I recently discovered Horror Bound Magazine. It’s a great little online zine for all things horror, with book reviews, featured authors, interviews, art, photography, poetry and short fiction. The editors over there were kind enough to accept a short story from me for publication and it’s just been released with Issue 7.
According to the site: Horror Bound Magazine is a literary magazine primarily for horror fiction, however, we also feature dark fantasy, noir, thriller and speculative fiction.
You can find my short story Cemetery here. Have a read and let me know what you think. While you’re there, follow the links around and see what else they have on offer. The Submission Guidelines are easy to find if you’re inclined to send in something of your own for consideration.
Incidentally, with regard to the design and format of the Horror Bound website, there’s a printer icon at the bottom of the story. If you’re not too comfortable reading the story as it appears on the site, scroll straight down and click that icon. It will switch the page to a nice black text on white background with no sidebars or anything else – much more comfortable to read that way. You don’t need to actually print it of course. The majority of online zines tend to have this option, so always worth looking for.
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I copied and pasted into a word document to read. The website is poorly formatted so wanted to judge your work based on, well, your work and not the design of the website.
Notice the first line of your story is in the same paragraph as your bio and it’s hard to tell where your bio ends and the story starts…
Hi Ben – I’ve contacted them about that already and asked them to fix it. Hopefully they will before long.
So, nothing else to say about the story then…
I haven’t read it. Will get back to you when I do.
Cool. Is my neurotic writer side showing?
BTW, that formatting error is fixed now. The bio shouldn’t have been on the story page at all, just on the home page.
Incidentally, with regard to the design and format of the Horror Bound website, there’s a printer icon at the bottom of the story. If you’re not too comfortable reading the story as it appears on the site, scroll straight down and click that icon. It will switch the page to a nice black text on white background with no sidebars or anything else – much more comfortable to read that way. You don’t need to actually print it of course. The majority of online zines tend to have this option, so always worth looking for.
You need to put that print option tip in your post – much better way to read it – the website formatting sucks the big one.
As for the story. Excellent pacing and description. Enjoyed it. Well done.
Question: What made you send it to an FTL market? Had you subbed it anywhere else?
I read it quickly formatted in Word my way
I liked the story. The pacing was good and I liked the blurry nature of some of the details – added realism.
BT – Thanks, glad you liked it. I had subbed it elsewhere a few times, but none of the semi-pro or pro markets seemed to want it. When that happens, after it’s been through a few edits and re-subs I tend to move it on to FTL markets and concentrate on new stories. No point flogging a dying horse too much. And besides that, FTL markets are still very cool to be publlished by – it’s a publishing credit if it has an editorial process and it helps to further a writer’s profile. That particular story at Horror Bound has only been up about 24 hours and has already had 179 reads. Not bad, eh?
Ben – Thanks for the kind words. Glad you liked it.
I liked the cemetery story very much alan.
It built to a great pulse pounding crescendo.
And the last line was perfect.
Horror bound has a good eye.
Karen :0)
Karen – thanks very much.
Would you be interested in writing for The Neave Online Publication? I love your writing style and I feel like you would fit in perfectly with the other writers.
Hi Bushe – thanks very much for the offer. I certainly could be interested, depending on what you were after exactly. Why don’t you drop me an email and we can talk about it. [email protected]
I just finished reading “Cemetery.” I really enjoyed it. I like how you are immediately drawn in and the final line was perfect. Great story!
Hi ganymeder – thanks very much! I’m glad you liked it.