As promised, we’ve got some candy for your eyeballs this week, courtesy of our favorite force of nature, Echo Echo:
ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE is the first single-author story collection we’ve published; it holds an extra special place in our hearts as it comes from M.Shaw, who also authored the first novella we published (the Wonderland Award winning ONE HAND TO HOLD, ONE HAND TO CARVE).
I’d say something about “coming full circle” but that would imply we’re reaching the end; and y’all, we’re definitely nowhere close to that; read below for a little peek at our future.
I s’pose ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HEREdoes close out our 2024 publishing year; that’s sort of circle-shaped, if you squint, or slap yourself really hard (please don’t slap yourself really hard, unless you’re one of the HWA trustees who refuses to issue a blanket condemnation of AI in the arts; in which case, please slap yourself repeatedly).
Anyway: the stories in ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE are heartbreaking; intelligent; terrifying; uncomfortable; highly emotional; occasionally hilarious; and always out-and-out Weird in the literal sense. If you’ve read M.Shaw previously, then none of that should come as a surprise.
About ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE:
Just your standard, run-of-the-mill assortment of New Weird Lit stories about car-vampires; fascist deer; memory-devouring tree gods; and the torment matrix; from Wonderland Award-winning author M.Shaw (One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve).
We’ve been trying to play it cool, but at last we can confirm what you’ve secretly always dreamed of: All your friends are here!
Why leave your apartment ever again? All your friends are here.
Why go to outer space? All your friends are here.
Why grow, or dream? Why take that vacation you’ve been saving up for? Why set yourself free?
All
Your
Friends
Are
Here.
Contains Ready Player (n+1), a brand new novelette written especially for this collection.
Cover art and interior illustrations by Echo Echo.
We’ve had a little somethin’ somethin’ brewing with Mo Moshaty for a while now; it’s actually turned into a big old honkin’ somethin’ somethin’, but we can’t talk about all of it now. Some mysteries must remain.
What we can talk about is Mo’s collection, CLAIRVIOLENCE: TALES OF TAROT AND TORMENT, coming your way from Tenebrous, just in time for Halloween 2025!
Mo is so rooted in the indie horror scene, her resume exhausts me. Her energy is endless, her enthusiasm infectious. She’s an award-winning filmmaker; an international lecturer on women’s trauma in Horror cinema; a co-founder of the Nyx Horror Collective; an essayist and journalist and oh yeah, she writes a ton of kickass fiction too.
CLAIRVIOLENCE dives deep into the Tarot deck, extracting a collection of terrifying stories inspired by the Major Arcana. We’ll have a lot more to say about it in the coming year.
But first…
YOU’RE WELCOME/WE’RE SORRY
Maybe check your volume settings before viewing:
TRVE CVLT author Michael Bettendorf enlisted the mad science skills of CROM CRUACH/PUPPET’S BANQUET author Valkyrie Loughcrewe to compose this sonic ode to his upcoming gamebook; which, unholy cow, is out in two weeks!
Tenebrous’ first gamebook is a meta-exploration of religious trauma, arrested adolescence and anxiety…and it’s Metal as F$%k.
Full cover wrap art by Echo Echo
You wake with a brutal hangover, but that can't crush your spirits: you’ve been invited to take back the drum throne for Abyss, the cult band you co-founded!
It means quashing a turbulent history with Abyss' vocalist, Austin. You aren’t sure if he’s invited you back to bury the hatchet, or if he’s just desperate because infamous black metal legends Waste Doctrine are rolling through town. They've given you the opportunity to open for them and maybe, finally, get the hell out of this nowhere town.
The promise of the upcoming gig doesn't come without its share of hurdles. Austin’s hellbent on creating a ritualistic experience out of the performance, turning the abandoned roadhouse he’s chosen as a venue into a bloody, occult nightmare. Yes, it’s black f$%king metal, but is it too far?
Only you can decide.
Get the gig. Ditch this town. Burn them all alive.
"Everything it promises to be: a Weird Black Metal monster drawing you into the darkest places of yourself. Wet fleshy grossness. Seeping abyssal madness. Religious trauma. I don't know that I've ever read something that captures so perfectly the feeling of being an angsty, oppressed, hopeless young person. I loved it."
ITEM!Tenebrous author Carson Winter has a newsletter! If you’ve ever had a convo with Carson, you’ll know he’s equal parts convivial and profane and he loves speaking passionately about the craft of writing; I anticipate that Carson in newsletter form will be equally entertaining and/or caustic. Wear gloves.
ITEM! We have one more book for 2025 to announce in the next week or two, which oughta finalize our publishing calendar for next year (as always, some things may float about a bit). Which means that subscriptions to the 2025 Book Club aren’t too awful far off; stay tuned!
**To our 2024 subscribers: Alex is designing your exclusive shirt as we speak:)
ITEM!LURE is heading to Italy! Independent Legions will be publishing the translated version of Tim McGregor’s tale of vengeance and mur-mai-der next year. Cheers, Tim.
ITEM! I’ll be at VoidCon in West Virginia in just over two weeks; and Alex and I will both be at HP Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland in just over three; it’s a month of heavy travel, and will no doubt walk us up to the edge of the grave to peer down at our own lifeless bodies, but we’re both really looking forward to it. Team Tenebrous on the same continent always conjures something extra Weird for the future.
Between preparing for the launch of THE SKULL & LAUREL magazine (next month!) and revisiting ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE in the editing stages, Alex’s and my devotion to The Weird Story™ has really been reinvigorated. And looking at our calendar for the next two years, we can see that the bounds of how we view New Weird Horror are in a constant evolutionary state (I say this, and yet next year is already shaping up to be our most distinctly Horror-centric year, by and large. But I digress).
All that is to say, we continue to be comfortable charting our own path that redefines itself constantly. New Weird Horror? New Weird Literature? Who knows, who cares; even if the title evolves, the substance will remain spectacularly singular and impossible to peg down: we’re just Tenebrous.
You guys are killing it, how wonderful. And the cover art you've been revealing just gets better and better. Kudos