A look inside the hospitals, asylums, and sanatoriums in which formal spectral residents refuse to move on.Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing, places of birth, and places of hope. But with all of the varying highs and lows that are experienced in these buildings, is it any wonder when echoes linger indefinitely? How about asylums, which house some of society’s worst offenders and troubled inmates, or sanatoriums, places where the mentally and physically...

Wild storms, the sound of ice skates cutting across an empty pond and blankets of soft, white, beautiful death.In the dark depths of winter, it is easy to become isolated as snow obscures landmarks and drifts create claustrophobic situations that can leave you huddled in your house, struggling to keep warm . . . and, perhaps, to ignore the message scrawled in the frost on the window.Within these pages, you’ll discover eerie tales of long ago ghosts stretching frost...

A Howliday InvitationCelebrate the joys of togetherness during the holiday season with your friends, your family … and your pack. Let’s face it, whether you’re facing awkward family dinners, supernatural brawls, or the terrors of online dating, your pack always has your back.Werewolves, hell hounds, and other canines take centre stage in these nineteen stories by Angèle Gougeon; Sarah Hersman; Rhonda Parrish; JB Riley; Louis B. Rosenberg; Robert W. Easton; Jennifer Lee Ross...

There are no damsels in distress here!A city guard in a world where sunlight is the greatest currency must choose between what’s done and what’s right when she meets a woman from the other side of the wall who’s caring for a strange brood. A teen girl is inducted into a secret society that slays mythological creatures. A woman and her daughter compete in a race where dragons pull chariots. A very special librarian guards a very special hoard. These and other stories of dragons and ...

The apocalypse will come in A is for Apocalypse, but in a many different forms. Within these covers the apocalypse comes with fire, with a sigh, with tears, in technological code, with alien intervention. It comes with survival in a nightmare landscape, it demands human sacrifice, it stalks through the pages with bloodlust. It freezes, it explodes, it howls.In stories as varied as the trials humanity can endure, this anthology brings together an alphabet of possible world ...

“Rich word choices and settings that blend speculative concepts with quotidian reality highlight this stellar anthology of prose and poetry from well-known editor Mike Allen (CLOCKWORK PHOENIX) and his wife and copublisher, Anita Allen ... This anthology is a winner from cover to cover.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred reviewThis new anthology from the creative team behind the critically-acclaimed CLOCKWORK PHOENIX series assembles beautiful poetry and strange prose from the first year...

Tarot card decks have twenty-two major arcana, filled with symbolism and imbued with meaning. Explore the greater secrets and ideas behind those cards with the stories and poems of Arcana. Discovery awaits, in tales such as: a grasping king struggling with his legacy; an alchemist setting a golem out on a mission of revenge; and a woman finding what she didn’t know she was looking for.Each story is like drawing a card from the deck--you never know what it might reveal.Featu...

In the alphabet tapestry style of A is for Apocalypse, this book unspools tales of beauty and horror on a common theme. Within these pages is not the end of all the world but the ways in which individuals can break. The fragmenting of memory and self, of life and relationships. All the ways in which one can be broken or break a thing, all explored in wild ways here.What does it mean to break? How many ways can someone become pieces? An assembly of authors explain how the a...

Deep, mysterious, beautiful . . . dangerous . . .Women and the sea have been tied together in myth and story from the beginning of time. Tales of women being drawn to the sea or being left on the shore, waiting for their men’s return, have been passed down through the ages.But what mysteries lie beneath the sparkling placid waters? What power drives the wind and waves crashing against the shore? There is transformation and exaltation—magic—in the ocean and women al...

Water doesn’t need to be deep to be dark.A remote mountain lake where the locals wear iron anklets for protection, a ghost ship, a goddess, a pearl diver who finds much more than she’s looking for, the true story about a familiar fairy tale and more all lurk within these pages.Featuring dark fantasy and horror by Chris Black, Rob E. Boley, Rose Chisnall, Megan M. Davies-Ostrom, Sharmon Gazaway, Rowena McGowan, Derek Newman-Stille, Thomas Vaughn and Lex Vranick, Dark Waters ...

A collection of short stories, essays, art and interviews in celebration of Candas Jane Dorsey.Contains work by Timothy J. Anderson, Greg Bechtel, Eileen Bell, Gregg Chamberlain, Alexandrea Flynn and Annalise Glinker, Barb Galler-Smith, Anita Jenkins, Laina Kelly, Derryl Murphy, John Park, Rhonda Parrish, Ursula Pflug, Robert Runté, Diane L. Walton, BD Wilson and S.G. Wong.

When a sword manifests in an old folk’s home it opens Autumn’s eyes to a whole world of magic, gods and giants. But before she has a chance to come to grips with her new reality, Autumn’s grandmother is attacked and put in the hospital. Autumn needs to discover what the deal is with the sword and how to protect herself and the people she loves.And, of course, there’s also the matter of the wings that have sprouted from her back.Can she learn about this new reality and the s...