(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies, collections, and zines.) Illinois author John Everson’s horror novels and short stories often use the disturbing combination of the occult and taboo sex to explore infidelity and obsession. While he won a Bram Stoker Award for First Novel with Covenant …
Tag: horror short story
SHORT SHOTS | ‘They Say the Sky Is Full of Snakewolves’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies, collections, and zines.) I almost cut myself on the satirical edge of Lucy Leitner's standout short story "They Say the Sky Is Full of Snakewolves." The author wastes no time in dropping the reader into the action as we follow …
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SHORT SHOTS | ‘Vampire of the Midnight Sun’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies, collections, and zines.) I like my horror fiction with a darker tone, but I'm always impressed when an author effectively adds the right amount of dark humor to the mix. I'm also surprised by how much I enjoy it. "Vampire …
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SHORT SHOTS: ‘The Painting My Husband Keeps’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies.) "The Painting My Husband Keeps" is the quietly menacing opener to the horror collection titled Under Your Bed by Blair Daniels. The well-paced short story is narrated by a recently married woman named Tara who's unnerved by a painting owned …
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SHORT SHOTS | ‘Slashbacks’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review horror short stories.) "Slashbacks" by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Tim Waggoner is a vicious little wish-fulfillment tale of vengeance set inside a horror movie lover's dream video store. The short story appears in the 2022 anthology Attack from the '80s edited by Eugene Johnson and …
SHORT SHOTS | ‘Quiet Embers’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review horror short stories.) “Quiet Embers” opens with the heart-wrenching line, “My neighbors house burned down six months ago with their children inside.” The tale then gently explores how the now empty lot haunts the narrator, a new resident of the neighborhood. “Quiet Embers” is one …
SHORT SHOTS | ‘Birth’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review horror short stories.) From the disturbing image in the first sentence to the unsettling realization in the final two lines, Lisa Quigley’s “Birth” takes the “sometimes dead is better” theme of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary to the next grim level. Released in 2018, “Birth” is …
SHORT SHOTS | ‘Still Life’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies.) “Still Life” by Kelli Owen is one of sixteen stories in the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthology titled Arterial Bloom. Released in 2020 by Crystal Lake Publishing, Arterial Bloom was edited by Mercedes M. Yardley and includes a foreword by Linda …
SHORT SHOTS | ‘Complex’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies.) "Complex" by Jason Parent appears in the 2020 anthology by Silver Shamrock Publishing titled Midnight in the Pentagram, edited by Kenneth W. Cain. Told from the point of view of a distraught wife, "Complex" starts with a paragraph packed with …
SHORT SHOTS | ‘Cabin Twelve’ & ‘The Face’
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies.) "Cabin Twelve" by Daphne Strasert won the Next Great Horror Writer Campfire Horror Story Challenge, and "The Face" by Naching T. Kassa finished runner-up. The tales are featured in the flash fiction anthology, Horror Bites: Campfire Tales, edited by Emerian …
The Official Website of Horror and Fantasy Writer Lionel Ray Green 