Speaking of Weird
Apr 28, 2026 1:31 pm
Hey Ho, Tenebrous Cult!
The future is here, o pilot of invention...and it is WEIRD.
Preorders are open now for Volume Four of our annual Best New Weird Horror (+ More) anthology: BRAVE NEW WEIRD has returned!
cover wrap by Matt Blairstone
Anti-spoiler alert: anthologes—I'm talking thoughtfully-curated-with-a-clearly-conceived-throughline anthologies, mind you; not turn-n-burn "license a Stephen King reprint, add a dozen semi-recognizable names, and hey we're magnanimous let's open *ONE* sub spot for 1000 writers to fight for" anthologies—are a shitload of work for comparatively little reward.
We know; we launched Tenebrous with a pair of 'em; and we've got YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR BODY and its forthcoming sibling, YOUR BODY IS A FEVER DREAM forever-scars lacing our bodies, though the need for those is vital enough to be absolutely worth it.
So, knowing what we know, why do we cherish the BRAVE NEW WEIRD series—a sneaky-heavy-workload endeavor which sells only modestly—so much?
Why are my gears already creaking to life thinking about next year's cover art?
(Literally as I'm typing this, I just had a flash of inspiration and doodled my first ideas for Volume Five on a piece of scratch paper beside me.)
Maybe more than any other Tenebrous title, BRAVE NEW WEIRD remains the most distilled, pure version of "be the change you want to see" for us.
Here's Alex from her introduction to the latest volume, saying it much better than I ever could:
At first, BRAVE NEW WEIRD was a reaction, like many other Tenebrous projects; we saw something in the world that didn't quite sit right and decided we wanted to prove it could be better. We did it to counter the trend of disproportionate representation that gets given to stories on the basis of nothing but the name beneath their title. We wanted something real and relentlessly hopeful and annoyingly egalitarian, and we got that. But it isn't enough for our "why" to remain a negative—to not be like—forever.
At some point, almost without our participation and below our notice, the why metamorphosed until one day, we woke up and realized we're in much deeper than we ever anticipated going; Tenebrous is tattooed (literally) on our bodies, it's our dearest friends, it's most of our lives and hopes for the future, we've got commitments to it booked for many years ahead, and it has, more or less, taken over everything.
Each year it grows stronger, smarter, and more stable, and we're now talking about how there's a chance that maybe, someday, when we're too old to carry on, it could be inherited by someone else.
And BRAVE NEW WEIRD remains the hopeful spearhead of that dream; because it's where we remind ourselves that there are other people out there who feel the same way we do. There are, in fact, many, both authors and presses, and we grow stronger the more we remember that we're doing this to be with them, to create something for them, and to celebrate that we survived one more year together.
And so, our why has changed from "to not be like those things we don't like seeing", to "to be entirely and happily like us", where "us" means more and more people each year.
Anyway. It's piles of work. And it's always worth it. And Volume Four is as loaded as ever, y'all, with some of the most imaginative, the most daring, the Weirdest fiction you'll ever experience.
2025's twenty-three BRAVE NEW WEIRD award winners hail from all corners of the globe. At least some of these names will be brand new to you, just as they were to us, and you will be hearing more from them in the future, we guarantee:
Z.D. Dochterman - Avila Beach
Wen Wen Yang - Drought's Vengeance
Chris Scott - The Sunflower Farmer
D. Marmara - In the Amygdala of the Beholder
Wailana Kalama - The Lazarus Ruins
Alexander James - Silver Wires & Sweet Water
Andrew Rivas - THE GOOPY LIL GUYS GO VIRAL
Biscuit Starberry - You Are Going to Die
Juleigh Howard-Hobson - Death Doesn't Sound Like It Looks
Audrey Zhou - Two’s Company, Three Might Be A Sign of Demonic Possession
Corrie Haldane - Hivemind
Ashley Stokes - Orange Slab
David Luntz - Brief Interlude with the Night Hag
Caleb Bethea - Glitter in Your Eyes
A.L. Goldfuss - Drosera regina
Zebulon Horse - The Mascot's Head
Daniel Loring Keating - Letter of Apology from Eldritch Appliances, LLC
Alistair Rey - Leviathan’s Womb
TJ Price - Exhibits…
Toshiya Kamei - Sworn Brothers
Patrick Malka - What We Remember, What We Pass Down
Morgan Melhuish - A Fragment of the Heart of Sappho
Caroline Hung - Ticket po mamser.
BRAVE NEW WEIRD Vol. Four arrives July 14th. The future of Weird Fiction just keeps getting Weirder.
Coming in 2027: Dave V. Riser's NOT ONLY WILL THIS KILL YOU BUT IT WILL HURT THE WHOLE TIME YOU ARE DYING
There's really not much more to whet your appetite with beyond that summary; this book either is very much not your thing or you've already broken your keyboard trying to preorder it (it's not up yet and won't be for a while, don't worry, you haven't missed a thing♥️)
You'll get a chance to sample Dave's unique madness this October in YOUR BODY IS A FEVER DREAM—funny story, we sent Dave's acceptance for FEVER DREAM, an inquiry of interest for this book, and a separate rejection for a different FD story, all on the same day, blissfully unaware they were all going to the same person, which shows just how little we pay attention to the star power of the authors we wanna work with.
NOT ONLY WILL THIS KILL YOU BUT I'LL BE GODDAMNED IF I'M GONNA TYPE OUT THIS TITLE EVERY TIME WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK is scheduled for release in summer 2027.
Cover Art Reveal for Noah Lloyd's IT OPENS DOORS
I wouldn't think it possible, but Tenebrous Grand Designer Echo Echo just keeps getting better. This is, I think, the 17th (!) book that Echo has done either cover art, interiors, or both—both, in the case of IT OPENS DOORS—with us, and she never fails to blow us away:
IT OPENS DOORS combines mystery and Cosmic Horror in a 1920 fishing village in the Olympic Peninsula, where a woman discovers a strange object lodged in the throat of the mummified remains of her fisherman husband: a key that unlocks anything.
Yep. Anything.
IT OPENS DOORS comes at you in spring 2027.
2027 is gonna be a special kinda year...
Speaking of Nerve-Janglingly, Soul-Shatteringly Devastating—wait, were we?—ALICIA IS IN THE BASEMENT arrives June 16th
...and we're not even halfway through 2026 yet! We've still got piles of Weird Horror to hit you with before the calendar turns. Also a little cyberpunk and some dark indie barfly comedy, but mostly Horror.
Like ALICIA IS IN THE BASEMENT. Maybe our most Horrific turn yet. Santiago Eximeno's English language debut—brilliantly translated by Alicia L. Alonso—will leave deep scars.
About ALICIA IS IN THE BASEMENT:
One summer afternoon, Santi and Maria's daughter disappears without a trace from a public park. A fruitless investigation passes, the agony only serving to tear Santi’s life and family further apart.
Months go by, and Santi finally stumbles upon a clue: it is hardly a name, barely a whisper, but it is enough to reveal a haunting legacy and unleash an entirely new kind of horror upon the despairing young father:
“He Who Does Not Speak With Children.”
"Staggeringly brutal and as painful as poking at an exposed nerve."
- Emma E. Murray, Crushing Snails
“A harrowing journey that becomes increasingly nightmarish with every page.”
- Carson Winter, Soft Targets, Portraits of Decay
Stunning cover wrap and interior illustrations by Jenna Cha.
The oily-black feeling this book filled me with upon reading it for the first time was rivaled only by the positively electric charge of its prose. A Jack Ketchum vibe, maybe, or the Parker crime novels by Richard Stark/Donald Westlake, but otherworldly, supernatural and Weird. If these references aren't in your wheelhouse...I promise you, they're just about the highest praise I can give.
Depraved, devastating, exhilarating, essential. ALICIA IS IN THE BASEMENT is out June 16th—the first release under our new distribution deal with Independent Publishers Group, actually!—and you can preorder it now.
That's all we got for you this week.
Wait!
Have you grabbed your registration for BizarroCon yet? It's coming up in three-ish weeks!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiirrrrrdddddd!
Hail Indie Publishing.
Hail New Weird Horror (+ More!)
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
Matt + Alex
