Hey Friends,
First off, thanks for subscribing to my newsletter. I really appreciate it. (If you’re getting this a second time, it’s because I switched platforms from Substack to Beehiiv. This place has better community guidelines/restrictions/morals…so thanks for following me here. The next post is coming Sept. 1st)
I keep hearing from other authors that this is the thing to do with the whole social media collapsing thing, so here I am. Most of you probably know me from my short story life, so that's what you're going to get here, along with some updates and book reviews...most likely for weird cross genre work. (Does it blend Horror/SciFi/Fantasy/Literary/Surreal/Weird Stuff??? then yes, it will probably end up in here)
I love short stories and sharing the joys of short stories and convincing people that yes, you really want to be reading short stories...forget all that longer stuff (unless it's my novel, Living in Cemeteries...please for the sake of my writing career don't forget that one :) ).
I posted about this the other day on Twitter/Bluesky and consider it one of the guiding principles of what I hope to do here. When I was really dedicated to doing TikTok when my novel came out, I was making one video a day, and wow is it challenging to think of new stuff for that every day (and wow was it impossible to avoid burn out…be kind to yourself if this is a road you take in your publishing life. Take a break when you need it. Rest is good.). So what I’d do is, I’d put together lists like 5 Weird Horror Novels Everyone Should Read. And then the next day I would do a post about 5 Weird Horror Short Story Collections Everyone Should Read. The first video would get 15k-30k views. The second would get 500. And that makes me terribly sad. People, for as long as I can remember, have somehow gotten it into their heads (thanks capitalism / high school / publishing marketing) that they don’t like short stories, or that they’re bad, or that they aren’t worth their time…so hopefully, through this news letter, I can convince people otherwise…
We will see.
So the plan:
Each month you'll get one new piece of flash fiction from me. It will be weird and probably a little sad. That's my sweet spot.
A few updates on what's going on in my publishing life...where you can find new stories...if I have a new book coming out...etc
And a few quick write ups of great stories I've read.
And And… interviews with other authors on their favorite short stories.
And And And…here's your first story. If you liked it, I hope you'll stick around for next month. If you didn't, stick around anyway...otherwise I'll get sad...please prevent that :)
If Only
There is a cave. The sign at the bat-wing-shaped mouth claims something lives inside. Or maybe it doesn’t. Claud can’t make sense of the warning, or lack thereof. It’s written in his second language, and the image of the creature is tagged over with graffiti, looping lettering covering crucial details. Or maybe the creature is the graffiti? Claud knows, regardless of the indiscernible limbs and gaping maws, that he has to go in the cave. That’s where the thing has taken his brother. At least, that’s where his neighbor said the thing has taken his brother. One minute he was in bed, the next he was not. The occurrence was becoming common in their town. Telephone poles hang thick with missing flyers, dozens of small children staring out into the night, uncalled telephone numbers written beneath. The police have run out of options, peeled back months and days, trailed every loose end besides this one, because, of course, monsters aren’t real. His neighbor is considered a loon. He has handwritten signs all over his front yard. One of those people, his mother would say, and you can’t believe those kinds of people. But Claud has no one else to believe. Otherwise, his brother is gone and there’s no getting him back. His mother and father’s dejectedness will be permanent. That gray smog hovering around their living room will forever cloud their lives. The nights of sleeping on the couch, or the floor, or the basement steps, or any surface other than a mattress would remain the family curse. So the cave is the only option. The neighbor with the signs gave Claud an ax. He no longer needs it to split firewood. His back is bad. But Claud’s back is good, which is why the neighbor isn’t accompanying him, even though he insisted he knew the beast’s weak spot. Right where armpit meets body. I’d do it myself if only… But there was always an if only: an if only with the neighbor, an if only with his parents, an if only with the police. So Claud gathered the missing flyers and stapled them into a single sheaf, all those tiny faces like a paperback shield to accompany his armament. He’d be able to identify each when he found them in the depths, once he stepped through that bat-wing-shaped mouth. The ax would do the work. It was sharp. He’d tested the edge in the forest behind their house. He didn’t need the sign to tell him anything more. His brother was waiting down there, waiting for him to arrive. Claud would prove his parents wrong. Prove the police wrong. Prove the whole town wrong. He stepped inside, damp rock slick beneath his feet. There was a monster taking the children. It had to be a monster. What else could it be?
Monsters are everywhere you look, the neighbor said.
Then why doesn’t anyone do anything about them? Claud replied.
If only it was that easy, the neighbor replied.
And And And And here are five of my favorite short stories (novelettes? novellas) for this month. Next month, we will hear from Thomas Ha on his 5 favorite stories…get excited!!! Each month expect another one of these sweet lists to fill up your short story TBR from authors you love…or will someday love…not in a creepy way though. Always remember that. Boundaries are important.
Journey Into The Kingdom by Mary Rickert.
This one is absolutely perfect. Is it a ghost story? Is it a stalker story? Is it a meditation on art? Is it a cozy recounting of a family who aren’t particularly good at being light house keepers or avoiding horrible (not so horrible?) fates? Is it a commentary on how difficult it is to date in contemporary times or what one shouldn’t do on a date if you can actually get one? I’d go yes to all of them.
You can find it over here on Reactor’s site: https://reactormag.com/journey-into-the-kingdom/
Or in book form in Mary’s collection, You Have Never Been Here, published by Small Beer Press: https://smallbeerpress.com/books/2015/11/24/you-have-never-been-here/
“Saint Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves” by Karen Russell
I’m a sucker for stories involving both lycanthropy (real or imagined) and nuns. You put those two together and I’ll read it. This story is about young girls who are literally raised by wolves, who are then taken away from said wolves to be raised by nuns in a convent of sorts. You can guess its name. The story follows two of these girls, one who is adapting quite well and one who isn’t, as they move through the process of forgetting their lupine habits. It has one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking climaxes out there. I love all of Russell’s work, but this one is the first that really stuck with me…and hopefully it will stick with you.
You can find it in her collection “Saint Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves.
(It was originally published in Granta)
“The White Road” by Kelly Link
This story is a wild one to explain. The apocalypse has happened, but man did it not happen how we thought it would. There is this magical evil road that appears out of the corner of your eye. You can never look at it, or these doppleganger monsters will follow the road to you, and that never ends well. The only way to truly be safe is to stay in a place that has an altar containing a dead body to ward these monsters off. The story follows a theater troupe as they move between these safe havens as they try to perform plays for people across a very ruined America. When I think of perfect stories, this one is always up there.
This story can be found in Link’s collection, “White Cat, Black Dog” and was originally published in the A Public Space:
“The Butcher’s Table” by Nathan Ballingrud
So, this one might be a novelette…or a novella…I’m bad at counting pages, but it’s part of one of the most perfect short story collects to ever exist, Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell. I often pitch this one during my day job at the library as Pirates of the Caribbean, but with way more visceral cosmic horror that does not shy away from getting weird. It’s about a guy named Martin who’s trying to woo the daughter of a Satanist by tagging along as her father and his cultist hitch a ride on the pirate ship, the titular The Butcher’s Table, so they can try to trade with Satan down in hell. It’s the perfect capitalist endeavor! While they’re on the sea, they’re chased by some eldritch “angels” who are very good at inhabiting the bodies of different sea creatures…you’ll see what I mean. It’s at once an adventure story, but it’s also a strange love story…and I love a dark love story. Read all of Nathan’s work though. He never disappoints.
Find it in his collection, Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell:
“Errata” by Jeff VanderMeer
I love meta stories where the author is actually the main character of the tale. In this one, we find Jeff VanderMeer (the character), down on his luck after pushing away all of his friends and family thanks to an alcohol addiction. He is offered a chance at redemption by a magazine editor who has secured him a room at a dilapidated abandoned hotel on the shores of Lake Bikal in Siberia, where he will have to edit some stories that may or may not hold the key to saving the world. The cast of characters includes a bunch of fresh water seals and a circus penguin named Juliette. The editor has also given him two pearl handled revolvers to deal with something that will try to prevent him from accomplishing this task. Does Jeff VanderMeer have to use these pearl-handled revolvers to save the world…we will see.
You can find this one online at Reactor’s site: https://reactormag.com/errata/
Or in his collection, The Third Bear…which seems to be out of print…but check your local library…or Amazon if you need to.
If you find that you love this sort of stuff, the next logical step is to check out my short story collection, Haunted Ecologies, which is kind of a combination of all of these writers…but focused on eco-horror. Here’s the back cover copy incase you were wondering (also…I promise I won’t be doing a ton of this in your face buy my book self promotion…I have to do it for the first one…it’s in all the contracts I signed…all of them…)
In these fifteen stories of ecological horror and dark fantasy, Farrenkopf delves into the depths of environmental decay and cursed ecosystems, searching ancient forests for elder gods and swimming the oceans with nameless things that live in the deep.
In “Mother’s Wolves” an academic searches for her disappeared mother under the guise of a gray wolf rehabilitation study in the backwoods of Maine. In “We’ve Been in Enough Places to Know” and “Waterlogged,” an underemployed property manager on Cape Cod traverses the crumbling halls of a seaside luxury condominium as something aquatic sings to him from the flooded basement. “To Tend a Grove” is the story of an eccentric millionaire’s desire to rewild a golf course in the name of an ancient forest deity and the landscaper trapped in his verdant machinations. In “Translations for a Dead Sea” a down on her luck graphic designer retreats to her deceased father’s bayside cabin in order to translate a long-lost poem that will either save the world from environmental collapse or speed up the apocalypse. In “The Tap, Tap, Tap of a Beak” a heartbroken ornithologist must make a pilgrimage to the mountain of bones that is the final resting place for endangered species, but a shady bone collector has other plans for the deceased woodpecker she carries with her.
In these stories, three published here for the first time, we encounter ethical werewolf rearing, murderous tree cults, Weird insectile evolutions, seaside folk horror, corrupt environmental tourism, gothic forest wanderings, eternal plastic pollution, sea-bound cosmic horror, hostile swamp creatures, and the ever creeping threat of climate change. Crack the spine. Step into the trees. Wade into the water. You will always be welcome in these haunted ecologies.
Here’s some upcoming events:
Saturday September 13th 11AM - 5PM : Spooktastic Bookfair at the Framingham Public Library
Thursday September 25th @ 5:30PM : Talking Horror with Paul Tremblay at the Centerville Public Library
And And And And And…that’s it. I’ll see all of you again in September. I hope life treats you well until then and you enjoy reading a few stories in your downtime :)