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Poppy Z. Brite praises Nicole Cushing’s Mr. Suicide

One of the most influential and transgressive horror writers of the last few decades has high acclaim for Nicole Cushing’s forthcoming Word Horde debut, Mr. Suicide:

“This tale of a damaged and murderous child is the most original horror novel I’ve read in years. Cushing’s prose is rapid-fire, grisly, and passionate.”
–Poppy Z. Brite, author of Exquisite Corpse and Lost Souls

Mr. Suicide by Nicole Cushing

Pre-Order Mr. Suicide today.

And a tremendous Thank You goes out to Billy Martin for providing us with the blurb.

Publishers Weekly reviews Giallo Fantastique; Jonathan L. Howard blurbs Vermilion

Publishers Weekly reviews Giallo Fantastique this week, saying:

This slim anthology, compiled by the capable Lockhart (The Children of Old Leech), brings together very short, gem-quality stories filled with blood, guts, sex, and especially death. Lockhart translates giallo fantastique as weird crime, and each story, while very different in style and tone, melds crime and supernatural horror with panache and verve. […] The stories’ conclusions are never definitive, leaving the reader with a delicious sense of lingering unease. Lockhart has done a magnificent job of discovering and delivering a baker’s dozen of wonderfully creative, macabre vignettes.

Read the whole review, complete with shout-outs to authors MP Johnson, Anya Martin, and Ennis Drake, at Publishers Weekly. Preorder Giallo Fantastique from Word Horde.

Giallo Fantastique edited by Ross E. Lockhart

And Johnathan L. Howard, author of the Johannes Cabal and the Russalka Chronicles series of novels has just blurbed Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion, saying:

Tanzer’s debut novel is extraordinary, portraying a world that is engagingly curious and curiously engaging. One doesn’t realise how much one’s life has been missing a story about a Chinese/English buster of violent ghosts out in the wilder end of the Wild West until one reads this. Plus, talking bears.

Talking bears! We’re in! Preorder Vermilion from Word Horde today!

The Horror Fiction Review previews Giallo Fantastique, John Skipp opines on Nicole Cushing’s Mr. Suicide

Two brand-new bits of Word Horde news for you this Monday:

The Horror Fiction Review‘s Christine Morgan previews Giallo Fantastique this week, calling the anthology “a lavish, sumptuous tapestry of luxurious surrealism and strangeness,” and singling out the stories by Garrett Cook, Nikki Guerlain, and MP Johnson as personal favorites. Giallo Fantastique will be published May 15, 2015, and may be pre-ordered here.

And esteemed author, editor, and filmmaker John Skipp weighs in on Nicole Cushing, author of the forthcoming debut novel Mr. Suicide, saying, “Nicole Cushing comes in smart and hard, skilled and strange times three. Many aspire. But you can’t fake this kind of weird.” Mr. Suicide will be published July 15, 2015, and may be pre-ordered here.

Cover reveal (and praise from Jack Ketchum) for Nicole Cushing’s debut novel Mr. Suicide

Coming in July from Word Horde: Mr. Suicide, the debut novel from Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Nicole Cushing. Here’s your first peek at the cover and the teaser:

MrSuicide_Cover_small

Like everyone else in the world, you’ve wanted to do things people say you shouldn’t do.

How many times in your life have you wanted to slap someone? Really, literally strike them? You can’t even begin to count the times. Hundreds. Thousands. You’re not exaggerating. You’re not engaging in… whatchamacallit? Hyperbole? You’re not engaging in hyperbole.

Maybe the impulse flashed through your brain for only a moment, like lightning, when someone tried to skip ahead of you in line at the cafeteria. Hell, at more than one point in your life you’ve wanted to kill someone; really, literally kill someone. That’s not just an expression. Not hyperbole. Then it was gone and replaced by the civilized thought: You can’t do that. Not out in public.

But you’ve had the thought…

From Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Nicole Cushing comes Mr. Suicide, a novel of the Great Dark Mouth.

Mr. Suicide

Cover Art and Design by Zach McCain

Pub Date: July 15, 2015

Format: Trade Paperback, 224pp
ISBN-13: 978-1-939905-11-6

Format: eBook
ISBN-13: 978-1-939905-12-3

Jack Ketchum, award winning author of Off Season and The Girl Next Door, has this to say about Mr. Suicide:

Novels don’t come much more transgressive than this one, folks. Got a taboo? Watch Nicole Cushing grin while she dances all over it. In other hands that might be reason enough for the witty Mr. Suicide to exist. But this is more and better than that — a truly nightmare world, richly imagined, told to us in a canny, subversive second-person voice that makes you, the reader, the hero of this tale, like it or not. That it also manages to be ultimately life-affirming is yet another wonder.

Mr. Suicide: A Novel of the Great Dark Mouth. Preorder now from Word Horde.

Critical Acclaim for Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion

Available for preorder now and shipping in April, Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion is beginning to pull in some major praise. Here’s what Publishers Weekly has to say (with a starred review!):

Tanzer’s first novel is a splendid page-turner of a Weird West adventure. Elouise Merriwether is a psychopomp, tasked with escorting newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Half Chinese and half English, with a bizarre job that few people understand, she struggles to find a place for herself in 1870s San Francisco, often vacillating between pluck and self-effacement. When her mother asks her to investigate why young Chinese men are going missing after being offered jobs in Colorado, Lou agrees to turn detective, but she’s bitten off way more than she can chew, especially once she runs up against the mysterious Dr. Panacea and his possibly fraudulent Elixir of Life. This hugely entertaining mixture of American steampunk and ghost story is a wonderful yarn with some of the best dialogue around.

Vermilion by Molly Tanzer

And Cherie Priest, award-winning author of Maplecroft and Boneshaker, has this to say about Vermilion:

Vermilion is fresh and strange — a dark and sparkling story of magic, monsters, and mystery in the Old Weird West. Gloriously weird and heartfelt, it’s a credit to the genre from start to finish.

Vermilion is available for preorder from Word Horde now. Available soon from booksellers everywhere.

Vermilion Cover Reveal

The cat’s out of the bag, so here’s an official look at the cover for Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion, coming in April from Word Horde.

VermillionFrontCover_030415

Gunslinging, chain smoking, Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp, Elouise “Lou” Merriwether might not be a normal 19-year-old, but she’s too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that. It’s an important job, though most folks consider it downright spooky. Some have even accused Lou of being more comfortable with the dead than the living, and, well… they’re not wrong.

When Lou hears that a bunch of Chinatown boys have gone missing somewhere deep in the Colorado Rockies she decides to saddle up and head into the wilderness to investigate. Lou fears her particular talents make her better suited to help placate their spirits than ensure they get home alive, but it’s the right thing to do, and she’s the only one willing to do it.

On the road to a mysterious sanatorium known as Fountain of Youth, Lou will encounter bears, desperate men, a very undead villain, and even stranger challenges. Lou will need every one of her talents and a whole lot of luck to make it home alive…

From British Fantasy Award nominee Molly Tanzer comes debut novel Vermilion, a spirited weird Western adventure that puts the punk back into steampunk. Coming in April 2015 to better independent booksellers everywhere, and most online retailers. Preorder your signed copy direct from Word Horde TODAY!

Cover Art by Dalton Rose
Cover Design by Osiel Gomez

Strike a blow for the small press by nominating Word Horde authors for a Hugo Award

The nomination period in this year’s Hugo Awards will be closing on March 10, 2015, and while I’m under no illusions that my scrappy, horror-and-fantasy small-press, Word Horde, will be bringing home a rocket, I can dream. And if you share that dream, whether you’re a Social Justice Warrior or a Sad Puppy, and are a voting member of the 2014, 2015, or 2016 Wordcons, I do hope that you’ll consider the following choices as you finalize your ballot.

moon

The Worldcon 2015 ballot is available here: http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/nominations/

Best Novel:

We Leave Together, by J. M. McDermott

Best Related Work (as there is no Hugo anthology category):

The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron

Best Novelette:

“Of a Thousand Cuts,” Cody Goodfellow, TCoOL
“Love Songs from the Hydrogen Jukebox” T.E. Grau, TCoOL
“Ymir,” John Langan, TCoOL
“Tenebrionidae,” Scott Nicolay and Jesse James Douthit Nicolay, TCoOL

Best Short Story:

“The Golden Stars at Night,” Allyson Bird, TCoOL
“Learn to Kill,” Michael Cisco, TCoOL
“The Harrow,” Gemma Files, TCoOL
“The Old Pageant,” Richard Gavin, TCoOL
“Pale Apostle,” J. T. Glover and Jesse Bullington, TCoOL
“Walpurgisnacht,” Orrin Grey, TCoOL
“Firedancing,” Michael Griffin, TCoOL
“Brushdogs,” Stephen Graham Jones, TCoOL
“The Woman in the Wood,” Daniel Mills, TCoOL
“The Last Crossroads on a Calendar of Yesteryears,” Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., TCoOL
“Good Lord, Show Me the Way,” Molly Tanzer, TCoOL
“Snake Wine,” Jeffrey Thomas, TCoOL
“Notes for ‘The Barn in the Wild’,” Paul Tremblay, TCoOL

Best Professional Editor, Short Form:

Ross E. Lockhart

Best Professional Artist:

Julien Alday
Matthew Revert
Dalton Rose

Best Fanzine:

The Arkham Digest

Best Fan Writer:

Justin Steele, “Introduction: Of Whisky and Doppelgängers,” TCoOL, The Arkham Digest

Should you be nominating/voting in the Hugo Awards, I would be happy to send you an electronic copy of The Children of Old Leech or We Leave Together by email, provided you drop me a line with proof of membership. And thanks for supporting Word Horde and helping us continue bringing you the best independent fiction out there.

Giallo Fantastique: Cover and TOC Reveal

Coming May 15, 2015 from Word Horde: Giallo Fantastique

GialloFantastique_TPB_FC_005

An anthology of original strange stories at the intersection of crime, terror, and supernatural fiction. Inspired by and drawing from the highly stylized cinematic thrillers of Argento, Bava, and Fulci; American noir and crime fiction; and the grim fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, and Jean Ray, Giallo Fantastique seeks to unnerve readers through virtuoso storytelling and startlingly colorful imagery.

What’s your favorite shade of yellow?

Table of Contents

Introduction • Ross E. Lockhart
Minerva • Michael Kazepis
In the Flat Light • Adam Cesare
Terror in the House of Broken Belles • Nikki Guerlain
The Strange Vice of ZLA-313 • MP Johnson
Sensoria • Anya Martin
The Red Church • Orrin Grey
Balch Creek • Cameron Pierce
Hello, Handsome • Garrett Cook
We Can Only Become Monsters • Ennis Drake
The Threshold of Waking Light • E. Catherine Tobler
The Communion of Saints • John Langan
Exit Strategies • Brian Keene

Cover art by David Palumbo
Cover design by Scott R. Jones

Coming May 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-939905-06-2
Preorder now at Word Horde

TCoOL Gets a Golden Ghoul!

We are pleased to announce that The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron has received the 2014 Golden Ghoul Award for Best Anthology.

2014GoldenGhoulAwards

The Golden Ghoul Awards are an annual recognition of the best in horror cinema and literature, chosen by The Cult of Ghoul, Serbia’s leading horror website. This year’s honorees include the films Under the Skin, Wolf Creek 2, Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears, The Town that Dreaded Sundown, and Year of the Living Dead, and books include (TCoOL author) Scott Nicolay’s collection Ana Kai Tangata and The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters. Congratulations to all our fellow winners, and thanks to The Cult of Ghoul for enjoying our anthology.

Read the full list of Golden Ghoul Award winners at this link.

The Best Books of 2014: Word Horde Edition

Word Horde published two books in 2014, The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron (hardcover, trade paperback), edited by Ross E. Lockhart and Justin Steele, and We Leave Together (trade paperback), a Dogsland novel by J. M. McDermott. Needless to say, we were quite pleased to see both books recommended in the following critics’ best of the year round-ups.

Paul St. John Mackintosh, who called The Children of Old Leech “both a superb collection of dark tales and a testament to the highly developed, involved, and even self-referential status of the new new wave of American horror and weird fiction” included TCoOL on his top ten list, here:

http://www.teleread.com/book-review/top-ten-titles-2014/

Count Gore De Vol has plenty of praise for the tales within The Children of Old Leech, calling it a “fine anthology,” and saying “Solid writing, solid anthology. And, if you are unfamiliar with Laird Barron’s fiction, this tribute will send you straight to the bookstore to catch up.” His top ten list can be found here:

http://www.countgore.com/Library.htm

The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron

Mlle Ghoul (AKA S. Elizabeth) breaks with the top ten tradition to bring a list of 14 things I liked in 2014, including The Children of Old Leech on a list featuring the best dark music, horror films, notions, and books of the year.

http://unquietthings.com/14-things-i-liked-in-2014/

Tangent Online cites a quartet of stories from The Children of Old Leech in their 2014 round up, including “Snake Wine,” by Jeffrey Thomas, “Notes for ‘The Barn in the Wild’,” by Paul Tremblay, “Of a Thousand Cuts,” by Cody Goodfellow, and “The Last Crossroads on a Calendar of Yesterdays,” by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

http://www.tangentonline.com/news-mainmenu-158/2621-tangent-online-2014-recommended-reading-list

The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron

And J. M. Mcdermott’s We Leave Together was picked as one of the best fantasy/sci-fi books of 2014 by Foreword Reviews. “This heart-wrenching tale follows the final memories of a King’s man whose entire life has been affected by the existence of demons who walk the earth.”

https://www.forewordreviews.com/blog/posts/best-fantasy-scifi-of-2014/

WLT_FCover_300dpi

We’ve got some amazing stuff in store for you for 2015, including two debut novels, Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion and Nicole Cushing’s Mr. Suicide, the anthologies Giallo Fantastique and Cthulhu Fhtagn! (both edited by Ross E. Lockhart), and Orrin Grey’s new collection, Painted Monsters. We’ll be announcing how you can preorder these books soon, so stay tuned!