tiny frights volume 3 issue 2, Halloween 2024

tiny frights volume 3 issue 2, Halloween 2024

Table of contents

Welcome

Happy Halloween, and welcome to the sixth issue of tiny frights!

I find horror comforting, especially when life seems intent on reinforcing my natural tendency to panic. (The looming US presidential election is especially scary.) I hope the horror in these virtual pages can help you manage life's real fears.

In a small change to the editorial calendar, tiny frights will open again for submissions on November 15th. I need a couple of weeks off.

Spooky reading!

— Carl Bettis, 10/31/2024

Art, fiction, & poetry

They're Calling 1, by Susan Dipronio
They're Calling 1 by Susan Dipronio

Caput Mortuum

When you died, I dreamed you'd become a heron and the thought of you in flight became my comfort. Did you know herons appear in Leviticus's list of abominations? Easton describes them as unclean birds, remarkable mostly for their bad dispositions. He says they're greedy, voracious birds, like hungry ghosts, all long scrawny necks and needy stomachs, so evil smelling only the very poor will eat them. Still, I watch for them as I'd watch for you if aphantasia hadn't erased your image from my brain, and I talk to them as I'd talk to you if you'd bothered to live a little longer. Lately, I've been telling them something you'd really love about how Egyptian Brown paint contained pigment ground from real mummies' heads, how it was sold from the twelfth century until the year I was born, how it was a charming pigment, good for shadows and skin tones, how I mixed your ashes with a bit of oil and varnish, how I painted a picture of your face even I couldn't forget.
— Celeste Oster

Jack

by Auzzie Jay

Wildfire blackened my lungs as I jolted to life. I tried to throw up but something was already up. Thick, wiry fibers forced their way out of my mouth, snaking deeper into the darkness.

I was dragged down the ship's narrow corridors. The reason we'd come so far to the edge of the world came back to me in disjointed fragments. The walls were folding in, familiar but wrong, wrong in a way I couldn't explain, like a childhood home. The wrongness made my skin tingle. I reached the end, fumbling, feeling for the switch, the strands curling up in a tight knot in the middle of the room.

"He's this way..." a voice down the hall and footsteps.

"Found him like this this morning."

"How long has he been here?"

"Long enough."

"The experiment did this?"

"The nanobodies? No."

"Poor soul—nobody gives a shit about Jack."

"He has no family?"

"None."

They didn't notice me. They didn't notice the strands, either, or the silver threadlings that twisted from their own smiles, disappearing into the shadows.

I went over to him and saw him clearly—he was me. A bloated, rotting, decaying corpse of myself. My stomach panged, but somehow I was relieved to see myself laid out on the floor like that.

They had lied. I cared for Jack. We were kin. I bent down and plucked the strands from our lips, one by one.

Jack may be dead, but we still live. Somehow, we still live.

untitled, by Andrew Graber
by Andrew Graber

Mama, I'm in Love with a Werewolf

You swallowed the moon tonight, fueled by a foreign lust. You swore you had not seen his face before in waking— but now it haunts you in dream; in the sweet mead at the back of your bitten whelp throat. They say that the unwise man is awake all night long, but they have not known the wild when Máni opens her eyes to the fullness of her lids— they have not known the blood that coats your nails and coats your claws and wets your skin, your fur— the hallowed ritual ground that has seen you changed and grown. You drank of his blood and now you are both the monsters that haunt the withered northern-land. ( — run before he eats you, girl.) ( — but what if I eat him first?)
— Emma Wilson-Kanamori

A Full Moon Over the Arctic Circle

by Hannah Birss

In the land of the midnight sun, the full moon is just a faint ornament hanging in the blue and purple canvas of a twilight sky. Laura had come here knowing that the sun would not truly set or rise and that there would be an endless dusk in which she might see the shimmering auroras snake their way across the sky. In her excitement, she had forgotten what that might mean for the wolf within.

A phantom moon does not bring about the change. It is not just the fullness of her that triggered the change that writhes beneath the skin of her acolytes, but her power. The moon might be full but it is not night, not truly, and it weakens her rays. Both of them are stuck in the inbetween; the moon does not dominate the sky, and so the wolf cannot dominate her.

She spends the hours of the full moon crouched on all fours, half changed. Her bones splinter into her flesh. Tufts of fur like porcupine quills have half-emerged across her frosty skin, and teeth like razors cut her lips and cheeks. Lymph oozes from her pores, her sight is blurry, her half-formed muzzle is assaulted by the scents of her own agony.

She cannot change, cannot heal; she has to wait for the moon to wane. In the meantime, she is paralyzed by pain, unable to run or hunt.

All she can do is howl.

Light Switch

by Caleb Weinhardt

Sometimes the switch for the room you're in is outside of the room you're in. You wish you'd known this before you entered into the dark, feeling along the walls for something, anything, that might illuminate the space.

Sometimes the room you're in has another switch, one you find in your stumbling, and relieved, you flip it on. And sometimes, someone else, in another room somewhere, is flooded with a light so bright their eyes burn. They crawl to their feet, thinking, thank God.

They see their hands for the first time in the light, their feet, the shape of the room that was once dark and vast and lonely.

But your light does not come on, and so you switch it off, and they are left in darkness.

Manifestation

They've warned me against love spells, but I don't listen. I carve your initials into a candle with a razor blade, rub my cum on the wick. Once when I did this for another lover the wax ran blush-pink and I knew my spell had worked. This time the candle doesn't burn. When you first came over to my place you saw my books on magic, my tarot cards, the gold snake belt that was my grandmother's, and you asked if I was going to sacrifice you. Now we joke that when it's time I'll invite you to a secret room and spill your blood, empty your heart in a scarlet mist. The room doesn't exist. I'm already taking you into all my secrets, and leaving your towel up long after you've left, a strip of red like something disemboweled, curing in my apartment. The days between your visits are nothing days and I hate counting down my life when I know and don't know how little there is of it. I've read that each time you give into a compulsion it strengthens, digs those grooves deeper in the brain, and each night I carve your name, and fall deeper under my own spell. I understand the warning now.
— Sophia Carroll
untitled by Andrew Graber
by Andrew Graber

Vintage Vows

by Cecilia Kennedy

A musty, sweet smell infects every corner of the antique store, where I snap photos. It's all I can do to keep from getting nauseas, from hitting the floor and never recovering. The last photo I take is from the outside, looking in, where the display case holds an assortment of scalloped lamps, dishes, and a grandfather clock. When I examine the shot, I see the surrounding houses reflected in the glass, between the objects in the display case—and among the objects, the ghosts of their owners, weaving in and out. But if I look between the shadows, I see another shape taking form, and he's beckoning me to return, so I do.

Inside Wonderland Antiques, I hold my breath and search among the old record players and vintage gowns, soiled with acrid air and dust clouds. Whispers fill my head, and when I turn, I see him. His skin shimmers. He says he'll take me away. I believe him and follow him into the recesses of the store, where my world goes dark, and the next one is mothballs and rot. We fold ourselves into the creases of a dress and cling tightly together as we're carried off to the Victorian house down the street, where someone thinks she'll dance at a party in a vintage gown, but we'll be there, too, knitted to the fabric, shadows and dust, dearly beloved, to have and to hold, from this day forward.

Emergence 1, by Carl Bettis
Emergence 1 by Carl Bettis

Closets of the Dead

Think of all the lonely clothes in all the closets of the dead: things like my mother's matching knits from the eighties she wore well into the nineties. My father's khaki pants, cardigans, the yellowed dress shirts worn years ago; my mother-in-law's faded denims with elastic waistbands she wore with sleeveless blouses made by amputating sleeves from old long-sleeved denim shirts, her gardening uniform; her lilac-colored rayon too-long dress she brought hundreds of miles to wear to our son's wedding, a hard trip due to osteoporosis. "My last trip," she said. When she died, we came to the farm to deal with stuff. Someone said we might as well throw all the clothes away, so old-fashioned. No one will want them. But others, not wanting the clothes buried too, said, No, no, let's take it to a Goodwill. All that denim! Good for making quilts.
— Patricia Lawson
Emergence 2, by Carl Bettis
Emergence 2 by Carl Bettis
piling up beneath the bed nightmares
— Julie Bloss Kelsey

The Son of All Fears

by Gregory Lawrence

I'll throw out my son. And to think that he was so precious as a kid; soft even, maybe a bit too much. Easy to mould, but hard to make him retain shape. Now he's hardened into a pathetic specimen. Perhaps I spoiled him too much. He even stinks of spoiled eggs now. He used to be so pure. Pristine baby smell, enough to forgive all the soiled diapers. Then came the stench of puberty. Now his once-pure skin is soiled by scars and tattoos. Trashy. I'll throw his body out with the rest of the garbage, piece by piece.

Among The Monsters

by Hannah Greer

Dozens of yellow-slit eyes peer out of the crevice before me. I don't move, don't breathe. In the distance, hunting hounds yap.

Men shout their glee and I tremble. I should run, but there's nowhere the men and their hounds won't find me. Nowhere except down. Down among the monsters, among the unknown.

Smoke curls from the crevice, carrying the scent of carrion as the first man appears at the top of the hill. His gaze roves over me, hungry. His companions join him.

They can't have me. So I slip down into the dark earth, where they cannot follow.

["Among the Monsters" appeared on Medium February 5, 2024]
Stairway of the Tortured Stone, by Christopher Collingwood
Stairway of the Tortured Stone by Christopher Collingwood

Duality

"He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes." — Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf Tableaus of boyhood—usually sun- Filled moments—don't include betrayals yet. My body, lean and lithe, enjoyed moonbeams' Hypnotic kisses on the windowsills That honeyed me to sleep, revealing dream's Chaotic circus—wolf howls beckoning. My bed-time story: Aesop's House-dog said, "Ah, Cousin, your irregular life will Soon be the ruin of you!" Gaunt Wolf then saw A collar, liberty chained, strangled, gone. The curse condemned me, collared my freedom, Its brooding eye eradicating will, The power of familiarity, Split me like a tree grown heavy from living. I'd grown attached to my normality. Now a curse is my custodian. Full moons Personify nights a reluctant Wolf Awakens, throat-dark emotions unleashed.
— LindaAnn LoSchiavo

After a Hard Night

I'm home from the job but the job comes with me. My shirt is blood-soaked. My teeth are stained red. I gobble down my dinner like a wolf. I swat a bug, lick clean the remains. I watch some TV but always the movie Seven. But then a kiss from my wife makes me feel like a human. She curls gently around my throat. And she purrs like the devil.
— John Grey

The Cat's Altar

by Frederick Charles Melancon

Fuzzy Mittens perched on top of the bookshelf in the corner of the living room. Her gaze intent on the empty corner, and her back turned toward the family.

In the past, whenever anyone walked into the room, she'd swivel her head toward the newcomer and then meow. Now, as if lost in prayer, she sat silent without even flicking her ear back to listen.

My parents laughed it off saying she put herself in timeout for some unknown mischief. Dad even fussed at her to do better in the future, but as I walked by, I bowed my head. Later, I left extra treats up there, hoping that if anything ever came out of that corner it would remember my reverence.

Fear of the Dark

by Jacek Wilkos

Every night she pulled the curtains, covering the windows tightly. She put a blanket under the door so not even the dimmest light could get in. She slept in complete blackness.

She wasn't afraid of the dark, but of the thin line between light and shadow, which spawned eerie shapes.

[First published in fiftywordstories.com on October 28, 2022]

Just before awaking

I'm standing at a podium, about to read my poems at a conference somewhere, maybe in Emporia. The audience is small and scattered, old men in brown hats. I sift through pages, tissue thin, thin as pages in a cheap magazine, thin as old skin, I can't find anything with telling words, even anything with words. My friend, dead thirteen years, approaches. Why not be honest? he says. Just say you need time to find your poems, you'll be right back. No, I say, they're here somewhere. More shuffling of paper so thin the pages can't be separated. My friend (living or ghost?) departs. I tell the poor souls remaining I'm sorry, but perhaps we need a break.
— Patricia Lawson
restless night / psychic spiders / weave nightmares, by Julie Bloss Kelsey
— Julie Bloss Kelsey

Brood Parasite

by Joelle Killian
Content warning: miscarriage, abnormal pregnancy

Before I'm born, I kick against your belly, wondering how you'll welcome me.

Our species hides eggs in human wombs, tricking host families into raising our offspring. (Lazy parenting, perhaps, but clever.) Centuries of evolution later, we're identical to your young, and littered across the globe. Never leave all your eggs in one nest, right?

As my consciousness quickens, my instincts manifest. I turn against my womb-mate. Strike before he hatches and eject him from the nest. He tumbles down the birth canal, eventually bleeding out into your toilet.

Then I luxuriate in delicious solitude, ready for your undivided attention.

[previously published in Friday Flash Fiction, June 2024]
untitled, by Andrew Graber
by Andrew Graber

Florence Nightingpale

 

The new beautiful nurse puts the blood pressure cuff on my arm. Sensing my anxiety, she holds my hand as the machine starts squeezing me. I look into her eyes and am instantly aroused. But then my worst fear comes true: the cuff doesn't let go. It keeps going, squeezing tighter and tighter. I try to get it off, clawing at it with my other hand, but she grabs that one too and holds it in a death grip. The cuff is stuck to me and squeezing tighter and tighter and I'm screaming and screaming and then there's blood everywhere and I'm staring at the place where my arm used to be...

(t)error code— the nurse not sucking on me where I imagined
— Susan Burch

A Toast

by Chris Scott

He can easily spot the unbelievers, those who secretly doubted him, too stunned to conceal their surprise as they gradually rise to their feet, straightening their gowns and tuxedos. From the stage he watches the ballroom slowly come back to life. Silent, save for the intermittent crunch of glass from shattered flutes.

Seventy-three souls. The recently deceased, the newly revived, one and the same. The foul combination of champagne and cyanide still on their tongues. He checks his watch: half past midnight, just as prophesied. One by one they turn to face him. His smiling, beautiful children, reborn. "Happy New Year," he says. Now comes the fun part.

The Living Stone

says this is the cobweb your fingers unravel and wipe on the floor this is the egg in the nest and this the clock on the shelf This thumbprint on paper is mine A balloon floats to a ceiling A robin hops on a path Clouds lean out windows and talk to their neighbors about numbers on yellow tablets these dead in the sky
— Peter Mladinic

Final Girl Wannabe

by Cecilia Kennedy

When needlepoint stars pierce the night sky, knitting sparkles like badges to a velvet vest, the doorbells on all the streets ring—and no one's on the front step. A prank they all say, but when I open, I see Kelly, the Girl Scout determined to make a sale. I believe I'm the only one who sees her.

I remember her from the news: ambitious, but sweet, kind—a model student—no time for boyfriends or "any of that stuff" as her parents had put it in the interviews. She'd been at a sleepover, slipped out the door in uniform, to sell cookies. While the others slept, a slasher sliced all the girls' throats. Because of the rules. They'd been drinking, talking about their escapades with their boyfriends, but Kelly hadn't done any of those things—and the rules state she should survive, but the slasher cut her throat, too. She had left a trail of cookie crumbs so someone else could find her, and they did—but too late.

Still, she thinks she's a final girl, roaming the neighborhood with her cookie-box stash. And I want her to believe. So when I see her, I reach for a phantom box, leave my money on the step, to put her soul to rest because there's nothing she could have done—no badge she could have sewn to her vest to keep the blade away.

Drowned Woman

her head pushed under her eyes peer into so many mirrors yet every reflection is just fish being fish
— John Grey

FZZZ

by Rick Kennett

The vampires seized the diver in the depths, racing him to the surface, forcing nitrogen to bubble agonizingly into his bloodstream. They then all enjoyed a fizzy drink.

Dracula Dreams of Van Helsing, by Carl Bettis
Dracula Dreams of Van Helsing by Carl Bettis
[previously posted on Bluesky and Mastodon]

The Perfect Laborers

by Hannah Greer

I lock arms with the people around me. Guards stand between us and the wheat fields where corpses work. They're slow but steady, never in need of rest or sustenance. The perfect laborers, according to those who profit. Voiceless victims, to those of us who stand against their exploitation.

My mother's body is over there, somewhere. The Lord of the estate, a merchant, paid the government pennies for her but she was never the government's to sell.

I can't help but gasp when I spot her. Her figure is hunched, each step a struggle. Her usually vibrant hair is thin and dull. Skin flakes from her blotchy and gray flesh.

"Mama," I shout. She doesn't react. Merchants claim the dead are mindless. Still, others shout for their loved ones. I try again. "Mama!"

She turns, head tilted. I scream for her, with the love I have for her and the anger I have for them, begging her to remember.

She takes a lurching step towards me.

She still remembers. My eyes burn at the scent of rot and my throat stings, but I don't stop calling. Her pace picks up, gaze meeting mine.

Cursed

He left his prayers unsaid at night, and was impure even by the standards of a necrotic empire, so when the wolfsbane was full and the moon bloomed, every wolf in the forest transformed into him, walking upright in shoes of Italian leather, nails manicured, learning what it means to be a predator. On moonless nights when they're fanged and furred again you can hear them in the distance, howling for their human sins.
—Ian Erinson

But You Can't Beat That View

by Chris Scott

The pilot counts down from ten. Not that we need him to. Again, at zero, we shield our eyes as the blinding white flash illuminates the darkened cabin of our plane. Again, we turn our collective gaze. Watch the mushroom cloud bloom up, up, up until it's higher than we are.

The fifth time we went through this I noticed other fireballs in the distance. So it was a coordinated attack, I thought. Not that we could do anything about it. The hundredth time, it started to look kind of beautiful.

We don't bother trying to land anymore. The pilot says next time we're just going to fly straight into it. See if that does anything. It's worth a shot. I close my eyes and the pilot starts counting down from ten.


prying eyes my brain in a jar
— Julie Bloss Kelsey

Nonet: Lunar Beast

Moonrise evoked the ferocity Of hunger, eyes focused as if The world was a carousel Circling like a buffet, Ready for his fangs. Afterwards he Shrugged off fur. Wildness Slept.
— LindaAnn LoSchiavo
Morbid Extrovert, by Carl Bettis
Morbid Extrovert by Carl Bettis

A Serial Killer Waxes Poetic

Spilled blood doing its best impression of a butterfly dressed in a Rorschach test, which the sanest fail because they believe more in mops than a sharp knife.
— Richard LeDue

Why Cindy Left the Diner

The food on her plate Looked like something Out of a David Lynch film.
— Michael McGovern
Lorena Bobbitt I say good-bye to your little friend
— Susan Burch

Reviews & notations

Metroid Fusion

by Nicholas Bernhard

In 2002, Nintendo published their one-two punch of Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion. Fusion was published for the Game Boy Advance, and it joined me on family road trips. It was on one of those night drives through the Utah desert, sitting in the back seat, that Metroid Fusion gave me a scare that has stayed with me for over twenty years.

In Metroid Fusion, you play as bounty hunter Samus Aran, fighting an invasion of parasites onboard a space station. At the start of the game, Samus is recovering from a parasitic infection which has left her weakened and without her armor. The same parasite has stolen Samus' armor and begins using it to wreak havoc. On a space station where almost every living thing is out to kill you, this parasitic shadow of Samus, the SA-X, is the biggest threat. In the event the SA-X finds you, the in-game advisor suggests only that you run and hide.

Later in the game, you cross a long corridor. There is a small crawlspace beneath the floor, and you transform into Samus' morph-ball form to fit inside. Just as you've wedged yourself into this space, the SA-X enters on the floor above. The shaft you're in is a dead end, and the SA-X blocks the only way out. The SA-X drops a Power Bomb, a devastating weapon that vaporizes most of the floor above you, and your hiding spot. You are left with just enough overhang to conceal your morph-ball form. Move an inch, and it will see you. This handful of pixels is all that is protecting you from certain death at the hands of your murderous clone.

On those family road trips, riding to the next hotel in Richfield or Las Vegas, I held my breath and didn't dare move in the back seat, waiting for the SA-X to leave. As far as I'm concerned, the jump scare is easy; game design that makes you feel truly helpless, that makes you thankful for those few pixels of cover, is rarely achieved.

[Previously included in a Youtube video and on the author's blog. CC BY-SA 4.0]

Briefly noted

by Carl Bettis

Books

The Angel of Indian Lake; Stephen Graham Jones, author; Saga Press. Not a standalone novel; you need to read My Heart Is a Chainsaw and Don't Fear the Reaper first. But this is a glorious high-speed, multi-car pileup of an ending to the trilogy, if every third car is driven by a murderer and some of the other cars are possessed by ghosts. If Hollywood turns these books into movies, I'll be first in line to give them my money.
Cursed Bunny; Bora Chung, author; Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Bora Chung is versatile in her weirdness. Some of these stories might be classed as surrealism, some as horror, some as science fiction or fantasy. Almost always, the characters are relatable no matter how bizarre their circumstances.
Lone Women; Victor LaValle, author; One World. This novel of a frontier woman who is not as alone as she would like to seem always has another surprise in store—but the surprises are organic, not gimmicky. It's a story about racism, sexism, classism, and other isms, but also about personal regrets and second chances. It absolutely nails the landing.
Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction; Lisa Kröger and Melanie Anderson, authors; Quirk Books. An interesting book in itself, and a good resource to plan your future reading. My TBR list has grown by a few dozen titles. I'm happy that this book starts with Margaret Cavendish, and that it includes Nobel laureate Toni Morrison as a horror writer.
No Gods, No Monsters; Cadwell Turnbull, author; Blackstone Publishing. A weird book on many levels, from the unreliable omniscient(ish) narrator to the ant-powered teleportation circles and the finger-eating dragon boy. It's also a book that asks meaningful questions, both personal and social, and answers them in the ways that life does: enigmatically, heartbreakingly, surprisingly, or not at all. This is not a book to skim: there are many characters and a multitude of storylines, and the prose is worth paying attention to.
No One Will Come Back for Us and other stories; Premee Mohamed, author; Undertow Publications. A blend of science fiction, folk horror, and cosmic horror, this collection of stories is hard to classify but well worth reading. The story notes at the end are an entertaining touch. (Read the story before the note. There are spoilers.) My favorite pieces here are "Four Hours of a Revolution" and "Quietus," but there's not a clunker in the book.
The Only Good Indians; Stephen Graham Jones, author; Saga Press. I used to live near a fancy restaurant that served elk steak. I never tried it, but if I ever again see elk on a menu, no matter how many years from now, I'll be reminded of this book. The story is memorable for its original use of points of view, and its peek into the psychology of a non-human intelligence. As usual with stories  by Stephen Graham Jones, it's an emotional journey.
Out There Screaming; Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams, editors; Random House. A wonderful, creepy anthology that's perfect for not reading late at night when you're alone in the house. The stories feature a variety of styles, themes, and approaches, ranging from folk horror to cosmic, from conventional narrative to experimental. Writers I‘m familiar with are here, like Nnedi Okorafor, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due, but I also discovered a few new names for my bookshop.org wishlist.
Tell Me I'm Worthless; Alison Rumfitt, author; Tom Doherty Associates. Personal and political horror, in which the characters are haunted by a house, England is haunted by fascism, and the world is haunted by England. A lumpy, brutal, brilliant work.

Movies

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972); director Bob Clark; screenplay by Alan Ormsby and Benjamin Clark. This zombie flick with a kick-ass title includes among its horror elements 1970s fashion, but it delivers surprisingly good dialogue in spots. Unfortunately, the stereotypical gay characters are there to be laughed at and are the first to die. The same director later did Porky's.
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023); director Emma Tammi; screenplay by Emma Tammi, Scott Cawthon, and Seth Cuddeback; Universal Pictures. A movie based on a video game series. I'm usually a sucker for stories that blur the line between dream and reality, but this one failed to grab me. The psychology of dreams expounded here is laughable, and I didn't find any of the characters believable or relatable. This movie might be for fans of the games.
Vamp (1986); Richard Wenk, writer and director; New World Pictures. A horror comedy featuring Grace Jones as a vampire queen who runs a strip club. Two fraternity pledges try to hire her for a frat party. The story is confused and laughs are few, but Jones's surreal dance is reason enough to watch. This movie sometimes shows up on lists of queer horror films. The queerness is subtextual.
The Witch (2015); Robert Eggers, writer and director. Folk horror set in 17th-century New England. The story establishes early on that supernatural evil is real, as malicious forces target a family banished from their Puritan community. The movie addresses themes of patriarchy, sexual repression, and religious fanaticism. The most violent parts are not the most frightening.
They're Calling 2, by Susan Dipronio
They're Calling 2 by Susan Dipronio

About the contributors

Carl Bettis (he/him) is the editor and publisher of tiny frights.

Hannah Birss is a writer and aspiring magpie based out of Ontario, Canada. She lives with her partner, children, and multiple animals. She can usually be found in a nest constructed of books, writing journals, and shiny trinkets. You can follow her on instagram @hannahbirsswrites for news on upcoming and current publications.

Susan Burch is a good egg.

Sophia Carroll (she/they) is an analytical chemist and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, Rust & Moth, and her Substack, Torpor Chamber. She is currently drafting her second novel. Find her on Twitter @torpor_chamber.

Christopher Collingwood was born and raised in Sydney Australia. He completed university in Sydney and graduated with a degree in business studies. Chris has devoted his spare time to writing, with works published in Not One of Us, Andromeda Spaceways, Abyss & Apex, Hexagon, Shoreline of Infinity, Jersey Devil Press, State of Matter, Smoke in the Stars anthology, Qualia Nous: Vol. 2 and illustration in the recent JOURN-E 2.1 and The Sprawl Mag 2.1, among other dimensionally unstable places.

Susan Dipronio (they/she), a queer Art for Social Change artist, is a recipient of The Transformation Award and The Art for Change Grant from the Leeway Foundation for conducting writing workshops with women, the houseless, and the underserved founding "Pink Hanger Presents" to give voice to their stories. An award winning analog photographer, their plays and poetry films have appeared in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, in New York City, in Boston, Baltimore and internationally. Susan's poetry appeared in Spillway-Tebot Bach, High Shelf, Sinister Wisdom, Spillwords, Woven Tale, Corset Magazine, The Avocet, Phila.Gay News, Pinky Thinker, "Laurel" coming-out memoir in the First Person Arts chapbook series, San Fedele Press, Moonstone Arts for AWP. Their trauma memoir "Damaged" in "The Survivors Project" and others.

Ian Erinson (he/him) is angry about most things most of the time.

Andrew Graber writes, "I am a self taught artist who also likes to write."

Hannah Greer's work has appeared or is forthcoming in PseudoPod, Solarpunk Magazine, and Radon Journal. She is a first reader for Fusion Fragment, hoards books, and competes in combat sports. She resides in North Carolina with her partner, a trio of cats, and a small flock of pigeons. Find her on Bluesky @hannahgreer.bsky.social or on her website, hannahgreer.carrd.co.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert, and Memory Outside The Head, are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.

Auzzie Jay writes, "As a sucker for a bittersweet ending, I'm always rooting for cosmic irony and woeful tragedy. I'm a lover of realistic science fiction and horror. I'm a web daemon, singer/songwriter and overall proponent of the small and personalized web. You can find me at auzziejay.com/!"

Julie Bloss Kelsey's horrorku and speculative tanka have appeared in Jersey Devil Press, horror senryu journal, Otoroshi, and Cthulhu Haiku 2. Julie is currently on the board of The Haiku Foundation where she pens a column for haiku newcomers called New to Haiku. Connect with her on Instagram (@julieblosskelsey).

Cecilia Kennedy (she/her) is a writer who taught English and Spanish in Ohio for 20 years before moving to Washington state with her family. Since 2017, she has published stories in international literary magazines and anthologies. You can follow her on X (@ckennedyhola). Instagram: ceciliakennedy2349.

Rick Kennett writes: "I am a lifelong resident of Melbourne, Australia where, now retired after 42 years in the transport industry, I live the life of an idler and a ne'er-do-well. I've had many stories published in magazines, anthologies and podcasts and have six books up on Amazon. It's been decades since I've been owned by a cat and nowadays I have to make do talking to next door's white tom who sometimes condescends to talk to me."

Joelle Killian is a queer Canadian living in San Francisco whose fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Fusion Fragment, Mythaxis, and Cosmic Horror Monthly. One of her doppelgängers is a psychologist writing about psychedelic therapy. Another was once in an undead dance troupe.

Gregory Lawrence is an autistic translator and writer. Before he was confirmed as autistic, he was known only as proudly weird, and that sense of weirdness has also seeped into his writing. Apart from horror, speculative and weird fiction, he is interested in heavy metal, linguistics, constructed languages, disability advocacy and history. Originally from Germany, he now resides near Edinburgh, while his socials and words can be found here: https://linktr.ee/gregory.lawrence.

Pat Lawson has lived in the Kansas City area all her life. A former community college English instructor, she now writes, and coordinates an urban community garden in Kansas City, Kansas. She has published many stories and poems and has 2.5 books: Why We Love Our Cats and Dogs, co-authored with Phil Miller (stories and poems, published by Unholy Day Press); a story collection, Odd Ducks (BkMk Press), and a poetry collection, The Little Book of Me (Spartan Press). Odd Ducks won the Brian Caldwell Smith Award for Fiction by a Kansas Writer.

Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His latest book, Sometimes, It Isn't Much, was released from Alien Buddha Press in February 2024.

Native New Yorker and Elgin Award winner, LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a member of the British Fantasy Society, HWA, SFPA, and The Dramatists Guild—and a spooky Scorpio who loves Hallowe'en. Current books:  Messengers of the Macabre, Vampire Ventures, Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems (Wild Ink, 2024), Apprenticed to the Night (UniVerse Press, 2024), and Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide (Ukiyoto Publishing, 2024).

Michael McGovern is a playwright, author, poet who lives in Pittsburgh, PA.

Frederick Charles Melancon lives in Mississippi with his wife and daughter. More of his work can be found on X @fcmwrite.

Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, House Sitting, is available from Anxiety press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.

Celeste Oster is a substitute chair yoga teacher from the Kansas City ‘burbs. Her poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Thorny Locust, tiny frights, and various other fine publications.

Chris Scott's work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Observer, Weird Lit Magazine, and forthcoming in Dark Horses Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Lit Nerds. Chris is a regular contributor for ClickHole and a public elementary school teacher in Washington, DC.

Caleb Weinhardt (he/him) is a queer and trans writer from the Pacific Northwest. When he's not writing stories, he enjoys hiking with his dog, Winnie, and making music. His work appears in or is forthcoming in Major 7th Magazine, Punk Noir, Blanket Gravity, and Cosmorama. Find him at calebweinhardt.com.

Jacek Wilkos is an engineer from Poland. He lives with his wife and two daughters in a beautiful city of Cracow. He is addicted to buying books, he loves black coffee, dark ambient music and anything that's spooky. First he published his fiction in Polish online magazines, but in 2019 he started to translate his writing to English, and so far it was published in numerous anthologies by Black Hare Press, Black Ink Fiction, Alien Buddha Press, Eerie River Publishing, Insignia Stories, Reanimated Writers Press, Iron Faerie Publishing, KJK publishing, Wicked Shadow Press, CultureCult, Clarendon House Publications. FB author page: https://www.facebook.com/Jacek.W.Wilkos/

Emma Wilson-Kanamori's poetry has appeared on Half Hour to Kill and Backwards Trajectory, and her short fiction in literary magazines Ginosko Literary Journal and The Gravity of the Thing. Though she grew up in Japan as a mix of writer, artist, and dancer, she has moved to Scotland and has settled down fully as a scribbler, both of words and of images.

About tiny frights

tiny frights is a free e-zine, published on the tiny frights website and in EPUB and PDF formats. No print edition is planned.

The zine comes out twice a year, appearing at the end of April (Walpurgis Night) and the end of October (Halloween).

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Editor, publisher, social media team, and webmaster: Carl Bettis.

Associate editor, podcast performer and podcast engineer: Anne Calvert.