Behold! Nightscape Press gives you Yves Tourigny's cover for IF IT BLEEDS by Matthew M. Bartlett!!!
And in case this is the first you're hearing of this lovely upcoming chapbook:
One third of all sales of this chapbook will go to support the Dakin Humane Society where Matthew and his wife adopted their lovely cat, Peachpie!
A toe-tapping track from way back spreads like a virus through Leeds, Massachusetts, heralding a new era of unspeakable evil. WXXT - the slithering tongue in the ear of the Pioneer Valley. Are you ready to rock?
Along with this lovely covery by Yves, he also provided a phenomenal color frontispiece as well and the chapbook will also be fully color illustrated by Luke Spooner. As of this writing, we're down to only 39 copies of the physical chapbook edition so the time is nigh to grab your copy! That will start shipping on or before February 26th 2019 and there's also an eBook edition available for pre-order as well which will be out six months after that on August 26th!
We've also been holding on to a HUGE surprise for awhile now but the time has finally come to reveal it! Our very first Nightscape Press Charitable Writer's Retreat!
Registration is now available for the 2019 Nightscape Press Caribbean Cabal Charitable Writers Retreat (with special guests Laird Barron and John Langan)! This is going to be one hell of a retreat and one hell of a good time and the net proceeds will go to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project! The Sylvia Rivera Law Project works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination or violence.
The retreat is scheduled for June 29th through July 3rd in Costa Rica and has been set up in association with the Casa Bella resort which is ran by our good friend, the phenomenal writer Erinn Kemper along with her husband. We hope to raise as much as possible for charity with this event. If we manage to sell out all of the slots we'll be able to give the Sylvia Rivera Law Project $10,000! We're really excited about this and hope you'll join us on the beach this summer!
Friday, December 28, 2018
Monday, December 3, 2018
Behold: The TOC
- The Gray Room by Tim Waggoner
- The Head On the Door by Erinn L. Kemper
- Flesh Without Blood by Nadia Bulkin
- Scraps by Max Booth III
- Yellow House by Jon Padgett
- What Finds Its Way Back by Damien Angelica Walters
- We All Speak Black by Lynne Jamneck
- Ain't Much Pride by Nate Southard
- The Choir of the Tunnels by Matthew B. Hare
- Amity In Bloom by Jessica McHugh
- Red Stars / White Snow / Black Metal by Fiona Maeve Geist
- Shadowmachine by Autumn Christian
- The One About Maggie by Greg Sisco
- Breakwater by John Langan
- For Our Skin, A Daughter by Kristi DeMeester
- Houdini: The Egyptian Paradigm by Lisa Mannetti
- Girls Without Their Faces On by Laird Barron
- Dr. 999 by Matthew M. Bartlett
- Leaves of Dust by Wendy Nikel
- The Kind Detective by Lucy A. Snyder
- The Levee Breaks by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
- I Can Give You Life by Paul Michael Anderson
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Origami Dreams Expanded and More!
Today, the pre-order for Jon Padgett's ORIGAMI DREAMS (Expanded Edition) Charitable Chapbook went up on the Nightscape Press webstore! This time around, Jon has chosen RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization as the charity he will be contributing one third of the proceeds to from this physical chapbook edition! We're honored and humbled to be able to help Jon contribute to another fine charity and make a beautiful little book at the same time.
And also on the Charitable Chapbook front, we'll be revealing some artwork for both watch the whole goddamned thing burn by Doungjai Gam and IF IT BLEEDS by Matthew M. Bartlett very soon (both are available for pre-order and not yet sold out!). Hopefully before the new year.
In other news, Robert will be sending out the last responses to folks who submitted their stories to ASHES AND ENTROPY over the next couple days. We would like to thank all of you who submitted for your patience and for sending us so many great stories to choose from. We really were shocked by both the amount and the array of fine stories that we received.
Speaking of the anthology, we'll finally be getting back to our ASHES AND ENTROPY Story Spotlights in the next few days. These will run into and beyond the official eBook release on December 11th (if you haven't already, you can pre-order the Kindle edition from Amazon or the mobi, ePub, or PDF editions directly from Nightscape Press, same goes for the paperback editions). That said, unfortunately the paperback editions will be coming out a bit late. We'll have more definitive release dates for those very soon.
The year is almost over, and we would like to wish you all the happiest of holidays as we look forward to a very exciting new year of fantastic book releases and charitable donations!
Monday, November 26, 2018
Monday Bloody Monday!
The Nightscape Press webstore is now finally fully stocked with all of our titles in eBook format now that Amazon's evil Kindle Unlimited exclusivity chain has been broken! Every title not in pre-order that you purchase is instantly available for download and we even have a bundle of all 23 of our previous titles available (books by folks like Stephen Graham Jones, Lisa Mannetti, Ed Kurtz, Peter N. Dudar, Rena Mason, Rick Hautala, Tim Waggoner, and more!). So, naturally, what better time than Cyber Monday for this all to come together, so of course we have to have an eBook sale!
So, go to our webstore and use the coupon code MONDAYBLOODYMONDAY at checkout to get a whopping 50% off of any eBook on our webstore including pre-orders for ASHES AND ENTROPY and our Charitable Chapbook titles THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES by Jon Padgett, watch the whole goddamned thing burn by Doungjai Gam, and IF IT BLEEDS by Matthew M. Bartlett!
You can even get that bundle I mentioned earlier at half price making it possible to get all 23 of our previous eBook titles for only $15! Put that in your cart, throw in the three Charitable Chapbook eBooks, and the eBook edition of ASHES AND ENTROPY and you're getting our entire catalog for less than $30! So, happy Cyber Monday from Nightscape Press!
So, go to our webstore and use the coupon code MONDAYBLOODYMONDAY at checkout to get a whopping 50% off of any eBook on our webstore including pre-orders for ASHES AND ENTROPY and our Charitable Chapbook titles THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES by Jon Padgett, watch the whole goddamned thing burn by Doungjai Gam, and IF IT BLEEDS by Matthew M. Bartlett!
You can even get that bundle I mentioned earlier at half price making it possible to get all 23 of our previous eBook titles for only $15! Put that in your cart, throw in the three Charitable Chapbook eBooks, and the eBook edition of ASHES AND ENTROPY and you're getting our entire catalog for less than $30! So, happy Cyber Monday from Nightscape Press!
Friday, November 23, 2018
Blackest Friday
Today only, in the anti-spirit of Black Friday, we'll be giving 50% of the proceeds (instead of one-third) from our currently available Charitable Chapbooks! And speaking of Charitable Chapbooks, all three of our Charitable Chapbooks are now available to pre-order in eBook format (THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES by Jon Padgett, watch the whole goddamn thing burn by Doungjai Gam, and IF IT BLEEDS by Matthew M. Bartlett) and will also give 50% to charity for every copy purchased today!
While you're picking up these fantastic chapbooks for charity, you can also put in the coupon code BLACKESTFRIDAY to get 30% off of titles like ASHES AND ENTROPY edited by Robert S. Wilson, DARK AND DISTANT VOICES by Tim Waggoner, THREE MILES PAST and STERLING CITY by Stephen Graham Jones, WORLD'S COLLIDER, FANTASY FOR GOOD, and THE PATCHWORK HOUSE edited by/by Richard Salter, the Bram Stoker Award finalist A REQUIEM FOR DEAD FLIES by Peter N. Dudar, or Bram Stoker Award winners like LIFE RAGE by L.L. Soares, THE EVOLUTIONIST by Rena Mason, and THE GENTLING BOX by Lisa Mannetti (Lisa's other Nightscape Press book DEATHWATCH includes her Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella Dissolution) or any of our other fine titles with the exception of our Charitable Chapbooks. Happy Blackest Friday from Nightscape Press!
While you're picking up these fantastic chapbooks for charity, you can also put in the coupon code BLACKESTFRIDAY to get 30% off of titles like ASHES AND ENTROPY edited by Robert S. Wilson, DARK AND DISTANT VOICES by Tim Waggoner, THREE MILES PAST and STERLING CITY by Stephen Graham Jones, WORLD'S COLLIDER, FANTASY FOR GOOD, and THE PATCHWORK HOUSE edited by/by Richard Salter, the Bram Stoker Award finalist A REQUIEM FOR DEAD FLIES by Peter N. Dudar, or Bram Stoker Award winners like LIFE RAGE by L.L. Soares, THE EVOLUTIONIST by Rena Mason, and THE GENTLING BOX by Lisa Mannetti (Lisa's other Nightscape Press book DEATHWATCH includes her Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella Dissolution) or any of our other fine titles with the exception of our Charitable Chapbooks. Happy Blackest Friday from Nightscape Press!
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Introducing a Brand New Charitable Chapbook: IF IT BLEEDS by Matthew M. Bartlett!
We're excited to announce that Matthew M. Bartlett has joined Doungjai Gam on our 2019 Charitable Chapbook roster with his new WXXT/Leeds novelette, IF IT BLEEDS! Matthew has selected a wonderful local charity called the Dakin Humane Society where he and his wife adopted their cat, Peachpie! One third of all proceeds from the physical chapbook edition of this title will go their way and we're very excited for that!
A toe-tapping track from way back spreads like a virus through Leeds, Massachusetts, heralding a new era of unspeakable evil. WXXT - the slithering tongue in the ear of the Pioneer Valley. Are you ready to rock?
And with that announcement, how about another? Both Matthew's IF IT BLEEDS and Doungjai Gam's watch the whole goddamned thing burn (which gives one third of its proceeds to Trans Lifeline!) are now available for pre-order on our webstore! Both of these chapbooks will be limited to only 100 copies! Get your copies before they're gone! Release date and more details for both of these will be coming very soon!
Sunday, November 11, 2018
The Broker of Nightmares Giveaway #1
We're happy to announce that over the weekend, we sold out of the limited, signed, illustrated, and numbered chapbook edition of THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES by Jon Padgett (Charitable Chapbook #1)! But, don't fret, not only can you still pre-order the eBook edition of this lovely novelette, but due to the kindness of our friend Shaun Cobble, who purchased three copies for this very purpose, we are holding three different giveaways for these last remaining copies of the chapbook. Enter the first giveaway below. Thank you!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Monday, November 5, 2018
Providence, New Orleans, and Chapbooks, Oh My!
Over the past two weeks a lot’s happened in Nightscape Press land. We took our Halloween vacation which was more like a Halloween work-ation. We packed up the car and headed up to Providence, Rhode Island and finalized THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES by Jon Padgett. Then I headed over to Northampton and met up with Matthew M. Bartlett, who I had some wonderful dinner and conversation with. The next day, Jen and I dropped in on the Arcade Asylum Author Series Hallowe’en reading at the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council and saw Meg Smith, Doungjai Gam Bepko, and Daniel Braum read, which was a wonderful treat. We’re excited to announce that afterward, we signed a contract with Doungjai Gam Bepko for her brand new gritty noir tale “watch the whole goddamned thing burn” which will be published as part of our Charitable Chapbook line likely early next year!
For those who don’t already know, each title from our Charitable Chapbook line comes out in a physical limited and illustrated chapbook edition that gives one third of its proceeds to the charity of its author’s choice (the other two thirds are split evenly between the author and Nightscape Press) and then six months later an eBook edition is released that gives 40% to the same chosen charity (another 40% goes to the author, and Nightscape Press keeps the remaining 20%). Gam chose Trans Lifeline as the charity her chapbook will contribute to!
Trans Lifeline is a national trans-led organization dedicated to improving the quality of trans lives by responding to the critical needs of the trans community with direct service, material support, advocacy, and education. Their vision is to fight the epidemic of trans suicide and improve overall life-outcomes of trans people by facilitating justice-oriented, collective community aid. We couldn’t be more super proud and excited to help Gam raise funds for such a wonderful cause!
After Providence, we took the long drive down to New Orleans to meet with Jon Padgett on Devil's Night where he signed all 100 copies of THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES! It was great finally meeting Jon and chatting with him. Later that night, we sent the first donation off to Jon's chosen charity, the ACLU, for $500! (When we sell out of the rest of these, we'll be sending another $500 their way! There are currently 24 copies left as of this writing! Go get one!) Then, for our last night in NOLA, we had a wonderful Halloween at the Music Box Village which was a hell of an interesting experience.
Now that we’re home, I’m finishing up slush reading and editing for ASHES AND ENTROPY. The plan is to have all stories responded to and the final stories chosen in the next week and a half and then it’s headlong into formatting and production. So, if you’re still waiting on a response from me for that, know that you’ll receive it very soon. As for our recent novel submissions call, we’re planning to have all responses out by the end of the year.
Back on the chapbook front, we are currently working on Charitable Chapbook subscription options and should have that finalized soon. When that’s sorted, we’ll be offering our 2019 subscription package most likely on our webstore as well as via our new and improved Patreon page that we’ll be launching soon. This subscription package will include each chapbook we publish in 2019 as well as some really cool exclusive bonus stuff that I can’t talk about just yet. But soon! So soon! Anyway, that’s it for now. Be kind to one another and, U.S. folks, if you haven’t already, be sure and vote tomorrow!
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
IT'S ALIVE!!!
The Nightscape Press Webstore is finally up! All of our current paperback books are available. Titles from authors like Stephen Graham Jones, Lisa Mannetti, Tim Waggoner, Amelia Mangan, Rick Hautala, Rena Mason, and more.
However, all of our current eBooks will take longer as they are tied up with Kindle Unlimited exclusivity. But in late November that will end and they will go up in the eBook section of the store. Meanwhile, you can now pre-order the eBook editions of both ASHES AND ENTROPY and Jon Padgett's THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES over there directly from us.
Speaking of pre-order, ASHES AND ENTROPY is now available for Kindle pre-order on Amazon! If you don't already know the details of this book, it's an anthology of cosmic horror and noir/neo-noir edited by Robert S. Wilson. It will include new stories by Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, Nadia Bulkin, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Lucy A. Snyder, Tim Waggoner, Jessica McHugh, Paul Michael Anderson, Fiona Maeve Geist, Max Booth III, Lynne Jamneck, Greg Sisco, Lisa Mannetti, Nate Southard, Erinn L. Kemper, Matthew M. Bartlett, Autumn Christian, and more. The book is beautifully illustrated by Luke Spooner of Carrion House Illustration and the release date is set for December 11th of this year.
Meanwhile, our very first Charitable Chapbook, Jon Padgett's THE BROKER OF NIGHTMARES, is over halfway sold out with only 44 copies remaining, so, if you haven't already, now's the time to grab one up before they're gone. One third of all proceeds from the sale of this fantastic novelette will go to the ACLU. As soon as these sell out, we'll be sending a nice big payment of $1,000 their way and nothing could make us happier right now as publishers.
We'll be unleashing more Charitable Chapbooks as time goes on, and our charity novel line of books is currently open for submissions as well, so we hope to have charitable novels for sale starting sometime in 2019. We're also currently open to submissions to writers from underrepresented demographics for two slots in ASHES AND ENTROPY. So, if that applies to you, be sure to get a story submitted before the end of September!
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Ashes and Entropy: A Trade Paperback Trifecta!
Here they are, all three covers for ASHES AND ENTROPY! Each cover image links to the corresponding pre-order link of the anthology for that edition. These covers were selected from our cover contest and were chosen based on a number of criteria including aesthetics, textual design, and how accurately they depicted the book they would be used for. Included with each of these are mock-up full spreads to give an idea of what the full book will look like. They do not however, include the final TOC as that is still yet to be updated due to our current open submissions call for writers from underrepresented demographics.
And now for Alternate Dimentions #1 and #2:
Our first runner up was C.V. Hunt with this stunning gem:
And Don Noble brings us our second runner up, a gritty and more psychedelic take on the anthology.
More about this bleak and dazzling upcoming anthology:
Stand on the precipice and prepare to dive down through the event horizon into the bleak and mind-shattering void of both the cosmos and of humanity.
Nightscape Press is proud to present ASHES AND ENTROPY edited by Robert S. Wilson, an anthology of cosmic horror and noir/neo-noir. ASHES AND ENTROPY includes brand new stories by Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, Nadia Bulkin, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Lucy A. Snyder, Tim Waggoner, Jessica McHugh, Paul Michael Anderson, Max Booth III, Lynne Jamneck, Greg Sisco, Lisa Mannetti, Nate Southard, Erinn L. Kemper, Matthew M. Bartlett, Autumn Christian, and more. Each volume of this anthology is beautifully illustrated by Luke Spooner and available in black and white or color trade paperback editions.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Behold: The Main Cover for ASHES AND ENTROPY!
Today we unveil the main cover for ASHES AND ENTROPY that will be available via retailers. This was the winner of our cover art contest held last month. You can pre-order this edition here or by clicking on the cover artwork. Tomorrow we will unveil the Alternate Dimension #1 trade paperback edition including the first runner up cover chosen from our contest. Both Alternate Dimension options will be exclusively available on our website in color trade paperback only.
ASHES AND ENTROPY will release on December 11th, 2018 and will include stories from Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, Nadia Bulkin, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Lucy A. Snyder, Tim Waggoner, Jessica McHugh, Paul Michael Anderson, Max Booth III, Lynne Jamneck, Greg Sisco, Lisa Mannetti, Nate Southard, Erinn L. Kemper, Matthew M. Bartlett, Autumn Christian, and more.
And speaking of "and more" the book is currently open for two slots to writers from underrepresented demographics such as women, LGBTQ persons, persons of color, disabled persons, and any other underrepresented group not mentioned here. You can find more about that on our submissions page!
Friday, August 3, 2018
Ashes and Entropy Story Spotlight: Ain't Much Pride by Nate Southard
Time for another ASHES AND ENTROPY Story Spotlight! Today's beacon of anti-hope shines on Nate Southard's "Ain't Much Pride." "Ain't Much Pride" is a nautical tale of a mob henchman and his boss and cohorts hiding out at sea from "the feds." But something unfathomable lurks beneath the water waiting for them and, like our anti-hero, it's hungry for more than just fish.
Nate Southard is the author of Bad Dogs, Porcelain, Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again?, Red Sky, Lights Out, and Just Like Hell. When he isn’t writing scary stories, he’s probably cooking. Usually Thai food or fried chicken. He loves fried chicken.
Nate lives in Austin, Texas with his girlfriend, a dog, and two cats. The cats are total assholes.
www.natesouthard.com
I've loved Nate's work ever since I first read his submission "Mouth" for Horror for Good back in 2011. He continues to write phenomenal raw and emotional pieces of brutal fiction and he was an obvious choice when I set out to make a list of authors to solicit for this collection. And unsurprisingly, he brought that same sense of brutal originality to ASHES AND ENTROPY with this story. So without further ado, here is the opening to "Ain't Much Pride":
Used to be, I loved fish. Tuna, swordfish,
red snapper, striped bass—found me a chef who knew how to cook it, and I’d
belly up. I’m not talking about deep frying catfish or beer-battered cod,
either. Any goon can do that. Cooking a real piece of fish; that takes skill. Try
to say I’m wrong, you get cuffed behind the ear. Hard.
Now? Man, I hate fish. The look, the
smell, the taste. Jesus Christ. Makes me sick just to think about it. Seven
months hiding out in international waters will do that to you, though. Don’t
matter if you’re on a luxury yacht or not. No steak or pork or chicken on this
floating tomb. Just fish. We eat what we got; we get more. It’s like the circle
of life, except with a skeleton crew, couple of girls, a looming drug
trafficking charge, and so much sea food it’ll grow you gills.
#
Boss Wilburn sits in one of the yacht’s
bigger rooms—I know crap about boats, but my guess is it’s a ballroom…maybe a
dining room—in one of his better suits. Months without a dry cleaner have left
it smudged with salt air, but he still suits up every Thursday. Says it’s
important to keep things formal. He insists on formality while doing lines off
Betty Numero Uno, whose name is Cynthia.
I stand in the corner, hands folded in
front of my crotch like I need to piss. The 9mm is hard against my ribs, but
I’m used to it.
Gregory reads him one of the latest
encrypted emails. Wilburn receives one a week, no more, and he’s powerful
enough to afford keeping a lawyer like Gregory on board to explain all of them.
Back when boredom hadn’t chained him to a gold straw, he’d insisted this would
keep us all safe and secure. I want a steak so bad I’ve been considering a
Facebook account so I can display our location, maybe tag the Feds. Pretty sure
they don’t serve fish in prison.
“Okay, yeah, sure,” Wilburn says. “Skip
the pretty words and tell me what it means.”
“It means the Feds aren’t tossing the
investigation,” Gregory says. “Another month, maybe, but for right now we’re
staying put.”
“Fine with me. Ain’t it fine with you,
Cindy?”
Cynthia giggles, her stomach spasming, and
Wilburn holds up both hands. “Hold still, dammit! I got two lines left.”
“Sorry, Baby.” Her red hair lies in a
perfect fan on the mahogany tabletop.
“It’s good, Sugar. We all so good.”
The lines disappear, and I dream of fried
chicken.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Ashes and Entropy Story Spotlight: The Kind Detective by Lucy A. Snyder
Week two of our ASHES AND ENTROPY Story Spotlight series kicks off with a truly weird/cosmic horror tale from the amazing Lucy A. Snyder. This is definitely another story that hovers within the inner circle of my original vision for this anthology. A truly weird cosmic horror noir with a brilliant aesthetic and an ending that will almost certainly take you by complete surprise. Lucy's latest collection Garden of Eldritch Delights is available in trade paperback for pre-order now on Amazon. I would advise you go shell out some cash for this one!
Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author. She wrote the novels Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, and Switchblade Goddess, the nonfiction book Shooting Yourself in the Head for Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide, and the collections While the Black Stars Burn, Soft Apocalypses, Orchid Carousals, Sparks and Shadows, Chimeric Machines, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. Her writing has been translated into French, Russian, Italian, Czech, and Japanese editions and has appeared in publications such as Apex Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, Scary Out There, Seize the Night, and Best Horror of the Year. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. You can learn more about her at www.lucysnyder.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.
The Kind Detective is a gritty Lovecraftian tale with a protagonist who is unstoppably kind at his very core, but the case he finds himself smack in the middle of just might pull him up from his roots. Here is the opening scene:
One Sunday at exactly 4pm, Detective Craig McGill was
nursing an Irish coffee and poring over the cold-case murder photos spread
across his cigarette-pocked kitchen table. His eyes ached. There had to be some small but crucial details
he missed the first twenty times he studied these black-and-white snapshots of
death and misery. He was certain, sure as a priest about the truth of a loving
God, that if he just looked at things the right way, he’d solve these grisly
puzzles. Justice would be served. And if a horror could be met with no meaningful
justice, at least grieving families could finally gain some closure.
A loud bang! made him reflexively dive to the
worn yellow linoleum floor. His ears popped as if he were on a jet that had
taken a sudden 20,000-foot plunge. Vertigo surged bile into his throat as he
rolled sideways to draw the .38 revolver he kept in a holster bolted beneath
the table.
He crouched
in the shadow of the table, waiting for another bang! None came. It hadn’t been gunfire. Too loud, too low. But it
had come from the street in front of his house. Maybe closer. A bomb? His mind
flashed on the pressure cooker IEDs the narc squad had recovered from a
backwoods meth lab. Who would have tossed a bomb into his yard? The local Klan, angry that he’d sent one of
their boys to Angola for murder? Gangbangers? A random lunatic?
After a ten
count, he crouch-ran to the living room window and peeked through mini-blinds. The
only thing that registered at first was that something was terribly wrong with his yard. But for a couple of seconds his brain
rejected the missives from his eyes because what he beheld was an
impossibility.
The massive
pecan tree that shaded the front yard of the shotgun bungalow since his
grandfather built it in 1930 was gone. Not exploded, not burned down – gone. It had a canopy as wide as the
house and a trunk he couldn’t get his arms around and there wasn’t a stick or
leaf left of it. Not even the main roots remained. A wide, perfectly
hemispherical scoop of dirt and concrete sidewalk was gone, too. McGill was relieved
that the water and gas mains hadn’t been broken.
Nobody was
visible on his street except for his catty-corner neighbor, Mrs. Fontenot. He
gave her all his pecans every fall, and the pies she made from them were one of
the purest joys in his life. Before he tasted one, he’d scoffed at people who
declared that this or that food was a religious experience. Mrs. Fontenot made
him a believer. His first bite made him declare that she should be a pastry
chef, and she laughed and replied that it would be the ruination of a fine
hobby.
Mrs.
Fontenot was dressed in her gardening hat and matching lavender gloves and
rubber boots and sat beside a scooped crater in her front yard. Her magnolia
was gone. She was hunched over, listing to the side in the way that people do when
they are in profound shock.
McGill
shoved his pistol in the back waistband of his cargo pants and hurried out to
see if she needed help. The heavy smells of tree root sap and fresh overturned
soil were thick in the humid air. He glanced down at his missing tree’s crater as
he hurried past it. The remaining roots were cleanly severed at the margin of
the hemisphere. What kind of machine could have done such a thing? And why?
“Miz
Fontenot, are you okay?” he called as he scanned the street for strange
vehicles. His snap judgement that this was the work of criminals he’d crossed
seemed ridiculous now. Someone who could take a pair of big old trees like this
could have taken his whole house with him inside it. But someone did do this
strange, powerful thing, so maybe the perpetrator was watching? The hand of God
hadn’t just scooped out their trees. The universe didn’t work that way. Did it?
Mrs.
Fontenot made no reply to his call, did not move, so he ran over and knelt
beside her.
“Miz Fontenot?”
He gently touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She slowly
turned to face him. Her dark face was wet with tears, and her brown eyes stared
wide. He’d once seen that same expression on a small boy who’d watched his
father cut up his mother with a hatchet.
“Oh …
Detective. So fine of you to visit.” Her voice was as flat as a salt marsh.
“Did you
see what happened?”
“I saw … I
saw ….”
She started
to weep. Deep, wracking, soul-wrenching sobs. People her age who got this upset
sometimes had heart attacks or strokes. McGill wondered if he should call for a
squad, but he wasn’t sure if she had health insurance. If she didn’t, the
ambulance and ER bills might break her. She didn’t seem to be in immediate
danger. Maybe she just needed a chance to rest and gather herself.
“Can you
stand up? Let’s get you inside. I’ll make you some tea.”
He gently
helped her up and escorted her back into her house. She stopped crying, but her
whole body shook as if she were walking through snow. Shock, definitely. He got
her settled in her easy chair, pulled off her boots, and tucked a crocheted
afghan over her legs so she’d stay warm.
“Thank you,
Detective. You’re a kind man. Don’t let nothing tell you otherwise.”
McGill
smiled at her and went into her kitchen to put the kettle on.
When he
returned with a steaming mug of chamomile tea, Mrs. Fontenot was dead.
The purely
practical part of McGill’s mind told him that a squad wouldn’t have arrived in
time to save her. They just wouldn’t bust the speed limit for a black lady with
vague symptoms, not even if a white off-duty cop was calling on her behalf. And
that renewed realization – the system
he served was horribly flawed – made the mess of sadness, anger and guilt stewing
in his skull almost boil over.
He hadn’t shed
a single tear at any of the terrible murder scenes he’d investigated. Nobody
wanted an emotional cop. It was not professional,
it was not manly, and he would not weep
now for this sweet old lady slumped in her favorite chair, even if nobody could
possibly see him.
He would
not cry. He would do his job: find out who did this to her. This wasn’t technically murder, but he was sure to
his core that whoever took her tree, took her life just the same. He would work
this like any other case, and he would solve it, and there would be justice.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Cover Contest for Ashes and Entropy!
Back in June when we launched our new website, one of the things we discussed was the upcoming cover contest for ASHES AND ENTROPY. Well, with the Kickstarter just two days away now, it's time to unveil the guidelines for that contest. (Note: the following guidelines also appear on our submissions page.)
During the month of August 2018, we will be open to submission for the ASHES AND ENTROPY Cover Art Contest! ASHES AND ENTROPY is an anthology of cosmic horror, noir, and neo-noir including new stories by Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, and many more.
The winner of this contest will receive payment of $500 for the use of their submitted artwork as the cover for various editions of ASHES AND ENTROPY. If the Kickstarter is funded, the winning artist will also receive a bonus of $500!
Please send all cover art submissions and/or queries to ashesandentropyartcontest@gmail.com There are few aesthetic guidelines for this contest. Use the title of the anthology, with the anthology's genres in mind, to spark your own creative ideas for this cover.
Please create only the front cover for now, if you're piece is chosen, when the book's interior is finalized, we will have you create the rest of the cover spread to its exact spine width. The front cover dimensions are 6 X 9 (with bleed. Here are some more detailed info for specifications) and we will prefer 600DPI for the final version but a clear more web-friendly size will be fine for submitting. Thank you and good luck!
***Clarification*** The full title of the anthology is ASHES AND ENTROPY. I decided to ditch the subtitle for those who have been following the book's progress since the beginning. Please include "edited by Robert S. Wilson" as well.
***Clarification*** The full title of the anthology is ASHES AND ENTROPY. I decided to ditch the subtitle for those who have been following the book's progress since the beginning. Please include "edited by Robert S. Wilson" as well.
So that's pretty much it. Artists, get your creative, gritty, dark, cosmic-noir cap on and sharpen your art tools (you know, just the ones that actually need sharpening) and get to work!
***Update!*** We have decided to allow up to three art submissions per artist!
***Update!*** We have decided to allow up to three art submissions per artist!
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Ashes and Entropy Story Spotlight: I Can Give You Life by Paul Michael Anderson
Today we continue our story spotlight on the extraordinary tales that grace the interior pages of our upcoming anthology ASHES AND ENTROPY with a feature of the very first story I accepted for the book, Paul Michael Anderson's "I Can Give You Life." Here's some more about Paul:
Paul Michael Anderson is the author of Bones Are Made to be Broken (Written Backwards), which Jack Ketchum called “a dark carnival of rigorous intelligence and compassion, the title novella alone of which is well worth the price of admission” and Fangoria said, “With BONES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN, Anderson announces himself as a major talent in the dark fiction realm, capable of fashioning imaginative, bold visions.”
Anderson’s stories, articles, reviews, interviews, and introductions have appeared in numerous anthologies, magazines, and websites. He teaches in northern Virginia, where he lives with his wife and daughter. You can find Paul on Twitter under the inspired handle of @p_m_anderson, or at his website paulmichaelanderson.wordpress.com.
Paul's story is the longest tale accepted thus far weighing in at a whopping 17,000 words (Paul calls that a short story. Ha!). This bleak and unsettling tale of a rookie Virginia state trooper investigating a strange mysterious highway accident really sits at the deep core of what I originally envisioned for this anthology. And while that vision has expanded drastically, this piece sits grim and lovely at the center of that expansion as a fulcrum tying together the other themes and extrapolations in an original and gritty entanglement of noir and weird cosmic folk horror. Here is the opening scene:
Charlie was a rookie, so he puked, but he was still a Virginia State Trooper, so he made sure to do it in the woods to the side of the highway, as far from the crime scene as possible.(how do you know it's a crime scene?)(what else could it be?)Wiping his mouth, he stomped back to the road, trying not to trip over an errant tree root. His stomach sloshed with his footfalls, although he couldn't for the life of him imagine what could still be in there. The tree line was a few yards away, the shadows in the ditch beside 526 eastbound deepened by the twisting red and blue lights—(wait)Why were there blue lights?(blue lights are county aren't they this is highway)He clambered up the ditch with as much dignity as he could manage, stumbling and scraping his left hand against the rocks puncturing the topsoil, wincing at the wire-thin pain. Clips of voices drifted over, resembling beat poetry."Getting bad...run the plates...got an idea...exits already closed from Linden to 81...getting worse, is what it is...shouldn'ta run out like that...like that fucking matters..."The patrol cars—both State Police and Anbeten County—were parked willy-nilly across the closed lanes, framing the configuration of metal and glass in the center of the lane that might've once been a Ford Galaxie station wagon—the extended back was still in approximate shape—but wasn't any longer. The entire frontend had been flattened to the shattered windshield and what remained of the passengers resembled ground chuck, pressed into the vinyl seats.(how? how does that happen? how is this a crime scene? what does that?)He approached the officers, grouped by grey gray or tan uniforms. Most looked up, their faces tight and gazes unreadable; men of varying ages, hair colors, and complexions but sharing enough similar traits—the wideness between the eyes, the thin lips—to mark them as local. He was the only Trooper in Area 13 who hadn't been born in either Anbeten, Frederick, or Warren County."Trooper," one of the county boys said, nodding his head slightly."Brooks," Harrigan, Area 13's Master Trooper, said, his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows drawn together. He didn't look up and his eyes were distant, as if he was trying to figure out a difficult math problem. The other troopers stood behind him, all Trooper IIs; Charlie was the only probie. "You and Trooper Caldwell are going to Schlossen. That's where the folks—""Temoin family," a trooper behind him said. He was slightly pudgier than the others, his lank blond hair longer.Harrigan nodded. "Thank you, Caldwell. That's where they called this in from. They're staying at the Cool Harbor Motel. Go there to get their statement."He looked up and studied Charlie. His eyes were sharper, but his eyebrows were still bunched. "I'm under no illusions that you expected this on your third day in Area 13 and this is a delicate matter—" The tip of his tongue darted out, wetted his lips. "—and the academy didn't train you for it. Caldwell is lead. Understood?"Charlie nodded. "Yes, sir.""Dick and his boys are going to handle this." Harrigan inclined his head to the man who'd addressed him. Dick planted his thumbs in his Sam Browne belt. There were fewer county boys than State Troopers, but they seemed to set their feet more firmly, take up more space on the road.Charlie's eyes cut back to his superior. "Sir?""They'll maintain the road closure until public works has cleaned the mess," Harrigan said. He gestured at a tight clutch of VDOT workers, their orange jumpsuits giving them away, on the far side of the accident. They crowded behind a wiry bald man, his head thrust forward like a strutting cock. His hollowed eye sockets resembled a skull.Questions piled up in Charlie's head, the questions anyone new would ask and feel stupid for doing so because the answers must be obvious, but he looked away and said, "Yes, sir."Harrigan lifted his chin. "All right, gentlemen. We all know our jobs."The two groups dispersed—the Troopers to their Fords, while the county boys spread around their sheriff.(welcome to the illustrious life of a virginia state trooper charlie brooks!)And then, a softer voice, a voice he knew but refused to acknowledge:Caldwell said, "C'mon, probie," and started for a patrol car, the blue detailing made black in the emergency lights.Charlie followed. The other officers glanced at him as they walked around the incident—the strange knot of VDOT workers openly gaped at him—but Charlie resisted hunching his shoulders. He was a Virginia State Trooper now; he had his certificate—even if the ink hadn't fully dried yet—and his assignment to prove it.But he still felt their eyes on him(outsider-outsider-outsider-outsider)and he hunched his shoulders, anyway.
You can read this story in its entirety in ASHES AND ENTROPY when it is released into the wild in December or sooner by getting the extremely limited single story chapbook of "I Can Give You Life" through our Kickstarter campaign launching on August 1st! Keep an eye out for more story spotlights and other upcoming news about ASHES AND ENTROPY here on the Nightscape Press webpage!
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
New Story Acceptances For Ashes and Entropy
Hey everybody, I've got some wonderful news! I'm pleased to announce that I recently accepted two new stories for ASHES AND ENTROPY!
Autumn Christian's "Shadowmachine" is a dreary tale about a girl and the dark machine that sends her into the stars with a dark purpose. Autumn is the author of THE CROOKED GOD MACHINE, WE ARE WORMWOOD, and the upcoming GIRL LIKE A BOMB. I'm excited to include this darkly aesthetic cosmic horror tale to the TOC of this anthology!
Matthew M. Bartlett's "Dr. 999" is the strangest, most unsettling series of Amazon product reviews you will likely ever read. Matthew is the author of GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION, CREEPING WAVES, and his latest release, THE STAY-AWAKE MEN AND OTHER UNSTABLE ENTITIES. I am ecstatic to include this sinister spiraling descent into hair-conditioning madness to the pages of ASHES AND ENTROPY. Seven out of five stars! Would story again!
And these two stories likely won't be the last new tales gracing the interior of this disturbing book as I still have a few more late-solicited stories I should be receiving soon. And there is the potential for an open call for two slots in the book for folks from underrepresented demographics if we meet that stretch goal with the book's crowdfunding campaign. So keep an eye out for more announcements, including Story Spotlights and updates on the upcoming ASHES AND ENTROPY Kickstarter campaign launching August 1st!
Autumn Christian's "Shadowmachine" is a dreary tale about a girl and the dark machine that sends her into the stars with a dark purpose. Autumn is the author of THE CROOKED GOD MACHINE, WE ARE WORMWOOD, and the upcoming GIRL LIKE A BOMB. I'm excited to include this darkly aesthetic cosmic horror tale to the TOC of this anthology!
Matthew M. Bartlett's "Dr. 999" is the strangest, most unsettling series of Amazon product reviews you will likely ever read. Matthew is the author of GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION, CREEPING WAVES, and his latest release, THE STAY-AWAKE MEN AND OTHER UNSTABLE ENTITIES. I am ecstatic to include this sinister spiraling descent into hair-conditioning madness to the pages of ASHES AND ENTROPY. Seven out of five stars! Would story again!
And these two stories likely won't be the last new tales gracing the interior of this disturbing book as I still have a few more late-solicited stories I should be receiving soon. And there is the potential for an open call for two slots in the book for folks from underrepresented demographics if we meet that stretch goal with the book's crowdfunding campaign. So keep an eye out for more announcements, including Story Spotlights and updates on the upcoming ASHES AND ENTROPY Kickstarter campaign launching August 1st!
Monday, July 23, 2018
Ashes and Entropy Story Spotlight: What Finds Its Way Back by Damien Angelica Walters
With nine days remaining until the launch of the ASHES AND ENTROPY Kickstarter campaign, Nightscape Press would like to start shining a spotlight on each story and author gracing the interior of this fine upcoming anthology. And to kick things off, we're featuring "What Finds Its Way Back" and its author Damien Angelica Walters.
From Damien's bio:
Damien Angelica Walters is the author of Cry Your Way Home, Paper Tigers, and Sing Me Your Scars, winner of This is Horror’s Short Story Collection of the Year. Her short fiction has been nominated twice for a Bram Stoker Award, reprinted in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction, and published in various anthologies and magazines, including the Shirley Jackson Award Finalists Autumn Cthulhu and The Madness of Dr. Caligari, World Fantasy Award Finalist Cassilda’s Song, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, and Apex Magazine. Until the magazine’s closing in 2013, she was an Associate Editor of the Hugo Award-winning Electric Velocipede. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescued pit bulls and is represented by Heather Flaherty of The Bent Agency.
Damien's fiction has been a rising current in speculative fiction particularly in the past few years and I have adored everything I have read of hers. So when it came time to make a list of authors to reach out to for ASHES AND ENTROPY, she was one of the very first writers I thought of. I'm honored that she was not only pleased to receive the invitation but that she blessed me with such a singularly phenomenal tale that both fit and yet simultaneously expanded my vision for this anthology.
"What Finds Its Way Back" is rooted in the ties that bind families together; in both the beauty of love and the dead and rotted intertwining tendrils of blood and secrets. It is a tragically twisted tale of three sisters, two twins and one other sister, and the terrifying secret their family has buried in the woods behind their house. Here is the story's opening scene:
When they were children, Keira and her sisters buried their secrets in the woods behind their house. She and Ava and Amanda would run between the trees, hands linked, one of them with lips clamped tight, drawing as close to the stream separating the old woods from the new as they dared. Together, they'd dig a hole and one would bend low, pressing lips to waiting dark, whispering the secret into the exposed dirt, their voice like drifting feathers, and the three of them would cover it up as fast as they could and run back home, not speaking until they were clear of the tree line.By the time they'd finished grade school, the ground was thick with secrets—Jennifer Smyth is a jerk; Mrs. Halloway isn't as pretty as she thinks she is; I hate Stephan Gregory and wish he would die—all trapped in place by the self-righteous fury of childhood.The woods on the other side of the stream held other, darker secrets.
You can read this story in its entirety in ASHES AND ENTROPY when it is released into the wild in December or sooner by getting the extremely limited single story chapbook of "What Finds Its Way Back" through our Kickstarter campaign launching on August 1st! Keep an eye out for more story spotlights and other upcoming news about ASHES AND ENTROPY here on the Nightscape Press webpage!
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