THE SKULL & LAUREL Kickstarter Campaign is Live!
Set sail into the blue horizon, Ride the waves that guide our destiny, Sail away, today we fight and there will be no mercy for those with no grave, No grave but the sea
Hey Ho, Tenebrous Cult!
We’ve been teasing THE SKULL & LAUREL for a few weeks now. The time has come.
If you’re reading this, then you know us…or at the very least, you know how passionate we are about what we do. You’ve seen Alex and my—and our growing 10p family’s—commitment to top-quality New Weird fiction and ethical independent publishing; and you’ve seen that we practice what we preach.
And if you’d like to see a new vehicle for the myriad strands of Weird Fiction; one that draws from 100% open submissions, with no special invites…
that pays all contributors…
that continues to reflect our impeccable aesthetic and ambition…
…then back THE SKULL & LAUREL today.
Why today? Because in the pesky algorithms of Kickstarter, quick success means success.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not overly concerned about us having a slow start. We have a perfect history of crowdfunding. We have passionate, intelligent folks at the helm of this and supporting us.
But I also don’t feel like playing with hubris and poking at the gods today, either. Nice, smooth sailing is what we seek.
(That said, we will gladly take your support any day, not just today.)
We’ve kept the bells and whistles pretty basic on this voyage, and we’re treating the whole thing as a controlled subscription model. You have the option of buying a single issue, or subscribing to a full year, print or digital. If you’re feeling particularly Tene-zealous and deep of pocket, we also have a lifetime option to subscribe to eBooks of everything we publish ever.
Add-ons are equally straight-forward: The first ever Tenebrous audiobook (more are coming later this year)! We’ll tell you your horoscope! Fun, simple, nothing fussy.
Read about the campaign here and see for yourself.
And now some words from THE SKULL & LAUREL editor Cameron Howard and his slush team:
Before I started working with Tenebrous Press, I was an avid admirer. They've always published the Weirdest novellas, but I remember reading their anthologies like IN SOMNIO and BRAVE NEW WEIRD and wanting more, as a reader, from them in the short fiction space.
Since then, I've been fortunate enough to join the 10p team, serving as editor of THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE ALGORITHM. While the fight against AI in the arts was always the driving force behind that project, it also functioned as an "issue zero" of what a magazine from Tenebrous Press might look like.
With THE SKULL & LAUREL, I hope to fully realize that vision of the impact we can have on the short fiction market. I want to publish stories that elude typical genre conventions, stories that are too powerful to ignore, despite being out of bounds.
To accomplish this, I've surrounded myself with people who have an eye for the Weird and the wonderful, returning members of the associate editor team that brought you TYFJTA.
I asked them what they wanted to see in the pages of THE SKULL & LAUREL:
Emma Cole - “I love stories that subvert expectations. That feeling of suddenly not being on solid ground when a story shifts your perspective and veers off in a new direction is so exhilarating. I love stories that get under my skin and pull threads in my brain, unlocking new ideas or past experiences. I'm so excited to read beautifully, audaciously written stories that are fun and challenging and Weird.”
Dany M - As a slush reader I enjoy Weird stories that are influenced by the writer's culture and experiences; folklore, especially. I want to read every type of story, particularly those from backgrounds that are underrepresented.”
j ambrose - “New Weird, above all else, is a living, breathing, copulating, shitting organism intent on making its existence everyone else’s problem—refusing categorization and comprehension with equal measures of antagonism. It’s a sparkly, undulating fuck you to the current age of mass-produced, cookie-cutter content slop, and I hope to see that embodied in the fullest in submissions. I’ve got a personal taste for the sick and nasty, settings that exist as characters themselves, eating the inedible, soft/malleable/squishy things, and being made to feel like I desperately need a shower.”
Zachary Gillan - ”I think the raison d'etre of Weird fiction is to unsettle. I want surreal works that leave behind interpretive voids, elide generic strictures, and dissolve boundaries between reality and nightmare; your numinous irruptions, your ontological disruptions, your uncanny subversions. Make it difficult, make it opaque, make it Weird.”
Hazel Zorn - “What the hell was that? This is where Weird horror should leave the reader: unsettled, empty, and in a place of complete and total upheaval. Horror is sincere. It compresses the awfulness in life and confronts it directly. Weird horror goes deeper. It explores the internal sufferings of an individual or lays bare the unspoken truths of modern alienation. This unsettlement is key—it can exist with or without gore, terror, or gross-out elements (but I will admit that I'm a sucker for body horror). I'm looking forward to feeling this. It's validating.”
Fiends with Benefits
While we’re talking Kickstarters, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our buds at the HOWLS Society, and their HOWLS FROM THE SCENE OF THE CRIME campaign that is currently ongoing:
Howls from the Scene of the Crime: An Anthology of Crime Horror is crowdfunding through March 28! This fully illustrated anthology from Howl Society Press features 22 new short stories of transgressions and lawlessness laced in blood, secrets, and occult compulsions. It’s edited by Jessica Peter and Timaeus Bloom and features authors such as Christopher Buehlman, Gwendolyn Kiste, Carson Winter, Ashe Olivier Deng, and Donyae Coles, as well as a foreword by Bram Stoker Award® winning crime horror author, Cynthia Pelayo.
Back their campaign, and learn all about it, here.
OK we’re all done here. Support THE SKULL & LAUREL if you want to see more Weird in your world (the good kind of Weird, not the light-my-own-bones-on-fire kind that the world already greets you with every morning).
Hail THE SKULL & LAUREL.
Hail New Weird Horror.
Matt + Alex + Cam