Final tally: 30 rejections and 1 acceptance!
My two little stories are back on submission. Hello, 2026, I'm getting out there again!
For 2026 let’s remind ourselves what really matters: weird fiction
I published TWO (2) stories this year and I'm gonna share them and you should read them because they are good. Also they'd be great to think about for awards and whatnot. 🤷
ONE: "Chickenfoot Soup" in Lightspeed. Katarina's got a mean momma and a silly daughter but Baba Yaga is here to help.
I wrote my first short story that really felt like a short story, not just the concept of one. Then I wrote another one I’m even prouder of. Both are on submission.
You know what's good? Books.
Meet Jane, my new Kitchen Witch so named after my great-great-great etc. grandmother thrice accused and acquitted of witchcraft. Creepy Face Brooch still needs a name.
We're reopening to submissions on January 1st.
Writers, ready your most depressing, unnerving, dislocating, horrible stories.
What do Christmas carols & horror films have in common? More than comfort would suggest. From The Lodge to Hereditary, this Morbid Minds essay looks at how ritual, silence, & inherited roles shape some of horror’s most unsettling family stories.
nighttidemag.com/2025/12/14/m...
My mom and dad are going to be so mad at me.
How lucky we are to receive two Osgood Perkins’ movies in one calendar year.
😱😱😱!!!!!!
A Friday evening surprise. The first audio version of "House Traveler." Incredibly well done by Preston Buttons. With great audio by Chelsea Davis (the trippy voice for the Liar is particularly cool!) And hosted by Scott Campbell! If you missed it last year in @bourbonpenn.bsky.social, check it out!
Honestly have no idea what some people get out of using AI for writing. Just had all the parts of a story idea click into place and it’s such a satisfying feeling. Why the hell would anyone want to outsource creativity?
Another rejection / another submission.
I reread it every couple of years and it still knocks me out
I read ANAGRAMS by Lorrie Moore in a college course called 'Tragedy in Romance'. It opened my eyes to experimentation in literature--how a novel doesn't have follow one exact shape.
Nothing better than some delusional characters, and this book does it SO WELL.
My last read: Lumberjack by @anthonyengebretson.bsky.social A tight, tense historical novella with a protagonist so dangerously delusional, I had to take a breather after one particular chapter. 5 🪓🪓🪓🪓🪓/5
@tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Holy fuck! No Kings protesters are marching through Center City in Philadelphia. 🙌💪👏✊️👇
A good reminder as I get back to my YA novel draft.
A handful of rejections with plans to submit today and tomorrow. 19 rejections so far, one more for an even 20 🤞🏻
![Well, everything. The death of art. [Laughs.] A thing that I’ve been struck by in the last year of tech development around art is that what makes us human is making art, even if you’re not a professional artist. This is kind of corny, but I think about cavemen, right? One of the first things we ever did as a species was put our handprints on a wall, and it’s just this drive that has always been there. It’ll always be there. And I think it’s preposterous that these people are suggesting that they develop this technology, and the first thing they want to eliminate is art, so you have more time to…what, email? I don’t know what they think I’m going to do with my fucking day. Most of the population is not artists, but a lot of the population has artistic hobbies, and if you replace that with a computer doing it for you or whatever, it’s just pointless. I think there’s a death drive in these people, almost, and an actual hatred of artists; they are jealous of people with imagination because they don’t have one, and they almost consciously want to eliminate it.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:obalt57atoxc2zooldtuur75/bafkreifnjtvupzmkqg7cggiv2z5nckzpp5yd2sm7h5gg2kq3plbwv2btuy)
My wife is in Vogue shitting on your AI-generated "art" 💜 www.vogue.com/article/matt...
Announcement for the writers among you: we're increasing our submissions word count to 10,000 words.
If you write dark fiction send it our way. Don't explain anything, just make things weird and make us deal with it. Ambiguity encouraged, definitive endings frowned upon.
Drafting flash fiction at the car dealership
I am mildly obsessed with nailing a good first line, and IMO to do so one must convey at least three or four details/pieces of information. As a reader, I want to know several things immediately: what's the MC doing? What time period/era is this? What's just happened to stir up conflict in the MC's
"Some kind of a noise. Or a nudge, a push."
We are BEYOND thrilled to have @aaronburch.bsky.social back in hex this week with "The Attic!" This story is the best kind of surprise, linguistically wonderful, a foray into the unsettling, all without losing Aaron's great sense of heart. Don't miss it!
"She must have nodded off after all. All night through the early hours unsleeping, then Gwen found herself awake. There was a wrongness: something was wrong."
Today on ergot: 'Buttons' by Seán Padraic Birnie @seanbirnie.bsky.social
www.ergot.press/authors/Se%C...
