Nasty and Brutish Shorts: Reading & Writing Short Horror Fiction

  Here's a surprise! I never expected to come across Quick Chills: The Year's Best Horror Stories From the Small Press Volume I  in the wild. I'd tried, trust me-- I had a fun time delving into the 80s/90s small-press horror era a month or two ago --but even though I was willing to pay silly amounts of money, I just couldn't track it down. However, I recently had the chance to help with the liquidation of a  long-time horror writer and collector's library, and I found it!  Because this is an impossible one to find, I've added notes after each story about where you else you might discover them. Fair warning: In most cases, the other appearances are nearly as scarce as this one. Let's go! While She Was Out by Edward Bryant Synopsis : A suburban woman's trip to the mall becomes a bloody struggle against four teen thugs. Thoughts : How times change. I first read this story in Splatterpunks: Extreme Horror several years ago, and it didn't click with me. ...

                                                                                             I'm working away on my final pre-NECON blog post, but in the meantime, I have a plug for an upcoming virtual event of interest to horror fans: The Colorado chapter of Horror Writers of America will be discussing Steve Rasnic Tem's novel Deadfall Hotel at 7:30pm (Mountain Time) on July 26.  I plan to attend, and I encourage you to as well! Zoom info below.  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85995110961?pwd=iEbowBoOfGue8sYkEc4sO8uObWaYPu.1 I'm delighted to share this, because Steve is a living horror legend, and one of my top five American horror writers who's active today. I plan to dial in, and I encourage you all to ...

                                                                                                        We're back with another look at one of the Camp Necon 44 Writer Guests of Honor: Clay McLeod Chapman, whose Acquired Tastes came out last year and got a well-deserved Stoker Award nomination for fiction collection.   A note before we begin: The meaning of the title here is particularly apt: Something you'll notice in these stories (and that also comes up a little bit in Chapman's What Kind of Mother is a focus on the horror of eating and consumption. Usually, in horror fiction consumption is tied to annihilation and we're worried that the vampire will drink our blood, t...