If you missed last’s week vampire prompt, be sure to check it out. There were a lot of great vamps including Anne Rice and more.
What qualifies as a short story? Our short story prompt generated a lot of discussion including what actually qualifies as a short story. We loved seeing the various short fiction posted on day 13, and below are some of our favorites.
Tamsparks shared this AMAZING cover of She Walks In Shadows, which is a brilliant collection that features authors Gemma Files, Jilly Dreadful, Arinn Dembo, Eugenia Mora, Ann K. Schwader, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and more!
“They emerge from the shadows, to claim the night ….
Women from around the world delve into Lovecraftian depths, penning and illustrating a variety of Weird horrors. The pale and secretive Lavinia wanders through the woods, Asenath is a precocious teenager with an attitude, and the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Nitocris has found a new body in distant America. And do you have time to hear a word from our beloved mother Shub-Niggurath?
Defiant, destructive, terrifying, and harrowing, the women in She Walks in Shadows are monsters and mothers, heroes and devourers. Observe them in all their glory.”
Ouija.doodle.reads showed us that even adorable puppers love some horror short story collections! Here we get to see And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe by Gwendolyn Kiste. (Make sure and check out our guest spotlight and interview with Gwendolyn Kiste that we shared a while back if you missed it!)
“A murdered movie star reaches out to an unlikely fan. An orchard is bewitched with poison apples and would-be princesses. A pair of outcasts fail a questionnaire that measures who in their neighborhood will vanish next. Two sisters keep a grotesque secret hidden in a Victorian bathtub. A dearly departed best friend carries a grudge from beyond the grave.
In her debut collection, Gwendolyn Kiste delves into the gathering darkness where beauty embraces the monstrous, and where even the most tranquil worlds are not to be trusted. From fairy tale kingdoms and desolate carnivals, to wedding ceremonies and summer camps that aren’t as joyful as they seem, these fourteen tales of horror and dark fantasy explore death, rebirth, and illusion all through the eyes of those on the outside—the forgotten, the forsaken, the Other, none of whom will stay in the dark any longer.”
Joyce Carol Oates is recognized in multiple genres and even in the world of horror (she did win a Bram Stoker award, after all)! Shriekingviolets428 dazzled us with this stunning setup of her haunting collection, The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares.
“An incomparable master storyteller in all forms, in “The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares” Joyce Carol Oates spins six imaginative tales of suspense. The Corn Maiden is the gut-wrenching story of Marissa, a beautiful and sweet eleven-year-old girl with hair the color of corn silk. Taken by an older girl from her school who has told two friends in her thrall of the Indian legend of the Corn Maiden, in which a girl is sacrificed to ensure a good crop, Marissa is kept in a secluded basement and convinced that the world has ended. Marissa s seemingly inevitable fate becomes ever more terrifying as the older girl relishes her power, giving the tale unbearable tension with a shocking conclusion. In Helping Hands, published here for the first time, a lonely woman meets a man in the unlikely clutter of a dingy charity shop and extends friendship. She has no idea what kinds of doors she may be opening. The powerful stories in this extraordinary collection further enhance Joyce Carol Oates s standing as one of the world s greatest writers of suspense.”
And lastly for the short story recap we have this wonderful photo from grumplstiltskin where we get to see The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. In this collection we see some of Wharton’s chilling stories from 1904 to 1937.
“These 11 spine-tingling tales of the supernatural bring to light the author’s interest in the traditional New England ghost story and her fascination with spirits, hauntings, and other phenomena. Fine line-drawings by Laszlo Kubinyi enhance the mysterious and sometimes chilling mood.”
What are some of your favorite horror short story collections? What do you consider a short story as opposed to a novella? Let us know your thoughts in the comments – we’d love to discuss! And make sure you check back the next post in our recap of our Instagram challenge where we will show highlights for “The Road.”
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