which is always a good sign.

It’s the Great Depression, and traveling circus Montgomery Marvels has found themselves in dire straits. The owner sends his daughter Kate to scout new talent out from family friend and circus trainer Lewis Oswald. Oswald is super-cagey about the nature of his talent, but he swears they’re like nothing Kate’s ever seen. When she finally sees his girls in Oswald’s center at Brixton Hill, she’s floored: three young girls can make their shadows dance without moving themselves. 

However, Kate’s increasingly disturbed by Oswald’s treatment of the children. It seems abusive, and she wants no part of it. If she takes them on, she can improve their lives… but it’s not that simple, and Kate’s caught up in a dangerous web. The setting and characters shine in this jewel of a book with pitch-perfect renditions of Depression-era circus culture; Kate’s moral quandaries seem real, and they war with a very believable desire to prove herself and help her father’s circus. The girls’ abuse is detailed (trigger warning), but not so much as to disturb the average reader. I didn’t see the bombast of an ending coming, either. 

It’s true that I only review books I love. I set down the others quickly—there’s no time in this world to read what you don’t enjoy—but this book blew me away with its setting, its dastardly but not over-the-top villain, and its explosion of an ending. 

I also read it in one sitting; the novella’s quality and quick action couldn’t tear me away. Readers who enjoy rising tension and historical horror will definitely sink their teeth into this one. 

Pick up The Shadow Dancers of Brixton Hill at Cemetery Gates Media and avoid giving cash to the ‘Zon. Available now at:

Nicole Willson's website / newsletter

On Twitter: @ insomnicole / @ CemeteryGatesM

#review #gothic fiction #fiction #book review #horror books #horror fiction #indie lit #indie press #indie horror #small press #small press horror #historical fiction #historical horror #circus horror #gothic novella #horror novella #horror lit

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Author reading + open mic: BT Hayes (06/08/23)

Also featuring:

Arthur DeHart

Briar Ripley Page

Buy a copy of Dionysus and I Ship On Cabernet and Talk Sh*t from Wrong Publishing:

#reading #author reading #gothic fiction #gothic lit #short stories #short story collection #indie lit #fabulist fiction #indie press #small press #fiction reading #flash fiction

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Author reading + open mic: Jordan Ranft (15/06/23)

Also featuring:

Dre Hill

Rami Obeid

Tenacity Plys

Natalie D.C.

Get a copy of Said the Worms from Wrong Publishing:

#reading #poetry reading #poetry #gothic poetry #gothic lit #small press #indie press #indie poetry #author reading #slam poetry

[wrongpublishing]

Author reading + open mic: Nina Reljić (15/05/23)

Also featuring:

JA Fields

Dina Klarisse

Jordan Ranft

Get a copy of Agnes from Wrong Publishing:

#reading #poetry reading #poetry #gothic poetry #author reading #small press #indie lit #indie poetry #indie press #gothic lit #slam poetry

[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Dreadstone Press's Split Scream Volume Three

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Dreadstone Press’s Split Scream series has a simple mission: put two thematically similar novellas together, like an old-school double feature. Th first two volumes were great—Volume Two, with M. Lopez da Silva’s What Ate the Angels might be my personal favorite. Volume Three, with novelettes by indie standouts Patrick Barb and J.A.W. McCarthy,  rocks as hard as its predecessors.

Admittedly, I’m an easy mark for these books. As the world wakes up the hard-punching power of a good novella or shorter novelette, I’m cheering it on, though they’ve always been more accepted in the horror genre—probably thanks to the triune forces of magazines, serializations, and Stephen King. These bite-size books make a perfect afternoon read. I beach-read Volume Three.

Though indie horror novellas tend toward the literary side, they don’t demand the hard braining and intellectual will I often need to summon when I sit down with a full-length work. Call me lazy, but I like it. That lessened investment, I think, gives the reader more incentive to work with concepts like narrative disorientation (a key point in Barb’s So Quiet, So White) and shifting timelines (part of McCarthy’s Image Expulsio: The Red Animal of Our Blood). With less space, we know the answer’s coming soon; we don’t have to spend sixty to a hundred pages wondering what the hell’s going on before we settle into the story. There’s a time and place for that, and I love those works, too. But sometimes, I want to nestle into world more quickly.

Another reason I’m a sucker for Split Scream Volume Three is that its theme is art and artists, specifically how we use it in community (check out Collage Macabre as well if the theme holds specific appeal). Barb’s atmospheric novella is a disorienting, creepy-vibed delight, with its dreary-dark-woods setting playing a major role. In my opinion, he’s a master at building tension and picking apart family dynamics; this novella lets those talents shine. McCarthy’s dual timelines build to a stunning conclusion. You won’t see either of the endings coming, but you’ll shut the book (Kindle) satisfied. Yes. That’s what had to happen. It’s the only thing that could possibly happen. There’s a little glow that comes with that.

Both works ask what we’ll do for love and what we’re willing to give to others. Answer: probably more than we should, but we’ll give it willingly. While Barb shows it in a familial context, McCarthy delves into relationships. Despite their thematic similarities, the works are very different, not only in point of view (Barb’s is third person, McCarthy’s a terrifyingly immediate first), but also in gender and tone. Both serve up some fantastic dread—you know they won’t end well—and while Barb’s slow atmospheric dread draws the reader along, Image Expulsio’s dual timeline will keep you going with its sheer otherness. Both get weirder as they go along, and that’s a very, very good thing. 

Novellas are good. Weird novellas are even better. Pick this one up from Dreadstone so you don’t give bucks to to ‘Zon. Read it on the beach for a serious horror power move.

#review #gothic fiction #fiction #gothic literature #book review #horror books #horror fiction #indie lit #indie literature #indie press #indie horror #horror lit #horror novella #horror novellas #novelette

[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan's The Handyman Method

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

If you’ve read The Marigold or were lucky enough to sit through StokerCon’s panel on anomalous architecture, you know Andrew Sullivan’s a master of the trope. The Handyman Method (Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster) pairs him with Nick Cutter (Rust and Bone, Cataract City) in a haunted house/DIY/the-sins-of-the-father-will-bite-you-in-the-ass novel out August 8th. With memorable characters and the same you-never-saw-this-coming hits as The Marigold, this work’s one more reason you need these guys on your must-read-list.

At first glance, Trent Sabor’s an average dude married to an average wife (Rita), with an average kid (Milo) and his plucky pet turtle, Morty. They seem, on paper, to be the perfect family. They move into the first house of a new development, Dunsany Estates. Their house, like them, seems perfect. It may be surrounded by dirt on every side, but it looks like everything they’ve ever dreamed of. 

The cracks begin to show—literally—when Trent discovers a gaping hole in their closet. Incandescent with rage, he finds a YouTube channel, Handyman Hank, to help him patch it. Meanwhile, his son’s hooked up to his tablet watching Little Boy Blue. As the Sabors’ new home begins to show more cracks, so does Trent’s family.

Handyman Hank goes from a few vids to “a cornucopia for the Y-chromosome set” endorsing “a certain kind of man[liness]” which “does things The Old-Fashioned way.” Trent’s sucked in, for Reasons that I won’t reveal—you deserve, like Trent, to discover these cracks the old-fashioned way. 

This novel’s concept feels both wildly imaginative—like so much new horror, with that Jesus-Christ-I-never-thought-of-that feel—and eminently relatable. Men lose their way; they turn to sketchy sources for validation. Spouses drift. Parents and children grow apart. It’s these metaphorical cracks in both relationships and identities that lie at the heart of this novel and its house. 

And if you’re a sucker for prose (you are, if you’ve read Sullivan’s earlier work; my apologies to Cutter for an ignorance about his), you’ll swoon. It’s not showy, but it’s rich, beautiful, unforgettable. The image of little Milo “plant[ing] his hands on his hips with an exaggerated squint, a pint-sized foreman assessing a construction site”—I can’t get that one from my head. My kids are a little older now, but goddamn if I can’t picture that stance.

Those prose and images are a gift in a fast-paced novel like this. You’ll find yourself rereading, sometimes slowing down to savor those moments, like Trent’s moment when “his eyelids fluttered and his breath bottomed out—some kind of psychic brownout that interrupted the power grid of his brain.” 

And once you get it, you get it, and you’ll want to read it again. You’ll flip through and see the pinpoint accuracy of their metaphors, the hidden mechanisms of characters’ motivations, and maybe that’s a sign you’ve got a real cracker of a book in your hands: you put it down and pick it up again. Then you’ll understand why Simon & Schuster picked it up.

You can pick up The Handyman Method in little more than a week, August 8th. Preorder it before it kicks to a second printing, third, or fourth printing—and it will. You’ll find this one on your Barnes & Noble shelves later this year, pinky-swear. 

Buy the book:

Nick Cutter (website)

Andrew F. Sullivan (website)

#review #gothic fiction #fiction #book review #horror books #horror fiction #indie horror #horror lit #horror novel #domestic horror #new horror

[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Kate Maruyama's Bleak Houses

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Horror writers love coming-of-age stories. Our Biblical origin story is nothing if not humanity’s coming-of-age tale; knowledge is the destructor of innocence. Growing up involves revelation, accepted or not, of some societal truth. The world is never what we wanted or expected, and in this gap between innocence and experience falls the shadow.

The deftest horror bildungsroman mine that territory not for singular revelation, but for the universal miseries that afflict us all. In A Boy’s Life, the terror of a veterinarian’s Nazi past stands in for the knowledge that trusted people can betray us; the dead body may be the least horrid element of The Body. Kate Maruyama steps into this tradition with Bleak Houses: Safer and Family Solstice, her novella double-header releasing with Raw Dog Screaming Press on August 3rd.

Both coming-of-age stories, the novellas deal with innocence lost. In Safer, a twentyish girl takes a nannying job with a famous Hollywood star mid-pandemic; his house and family aren’t what they seem. Family Solstice sees a thirteen-year-old prepping for a literal fight against the unknown on winter solstice. Both Sol in Safer and Shea in Family Solstice come face-to-face with terrifying truths, and both must attempt to reconcile (or not) that knowledge with their own moral code. How must we live when the world betrays us?

In both works, you know the bad stuff’s coming. It’s inevitable. But you never see this particular bad stuff coming—one of the hardest parts of a coming-of-age story. Maruyama keeps a quick pace that ratchets the tension to eleven. There’s something of that proverbial trainwreck here: you know it’s coming, but you’ll be damned if you look away. The crash is all the worse (better) because Sol and Shea are easily-loved, well-drawn characters, endearingly plucky and simple to root for. You can lose your heart to characters like this, which make that upcoming revelation all the more devastating. 

Fans of YA lit will adore these two, but people who avoid it will still find plenty to love (ike RDSP’s Wasps in the Ice Cream, these novellas are suitable for teens, but their themes and craft will satisfy adult readers). Bleak Houses is worth reading for its use of liminal spaces alone: the houses at the center of both novellas could arguably be called anomalous architecture, and if you’re not a fan of that, you’re haunting the wrong genre.

Moreover, Safer is the first full-length work I’ve read that not only acknowledges the pandemic, but uses it as a plot point (Sol takes her nanny job because she’s in lockdown). Maruyama does it well, without sensationalism or sentimentality, and for narrative necessity. 

Put Bleak Houses on your must-read list. It reads fast (I devoured each novella in one sitting), and even better, you’ll believe in these stories. You’ll fall in love with Sol and Shea, and Maruyama’s deft enough to keep the villains from stereotype—so deft that I find myself wondering if “villain” is really the correct term. More than a single person, the antagonist in these pieces isn’t so much one person as a universal truth too terrible to bear.

You’ll see yourself in these. Maybe, more than anything else, that’s the test of great horror. 

Preorder in time for August 3rd:

Twitter: @ KateMaruyama & @ RDSPress Instagram: @ katemaruyama & @rdspress

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[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Jeremy C. Shipp’s The Merry Dredgers

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

One review describes Jeremy C. Shipp’s The Merry Dredgers (Meerkat Press) as a “kaleidoscopic nightmare.” That’s true.

A fever dream of a book, The Merry Dredgers delivers an intoxicating blend of cult noir and whodunit. Seraphina’s beloved but spacey sister Eff sends postcards indicating she’s part of a cult; when she falls into a quarry and ends up in a coma, Seraphina infiltrates the cult as a wide-eyed innocent named Corinna. 

Cult: you’re thinking black robes, deep forests, and creepy chanting. Shipps turns the tired trope on its head. Merry Dredgers are a fun-loving bunch all about uniting with Selanthian, a sort of happy energy unpinning the universe. Even better, their home base—the abandoned amusement park of Goblintropolis—conjures up not only the inherent creepiness of a deserted funland, but also its... fun?

This jolly cult mediates in a mirror-maze and tries to get the Eyeball Tree up and running; their elevator talks; “Corinna” and her eventual-girlfriend Nichelle bunk in the abandoned arcade. It’s not short on eeriness, but it cops to the inherent glee of shacking up next to a sort-of-log-flume. 

The supposedly-crazy cultists are also likable. They're richly drawn, engaging characters who will stick with you—stick so well you’ll giggle at their should-be-zany-but-are-genuinely-amusing inside jokes. Shipp’s people are fantastic, and not only for their originality. They add an extra layer to the novel’s dream-like quality (not only is it dream-like, but dreams are also a motif). And, don’t worry: despite its fun, you won’t forget this is a horror novel. Seraphina’s worries and regular hospital phone calls keep the tension going. 

The Merry Dredgers keeps its footing on a tightrope between absurdist fun and dawning dread. Merrily, eerily original, it’s an effortless trope-flipper that reads fast and sticks the landing; fans of absurdism and bizarro works will fall in love. This one’s worth the buy. 

Twitter: @ JeremyCShipp & @ MeerkatPress Instagram: @ jeremycshipp & @ meerkatpress

Author website Meerkat Press website

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[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Howl Society Press’s Anthology of Disaster Horror

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Howls from the Wreckage: An Anthology of Disaster Horror, edited by Chistopher O’Halloran doesn’t come without a warning label—not a trigger warning, found in the back, but a warning label. It deserves one. This hair-raising collection of stories will find your phobias and pick them raw.

Real talk: we’re all neurodivergent, brooding weirdos who’ve spent too long thinking about How It All Ends (my retirement plan is death in the Robot Wars). We’ve all got those apocalypse–I-can’t-bear scenarios stuffed in our heads, and yours is here somewhere.

If you are claustrophobic, you will not make it through this book. The end times often create a lot of tight spaces.

One of my favorite anthologies this year, Howls from the Wreckage slings some serious terror—you will find your existential nightmare here, even if it’s kaiju, possibly an incidental Cthulhu.

The book’s designed as a kind of official document/found footage piece. HOWL Society books are known for their killer illustration work; however, Molly Halstead’s formatting, which includes art by several members, deserves a damn award (where’s the Stoker for book design? That sounds overblown, but this is a delicious volume in which the art and format really do add something other than cleverness).

But no matter how those end times happen, they’re never predictable. There’s some good ol’ gore here, some Lovecraftian nightmares, some existential nightmares, some kaiju (did I mention the kaiju? I f*cking love the kaiju.) The list goes on, and too much specificity would ruin the book. Trust me: your preferred version of terror is here.

Another win for HOWL Society Press, this hair-raising collection will leave you shuddering. I started making a list of standouts and circled a full three-quarters of the book, so I’m not calling them. Buckle up, buttercup. The End Times are coming; they’ll scare your ass off and possibly leave you wonderful new squicks.

Buy this one in paperback or hardcover. The formatting’s worth it.

Socials:

Twitter: @ HOWL_Society

Instagram: @ howl_society

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[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: A Night of Screams, Latino Horror Stories

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

My graduate school studies are fighting my inner writer. I’m trying to write about A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories (Arte Público Press); grad school brain won’t stop spouting postcolonial theory. Writer brain wants it to shut up.

At its heart, A Night of Screams is a collection of damn good stories. I can babble about Edward Said all morning and it won’t matter, not really, because no one reads speculative fiction solely for political purposes. That fiction may be an inherent threat to the white patriarchy  (see: titling your book “Latino Horror Stories”), but it dulls into rhetoric without a compelling plot. The key word in that title isn’t “Latino” but “Stories.” While the two are inextricable, the adjective only modifies the noun.

A Night of Screams serves up some damn good stories with a side of poetry. These works offer entrance to a world of uniquely positioned terror. Writers twist folktale to serve their own ends; they battle sexist norms; they turn narrative on its head. These trickster-esque moments deliver speculative fiction’s great one-two punch—these stories speak as well as scare. 

And these are the kind of speculative stories you want to read: slasher shorts and reworked folktales, fresh takes on zombie apocalypse and cosmic horror. A Night of Screams offers a buffet, like any good anthology, and the weirder it tilts, the better it gets. There’s some real stunners in here, from Marcos Damián León’s “Indian Blood” and Pedro Iniguez’s “Purveyors and Puppets” to Estella Gonzalez’s “Chola Salvation,” a surrealist tale with echoes of the absurd. 

We need more diversity in speculative fiction; culturally-themed anthologies fill an important gap. Like Raw Dog Screaming’s Black Cranes, A Night of Screams fills narrative spaces with stories that sing. You need these in your life. 

Preorder the book from Arte Público Press (releasing June 30th.)

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