Weekly Posts from The Horror Tree for 11/12/2021
Nov 13, 2021 4:46 am
Word of the week: Recidivist– someone who lapses into undesirable patterns of behavior.
Welcome, readers, to this week’s collection of articles, news, and fiction from Horror Tree and around the web. I hope those of you participating in NaNoWriMo this month are off to a strong start. Don’t forget that any time working on your craft is time well spent, despite the number of words you get down on the page. If you fall behind your goal word count, it’s okay! This month can cause feelings of stress and anxiety for some, and for those of you who feel that pressure, just remember that you don’t have to write every single day in order to be a writer.
As always, you can find me (Holley) lurking on Twitter @HLCornetto. Here are the latest articles on writing from around the web.
Sponsor:
This month we're being sponsored by Were Tales which includes some amazing authors (including some who write for and frequent Horror Tree) so you should pick up a copy today!
Horror Tree / Trembling With Fear Update:
Still learning the ins and outs of SendFox as our new newsletter format. We had a mini-snafu last week which had this only delivered to 1/5th of our readers, I believe that should be resolved now!
With the success of drabbles in our Trembling With Fear releases, we're looking to be expanding on our ability to share drabbles. Keep your eyes peeled for a new opportunity coming soon. We'll also be looking for an editor with Wordpress experience to help out here.
Also, this will be my final request to please share your feedback with your thoughts on our video refresh posts - https://www.patreon.com/posts/video-refreshes-57593581
Articles:
What new and amazing articles from around the web should you be checking out? Here is what we've found from the past week!
Craft:
Writer’s Digest: How to Write a Thriller that Delivers
The NaNoWriMo Blog: Making the Most of Your First Draft
General:
Lit Hub: A Survivor’s Guide to the Long, Slow, Infuriating Process of Revision.
Business:
Jane Friedman: The Short-Run Printing Option: Pros and Cons
Free Fiction Roundup:
This week’s first story is “Vedma,” by Rebecca Rowland, which appeared in Siren’s Call eZine for the Halloween issue. Although I’ve only included Rowland’s story here, this issue contains stories from several talented writers, such as Alyson Faye, Sonora Taylor, and Mark Towse. I’d highly recommend giving the whole issue a read! 34 Orchard released issue 4 of their journal this week. My favorite story in this issue was “Everything Fits if You Push Hard Enough” by Rob Francis. This story was weird and dark and wonderful. Shawn Kobb’s “A Voice in the Winter” appeared in Flash Point Science Fiction. I absolutely love stories with fairy tale vibes, and this one was no exception. The voice and prose were exceptional. I’m rounding out this week with “The Monster of Lake Gregg” by Kara Pogos. This flash piece pulled me in from the very first line.
Now, on to the fiction:
“Vedma”” by Rebecca Rowland. Siren’s Call eZine (pp. 40-42).
“Everything Fits if You Push Hard Enough” by Rob Francis. 34 Orchard (pp. 34-38).
“A Voice in the Winter” by Shawn Kobb. Flash Point Science Fiction.
“The Monster of Lake Gregg” by Kara Pogos. The Arcanist.
If you post any writing content during the week and think it would be a good fit for us to feature, do reach out and let us know at contact@horrortree.com
Thank you Patreons! As always, the site's lifeblood is in your hands and we truly appreciate your support.
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Top Articles Of The Week Excerpts:
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Taking Submissions: Allegory Volume 41
Deadline: December 31st, 2021 Payment: $15 Theme: Speculative fiction, primarily horror, science fiction, and fantasy.
Note: Reprints welcome Formatting Guidelines This is proving to be a recurring problem, so we’re putting it up front.
Please, for all our sakes, read this next part carefully.
All submissions should be sent by e-mail (no letters or telephone calls please) to submissions@allegoryezine.com. Below are some formatting rules to help us process your submission more quickly.
EMAIL AND COVER LETTERS Email is accepted in both text and HTML formats....
🗒️ Interview with award-winning horror author, Deborah Sheldon
Deborah Sheldon is an award-winning Australian author with a long list of titles to her name, including short stories, novelettes, novellas and novels.
Sheldon is masterful at the art of writing horror: believable plots, convincing characters, well-defined settings, decisive pacing, and the perfect amount of mayhem, destruction and bloodletting.
Her new action-horror novella, Man-Beast (Severed Press) reflects all these skills.
Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Deb about horror writing in general, and Man-Beast in particular.
The title character in your book is a humanoid, but not the standard version.
How did you go about revamping the Bigfoot trope?...
🗒️ Taking Submissions: The First Line – Spring 2022
Deadline: February 1st, 2022 Payment: $25.00 – $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 – $10.00 for poetry Theme: Story must begin with: Rayna sat in front of the mirror removing her makeup and wondered who she would discover underneath.
We love that writers around the world are inspired by our first lines, and we know that not every story will be sent to us.
However, we ask that you do not submit stories starting with our first lines to other journals (or post them online on public sites) until we’ve notified you as to our decision (usually four weeks after the deadline).
When the entire premise of the publication revolves around one sentence, we don’t want it to look as if we stole that sentence from another writer.
If you have questions, feel free to drop us a line....
🗒️ Raven Canticle Press Is Open To Novels And Novellas
Payment: Royalties Themes: Fantasy, Horror, Espionage/Thriller, Science Fiction Raven Canticle Press is a specialty press that focuses on limited run and small press horror, fantasy, and science fiction genre fiction.
Located in the high peaks of Utah, the creative team behind Raven Canticle Press has years of publishing experience, small business financial management and distribution and logistics experience.
Raven Canticle Press is focused on high-quality fiction and limited run content, and as such works with a variety of new technology and delivery methods to provide the very best content to its readers.
WHAT WE WANT We love fiction from diverse, under-represented perspectives and cultures, well-researched and written by fresh and exciting voices.
Speculative fiction in the following genres Fantasy Horror Espionage/Thriller Science Fiction Up to 80,000 words, minimum of 15,000 words (novellas) Submitted to our submission email (submission AT ravencanticlepress DOT com) Only one submission per quarter, no simultaneous submissions, no submissions of previously rejected material without prior approval....
🗒️ Taking Submissions: The Cafe Irreal Spring 2022
Deadline: January 1st, 2022 Payment: One cent U.
S.
per word ($2 minimum) Theme: Fantastic Fiction You really NEED to read the description below.
Our Guidelines The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English.
This fiction, which we would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges.
As a type of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined....
🗒️ Systemic Injustice in Contemporary Horror: How It’s Used and What to Take Away As a Writer
Systemic Injustice in Contemporary Horror: How It’s Used and What to Take Away As a Writer Since the blockbuster success of Get Out, systemic injustice has become an increasingly prevalent theme in modern horror.
And while certainly present in the genre prior to this era, 2016-2017 was when race, class, mental health, and other issues of systemic oppression really rose to prominence.
Since then, we’ve gotten a wealth of horror stories tackling these issues from numerous angles — with varying degrees of success.
In theory, systemic injustice is a fantastic wellspring of horror material: it’s not just upsetting, but all too real.
Any horror writer worth their salt knows that great horror taps into common fears, and inequality and discrimination are sadly some of the most common sources of despair, anger, and yes, terror in today’s world.
But just because someone recognizes a social justice issue, doesn’t mean they’ll address it effectively in their work; in fact, often the opposite is true....
🗒️ Taking Submissions: The Land of 10,000 Crimes
Deadline: December 31st, 2021 Payment: $75 and a contributor’s copy Theme: Mystery and Crime stories to be set in Minnesota or Minnesota adjacent (Wisconsin, Iowa, Canada, the Dakotas).
We are pleased to announce there will be a short story anthology for Bouchercon 2022 – The Land of 10,000 Crimes.
Our goal is to raise money for the Women’s Prison Book Project.
All of the proceeds, after publishing costs, will go to the WPBP, along with the proceeds from our live and silent auctions.
Submission guidelines: Short stories must be crime fiction, less than 5000 words, and stories must not have been published anywhere else previously.
We would like the stories to be set in Minnesota or Minnesota adjacent (Wisconsin, Iowa, Canada, the Dakotas).
The hard deadline for submission is December 31, 2021.Any stories received after this will not be considered for any reason.
Please submit stories via email and in Word documents to Anthology@bouchercon2022.com Please include your name, email, and any other contact information we might need.
If selected, we will send you a contract assigning Bouchercon the rights for your story for one year after the publication date....
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Best of British Science Fiction 2021
Deadline: January 15th, 2022 Payment: £50.00 plus a contributor’s copy Theme: Reprints of science fiction published in 2021 Note: Must live in UK or be a British ex-pat Note: Reprints only Submissions for Best of British SF 2021 are now open!
Series editor Donna Scott is seeking the very best short stories written by British authors that were first published during 2021. For our purposes, ‘British’ means authors who are resident in the UK or British ex-pats who currently live elsewhere.
Please bear in mind that this is a reprint market and we are not interested in original stories in this instance; nor do we wish to see self-published stories.
Also, we are looking specifically for Science Fiction with this one; fantasy and other flavours of genre will not be considered.
There is no specific limit on a story’s length, though anything over 10,000 words will be a tough sell....
Enjoy,
Horror Tree
