Finding New Horror Fiction, Part One

Where to begin?

I still remember happening upon The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley in a bookstore many years ago. I had been an avid horror reader all through school but had gotten the sense that, aside from a few books each year from the most prominent authors, it wasn’t being written anymore. This strange folk horror novel greatly intrigued me, and I learned it had been a limited-edition issue from the excellent independent publisher Tartarus Press before being taken up by a larger publisher and eventually finding its way to my local bookstore. This kind of thing happens—but sadly, not often enough.

Luckily, there are other ways to find out what’s new in horror—and there is A LOT! I was recently asked to speak at the Idaho Krampus Con Bizarre Bazaar event (Saturday December 9th as ABU Games if you are anywhere near Boise, Idaho) and the topic that came to mind was “New Horror Fiction: Where to Begin?” This little guide was designed for attendees to follow up after the talk, but anyone can read it. It will give you several ways in:

• Lists & Guides—Others’ books and lists to introduce you to new horror!

• Anthologies—compilations of short stories by different authors, a great way to sample new horror and learn which authors appeal to you!

• Places to Discuss Horror—open discussion boards and groups

• Independent Publishers—Some of the publishers that routinely bring new horror books to readers!

• Magazines—More publishers that routinely bring new horror stories to readers!

• Authors—I’ll list a few authors I think you ought to know about. This list is NOT comprehensive! It’s just the best I could do on a few days’ notice.

Note: I found it difficult to put together this guide even without trying to list all the individual books that I thought were great, influential, important, etc. Many of the guides below mention particular books. I’ll be showing copies of a lot of books at Krampus Co, though!

This is an incomplete list, put together in just a couple of days. Please, if you read this and there is an author, publisher, anthology, book, etc., that you would like newer horror readers to know about, say so in the comments! And give a link if you can.

I’ll be doing a follow-up Part Two with more leads to help readers find more new horror!

Lists & Guides

• 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered by Sadie Hartmann (aka Mother Horror) is a great place to start learning about new horror. Hartmann has recently announced a follow-up book, and with Ashley Saywers (aka Spookish Mommy) runs the popular horror book subscription service Night Worms.

• Jump Scares: Emily Hughes’ fabulous lists of new and upcoming horror titles.

• What Have You Done? What Have You Loved? The wonderful writer A.C. Wise keeps a list of others’ awards eligibility lists, recommended reading lists, and much more.

• Best Horror Books of 2023 - The New York Times: a recent article by Bram Stoker Award® and Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Gabino Iglesias  

• 160 Black Women in Horror by Sumiko Saulson: The book lists Black women writing horror, and there is also 45 Black Men in Horror – Part 1 | Sumiko Saulson on the website (part 2 and part 3 are linked at the bottom of that page).    

• The 2022 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot: The Horror Writers Association (HWA) releases a list of Bram Stoker Awards®nominees each year. Here is the list for 2022, and the 2023 list should be out in early spring. The HWA Recommended Reading List for 2023 was down at last check, but you can check back later: https://www.horror.org/awards/2023readinglist.php This is a list developed from member recommendations each year. You should be able to replace “2023” with 2022 or a preceding year in the URL to get the list for that year. 

• Tor.com publishes new horror short stories as well as a number of articles on new horror and SFF (science fiction and fantasy).  

• RA For All: Horror: Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror

• Book Riot: Book Riot's 2023 Read Harder Challenge: A challenge to diversify your reading. 

• Spooky Middle Grade: ‘. . . a group of middle-grade authors working to prove that spooky stories serve an important role year round.” 

  

• Tim Waggoner’s Writing in the Dark is an introduction to horror writing that could also be useful for horror readers, as it breaks down horror subgenres and analyzes the elements of horror stories. 

If you are interested in writing and publishing horror, please see my little guide to that. It lists many more craft books in addition to Writing in the Dark, as well as many hints and tips for getting started.

Anthologies

Anthologies bring together stories from different authors, which makes them a great way to learn about what you like. There are two types of anthologies for new horror: the “best of” anthologies reprint stories from the year, and the themed anthologies usually contain brand new stories on a given topic, stories from authors belonging to a certain demographic, or both.

• The Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow, gives an excellent overview of the field each year as well as reprinting noteworthy stories from magazines and other anthologies. Ellen Datlow’s blog also offers updates about The Best Horror of the Year, such as longest and table of contents announcements. In addition to the anthology series, Datlow also publishes themed anthologies such as the 2022 Bram Stoker Award winning When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost stories, and many (many) more. 

• The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, edited by Paula Guran, is a newer series that also reprints noteworthy stories from the year.

Themed anthologies are coming out all the time. Emily Hughes’s lists are a great place to learn about them each month, and then the “best” of anthologies give an overview for each year. I will give just four examples, three current, one forthcoming:

• Never Whistle at Night, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.

From the page: “Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.”

• Out There Screaming, edited by Jordan Peele

From the page:

“A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.”

• Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror (forthcoming), edited by Sofia Ajram

From the page: 

“A manifestation of ecstasy, heartache, horror and suffering rendered in feverish lyrical prose. Inside are sixteen new stories by some of the genre's most visionary queer writers. Young lovers find themselves deliriously lost in an expanding garden labyrinth. The porter of a sentient hotel is haunted within a liminal time loop. A soldier and his abusive commanding officer escape a war in the trenches but discover themselves in an even greater nightmare. Parasites chase each other across time-space in hungry desperation to never be apart. A graduate student with violent tendencies falls into step with a seemingly walking corpse.”

• The Book of Queer Saints: Volume I and The Book of Queer Saints: Volume II, edited by Mae Murray. “A fresh blend of transformative body horror, crimson-coated romance, and monstrous eroticism, this British Fantasy Award nominated anthology is sure to satisfy your every depraved itch.” Much recommended by folks when I asked for recommendations for this list.

Some Places to Discuss Horror

Here are some discussion groups that are open to the public. There are of course many others. Please mention in the comments if there is a favorite not listed here!

• Books of Horror on Facebook:“Welcome to Books of Horror!! The place where enthusiasts of ALL horror writers can feel at home. This group is not set nor focused on a specific writer, it celebrates and honors all writers, from the widely renowned, to the lesser known.”

• Horror Spotlight: “A grassroots organization aimed at lifting up diverse horror writers.” Horror Spotlight has a Discord server where you can join in monthly book discussions. 

• HOWL Society: Horror-Obsessed Writing and Literature Society has a Discord server where you can join in monthly book discussions. 

Magazines & Fiction Podcasts

Here are some magazines and fiction podcasts you might want to look at. There are of course many others. Please mention in the comments if there is a favorite not listed here!

Horror & Dark Fantasy Magazines

• Apex Magazine (many stories free online) 

• The Dark Magazine (stories free online) 

• Vastarien (pay what you can for digital issues—this magazine is currently closed but there are a lot of back issues) 

• Nightmare Magazine (many stories free online) 

• PseudoPod (free audio and text)    

• Cosmic Horror Monthly (you can subscribe or preview free stories)  

• Weird Horror Magazine (some free issues)

• Tales to Terrify (free audio) 

• ergot (free experimental horror)

• No Sleep Podcast (free audio)

Mixed-Genre Magazines with Some Horror

• FIYAH Literary Magazine (not free but has previews)  

• Three-Lobed Burning Eye (stories free online) 

• Uncharted magazine (free to read)  

• Khōréō (some issues free) 

• Augur Magazine (some stories free)  

• Bourbon Penn (some stories free)  

• Fantasy and Science Fiction (some pieces free and you can get it on Kindle) 

  Independent Publishers

Becoming familiar with some of the smaller publishers can be a way of getting to know what’s going on in horror.

• A list of some larger independent presses of horror is available here from Readers’ Advisory to Horror.

• Even more horror publishers are available on this list from Publishers Archive.

I’ll highlight just a few that come to mind for me, whether because they published a book of mine, because I’ve read a lot of books from them, or I because they specialize in a niche you might find interesting :

• Cemetery Gates Media is “a publisher of horror and supernatural fiction.” Books by Gemma Amor, J.A.W. McCarthy, L.P. Hernandez, Steph Nelson, and many more. CGM published my first novel, Beulah, in English.

• Dilatando Mentes Editorial is a publisher of Spanish books as well as books in other languages translated to Spanish. For example, the translation of Beulah, pictured above, cover by Ah Taut)

• “Godless is an underground + indie horror book + audio book store that amplifies voices of self-publish/independent authors + publishers”

• Grimscribe Press is home of Vastarien: A Literary Journal (“A source of critical study and creative response to the corpus of Thomas Ligotti as well as associated authors and ideas”) and publisher of excellent books by Kurt Fawver, Gemma Files, Michael Cisco, and more. 

• Tenebrous Press, publisher of new weird horror from Ashley Deng, Jolie Toomajan, Carson Winter, and many more. Tenebrous Press also publishes a “best of” anthology called Brave New Weird.

• “Undertow Publications is a celebrated independent press in Canada dedicated to publishing original and unique genre fiction of exceptional literary merit. Since 2009 we’ve been publishing anthologies, collections, (the occasional novel), and novellas in hardcover, trade paperback, and eBook formats. Our books have won the Shirley Jackson Award, and the British Fantasy Award. We’re the recipient of the World Fantasy Award, and the Horror Writers Association Specialty Press Award. We are endearingly weird, and proud of it.” Books by Premee Mohamad, Tobi Ogundiran, Naben Ruthnum, and many more. This press also publishes Weird Horror magazine.

• “Valancourt Books is an independent small press based in Richmond, Virginia, specializing in new editions of neglected classics, with an emphasis on horror/supernatural and LGBT literature.” Valancourt also publishes a World Horror anthology series and books translated to English, such as Attila Veres’ The Black Maybe and Bernardo Esquinca’s The Secret Life of Insects. 

• We also have some great small presses that publish horror alongside science fiction and fantasy, such as:

• Dark Matter INK, Publisher of Steph Nelson, Catherine McCarthy, R.L. Meza, and many more.

• Flame Tree Press, which published my short story collections and is known for books by Ramsey Campbell, Jonathan Janz, Catherine Cavendish, Lynn Hightower, Alex Woodroe, and many more; the Gothic Fantasy and related anthology series; and anthologies edited by Mark Morris.

• Shortwave Publishing, which published Wilted Pages (an anthology co-edited by Ai Jiang and myself) as well as works by Ai Jiang, Clay McLeod Chapman, and many more.

Authors

If you’re very new to horror, you might not know any of the more established authors or the new but currently well-promoted authors. You should be able to go into almost any bookstore or library right now and find works by writers such as Erin E. Adams, Linda Addison, Nathan Ballingrud, Laird Barron, Ramsey Campbell, Nat Cassidy, V. Castro, Johnny Compton, Darcy Coates, Isabel Cañas, Nick Cutter, Tananarive Due, Mariana Enriquez, Brian Evenson, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Philip Fracassi, Sara Gran, Elizabeth Hand, Rachel Harrison, Grady Hendrix, Joe Hill, Gabino Iglesias, Stephen Graham Jones, Todd Keisling, Cassandra Khaw, Gwendolyn Kiste, John Langan, Victor LaValle, Eric LaRocca, Josh Malerman, Premee Mohamed, Adam Nevill, Clay McLeod Chapman, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Lee Murray, Cynthia Pelayo, Hailey Piper, Sam Rebelein, Keith Rosson, Zoje Stage, Andrew S. Sullivan, Chuck Tingle, Paul Tremblay, Catriona Ward, and many more.

Definitely do read them if you haven’t already! And if you don’t find them in the bookstore, complain. If they’re not in your library, request. In horror, even our most esteemed and established authors are not always household names, and every one of them will be happy to have more readers! 

If you are already familiar with the authors mentioned above, here are a few more authors to look up. You might find some of them in your local bookstore’s horror section but you might not—or not yet, in the case of some who have 2024 books coming.  

• Sofia Ajram Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror and Coup de Grâce (forthcoming)

• Gemma Amor Full Immersion, Dear Laura, and more

• Paula D. Ashe We Are Here to Hurt Each Other and more

• Brian Asman Man, Fuck this House

• Tiffany Michelle Brown How Lovely to Be a Woman

• Matthew M. Bartlett Gateways to Abomination and more

• Nadia Bulkin She Said Destroy and Why Didn’t You Just Leave (with Julia Rios, forthcoming)

• Donyae Coles Midnight Rooms (forthcoming) 

  

• Holley Cornetto They Are Cursed Like You and more

• Kristi DeMeester Such a Pretty Smile, Beneath, and more

• Alexis DuBon No Trouble at All, Nineteen Little Stab Wounds

• Jonathan Duckworth Have You Seen the Moon Tonight? & Other Rumors

• Jaq Evans What Grows in the Dark (forthcoming)

• Gemma Files Experimental Film, In That Endlessness, Our End, and more

• JV Gach Epiphany (forthcoming)

• Sara Gran Come Closer, Marigold: An Investigation of an American Haunting, and more

• Ivy Grimes Star Shapes, Grime Time

• Christopher Hawkins Suburban Monsters, Downpour, and more

• Noelle Ihli Ask for Andrea, The Thicket, and more

• Ai Jiang I Am AI, Linghun, more coming soon

• C.B. Jones The Rules of the Road, Crybaby Bridge

• L.S. Johnson Vacui Magia, Prima Materia: The Series, and more    

• RJ Joseph Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Haunted 

• Jo Kaplan It Will Just Be Us, When the Night Bells Ring

  

• Jenny Kiefer This Wretched Valley (forthcoming) 

• Rae Knowles The Stradivarius and Merciless Waters 

• Joe Koch The Wingspan of Severed Hands, Convulsive, and more 

• Alan Lastufka Face the Night, Obsolescence

• Luciano Marano Ambush Moon Cycle

• Francesca Maria They Hide

• J.A.W. McCarthy Sometimes We’re Cruel, Sleep Alone 

• P.L. McMillan Sisters of the Crimson Vine, What Remains When the Stars Go Out

• S.P. Miskowski I Wish I Was Like You, the Skillute Cycle 

• Steph Nelson The Vein, Sawtooth

• Suzan Palumbo Skin Thief

• TJ Price The Disappearance of Tom Nero 

• Eric Raglin Extinction Hymns and more

• Sarah Read The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, Out of Water

• Zach Rosenberg The Long Shalom and more

• Jayakaprash Satyamurthy Weird Tales of a Bangalorean, Strength of Water, and more

• Priya Sharma All the Fabulous Beasts

• Caleb Stephens If Only a Heart, The Girls in the Cabin, and more

• Angela Sylvaine Frost Bite

• Tamika Thompson Unshod, Cackling, and Naked 

• Jolie Toomajan Posthaste Manor and Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic

• Wendy N. Wagner The Deer Kings, The Secret Skin, more

• Michael Wehunt Greener Pastures and The Inconsolables 

• Gordon B. White As Summer’s Mask Slips, Rookfield, more

• Sophie White Where I End

• Ally Wilkes All the White Spaces, Where the Dead Wait

• Carson Winter Posthaste Manor and Soft Targets

I know I must be forgetting a lot of authors I’d like to mention, but I must let this go for now! This is enough to give any new reader a great start, I think, and I will follow up with more in a few weeks.

As always in Noglesque, I’ll leave with you some publishing news of my own:

• I finally completed my second novel!

• My third short story collection, One Eye Opened in That Other Place, will be available to advance reviewers soon on Netgalley. If you are a reviewer not on Netgalley, contact me and I will try to get you a copy. In the meantime, there is a Googreads giveaway for physical arcs of it.

Thank you for reading!