While Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” is widely anthologized, another Carter short story changed the way I thought about horror and about fiction writing. “The Fall River Axe Murders” blends history, speculation, and poetic language as it retells the final hours before “Lizzie Borden took an axe . . .” Carter brings those agonizing hours to life: the oppressive heat, the spoiled mutton, and the choking closeness of four family members in a house about to become a tomb.
Her recreation of claustrophobic horror is so vivid that the ultimate outbreak of violence seems inevitable. But the violence never happens, at least not on camera. Carter never shows the bodies, the bloodied couch, the infamous “whacking” at all. Anyone can look up pictures of the Borden family post-mortem, but Carter shows the hidden horror of a home where “the angel of death” has come to roost.
—April Asbury
Few short stories have captured me as thoroughly as Suzy McKee Charnas’s “Unicorn Tapestry.” This 1980 Nebula winner haunted me for days after I read it in Vampires: Two Centuries of Great Vampire Stories, edited by Alan Ryan. This compelling story draws the reader into its embrace with the cunning of a vampire. Charnas introduces the enigmatic Weyland through his psychotherapist, Floria, during her treatment for his self-diagnosed condition of vampirism. But, as her mysterious patient reveals the details of his life and nimbly lays waste to her attempts to unravel his delusions, Floria’s fascination escalates into horror, as did mine.
Their dance with words eventually leads to a dance with death in a heart-pounding and unexpected conclusion that left me mourning for these characters and what they shared. Even now, after all this time, I think of Weyland. “Unicorn Tapestry” is currently available in Charnas’s The Vampire Tapestries.
—Roh Morgon
When I first got into hardcore horror, I happened upon a copy of Splatterpunks 2: Over the Edge. The first story, Wildy Petoud’s “Accident d’Amour,” blew my mind. My eyes were opened to a type of fiction that was all at once filled with hate, rage, and violence, but also stunningly beautiful. I knew immediately what was missing with my work.
Petoud’s language bounced in my brain for days, and I couldn’t help but pick apart the story in the hopes that my work could become half as striking. I owe thanks to a number of authors for inspiration, but Petoud’s angry little story is quite possibly the first that actively pushed me to write better. Every horror author, hell, every fan of quality fiction, owes it to her or himself to track down this collection and feast their eyes on this story.
—Shawn Rutledge
I discovered Lucy Taylor at a World Horror Conference in the 1980s, and I was immediately riveted by her fiction. In my favorite story of hers, “The Safety of Unknown Cities” in Unnatural Acts, Val, a woman with her own inner demons, is searching for The City, a real life Sodom and Gomorrah, that exists in an area that is not only physically remote, but also in another dimension. She finally finds someone who can lead her there, Majeen, a beautiful hermaphrodite with cat-like eyes.
Their journey to The City, along with their escape from a villain, made a huge impression on me and has remained in my memory for a good twenty years. Though this tale would be called bizarre by most standards, Taylor captures human nature in a way few writers do. It affected my writing by making me go beyond the surface of appearances.
—Sally Bosco
One of my favorite authors is Elizabeth Massie. Her collection The Fear Report was released by Necon E-books and contains her Bram Stoker® short story winner, “Stephen.” After reading this collection, I fell in love with her work. Her story “Stephen” elicits different feelings in the reader. Everything from pity, hope, and despair to finally acceptance of Anne’s actions in the story.
The character Anne is someone I could relate to, especially her feelings of despair and need for someone to care for her. Furthermore, Massie’s ability to write not just horror, but other genres, makes her a powerhouse writer and someone that new authors can look up to. Massie is an extremely talented and creative person, a wonderful writer and artist. Her artwork is as powerful as her writing.
—Laura J. Hickman
This exquisite story—“The White Maniac: A Doctor’s Tale” by Waif Wander (Mary Fortune) and touted as Australia’s first ‘vampire’ story—was first published in 1867 by The Australian Journal. I discovered it in Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears (2010) and fell in love.
The elegance with which Fortune crafts this cut-off world of absolute white, how she brings this visual prison alive with texture, form, movement and sensation, giving this achromatic world a soul... then destroys it with a gesture of love, both beautiful and obscene, lingers still. In a time when Australian women writers were dismissed and maligned, Mary Fortune readily surrendered her name and her gender for her love of storytelling. So fiercely did she protect her pseudonym, her identity wasn’t discovered until the 1950s. To me, that altruism inspires, revealing the soul of a true writer: where the story is all that matters.
—Amanda J. Spedding
Even now “Singing My Sister Down” by Margo Lanagan makes me cry. I had this itch. Short things that needed to be written. But I knew nothing about short stories. I only knew novels. So I pulled down all my collections and read, reread, studied and wrote. I needed more. My bookshelf held Stephens, Clives, Peters, Roberts and Rays. No one with boobs and a uterus? The shame.
I purchased Black Juice, and over coffee read the first story. I wept. I shuddered, marveled, and when it was over, I ached. In horror our darkness creeps out, our fears, and those twisted things that torment. “Singing My Sister Down” depicts the horror of suffocation, of punishment, of death. But the loss, grief and regret, frustration and pain, these horrors won’t go away when you lift the bed skirts. They sing to you that familiar melody that crushes your chest, strips your breath.
—E. L. Kemper
As an accomplished writer, Lisa Tuttle is not unrecognized, but I think her story “The Replacements” is a forgotten hit. “Replacements” exposes the terrible tendencies of human violence and the underside of irrational cravings of the human heart by introducing a strange creature to a realistic story. Tuttle fathoms a world where need, want, desire, and intimacy are wrought in loneliness; where people fill existential voids with any captive to stop the craving. In the process, she exposes the ugliness of the human heart.
At every reading, I’m struck by how “Replacements” challenges readers to move beyond repulsion/attraction to the creatures appearing inexplicably around the city. This quiet horror story inverts the paradigm: instead of examining the creature, readers are disgusted by human behavior, not other-worldly existences. Stories that explore the insidious evils hiding beneath the surface of human existence inspire me to keep reading and writing.
—E. F. Schraeder
The short horror story “A Reversal of Fortune” by Holly Black (in the collection The Poison Eater, published by Big Mouth House, 2010) impressed me by presenting a protagonist who was at first quite repulsive. Nikki is a white-trash teen girl who lives in a trailer court and works in a candy store in the mall, where she can eat all the candy she can stomach—and she does.
When Nikki’s dog, Boo, is hit by a neighbor’s car, she doesn’t have the money, so she strikes a bargain with the devil, who appears as an eccentric old man. The devil promises to heal Boo if Nikki wins a wager, and Nikki picks an eating contest. Nikki displays grim determination and bests the devil, matching his trickery with her own. Rare is the writer who can make me like and respect a deeply flawed character.
—Sonny Zae
My influential horror story snuck up on me as I binged on apocalyptic fiction while writing my dystopian horror novel. “The Screwfly Solution” is told intimately through the eyes of a married couple. The story slowly reveals the depth of horror in store for women as men’s impulses are twisted against them.
The writer never flinches from taking the story to its darkest extreme and
no exception is made for the couple through whom we experience this terrible world. James Tiptree Jr. (pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon) wrote stories full of emotion and depth. She is best known for her science-fiction, but all her stories held elements of darkness. “The Screwfly Solution” was included in the Masters of Horror anthology. Though an accomplished writer, she felt it necessary to hide behind a man’s name. I love that with this anthology we acknowledge the women who have helped us stand on equal footing with male writers.
—H.E. Roulo
Deep Cuts Supporters
In the early 1900s, professional short story writers were those who earned three cents a word. That pay goal didn’t change until 2004 when the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) raised it to five cents. As you can see, writing short fiction is more about passion than payout.
Throughout history, artists have depended on patrons to support them as they pursued their visions, but for the most part, writers have been relegated—sometimes figuratively but often literally— to the garret and poverty. Poe and Lovecraft are two greats that come to mind. Fortunately, for today’s writers, the patronage system has come to the masses through websites such as Kickstarter. This site allows artists, writers, musicians, and inventors to promote their projects, collect donations, and solicit pre-orders. Supporters can contribute as little as a $1, and in return, they earn a reward related to the project.
That’s what we did with Deep Cuts. We took our project to the Internet, made our case for the validity of our project, and achieved our monetary goal. This allowed us to pay the writers—not just five cents a word but six. Deep Cuts would not be what it is without our Kickstarter supporters, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.
Linda Addison
Alana
Angelina
Aurora Septon
Cathie A. Aymar
Bailey
Lauren Bennetts
Greg Berry
Folly Blaine
Bill Bodden
The Boo-Monster
Steve Breault
Jason Sunni Brock
Satyros Phil Brucato
Brian "Chainsaw" Campbell
Jason Carl
Nicole Carnegie
James Chambers
Colleen Welch-Brown
Shawn Colton
Wendie Conjura
Paris Crenshaw
David L. Day
Elena DeGarmo
Guy Anthony De Marco
DENISE
Dhaunae
Lisa DiSabatino
Kelly Dunn
Benjamin Kane Etheridge
Aaron M. Fisk
H.B. Flyte
Lisa Foland
Fran Friel
Lady Gallo
—In memory of Yvonne K
GhostGirls
In memory of
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Tina Marlene Goodman
Damien Walters Grintalis
Eric J. Guignard
Peter Halasz
John E. Hambly
Guido Henkel
Laura J. Hickman
Laurel Anne Hill
Aaron Matthew Holmes
Ingrid
Linda Gibson Judd
Kaae
Robyn "Rat" King
Ty King
Kim Kirsch
Jason M. Light
LJH
Lucas
Jeffrey J. Mariotte
Kevin McAlonan
Chanté McCoy
Michael McIntosh
Alison J. McKenzie
S.P. Miskowski
—In memory of Det. Tim Bayliss
Daniel Mitchel-Slentz
Christine Morgan
Roh Morgon
Terry Morris
Lisa Morton
Craig Moya
William "Billy" Michael Murphy
Yvonne Navarro
Gene O'Neill
John W. Oliver
John Palisano
Ripley Patton
Amanda Power
Rebecca Rahne
Loren Rhoads
Shauna Roberts
Gord Rollo
Nathan Rosen
Martel Sardina
Scary White Girl
Diana Septon
In memory of Sonia Shah
S.L. Schmitz
Chris Snyder
Randy Standke
Peggy Stankovich
Sasha Elan Stimmel
Robert E. Stutts
Sean Sweeney
Eric Takehara
Juan Valdez
Allana Vee
Mike Welham
Rocky Wood
Jeremy Zimmerman
Deep Cuts Bios
COLLEEN ANDERSON lives in Vancouver, BC and has over 100 published stories and poems appearing in magazines and anthologies, including Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Chizine, and ON Spec. She has a BFA in creative writing and edits for Chizine Publications. She is a 2011 and 2012 Aurora finalist in poetry. Like many writers, Colleen caters to the ubiquitous cat. New work will be coming out in BullSpec, Chilling Tales 2, Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery and through Zharmae Publishing. Current projects include a new series of poems on witches (in progress) as well as her just-published reprint collection Embers Amongst the Fallen. She is also co-editor, along with Steven Vernon, of the yearly Canadian anthology Tesseracts 17 put out by Edge Publishing and to be published in 2013. (www.colleenanderson.wordpress.com)
R.S. (Rod) BELCHER has been an award-winning newspaper and magazine editor; reporter and freelance writer. He was the grand prize winner of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds contest. His story “Orphans” appears in Strange New Worlds 9, by Simon and Schuster in 2006. His first novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, was published by Tor Book in January of 2013. He lives in Roanoke Virginia with his children, Jonathan, Emily and Stephanie.
SCATHE MEIC BEORH is an author, professional storyteller, and founder of Bradburyesque Quarterly. His influences include William Blake, Arthur Machen, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, and George Mackay Brown, as well as a wide sweep of film directors. First a writer of poetry, he has most recently worked in other literary forms. His work may be found in anthologies, magazines, and both public and private libraries the world over.
SATYROS PHIL BRUCATO, aka Phil Brucato or just plain Satyr, sold his first professional story to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword Sorceress IX anthology in 1990. During White Wolf’s “classic WOD” period, he co-created the Mage, Sorcerers Crusade, Werewolf, Changeling and Vampire: Dark Ages lines, contributing to over 80 books for the Wolf. The next decade saw him author Deliria: Faerie Tales for a New Millennium, Everyday Heroes, Goblin Markets: The Glitter Trade, and popular columns for Realms of Fantasy, Witches Pagans, and NewWitch magazine. His fiction has appeared in Weird Tales, Steampunk Tales, a slew of collections, and the Bad-Ass Fairies series. Recently, he co-edited the benefit collection Ravens in the Library, founded Silver Satyr Games, and produced the webcomic series Arpeggio (arpeggiothecomic.com). Satyr lives in Seattle with his partner Sandra Buskirk and their cats.
JAMES CHAMBERS’s tales of horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. In 2011 Dark Regions Press published his collection of four Lovecraft-inspired novellas, The Engines of Sacrifice. Publisher’s Weekly described it as “chillingly evocative.” Most recently, Dark Quest Books has published his zombie novellas, The Dead Bear Witness and Tears of Blood, the first two volumes in the Corpse Fauna novella series. Chambers is also the author of the short story collections Resurrection House, published in 2009 by Dark Regions Press, and The Midnight Hour: Saint Lawn Hill and Other Tales with illustrator Jason Whitley. His stories have appeared in the award-winning anthology series Bad-Ass Faeries and Defending the Future, and he has also written numerous comic books including Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals, the critically acclaimed “The Revenant” in Shadow House, and The Midnight Hour. His work has also appeared in Bad Cop No
Donut, Dark Furies, The Dead Walk, The Dead Walk Again, The Domino Lady: Sex as a Weapon, Dragon’s Lure, The Green Hornet Chronicles, Hardboiled Cthulhu, In An Iron Cage, New Blood, Warfear, Weird Trails, and the magazines Bare Bone, Cthulhu Sex, and Allen K’s Inhuman. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and the chairman of its membership committee. His website is jameschambersonline.com.
SAMAEL GYRE is a mysterious literary terrorist and shaman of the dark arts of Ficta Mystica. He knows your secrets and intends to spill them wide. He is known solely through his work, which is too extreme for some. He gets around and lives closer than you’d think. There are no known photographs of him; his biography is rumored to be classified. His work has appeared in various anthologies, and there is said to be a novel in the works. Samael Gyre can be reached via Gene Stewart at genestewart.com/wordpress and will reach you in various dark places.
KELLY A. HARMON used to write truthful, honest stories about authors and thespians, senators and statesmen, movie stars and murderers. Now she writes lies, which is infinitely more satisfying, but lacks the convenience of doorstep delivery, especially on rainy days. She has published short fiction in several anthologies including the EPIC Award Winning Bad Ass Fairies 3: In All Their Glory; Hellebore and Rue, Black Dragon, White Dragon, and Triangulation: Dark Glass. Her story “Lies” short-listed for the Aeon Award. Her award-winning novella, "Blood Soup," and other short fiction are available widely in many formats. Ms. Harmon is a former magazine and newspaper reporter and editor. She has published articles at SciFi Weekly, eArticles, and magazines and newspapers up and down the East Coast and abroad. Read more about Ms. Harmon at her Web site: kellyaharmon.com.
MICHAEL HAYNES lives in Central Ohio where he helps keep IT systems running for a large corporation during the day and puts his characters through the wringer by night. An ardent short story reader and writer, Michael has had over twenty stories accepted for publication during 2012 by venues such as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, Nature, and many others. His website is michaelhaynes.info.
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