2024 has been a pretty good year for publishing short fiction, and keeping the momentum going, I’ve a few more lined up for 2025 already.
Boreal, an anthology of taiga/forest-focused horror stories is due out from Strange Wilds Press in February. My contribution, a gentle folk horror piece set in the ancient Caledonian Forest in Argyllshire, is called The Family Axe. It’s about family and belonging, and features an orphaned teenager coming to terms with being responsible for his little brother and assessing his place in their rural community.
Mam went to the Wood too soon, Haw thinks as he climbs up among the watchful trees.
If you were at Fantasycon last weekend and heard me talking about this one, or even caught me reading from it, well now’s your chance to find out what happens.
Boreal is available for pre-order from October 30th.
And just announced in Publishers Marketplace for publication next autumn, we have Absolute Zero from Death’s Head Press.
As you can probably guess from the title, this is an anthology of frozen things. My contribution, The Cold Case, follows a former policeman who has never recovered from the emotional impact of an incomprehensibly brutal and long-unsolved murder when the details of the case resurface. It’s set in Glasgow in the 1960s and, yes, the swans lurking in the mist on frozen the Forth & Clyde canal really are creepy as hell.
Those details, though, had tainted all of them that had stood there in the frigid fog that morning. Sunk in through the skin, right into the marrow of their bones so that they all felt like they’d never be warm again.
Both of these stories are part of my Strange Bequests sequence, for anyone who is following along. I’m excited that folks will have the chance to read them soon.
Roll on 2025!
ayeahmur 