Dark Lit Market: THE CRYPTIDS by Elana Gomel
It’s #TERRORTUESDAY, so we’re uncaging yet another DHC member’s published work from our DARK LIT MARKET!
This week, there’s no escaping THE CRYPTIDS by Elana Gomel!
An invasion like no other is threatening the Silicon Valley. A cutting-edge quantum communication technology has unleashed a flood of cryptid sightings. From headless Mothmen to dog-faced cats, strange beasts are prowling the streets and emerging from the woods, spreading a deadly epidemic of mind-blindness. Children mutate into protean monsters; people are carried away by thunderbirds; and those who survive fail to recognize themselves in the mirror.
Cryptozoologist Sharon Manley, a stranger in a strange land, thinks she knows what is going on. But who is going to believe her if her information comes to her in dreams? Torn between two countries and two men, she finally embarks on a one-way odyssey into the heart of the cryptid Earth to uncover its shocking secrets. Her quest takes her to the forest of flayed bears, to the beach colonized by Mothmen, and finally to the golden city of Hell. There she has to confront the enigmatic cryptid masters and to make the choice that will determine the fate of more worlds than one.
MALINAE by Josh Schlossberg Virtual Book Launch + “Alzheimer’s: From Horror to Hope” (4/9)
In a virtual launch event on Friday, April 9 at 6 p.m. (MT) co-hosted by Denver Horror Collective, D & T Publishing unleashes MALINAE, the debut novella by biological horror author & DHC co-founding member, Josh Schlossberg.
RSVP via Eventbrite for Zoom link.
Ward Ayers, physically disabled and confined to his Jersey Shore home, can only watch in dismay as his beloved wife Malina slips further and further into dementia. Until he uncovers the dark force behind Malina’s decline and must plumb the depths of sacrifice and selfishness to reclaim his wife and preserve humanity’s future.
The 1-hour event will feature:
–Josh Schlossberg reading a brief excerpt from MALINAE and sharing the real-life inspiration for his fictional work’s exploration of Alzheimer’s disease.
–D & T Publishing editor, Dawn Ellis Shea, relating her experiences working as a nurse with dementia patients.
–Huntington Potter, Ph.D., Director of University of Colorado Alzheimer’s and Cognition Center, offering hope in the form of the latest scientific progress towards a cure.
The event will conclude with Q&A.
MALINAE will be available as an e-book from Godless.com on April 9, and as print and e-book through Amazon on April 23.
For more information, please visit JoshsWorstNightmare.com or DandTpublishing.com.
The 4th Circle: Interview with Lawrence Berry
-Interview by Desi D
1. What is your favorite line in a book/movie? And why?
LARRY BERRY: The worm that often destroys us is the temptation to agree with our critics by Thomas Harris, Hannibal. This serpent’s tooth of cynicism serves as a reminder to be an unrepentant rebel when you sit in your writing chair. It is more important to write from core memories than to follow anyone’s advice, no matter how well-meant. To be an original is uniquely American, and from Jack Kerouac to H. P. Lovecraft it is the original talents I admire and value.
2. As a writer, why horror? And what is your writing process when working on a new story? Pantser? Plotter? Or somewhere in between?
LB: Why horror? I was an outstanding school crossing guard. In my hometown of Salina, Kansas, Oakdale Elementary awarded me a pass to the Strand Theater each Saturday to watch the triple feature matinee they put on for the kids in town. My mother didn’t know that these were horror films (I don’t think any of the mothers did—these passes were a great 6-hour babysitter). The pass was good for three years, and I saw every horror film ever made. If it wasn’t love at first sight, it certainly was 148 films later.
Continue readingDark Lit Market: DINING WITH DEVILS by Bobby Crew
It’s #TERRORTUESDAY, so we’re sharing yet another DHC member’s published work from our DARK LIT MARKET!
This week, pull up a seat for DINING WITH DEVILS by Bobby Crew!
From devils lurking in the woods, to devils slithering inside of you, this collection of horror stories takes a dark dive into the hell you create when you get a little too close to your demons. You might even find that sometimes your demons are the ones who love you the most.
Dark Lit Market: GEMINUS: A TIME TRAVEL NOVELLA by Cory Swanson
It’s #TERRORTUESDAY, so we’re revealing yet another DHC member’s published work from our DARK LIT MARKET!
This week, get your mind blown with GEMINUS: A TIME TRAVEL NOVELLA by Cory Swanson!
Cassie and Helen are twins spawned from a bolt of lightning that struck their mother while she was pregnant, as if from Zeus himself, or so their mother told them.
Like millions of other twin’s they share a special bond.
However, their bond is unlike any other, for Cassie remembers the future while Helen experiences the present. A fact the girls and their mother have kept secret from the world.
As Cassie and Helen head off to college their lives are about to be irrevocably changed forever.
Dark Lit Market: DAUGHTER OF ILLUSION by Charles W. Jones
It’s #TERRORTUESDAY, so we’re releasing yet another DHC member’s published work from our DARK LIT MARKET!
This week, steel yourself for DAUGHTER OF ILLUSION by Charles W. Jones!
Eli Thompson has witnessed many disturbing things in his life. When he receives a vision of despicable acts and isn’t sure what to do until a voice tells him that he needs to leave his comfortable home in Wyoming and go to Denver. Upon his arrival, Eli still doesn’t know why he’s there until his senses lead him to a restaurant in LODO where a grisly act has occurred.
After Detective Jonas Wechsler arrests Eli for being at a crime scene, they discover that other crimes involving a vanishing perpetrator are entwined with the same Fallen Angel, Agrat bat Mahlat, who desires to bring about change to the world by sacrificing men to Samael. Quickly, they learn that there are other players in this vile plan, one a pawn to carry out the Fallen Angel’s orders and two siblings, who were separated at birth.
Against heir Watchers’ wishes, Eli and Jonas decide to confront Agrat, finding themselves in a precarious predicament.
Dark Lit Market: BERGDORF & ASSOCIATES by Thomas C. Mavroudis
It’s #TERRORTUESDAY, so we’re releasing yet another DHC member’s published work from our DARK LIT MARKET!
This week, muster your guts for BERGDORF & ASSOCIATES by Thomas C. Mavroudis!
Down and out Abraham Kos has been a contract hand to the 72 Spirits of Solomon (demons to some, djinn to others) ever since his attempted suicide. The jobs Abe performs are generally simple, if questionable, but the most recent task posed by Abe’s handler, Bergdorf, is proving unusually difficult.
To complicate matters further, a powerful young woman named Rayne has been assigned the same task. To win the ensuing game of “keep away,” Abe will have to enlist the aid of his telepathically linked twin nieces, a brujo in training, and his dementia-afflicted father.
The 4th Circle: Interview with Ian Neligh
-Interview by Desi D
- What’s your favorite line in a book/movie? And why?
This is a hard one to pick—Frank Herbert’s DUNE has so many—but if pressed I’d say probably, “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed,” from the first book in Stephen King’s THE DARK TOWER series. As a reader it is almost impossible to read that line and not be instantly hooked into his dark and wonderfully bizarre fairytale. The line is intriguing, simple, and basically the plot of the novel boiled down into twelve words. The first sentence of a novel is important, and few know that as well as Stephen King.
- As a writer, how would you describe your fascination with history, specifically the Old West? And how does this inspire your story ideas?
For me, history is an endless source of writing inspiration. I suppose if I was living somewhere other than the American West, I’d find insight from other historic sources, but as it stands, the Old West is a perfect subject!
I love reading and writing about history but I’m also passionate about horror writing and the Old West was essentially a time of survival horror in the truest sense. It was a time where everyone and everything could kill you. And it really wasn’t that long ago; I recently interviewed someone who was the great-grandson of legendary frontiersman Kit Carson.
The Old West, after the Civil War, became this country’s shared mythology to help heal its division. That shared mythology (for better or worse) runs through a lot of our country’s psychology, which from a storytelling perspective is extremely insightful.
Continue readingDark Lit Market: CHOPPING SPREE by Angela Sylvaine
It’s #TERRORTUESDAY, so we’re unleashing yet another DHC member’s published work from our DARK LIT MARKET!
This week, prepare yourself for CHOPPING SPREE by Angela Sylvaine!
Eden Hills, Minnesota is famous for one thing—its ’80s inspired Fashion Mall. When high school junior, Penny, lands a job at one of its trendy stores, she notices her teen coworkers all wear a strange symbol they won’t explain.
Suspicious but wanting to belong, she agrees to stay after closing for a party in the closed store. Her fun turns to terror when Penny discovers a mortally wounded boy and learns there is a killer loose in the mall. Soon the teens are running for their lives.
Will Penny discover the truth behind the mall cabal and survive to slay another day, or will she fall victim to the galleria of gore?
