Have you enjoyed reading recent Word Horde novels such as J. M. McDermott’s We Leave Together, Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion, and Nicole Cushing’s Mr. Suicide? Are you looking forward to collections like Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts and Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace: Stories? Have you written a novel (or long novella) that you think might be a fit for Word Horde? Or would you just like the chance to ask a professional editor a few questions? Are you attending next weekend’s H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon in Portland, OR? Now’s your chance to sign up for a one-on-one pitch session with Word Horde’s editor in chief, Ross E. Lockhart. On Saturday, October 3 between 12 pm and 2 pm, Ross will be listening to pitches and looking for the next break-out hit book. Only a limited number of slots are available, and those slots are going on a first come, first served, basis. Interested pitchers should send an email to submissions[at]wordhorde[dot]com. We’re looking forward to hearing your pitch! Sign up today!
What we’re looking for: Intelligent, adult-oriented fantasy and horror novels, not necessarily in the Lovecraftian tradition, where the writing is excellent and the ideas are fresh. We are not currently looking for Young Adult, superhero, or anthology pitches. Short fiction pitches for in-progress anthologies will be considered.
Earlier this week, Sean M. Thompson sat down with Mr. Suicide author Nicole Cushing, to ask her a few questions. Here’s what Nicole had to say:
What made you want to join with Ross and the Word Horde?
Finding a publisher who is a good fit for you is somewhat analogous to dating: once you’ve been doing it awhile you know what you like, what you need, and what you should run from.
Ross is excited about books that take chances and don’t necessarily follow the conventions of the tentpole projects released by corporate publishing. So, artistically, we’re on the same wavelength.
At the same time, he struck me as someone who knew the business end of things pretty well and was committed to helping offbeat books maximize their audience. (That impression is, if anything, only reinforced by the work I’ve done with him since signing on.)
So, what’s not to love?
What do you feel the role of genre is in fiction?
Genre labels can help readers find books they may end up loving. They also help writers find publishers (and vice versa).
I know some people find genre labels to be limiting or even counterproductive, but I think genre (and subgenre) labels give us a helpful shorthand method of describing various types of fiction and the communities that love them.
Why is transgressive literature necessary?
Because it’s the only tool that can accurately communicate the emotional core of certain extreme experiences. In my opinion, conventional literary approaches fail when they attempt to depict trauma, poverty, addiction, underground subcultures, homelessness, violence, and certain varieties of mental illness.
At best, they can only get to the periphery of such experiences. Not the core. And so, they let down readers (particularly the readers who have lived through such extreme experiences and know their emotional textures). People who have lived through the worst that life can dish out deserve fiction that tells the truth about how the world (at its absolute worst) really works. So do people who haven’t lived through such experiences, but have curiosity about them.
Increasingly, American culture feels a need for all art to be created according to the polite, considerate, and safe dictates of the superego. But I suspect the best works of dark fiction come from the id.
The short answer is…life. Mr. Suicide is a warped, funhouse mirror depiction of how I (and some of my classmates) grew up.
The main character is a composite. Some aspects of him are autobiographical, some are drawn from my memories of troubled family members, but others (including some of his most disturbing facets) come from a boy I knew in high school who said outrageous things that–even after all these years–I can’t forget.
It’s like I had a blister on my brain for the last twenty-five years. Mr. Suicide was one of the ways in which I lanced it.
I also should acknowledge the influence of a brief talk given by Jack Ketchum called “Writing from the Wound”. (You can find it on YouTube or in the archives of the Odyssey Writing Workshop podcast.) After listening to Jack’s talk, I felt I had no choice but to “go there”.
What are some of your favorite transgressive novels?
Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr., The Maimed by Hermann Ungar, Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite, The Folks (a novella) by Ray Garton, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (a story collection) by Tadeusz Borowski, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, and Excrement (a memoir) by Crad Kilodney.
What have you been working on lately?
I’ve been working on the last bit of polishing of my story collection The Mirrors (in preparation for its impending, official release). I’ve sold a novella called The Sadist’s Bible (which I can’t say much about, until the contract is signed). Speaking of contracts, I just signed one with Dark Regions Press to provide a novella (as yet untitled) for their forthcoming anthology I Am the Abyss.
I continue to write nonfiction articles for the UK-based horror film magazine Scream.
Also, I’m working on a novel tentatively called Knife & Wound and I’ll be contributing short stories to a number of anthologies in the coming months.
It’s a full plate, but I’m excited and grateful to have so much work.
What scares you?
I have the same fears everyone else does. I pride myself on my ability to look my own mortality in the eye (without resorting to belief in an afterlife). But the truth is I’m just as scared of dying as anyone else. I’m also scared of the inevitable death of my loved ones. I’m not crazy about heights. Hell, I’m even scared of the possibility that one day I’ll face financial struggle again.
Nothing too noteworthy, there.
But I do have my oddball (perhaps irrational) fears, too. For example, I’m scared of the U.S. falling into an economic or political crisis during my lifetime. I also have a variety of strange, entirely irrational, idiosyncratic anxieties that have sometimes made my life a bit difficult. And I’m scared of things no self-respecting horror author should admit they’re scared of. My hubbie and I once had a skink in our basement that scared the shit out of me. Loud, sudden noises have sometimes gotten to me, too.
I hate to admit these things. It makes me sound like such a wimp. It makes it sound like I can dish out fear but I can’t take it. So I’ll finish this interview by talking about something that highlights my status as a badass. I’m not afraid to be rude to door-to-door salesmen, religious proselytizers, or politicians. I once told a group of political canvassers who defied the “no soliciting” sign on my door that I would make sure to vote against their candidate simply because they bugged me. (I wouldn’t really vote on that basis, but it was worth saying it just to see the expression on their faces!)
Ask for Mr. Suicide where better books are sold, or order Mr. Suicide direct from Word Horde.
Closing out our week of interviews, Sean M. Thompson talks with cover artist extraordinaire and all-around Art Creep Nick “The Hat” Gucker, the man responsible for making Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts look as good on the outside as it reads on the inside.
How did you come you come up with the cover idea for Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts?
Originally the request was to do a horror take on Norman Rockwell’s “Triple Self-Portrait”. But after realizing the great artist William Stout had already done this to great affect, I was having a bit of a time re-inventing this concept. So I threw a few other sketch ideas at the Ross and Orrin to see if any anything tickled their fancy.
I was going for a bit of an old EC horror kind of idea where I could showcase a number of fiends in one go. Most of the monsters on the cover are inspired by Orrin’s stories, a few are interlopers.
All told, how many hours did it take from initial sketches to finished cover?
I’m really not quite sure, since I have a full time job and get to work on these projects evenings and weekends. Time starts to become elusive and I worked on this a bit sporadically among a few other projects.
Do you listen to music when you draw, and or do whatever picture magic you do?
I do listen to a lot of music when I’m working, I’ve a rather broad range of listening habits, so I often hit up iTunes shuffle or load my 5-CD carousel. Currently on deck is Chrome (Half Machine from the Sun), Godflesh (Selfless), Pye Corner Audio (Sleep Games), Berberian Sound Studio Sound Track (Broadcast), and Swans (The Great Annihilator).
Also some audio-fiction and I need to keep reminding me-self to keep up on podcasts, since there are some excellent ones out there.
What made you decide to grow wonderful, bushy sideburns?
It was against my will, the hair started a long chronic gravitational migration down to my cheeks. I’m just it’s host. How long it shall remain there is anyone’s guess. The hair may end up on my shoulders.
Do you have a favorite hat?
Well, I have my current favorite daily hat and then I have a favorite fez, which is black felt with a cloisonne viking head (it’s actually a Mokanna head) and the word TACOBAT (which is part of the Tacobat Grotto, also known as The Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm and is an offshoot of a more casual branch Freemasonry with Lodges being called Cauldrens). Its esoteric seeming randomness amuses me to no end, which is to say symbolism is something I really enjoy.
If you could be any kind of monster, what kind would you be?
Probably a ridiculous kaiju of some some sort. I might have two opposing heads, id and ego, comedy and tragedy, that sort of thing on long swaying necks. A mass of tentacles, a multi-digit laden hand that’s a detachable limb that can explore and fight on it’s own. Some kind of horrid gas expulsion that would drive the humans insane or into a state of euphoria and hallucinations. A set of huge wings, slightly bat-like but unlike anything that would actually function for flight. Multiple legs like that of a moose, that could jackhammer the earth into forced tectonic plate-shifts. I’d be showing up in random cities, smashing buildings, gesticulating and posturing absurdly until some wee man that channels some alien super being transforms himself into a giant fighting machine as a dance partner for me.
Recently, Word Horde Social Media Manager Sean M. Thompson sat down with Orrin Grey to ask him a few questions about Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts…
What made you decide to join Ross and the Word Horde?
Was there ever a decision here? Seriously, I had already worked with Ross a few times, on The Book of Cthulhu 2 and Tales of Jack the Ripper and so on, and I knew that he was a great editor and a blast to work with, so when it came time to start shopping around my second collection, Ross was my very first choice. Word Horde is, quite simply, one of my favorite publishers working right now, they’re putting out dynamite weird fiction, and they promote their books like rock stars. Who wouldn’t want to join the Horde?
If you could be any kind of monsters, what kind would you be?
Oh man, most of my favorite monsters (fungus people, monstrous puppets, graboids, C.H.U.D.s) aren’t necessarily anything I’d actually want to be. So for this I think I’d have to go with a Jack Kirby monster; something big and lumpy and lantern-eyed that talked about myself in the third person.
What do you think the role of genre is in fiction?
I think genre wears a lot of hats, depending on how the writer wants to engage with it. How’s that for a non-answer? For me, genre is a collection of traditions and tropes, a sandbox that I play in, a set of expectations that I can either use as shorthand or subvert, as needed. Genre is what gets me interested, and keeps me coming back. I like writing—I must, I freelance for a living, and a lot of that involves writing about plumbing or siding or deburring machines or other less-than-spooky topics—but at the end of the day, it’s genre that keeps me in love with what I do. In the immortal words of Guillermo del Toro: “If there isn’t a monster on the call sheet, I don’t show up for work.”
Is it tough buying clothes that fit, as you are in fact a skeleton?
I find that a nice suit and tie gives me that dapper look that you’ll find among all the very best skeletons. That said, I’ve got a human disguise that I wear when I make public appearances and things, so as to avoid the paparazzi. You know how it is.
You seem to be a big movie fan? What movies have you seen recently that have knocked your socks off?
I’m a huge movie fan, though I’ll have to admit that this year so far has been a little lean on movies—either new or new-to-me—that really knocked my socks off. Plenty of good stuff, but not many new favorites. I am a big fan of the Insidious franchise, though, and the last thing I saw that came very close to knocking my socks off may well have been Insidious: Chapter 3, which I think continued the series admirably. I also saw some really good, recent stuff for the first time earlier in the year, including The Guest, Nightcrawler, Resolution, The Taking of Deborah Logan, and The Canal, to name a few. The Canal and Deborah Logan, in particular, I have not seen nearly enough people talking about.
What do you think the goal of horror fiction should be?
I’m not big on telling anybody what their goal should be, so I don’t know the answer to this one, but I can tell you what the goal of most of my horror fiction usually is: I just want to have fun, and I want the reader to have fun, too. Don’t get me wrong, I love thoughtful, meditative horror as much as anyone, stories that stick with you, that carry a hefty thematic weight and leave you thinking, and I hope that my stuff manages that at least some of the time. But most of my favorite horror stories also have something of the spook house in them. Something of the carnival barker challenging you to “Step right up!” It’s why House on Haunted Hill sits right alongside The Haunting in my personal pantheon, and always will.
Thousands of them, warriors covered in the blood of fallen subjects, their axes stained crimson from predicates who never knew it was to be their end.
“Sean, this is not just any group of warriors you’re teaming up with, this is the Word Horde!”
Their swords are terrible in the light of a scalding sun, gleaming with the ferocity of verbs, nouns, and adjectives ready for a fight. I too am ready to do battle; to sacrifice my body, (mostly my fingers and hands) to the cause.
“I will join the Word Horde!” I scream, and the din around me is terrifying, but it certainly gets my adrenaline pumping.
The drums thunder with the promise of hand-to-hand combat, page after page of it.
We charge, individuals made strong by a common goal. To whoop these readers upside the head, and go in for the kill. To shake those in search of literary entertainment to the core. None of them have any idea what’s in store, but oh let me tell you, we got a fever inside us. Inside of me, my ancestors are high off wode, and the thrill of Valhalla, cheering in unison.
Lightning cracks the sky, scorching the horizon, and a storm begins in an instant. I grit my teeth, get ready for it. The smile on my face would set a clunky paragraph to crying. Rain soaks the land, and a qualifier falls beside me: I grab his mace. A terrible spiked metal ball attached to a wooden handle: I slam it into the spine of an adverb as it advances upon me, shrieking onomatopoeic obscenities.
“Great job Sean, I like what you’re doing here!” Ross says, and he’s in a terrifyingly scant amount of armor, his hair underneath a horned helmet.
“I didn’t see you, brother,” I say, knocking a weak noun off of its feet, ducking as one of my Horde looses an arrow, which slams home into the heart of a particularly poor word choice.
“I’ve been here since the beginning!” Ross shouts, and the slash of his mighty golden editor’s sword is a thing to behold.
A beast of war barks by my feet. I see it’s none other than Elinor Phantom, the terrifying battle hound out for blood with our Word Horde. May the gods help whoever crosses her path of vicious bloodthirsty hunger.
“How many words did you want me to kill?” I shout over to he of the Locked Heart, and he shouts back “as many as seems appropriate,” before he slices another poor word choice down the middle with his powerful blade.
“FOR THE WORD HORDE!” I scream, and lose myself in the chaos of battle, a berserker in a frenzy.
This battle is just beginning, friends. We need warriors to join up with the Word Horde. Can we count you among our number? Do you long to slay boring sentences in the moonlight? Do you worship the Gods of Story, and plot, and Character? Understand, once you join, you must dedicate your energy to the Word Horde. The only way out of this is in a hole in the dirt.
“Tell them about the upcoming warriors joining up with the Word Horde!” Elinor growls at me.
“I didn’t know you could talk!” I shout back, breaking a lazy sentence’s neck with my mace, my word killer.
“Shut up and tell them about the stuff on the way!” she barks out, and proceeds to rip the Achilles tendon of a sad antecedent.
“We have Orrin Grey’s new collection Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts coming in October!” I roar, and snap the forearm of a demonstrative pronoun with my bare hands. This pleases me.
“And ALSO?!” she bellows in a timbre I didn’t think such a small creature could emit.
“Oh, and Livia Llewellyn’s collection Furnace in 2016!”
Before I know it, the Word Horde is alone, our foes seem to have retreated, for the moment. Seeing their comrades rendered into so much spilled ink seems to have put the necessary fear into them they should have had from the start.
“Not bad for a first battle,” Ross says, and puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Do you always wear so little armor?” I ask he of the curly man-mane.
“What do you mean ‘so little’? This is a lot of armor for me. Normally I have on way less.”
The adrenaline of the battle having died down, I start to seriously question my decision to become social media manager for Word Horde.
Recently, intrepid interviewer Sean M. Thompson spoke with author Molly Tanzer about Vermilion, the role of genre in fiction, and more. Here it is…
What made you want to release Vermilion with Ross and Word Horde?
I’ve worked with Ross on a number of short projects, and over the years I’ve also enjoyed many of the novels he acquired and edited for Night Shade, so I’ve known for a long time that he’s a great editor. And, given that we once discussed our mutual love for the Mr. Vampire series of films, which in part inspired the book, I figured having my agent send it his way wasn’t a bad idea.
What do you think the role of genre is in fiction?
People have to figure out where to shelve books in bookshops!
This is actually something that’s been on my mind for a while. Genre tropes are fascinating things, and playing with them can be really fun. For example, I deliberately inverted the tropes of the Western for Vermilion. But, I also think genre can be a crutch; it can keep both writers and readers searching for the same things over and over again, or at least keep them comfortable with one thing instead of exploring.
Do you prefer dogs, or cats?
Cats.
Do you have any writing rituals?
Every day, I get up, give myself a coffee enema, then submerge myself in a bathtub full of ice water for thirty minutes. I shiver myself dry after climbing onto the roof. Only then am I ready to strap my ankles into my inversion desk and write exactly 2500 words. The muse is cruel, but I must follow where she takes me.
Are you someone that comes up with story titles first, or do you usually come up with them later into the process?
It really depends! Vermilion wasn’t the original title of the novel, and yes, I did come up with that title before writing the novel. That happens for me just as frequently as writing something and then struggling like hell to figure out what to call it.
What’s your favorite Western?
In terms of Western films, I’d have to say a tie between Red River and The Good, The Bad, and the Weird. Novels, definitely True Grit.
Would you say that we are in the midst of a new weird renaissance?
No, I usually don’t say things like that!
Do you have any plans to delve into another less explored genre to do a mash up, such as… Uh…
ORRIN GREY LOVES MONSTERS. That is abundantly clear in the stories he spins. No matter where he draws inspiration from, whether the weird tales of Lovecraft, Machen, and Poe or the films of Murnau, Corman, and Argento, the end result is inevitably fresh and new. And wonderfully monstrous.
If you love monsters—the macabre, the murderous, the misunderstood; the strange, the sinister, the sympathetic; the cinematic and the literary—you will find plenty to love in Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts.
Cover Art by Nick Gucker Cover Design by Scott R. Jones
Table of Contents:
Introduction by John Langan The Worm That Gnaws The White Prince Night’s Foul Bird The Murders on Morgue Street* Ripperology Walpurgisnacht The Red Church Remains The Labyrinth of Sleep Lovecrafting Persistence of Vision Strange Beast* Painted Monsters*
* Titles marked with an asterisk are original to the collection.
Happy 125th Birthday, H. P. Lovecraft. To celebrate, we baked you an anthology. Featuring 19 weird tales inspired by H. P. Lovecraft by 20 of the best authors working in Weird Fiction today, Cthulhu Fhtagn! is sure to satisfy. But don’t just take our word for it. Check out Cthulhu Fhtagn! for yourself!
In his house at R’lyeh, Cthulhu waits dreaming…
What are the dreams that monsters dream? When will the stars grow right? Where are the sunken temples in which the dreamers dwell? How will it all change when they come home?
Within these pages lie the answers, and more, in all-new stories by many of the brightest lights in dark fiction. Gathered together by Ross E. Lockhart, the editor who brought you The Book of Cthulhu, The Children of Old Leech, and Giallo Fantastique, Cthulhu Fhtagn! features nineteen weird tales inspired by H. P. Lovecraft.
Edited by Ross E. Lockhart Cover Art by Adolfo Navarro Cover Design by MMP
Table of Contents
Introduction: In His House at R’lyeh… – Ross E. Lockhart The Lightning Splitter – Walter Greatshell Dead Canyons – Ann K. Schwader Delirium Sings at the Maelstrom Window – Michael Griffin Into Ye Smoke-Wreath’d World of Dream – W. H. Pugmire The Lurker In the Shadows – Nathan Carson The Insectivore – Orrin Grey The Body Shop – Richard Lee Byers On a Kansas Plain – Michael J. Martinez The Prince of Lyghes – Anya Martin The Curious Death of Sir Arthur Turnbridge – G. D. Falksen Aerkheim’s Horror – Christine Morgan Return of the Prodigy – T.E. Grau The Curse of the Old Ones – Molly Tanzer and Jesse Bullington Love Will Save You – Cameron Pierce Assemblage Point – Scott R. Jones The Return of Sarnath – Gord Sellar The Long Dark – Wendy N. Wagner Green Revolution – Cody Goodfellow Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form – Laird Barron
Remember when horror fiction actually felt transgressive? Like it was something dangerous, something that had the potential do damage. A sort of literary hand grenade, pin pulled, primed and ready to go off. And in exploding, maybe change the world. I do. Once upon a time, horror was ripe with a sense of palpable risk. I felt that sense of danger the first time I read Poppy Z. Brite’s Exquisite Corpse, and in Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, and in Ray Garton’s Live Girls. I’ve felt it in King and Keene and Barker and Kiernan. Lately, however, too much horror plays it safe. Warmed-over tropes and familiar monsters. Stories without any real sense of risk, or danger, or transgression. It’s enough to make the genre feel almost… cozy.
It’s about time someone take you out of your comfort zone. It’s about time someone publishes a horror novel that actually aims to horrify. Which is why I’ve come to you today, to tell you about the debut novel from Nicole Cushing, Mr. Suicide, which Word Horde releases today.
Audaciously written in the second person, Mr. Suicide puts you in the driver’s seat as an abused young man is pushed to the breaking point. And Nicole Cushing is the perfect storyteller for this unrelentingly transgressive tale, as evidenced by her 2013 Shirley Jackson Award nomination for her novella Children of No One. Here are just a few of the raves (and warnings) Mr. Suicide has received so far:
“…a work of brutal and extreme horror… disturbingly graphic content…” —Publishers Weekly
“This tale of a damaged and murderous child is the most original horror novel I’ve read in years. Cushing’s prose is rapidfire, grisly, and passionate.” —Poppy Z. Brite, author of Exquisite Corpse and Lost Souls
“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.” —Jack Ketchum, award-winning author of Off Season and The Girl Next Door
“Nicole Cushing uses her sharp and confident prose like a surgical instrument to dissect both her characters and our emotions. Mr. Suicide is horrifying and harrowing, but just as much for the emotional devastation it causes in the reader as for the violence and depravity—as well as the twisted humor—it portrays. This is horror fiction that leaves marks.” —Ray Garton, author of Live Girls and Sex and Violence in Hollywood
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.
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
“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.” —Publishers Weekly
“A lavish, sumptuous tapestry of luxurious surrealism and strangeness.” –Christine Morgan, The Horror Fiction Review
“…ultimately satisfying, with a few tales that skirt tantalizingly close to brilliance.” –Mer Whinery, Muzzleland Press
Order from Word Horde or wherever better books are sold.
