Roll the windows down, wipe the blood off your cheek, and turn the music up. Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare by Stephanie M. Wytovich is a collection spattered with dirt and blood, sage and corpses. The poems inside are confessionals and dirges, their stories the careful banter of ghosts and sinners over tequila at the bar. These pages hold the lyrics to the beautiful grotesque that Wytovich is known for, but here she writes with a raw honesty that we haven't seen from her before. This new direction takes readers to hospital rooms and death beds, shows the mask that was skinned off her face time and time again. There's a brutality to her lines that cuts with the same knife she fantasized about, her blood and tears mixed in with stanzas as she talks about suicide and abuse, heartbreak and falling in love. Written during a time when the road was her home, these poems were sung under the stars and screamed in the woods, carved into trees. They are broken bottles and cigarette butts, stale coffee and smeared lipstick, each its own warning, a tale of caution. Listen to them carefully. They very well might save your life.
SHE'S LOST CONTROL is an all-female horror and dark fiction & poetry anthology from Post Mortem Press.The pieces in this anthology deal with various themes: death, violence, love, rape, motherhood, childhood, family, failure, victory. The voices of women rise up, refusing to be quieted. A secretary is haunted by her boss's laughter. A young woman dreams of a lost little boy. A woman dances, and dances, and dances until little is left.One thing is certain, and it shows again and again throughout these works: She's lost control. And no one knows quite what will happen.INCLUDES WORKS FROM AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS CYNTHIA PELAYO, STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH, AND LUCY A. SNYDERThis book, by its very nature, is doing important work: giving women writers a platform and prioritizing their voices over the cacophony of men that have dominated the field for so long. This is not meant to start an argument over whose voice is more important or stronger or holds more weight-this book is only meant to continue the conversation of why we need diverse mindsets and points of view in the literary community. And as the global conversation continues to both widen and deepen in regards to diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our lives, I hope we can maintain that dialogue. This is a good place to start. The pieces in this anthology deal with various themes: death, violence, love, rape, motherhood, childhood, family, failure, victory. They are all poignant, emotional, and important. They are all human. I am proud and grateful that these women have entrusted me with their words. I hope you read them and hear what they are saying-what they are screaming. The female voice is strong, and will not be controlled. - Elizabeth Jenike - editorFEATURING SHORT FICTION & POETRY FROMCHLOE MONET SUTCH, AMIRAH MOHIDDIN, L.L. MADRID, SYDNEY J. WATSON, MADELINE TICKNOR, JESSICA McHUGH, DIANA BRASKICH, CYNTHIA PELAYO, H.B. DIAZ, HANNAH LITVIN, AMANDA CRUM, STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH, LUCY A. SNYDER, THERESA GAFFNEY, J.A.W. MCCARTHY, JACQUELYN MITCHARD, KATY MCCARTHY, MICHELLE SIKORSKI, RACHEL ANNE PARSONS, EMMA HINES, LAUREL RADZIESKI, RACHEL GRAF EVANS, MARIA ZACH, KT JAYNE, UVIKA WAHI, SARA RAUCH, ALEX MCKELLEY, and LAURA BETH JOHNSON
Mourning is the new black... The tradition of Victorian mourning jewelry began with Queen Victoria after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. Without photography, mementos of personal remembrance were used to honor the dead so that their loved ones could commemorate their memory and keep their spirits close. Ashes were placed within rings, and necklaces were made out of hair, and the concept of death photography, small portraitures of the deceased, were often encased behind glass. Mourning jewelry became a fashion statement as much as a way to cope with grief, and as their pain evolved over the years, so did their jewelry. But what about the sadness and the memories that they kept close to them at all times? The death-day visions and the reoccurring nightmares? Wytovich explores the horror that breeds inside of the lockets, the quiet terror that hides in the center of the rings. Her collection shows that mourning isn't a temporary state of being, but rather a permanent sickness, an encompassing disease. Her women are alive and dead, lovers and ghosts. They live in worlds that we cannot see, but that we can feel at midnight, that we can explore at three a.m. Wytovich shows us that there are hearts to shadows and pulses beneath the grave. To her, Mourning Jewelry isn't something that you wear around your neck. It's not fashion or a trend. It's something that you carry inside of you, something that no matter how much it screams, that you can just can't seem to let out.
Wytovich plays madam in a collection of erotic horror that challenges the philosophical connection between death and orgasm. There's a striptease that happens in Brothel that is neither fact nor fiction, fantasy nor memory. It is a dance of eroticism, of death and decay. The human body becomes a service station for pain, for pleasure, for the lonely, the confused. Sexuality is hung on the door, and the act of love is far from anything that's decent. Her women spread their legs to violence then smoke a cigarettes and get on all fours. They use their bodies as weapons and learn to find themselves in the climax of the boundaries they cross in order to define their humanity...or lack thereof. Wytovich shows us that the definition of the feminine is not associated with the word victim. Her characters resurrect themselves over and over again, fighting stereotypes, killing expectations. She shows us that sex isn't about love; it's about control. And when the control is disproportionate to the fantasy, she shows us the true meaning of femme fatale.
A Conjuring for All Seasons contains five dark novelettes from five practicing witches. Four seasonally themed tales based around important Wiccan celebrations join a Hoodoo story concerning the dead around All Hallows'. Magic Loves the Hungry by Hailey Piper A presence haunts Melody Langston. It grows bolder each night, as if preying on her anxiety-ridden complications with coven initiation, friends who are her ex-lovers, and the touch of overattentive authority. Starved for belonging, she needs to prove herself, cleanse herself, prove she isn't weak. But a terrifying enigma has its heart set on her, and magic loves the hungry. Drawing Down the Sun by Stephanie M. Wytovich Protection is vital. Faye Erikson has been dead for centuries, but her grip on the Clement family remains as strong now as it did the day she spat out her curse. Fearful of her wrath, the family heads out to the woods around Midsummer each year to stand watch over her grave. Anne Clement, the first girl to be born into their bloodline in over 200 years, has some reservations about Faye and her ties to her family. Her curiosity leads her to dig deeper into her ancestral history, and what she uncovers might be scarier than the witch she's been taught to fear. Milk Kin by K.P. Kulski She knows because she remembers the night her mother disappeared. It doesn't matter she had been a newborn, that Grandmother Bada and auntie say it is impossible to remember so early. Ruby did and she could replay the memory like a video- of how the long-fingered woman took her mother away. How the same woman returns every autumn decorated with teeth and oak leaves, with a long silver needle that pierces Ruby's heel. The House of the Heart by Donyae Coles "The House of the Heart is about family and the ways that we carry that and how it carries us. It's a story about boundaries and reparations. It's also about knowing when it's time to just grab a candle and let the ancestors handle it. Though it is never mentioned by name in the story, the practice is hoodoo and I wanted to write something where even though the outcomes were sensational, it was still a living practice that was part of their lives, as natural as breathing." - Donyae Coles Longest Night by Gaby Triana Two modern-day witches, recently out of the broom closet, throw a Yuletide party to welcome the winter solstice with friends, unprepared for the uninvited guests who arrive. When Christmas-themed pranks appearing after the party unexpectedly ends turn deadly, Indigo must figure out where they're coming from, who's causing them, and whether or not she's witch enough to end them during the longest night of her life.
Love is an exorcism of angels... Heaven and Hell are not places, nor times, but rather shared experiences. It's a love whether dark or light, a passion whether of pleasure or pain, and there's a beauty to the ugliness, a smile hidden amongst the tears. Heaven is often defined as paradise; Hell as damnation. The two, while opposites, more often than not, end up being one and the same, especially when it comes to falling in love. So what happens when our Heaven falls in love with our Hell? When the very person who brings us every happiness and every joy, stabs and beats at our hearts, bruising our fantasy of "happily ever after"? What happens when we can't walk away because the pain of love is better than no love at all? When we'd rather die every death again and again, than spend one moment away from our heart's true content? Wytovich plays Virgil in a collection of celestial horror that challenges the definition of angels and demons, of love and hate. She weaves through tales of heartbreak and sorrow, through poems depicting lust and greed, as her words prove testament that Heaven and Hell can be one and the same, a paradise and an inferno. Her women, some innocent, some not, walk through the circles, fall off of clouds, deny their wings, and expose their hearts to demons and devils, to imps and to fiends. They turn their backs on everything they know, question their morals and their faith, all in the name of love, and together, the good help the bad, and the bad, help the good. Not every angel has wings just as not every demon has claws. Wytovich shows us that love isn't always the saving grace that we expect it to be. To her, there is no balance of darkness to light, no line between what one desires and what one gets. There's no choosing who we fall in love with, and just as love is often Heaven, it can as easily be Hell.
From an early age, we are taught to fear the unknown; to be afraid of what we do not understand. You're about to discover that what you do know can not only hurt you, but can scare you to death! The award winning horror fiction podcast has gathered thirteen amazingly talented authors from around the world to explore the very notion that learning about the unknown can have terrifying results. Step inside, kiddies... It's story time at The Wicked Library
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