BRAVE NEW WEIRD: Final Table of Contents announced, Preorders open
The Most Important Meal of the Day…is Weird.
Hey Ho, Tenebrous Cult!
Please join us in congratulating the Weirdo Class of 2024! The following twenty-five individuals will comprise the Table of Contents of BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Volume Three, available to preorder now!
Table of Contents:
Angela Liu - A Contract of Ink and Skin
Emmett Nahil - Vining
K.A. Wiggins - The Tangle (Did Not Kill Kitsault)
Ainsley Hawthorn - Big Cats of Newfoundland
F. J. Bergmann - The Museum of Etymology
[sarah] Cavar - Mad Studies
Matthew Mitchell - Knight Rumors
Azure Arther - Reciprocity
Hannah Greer - To Be Human
SJ Townend- I Have Seen Seven Bad Things
Ira Rat - Soft
Kay Vaindal - Pig House
Sharang Biswas - Waiting for Jonah
Tehnuka - You Can Leave Your Helmet On
Tim Pratt - The Liminal Space Dating Agency
Tiffany Michelle Brown - Full Immersion
Leo Oliveira - They Remember Faces
M. L. Krishnan - Measurements Expressed as Units of Separation
Emma Burnett - Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3]
Samir Sirk Morató - EGREGORE
Shantell Powell - The Snow Hath No Queen
Plangdi Neple - Not All Your Bones Are Yours
Sonya Vatomsky - The Yolo Wallpaper
Susan L. Lin - Gravitational Pull
Erik McHatton - The Man Who Collected Ligotti
As in previous years, it was both a no-win and a can’t-lose situation narrowing down this list. Having winners implies that there were losers, which…nah. We don’t play that. We maintain that BRAVE NEW WEIRD’s primary function is to serve as a snapshot of an ever-changing Weird Fiction scene that, regardless of trends or shifts in the greater publishing world, remains at the vanguard of quality prose. You are going to be hearing from these incredible writers for years to come.
Thank you to everyone who submitted: themselves, on behalf of others, the indie presses and self publishers alike.
Hail New Weird Horror…+ More.
As we celebrate these twenty-five gifted Weirdos, we feel obligated to share some sad news, as well.
Our Table of Contents was intended to be twenty-six writers long. In our process of securing contracts and contact information for each recipient, I had to do some deep digging to track down the final winner.
In my search, I learned that she had passed away just a scant few days after submitting her Brave New Weird-winning story, “Traveling Salesman”.
Zoe Kaplan was only twenty-eight years old; she was an astounding writer with a limitless ceiling. There is a lovely memorial page here with memories and anecdotes provided by her loved ones.
Her family and friends have also set up the Zoe Sarah Kaplan Memorial Award for Jewish Speculative Fiction in her honor; you can contribute here if you’re able.
Neither Alex nor I knew Zoe personally; only through her writing. She was previously short-listed for a BRAVE NEW WEIRD award in our inaugural year, a fact which she proudly lists on her author page on her website. I am equal parts profoundly moved and heartbroken by that.
The Cosmic Background, original publisher of Zoe’s BRAVE NEW WEIRD-winning story, “Traveling Salesman”, has left it up to read for free, and we encourage you to do so. It would not be right for us to re-publish it in our volume—we cannot know her final wishes on the matter—but we will be certain that she’s properly honored, and a link to the story will be provided for future readers of the book.
Thank you, Zoe, for making the world a Weirder place.
The Audiobook for Tim McGregor’s LURE is Available Now!
When it comes to audiobooks, we move at a pretty measured pace. We refuse to get sucked into Audible’s exclusivity terms, and we’re definitely not going the AI-voiced garbage route. And producing audiobooks on our own just ain’t that cheap, so we have to take them on a case-by-case basis. But we’re always slowly pushing those 1/4” reel-to-reels along (…wait, is that not how they get recorded anymore? Maybe that’s why this is taking so long!)
Anyway: our second audiobook is finished! Tim McGregor’s Shirley Jackson Award-nominated 2022 Weird Folk Horror, mermaid-but-christ-she’s-horrifying novella LURE joins Colin Hinckley’s THE BLACK LORD on the Tenebrous audiobook shelf. Welsh author Jim Horlock brings the vocal gravitas to this sucker; goddamn, his voice just sounds like the floor of the briny deep.
Rest assured, it’ll be available on all traditional channels and marketplaces in the coming days, but for right now, the LURE audiobook is available exclusively (and cheaper!) through us directly.
Perhaps you haven’t revisited the cold shores of Torgrimsvær since LURE first came out; or maybe this is your maiden voyage; either way, the luremaid awaits.
Friends with Benefits
Our good bud and Tenebrous Cultist: Oklahoma Chapter, Carl Antonowicz, is part of the Winter 2025 season of five graphic novels coming from indie publisher Fieldmouse Press. They’re currently crowdfunding preorders and they’re on the cusp of hitting their goal; one last push should help them reach it!
You can grab all five books or choose just the ones you’re interested in. Read more about them here.
As for Carl’s book, The Ardent:
"The Ardent is a low fantasy horror story about a silent monk transporting the jewel-laden bones of his patron saint back to their original home. It's cartoonist Carl Antonowicz 's first professionally published graphic novel and part of Fieldmouse Press' 'Festival of Nihilism,' and along with the five other books in their season is guaranteed to deliver Weird feels."
It’s about time to make some 2026 announcements, yeah? I think we’ll do that next week.
For now: Hail the BRAVE NEW WEIRDos.
Hail Indie Publishing.
Hail Zoe.
Matt + Alex