Dark fiction author and poet Stephanie Ellis is releasing a series of quick e-read novelettes starting in March with plans for more in the future. The series called Darklings will feature previously published stories, mostly from collections and anthologies, as well as brand new tales. The first four novelettes drop March 1 with new ones to follow at least every two months.
The initial four titles are the previously published stories Asylum of Shadows, Of Blood and Stone, The Return, and Beyond Hope. They are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple. Also available for pre-order is the fifth title in the Darklings series, Laugh with Jolly Jack, which is slated for an April 1 release.
A writer of mostly gothic and folk horror, Ellis is also an uber talented poet. One of the best poems I’ve ever read is “The Deceiver,” from her 2018 collection Dark Is My Playground. I still remember the lines “hidden in the bark-womb of the bellied tree” and “unwriting my book with truthful lies.” That entire poem is just a timeless piece of English literature. Her list of prose works includes The Woodcutter, The Five Turns of the Wheel, Reborn, and Paused.
Ellis agreed to an exclusive interview with lionelraygreen.com to discuss her new quick-reads series Darklings.
Why did you want to launch a self-published quick-reads series?
ELLIS: A combination of reasons. One is an ongoing frustration with getting my work published via the usual route, the whole submission, acceptance/rejection, publication process. It takes time and during a lot of that it feels as though everything is beyond your control. As I am getting older – 60 this year! – I have become very aware I have less time to waste waiting than others, so this is partly a desire to exert control over what is to happen in 2024. I do have a post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/horror novel, The Barricade, coming out some time this year. I have a couple of short stories also due out with some others (and some novels) on submission, but this way I have structured my year on my own terms. It is also a response to a growing feeling of invisibility as I get older. I want my writing to be seen and this is one of the ways I can do this.
The other reason is seeing a lot of people online saying they prefer reading the short form but whilst I have a couple of collections out, I have had very few ‘eyes’ on them. Regardless that some stories were previously published and were rated at the time, those initial readings do not seem to inspire people to try out my collections. The novelette form will, I hope, allow people to try out my stories for minimal cost – less than a coffee! – and then maybe they might move on to the rest of my catalogue.
A third reason was simply me setting myself a challenge at the end of last year! A way to get my short stories out whilst I carry on working on my new novel, and the novelette form is fun to work in. I wouldn’t be doing any of this, by the way, if I didn’t enjoy it!
You created the stark but beautiful black-and-white covers for these novelettes. How did you conceive the cover theme for your Darklings series?
ELLIS: It came about as I was playing with cover ideas which I could put up for sale. I had done a few and showed them to Steve Vassallo of Brigids Gate Press. He liked them but then mentioned how he really liked the black-and-white cover of Kill Creek – which I quite liked too. I started to play around and found a filter and some brushes in Affinity Designer which gives the wonderful effect you see. I either dug out my own photos or found them on Pixabay and then adapted as mentioned. The effect is quite striking, I think, and clearly gives the Darklings series their own brand.
Why did you choose these particular four stories to kick off your Darklings series?
ELLIS: Apart from Asylum of Shadows, first published with Demain Publishing, the others were in collections, which did not get widely read. It just struck me as an obvious thing to do. I’ve got the material, why not let people read them as a taster? They provide a good launching pad for the rest of the series, giving me a kick-start.
Beyond Hope was first published in Daughters of Darkness anthology and before that had been held for many, many months to final readings for another anthology before rejection. The Return was also rejected but with the response being it was ‘a good example of classic British horror.’ Of Blood and Stone had also been submitted elsewhere for something which didn’t materialise in the end, but which had been nominally accepted behind the scenes. And with Sadie Hartmann, Mother Horror, saying Asylum of Shadows was ‘CREEPY’ – yes, she did capitalise the word, though sadly never wrote the full review – I knew the stories were all good quality.
Your upcoming fifth Darklings title, Laugh with Jolly Jack, is a new story inspired by an old penny arcade machine you saw at Milestones Living History Museum in Basingstoke. You even have a YouTube video of the laughing dummy inside the machine posted on your website. Are there any creepier inanimate objects than Jolly Jack that have inspired your stories?
ELLIS: I think Jolly Jack is the one I regard as the creepiest – just the face and the laughter is enough to cause the chills. But there is another machine mentioned in that story, the Fortune Teller, who features in a starring role in “Romany Rose,” a short story first published with HorrorAddicts in their Dark Divinations anthology and also included in my collection, Devil Kin. I don’t know about you, but I find ventriloquist’s dummies amongst the most unnerving. I have not written a story about those, but my writing friend, Alyson Faye, has with her story, “Mr Dandy,” in Daughters of Darkness. It is seriously creepy!
Visit stephanieellis.org for more about the author and her works.
RELATED LINKS
The Official Website of Horror and Fantasy Writer Lionel Ray Green 
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