Category Archives: horror short stories

Introducing DARKNESS MOST FOWL anthology and readings!

Sometimes birdsong is dangerous.

If you love 34 Orchard and you want a volume full of tales that carry our vibe, don’t miss Darkness Most Fowl from The Godmother of Horror Press!

DARKNESS MOST FOWL ANTHOLOGY COVER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This anthology was invitation only, and so writers we’ve recommended and several 34 Orchard alums build terrifying nests in this bird horror anthology! Edited by #7 “The Last Days”’s Elaine Pascale and featuring stunning art by Michael Takeda (#11, “Kintsugi”), others are Zachary Kellian (#6, “Shrike Song”), Die Booth (#1, “A Murder”), Ernest Ògúnyẹmí (#7, “The Flute”), Leen Raats (#8, “The Solitary Man”), Nicola Kapron (#3, “The Bodies We Should Forget”), Selah Janel (#5, “Mister Skinandbones”), Rob Frances (#4, “Everything Fits If You Push Hard Enough”), Robert Mayette (#8, “The Milestones on That Path”), L.E. Daniels (#8/“Weird Witness”), and ten other popular voices. From grackles and creepers to magpies and nightjars, these flights of dark fancy will claw your heart every time you hear beating wings.

Amazon Link

In the mood to Read the rest of this entry

Announcing 34 ORCHARD’s Spring 2025 ToC!

The ToC for 34 Orchard Issue #11, Spring 2025, has arrived! The issue will be released on Friday, April 25, 2025.

In Issue 11, twenty-two artists tackle the challenges of “turning over a new leaf.” While the phrase may refer to flipping to a book’s blank page, it makes the work of taking a new direction sound too easy. It’s much more like the leaves of trees in an approaching storm: you’re going to get jostled around, twisted, and beaten up. In this issue, we not only have work from the US, Canada, and the UK, but from Read the rest of this entry

WICKED SICK receives six Best-of-’23-Horror mentions

WICKED SICK NEHW anthology

THRILLED to discover that not one, not two, but SIX of the stories that co-editor Scott Goudsward and I selected for the New England Horror Writers’ Wicked Sick anthology are on the recommended reading list for Ellen Datlow’s 2023 Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen! It’s the highest number of stories selected in a single volume in the Wicked series (and also the only one I edited).

Stephen Mark Rainey—who appeared in 34 Orchard’s Spring 2020 issue with the moving piece “Night Crier”—wrote a generous introduction for Wicked Sick, writing that “these authors reach into your Read the rest of this entry

34 ORCHARD ISSUE 10 IS HERE!

This issue plunges into the cavern of feeling forlorn, lost, and left behind; sasquatches, mermaids, street dwellers, siblings and jobseekers watch as the world chugs on without them. But although abandonment may feel like a death knell, we shouldn’t underestimate its positive power: a woman seeks justice, a grieving spouse turns grateful, and a mother finds strength.

If you’re feeling forgotten as the grayer days of autumn darken into winter, 34 Orchard’s Autumn 2024 issue may offer the camaraderie and light you seek. Get your copy at https://34orchard.com/issues/issue-10/ today!

Once again, the ToC:

Cover Art: Between Worlds – Sonali Roy

Attn Attn – Nichole Lightner

Connection – Yash Seyedbagheri

Things We Did on the Internet – Beth Boylan

Dolphin – T.L. Antoff

Medium Fries – Jilian Elisabeth

When I Scramble Eggs – Jacqueline Jules

Our Parents’ Children – Mia Scattergood

Shantytown – Gordon Linzner

The Day After – Claire Francis Collier

A Stranger in Winter – Rob Francis

The Dark Reflection – Melina Ekic

No Sanctuary – David H. West

Meeting Mary Bloody Thighs in a Convenience Store in Arkansas – Josie Levin

Let Him Roll – Sarah Bradley

When Nature Calls – Craig Thornton

Gardens – Kevin J. Fellows

Mother, Father, Us – Miel MacRae

The Museum – Gregory L. Norris

For Only an Hour – Susan Brush Jonas

Selling the House – Rasha Abdulhadi

Footprint – Kyle E. Miller

Get SCARY this Friday night!

I’m THRILLED to be part of SHOCK WAVES IV: HORROR WRITERS OF NEW ENGLAND on ZOOM this Friday night, October 18, at 7 pm EDT. Presented by the Swansea Free Public Library, I’ll be joined by writing buddies Rob Smales, Trisha J. Wooldridge, K.H. Vaughan, Steve Van Samson, and Scott Goudsward.

This event is free to attend—link to register is below (registration is required so they can send you the Zoom link!) Come get your pre-Halloween scare on with recs for books and movies for the season and so much more!

To register, click HERE.

SWANSEA LIBRARY 4

 

I belong to We Are Providence!

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been a member of the Rhode Island-based writer’s community We Are Providence since November of 2023, and what a ride it’s been! I’ve had strong Rhode Island ties since the early nineties, when I did undergraduate work at the University of Rhode Island. Over the past thirty years, I’ve spent so much time in the state it feels like home, and the folks in We Are Providence have not only welcomed me with open arms, they have made me feel like I truly belong.

WE ARE PROVIDENCE COVER

Helmed by Christa Carmen (The Daughters of Block Island) and L.E. Daniels (Serpent’s Wake: a Tale for the Bitten), we’ve just put the finishing touches on the group’s second anthology, Monsters in the Mills, which releases in August (and includes a brand new story by me called “Cinched”).

If you love all things abandoned, this collection is for you. Edited by Christa and L.E., cover art by Mr. Michael Squid, and introduction by Faye Ringel, and published by Australian-based Interactive Publications, here’s the back cover copy (if you’re wondering if I wrote it because it sounds like me, yes, I did):

DEEP IN THE WEEDS, THEY WAIT.

Behind graffitied fences or obscured by woods, the abandoned mills of New England watch. For thrillists and historians, urbexers and developers, or just the average passer-by. Omnipresent and looming, the mills lure the innocent to their mysteries, secrets…and terrors.

The We are Providence writers hunt what lurks among the crumbled bricks and strangling sumac. A widower on a demolition crew wakes the revenants. Read the rest of this entry

StokerCon 2024 – Virtual Tickets Still Available!

STOKERCON 2024 LOGO

StokerCon—the Horror Writers Association’s annual gathering chock full of panels, readings, special events, awards ceremonies and other things horror writing—takes place this coming weekend, May 30—June 2, in San Diego.

If you, like me, can’t make it to California but would like to check out some live and pre-recorded content on the same weekend it’s all happening (including a super-cool horror film festival)—and enjoy a panel and a reading featuring yours truly—you still can! Tickets for the virtual event are $75 ($100 if you’d like the souvenir anthology) and include The Final Frame Horror Short Film Competition and can be purchased here: https://events.ringcentral.com/events/allaccesscon-presents-stokercon

For my part, I’m on a panel called Dark Fantasy – A Discussion on Horror with Fantasy Elements, which was pre-recorded in April, and what a fantastic conversation with writers Holley Cornetto (Moderator—We Haunt These Woods), Lee Murray (Into the Mist), Ai Jiang (I Am AI), Corey Farrenkopf (short fiction in many publications), Jonathan Duckworth (The Book of Never), and Austin Shirey (City of Spores). Several other panels fill out the schedule.

I’ll also present the first portion of my short story, “King of Bull,” which will be published next year in my next collection, Songs for a Dying World (cover release coming shortly!) In “King of Bull,” a boutique brewer Read the rest of this entry

34 ORCHARD ISSUE 9 IS HERE!

The twenty-one artists in 34 Orchard Issue 9 examine all aspects of waiting: its ups and downs, its held-breath nature, its power. A dead girl languishes instead of going towards the light and a predator banks on his next meal. One mother is driven to pursue a reunion with her daughter, another’s moment for revenge finally arrives, and generations of sons resist—yet compulsively anticipate—the inevitable. A frozen town dreads its death knell. An angry specter prays for her misery to have company, while spirits trapped in the brick and mortar of a bridge wait for nothing more than the next passer-by.

34 ORCHARD ISSUE 9 COVER featuring "When the Light Dies" by Keith Molden

Sooner or later, the waiting’s over, but when we finally get what we want, was it everything we’d imagined? At the end of it, was it really worth it—or did it turn out to be the beginning of yet another long wait for something else? Find out and get your copy at this link today!

Once again, the ToC:

Cover Art: When the Light Dies – Keith Molden

D-Day – Norie Suzuki

Revenge – Dan B. Fierce

Lake Effect – Jason P. Burnham

There – L.T. Ward

First Day Jitters – Donna J.W. Munro

Humans Suppress and History Reveals – Sonali Roy

The Man in the Gray Suit – Fariel Shafee

You Have Summoned a Demon – Ray Daley

Search Underway for Missing Submarine Bringing Tourists to Titanic – John Jeffire

Stillbirth – Jaclyn Eccesso

Suyuntu – Christine Lajewski

Skyline – Jennifer Fanning

Hot on the Trail – Josh Schlossberg

The Seduction – Elizabeth Falcon

Halloween Notes from Bloody Mary of the Philippines– Caroline Hung

The Ghosts at Yazá Bridge – Andrea Ferrari Kristeller

Family Heirloom – Christopher Emmerson-Pace

Last Stop – Brenna Monaghan Behel

Eleven Ways the World Could End – Jack Powers

Unidentified Climbing Object – Angelique Fawns

IT’S RELEASE DAY!! 34 ORCHARD ISSUE 8 is here!

It’s release day for 34 Orchard Issue 8! You can head here to get the PDF: https://34orchard.com/issue-8/

(Issues are free, but donations are appreciated).

34 ORCHARD ISSUE 8 COVER

A clown questions his actions during the Hartford Circus Fire, a woman spends hours calling for the missing, and a man’s unsettled conflict with his brother rents his world in two. A dog mommy may fail at making the ultimate choice and an uncertain slaughterhouse worker may end up without one. In Issue 8, twenty-four artists ponder the dangers in unanswered questions, and the effects on us when things are left unresolved. Once again, our Table of Contents: Read the rest of this entry

If you missed the “Candlewood’s Creepy Tales” I-95 interview… listen here

CANDLEWOOD LAKE I-95 ARTICLE SCREENSHOT

If you missed the Halloween drive-time Ethan & Lou Show interview on the creepy tales of Candlewood Lake, you can listen to it here…lasts about ten minutes!

The original “7 Creepy Tales of Candlewood Lake,” in case you’d like to read those, are here:

http://nehw.blogspot.com/2016/08/legends-of-candlewood-lake-guest-blog.html