Taking a whirl on the night winds…
My newest collection has been out for ten days now and I’m just so happy! It’s been such a labour of love, from compiling the stories to creating the cover by hand-carving it as a print.
The Cover
If you don’t know what linocut is, it’s a relief printmaking technique where you carves a design into a sheet of linoleum or rubber. This creates essentially a stamp and you use inks to create prints on paper. It’s very similar to woodcut prints but easier.
Below are some pictures I took of the cover as I made it. From drawing it first, then tracing it onto tracing paper. Rubber pads really take to graphite so this is an easy way to just trasfer your design to the block. Then I carved it, inked it, and printed!
The Stories
When I first started this collection, I planned on using the stories I’d written for my annual October writing challenge. If you’re a regular visitor of my blog, you know all about it.
As I was picking out my favourites, I realized how short they all were. Which makes sense considering I was writing these stories in a day, haha. So I added some other special stories in and wrote an experimental one as a treat.
Let’s peep at the ToC:
The Widow's Walk — This is one of my favourite October writing challenge stories. It also inspired the cover print. The story follows a woman waiting for her husband to return from sea as she struggles to survive, without the help of the nearby town. Gothic, folk horror vibes.
Lens Obscura — For a while I tried my mettle with drabbles/micro fiction — stories of 100 words. This is a sci-fi horror story about hi-tech contact lenses.
Mistress Edge's House of Horrors — I wrote this for a submission call themed around Egyptian. The first version ended in a terrible pun about bees making bee-lines. When it got picked up for reprint, the editors of the second anthology asked that I write the puns out, haha. I used the second version for this collection (reprinted in Night Terrors(2020), originally printed in Mummy Knows Best (2017)). The first version will forever be a unicorn.
The Butcher of Edge Fallow — This is another October writing challenge story that explores a Halloween serial killer’s curse and origins. A bit humourous, a bit sad.
Granny Mae, The Witch Bitch — Another October story! This one got a lot of comments and people really liked the character of Granny Mae so hopefully you enjoy her too!
State of Alarm — Another October story and a sci-fi horror tech to boot. As well as a critical view of the capitalistic world we live in.
Suffer No Harm — I wrote this one for a western horror anthology (Blood in the Soil, Terror on the Wind(2022)) and I had a ton of fun experimenting with formatting and voice. A corrupted sheriff learns the hard way not to mess with the ladies of the local saloon.
Hide and Seek — Another October story about a child lost in a liminal space on Halloween night, haunted by something in the night. Very grim.
Only Way — You all know by now that I love Mothman right? This October challenge story was inspired by a Mothman prompt. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, soured by radiation and ash, a woman seeks out a cure for her partner’s rotting body.
Left Behind — I wrote this story for an anthology themed around Denver horrors (Terror at 5280’(2019)). I did some research and discovered some local legends based on Riverdale Road which is supopsed to be the most haunted road in Colorado. I mean, this road has legends about a man who burned down his house and killed his whole family, a phantom Camaro, a ghostly jogger, and a lady in white. So this story follows a pretty cozy ghost story vibe.
Affirmations — Another October challenge with a prompt about demonic self help gifts. I had a lot of fun writing this one.
The Rathwick Ritual on Sentinel Hill — This story hasn’t been published anywhere but it has been adapted to audio format by the NoSleep Podcast (2020). This one is an atmosphere-heavy folk horror about a woman visiting a small town for a work conference and learning way more than she bargained for about its history.
The Family Home — This is one of my first ever published stories and it appeared in a Salem-themed anthology (Shadows in Salem(2016)) and is based on some reall morbid history. Only click HERE is you’re prepared for some big spoilers.
HASPE (Horror AI Story Prompts Evolved) — Here’s another spooky October story that follows HASPE as it tries to “help” a lazy author who relies on it too much.
Falling — Reprinted in TheSirens Call (2019) and originally printed in Sanitarium Magazine(2015), this was a story I wrote when I was living in Japan and struggled with some health issues that turned out to be chronic low blood pressure. Part of it made me feel like I was constantly sinking/falling/spinning.
Warm — This is another drabble I wrote, this one with a heavy melancholic vibe to it.
Look at the State of Me! — The final October story of this collection is a weird one about an influencer trying to fill that hole inside her and find the self-worth she’s been searching so despretely for, all her life.
Moonstruck — Now this is a special story to end on. I wrote this for the collection and it’s an epistolary horror story told alongside custom-made linocut art prints. What happens when the Moon turns traitor?
And yes, this is available now! You can get it anywhere books are available and you can buy it directly from me!
If you do grab a copy, be sure to let me know what you think and thank you so much for your support!
x PLM
