Author | Lightnews

joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 6h

Visiting? Elisa. Not my absolute favorite, but easily the most fun. Some of those others ... not so fun.

#HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her) @marywyrd.bsky.social · 15h

QUESTION FOUR

There’s a knock at the door.

Before you can answer it, the door opens and reveals…your favourite character. They are your creation.

Who is visiting you?
Why are they your favourite?
And why are they here, now?

- - -

Linger a little longer for the outro & promo #HorrorWritersChat

Question four - From your work, who is your favourite character? Antagonist? Protagonist? Who are they? Why are they your favourite? And why are they visiting you? #HorrorWritersChat - background composite image of a series of abandoned interior rooms. On either side of the opening to the next room, a pair of shadowy hands presses against the walls.

joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 7h

My current WIP has some flavors of Alien, Hellraiser, old sci-fi, and Asian myths.

#HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her) @marywyrd.bsky.social · 15h

QUESTION THREE

The room includes the media that inspires your writing.
Books. Films. Music. Art.

Share four that inspired your last published horror work or your latest horror WIP.

#HorrorWritersChat

Question three - Share four pieces of media that inspired your latest published horror work or your current horror WIP (work in progress) #HorrorWritersChat - background composite image of a series of abandoned interior rooms. On either side of the opening to the next room, a pair of shadowy hands presses against the walls.

joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 7h

I have to have something to drink and something for the noise. Right now, that tends to be endless coffee and metal, both black. Headphones let me keep it to myself.

#HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her) @marywyrd.bsky.social · 15h

QUESTION TWO

We stand before your writing area #HorrorWritersChat

Which three tools (apps? Items? objects?) do you find useful when writing?

Are there any you’d recommend to other writers?

The stranger the better...

Question Two - Which three tools, apps or items do you find useful when writing? Which would you recommend to other writers? Quote Post your answers with the hashtag. Don’t forget to like/share other answers and chat in the comments #HorrorWritersChat - background composite image of a series of abandoned interior rooms. On either side of the opening to the next room, a pair of shadowy hands presses against the walls.

joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 7h

I'm Joe and I write sci-fi and horror. The room would have a door to a balcony that overlooked a wooded lake.

#HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her) @marywyrd.bsky.social · 16h

QUESTION ONE - #HorrorWritersChat

Behind this door is your ideal writing room. 🚪

If money were no object and dreams were reality, this is where you’d write, relax, and conceive of your next great work.

Introduce yourself along with your horror niche, then open the door and describe your space.

Question one - Introduce yourself! Your name, your corner of the horror genre and describe your dream writing room. Quote Post your answers with the hashtag. Don’t forget to like/share other answers and chat in the comments #HorrorWritersChat - background composite image of a series of abandoned interior rooms. On either side of the opening to the next room, a pair of shadowy hands presses against the walls.

joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 6d

latest read: Corpsemouth - John Langan - (almost) cozy cosmic horror where characters are often at peace with the outcome. In the same vein as his book The Fisherman. Anchor, Outside the House, Watching for the Crows, and Mirror Fishing are the standouts.

#reading #bookblog #booksky #horrorbooks

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 14d

Mist from the crypt congealed around the stone gargoyle that lorded over the mausoleum. It creaked once, then broke free of its perch. Stony wings beat and blasted dried leaves at your face. So captivating in flight, you missed the hands that rose from the soil and claimed you

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

Come forth, Baron Crescendo! Let your guitar split the sky open, for more wraiths to dazzle us!

Behold, a note from him, for you!

“The moment you entered the graveyard, the scrape of ancient stone shadowed your ears.”

Finish it! With word of rhyme, before we dance to the end!

#HorrorWritersChat

Art by Jelle Husson, featuring a haunted monastery of many sharp-tipped towers scraping at the midnight sky. The largest is in the centre of the structure’s roof, whose walls are painted white. The monastery is located above a hilly terrain of dark stone and dark green moss. A stony, twisting road leads to the monastery.

Question Four

There he is! Baron Crescendo! Oh how the skies split open to his guitar, how more of us fly in the air! And look, a note from him, just for you!

“The moment you entered the graveyard, the scrape of ancient stone shadowed your ears.”

Well? Go on! Word or rhyme, continue his Muse!

No links, covers, or self-promo! Leave that for the end! Quote the post & include the hashtag!

#HorrorWritersChat

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 14d

I really enjoy the variety to traditional ghosts, but give me a modern, manufactured ghost for terror

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

Listen to the Symposium’s finest vocalist, as their tenor bends the living into unnatural angles and swivels them into the air! Tell us, what ghosts do you prefer? Of the folkloric tradition, or those invented by authors? And why?
#HorrorWritersChat

Question Three

Art by Jelle Husson, featuring a haunted monastery of many sharp-tipped towers scraping at the midnight sky. The largest is in the centre of the structure’s roof, whose walls are painted white. The monastery is located above a hilly terrain of dark stone and dark green moss. A stony, twisting road leads to the monastery.

It is always a delight to see our violinists perform! How the living bend their splintering bones as they float above us all! Tell us, our ghostly compatriots – which of us are better? Of the folkloric kind? Or invented by our shadowy creators?

No links, covers, or self-promo! Leave that for the end! Quote the post & include the hashtag!

#HorrorWritersChat

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 14d

I'm still stuck on haunted houses for ghosts, but I should branch. Maybe a haunted forest in a generational ship.

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

Now, let us begin! Let the flutes bleat and the trumps blare, snatching all the souls of the living away! What are your favourite haunts? Mausoleums? Lavish estates? What secrets do their wraiths protect within?
#HorrorWritersChat

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 14d

I'm Joe and I write sci and horror in Maryland, a little north of DC.

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

Be welcomed to the ethereal music hall! A stringed aperitif is in order… do tell the Symposium what do you write, from where… and what IS, indeed, your wraithful visage for tonight?
#HorrorWritersChat

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 19d

Shadows Under a Neon Moon

Vik the boxer and novice thief incurs a blood debt that must be satisfied by solving the crimes committed by gene-spliced gangsters before the next full moon

shortlisted revpit '25

👀unreliable narrator
🫂found family
🧛‍♂️monsters with jobs
💉biopunk
#A #SF #UF #agentguide

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · 26d

latest read: Harlem Shuffle - Colson Whitehead - solid, solid set of crime stories set in '60s Harlem. Unusual in that it focuses on the fence and his life instead of the heist or the cops chasing down the crooks. Excellent all around

#reading #bookblog #booksky #crimebooks

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zilla @zillawrites.bsky.social · Sep 19

The new Agent's Guide to
MURDER NIGHT AT HOTEL ADAIR, my The Haunting of Hill House x The Shining #A #H project.

───── ⋆⋅🩸⋅⋆ ─────
At Hotel Adair, the rooms are luxurious, the deaths are creative, and the check-out time is non-negotiable.
───── ⋆⋅🩸⋅⋆ ─────

MURDER NIGHT AT HOTEL ADAIR comps and tropes

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Sam Rebelein @rebelsam94.bsky.social · Apr 10

GIVE YOURSELF TO THE FOG
09/16/25

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HellBound Books @hellboundbooks.bsky.social · Sep 19

Vampires, genetically engineered animal-people, giant spiders, ghouls-and more than a handful of the absolutely worst monsters of them all: the human variety.

hellboundbookspublishing.com/monsters.html

#horror #horrorbooks #books #booklover #bookworm #horrorfan

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Tiffany Michelle Brown (she/her) @tmbwrites.bsky.social · Sep 19

Friends, I got to see a proof of the forthcoming Tales of Sley House 2025, edited by Lillian Ehrhart, and I CAN'T WAIT for you all to see it!

If you're a fan of Creepshow, you're gonna love the inspiration - and the interior - of this anthology.

Also, I get to share this TOC with...

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Jimmy Gaspero @jimmygaspero.bsky.social · May 17

Caught up and read all of @deadskypub.bsky.social CORVUS written & lettered by @bertacious.bsky.social It’s a great series that hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. If you’re a fan of The Last Starfighter, V, Aliens, Dreamcatcher, you’ll love this. 🔗👇🏽to Buddy on @comicbookyeti.com podcast

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Dead Sky Publishing @deadskypub.bsky.social · Jul 9

Want more space horror? We got you! Pick up all 6 copies of CORVUS today! Thanks for the awesome shoutout!

Jimmy Gaspero @jimmygaspero.bsky.social · May 17

Caught up and read all of @deadskypub.bsky.social CORVUS written & lettered by @bertacious.bsky.social It’s a great series that hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. If you’re a fan of The Last Starfighter, V, Aliens, Dreamcatcher, you’ll love this. 🔗👇🏽to Buddy on @comicbookyeti.com podcast

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Victoria Jayne (they/them) is querying ya fantasy @victoriajayneoh.bsky.social · Sep 16

An #agentsguide to 99 Ways To Get Ex-Spelled (Without Committing Murder), a YA Satirical Dystopian Fantasy

#writesky #litagents #ya #writingcommunity #amwriting

99 ways to get exspelled without committing murder nuclear desert with schooldesks

The pitch

Anarchocommunist, OCD-ridden Posey Peabody has been drafted into the American Army Academy for Powerful Witches. By entry stats she’s the Winner--First Rank of her class. All is well as can be until Amelia Appleton takes her Rank with reckless, dangerous, wrong magic. And then Appleton doesn’t get expelled.
Competitive streak activated, Posey and Appleton engage in reckless, rule-breaking acts of magic and mischief. While trading First Rank between each other, Posey realizes that Appleton might not be such a weirdo after all. In fact, she’s annoyingly pretty. That said, Appleton’s got her eye on that government position through all this, and Posey would rather die than work for the fascists in charge. Posey’s intention is to truly get expelled. She wants to be the first one to do it.
Meanwhile, an underground betting ring rises up, classmates betting on whether or not Posey will have to kill someone to get expelled. Posey hopes it’s not true, but whether or not she finds out is entirely up to her.

Somewhere behind the stage, Headmaster Josephus Crimble is puking his guts out. I remind myself that it’s okay if I start to count and stop myself after the limit, so long as I don’t make it to ten. If you make it to ten, the limit goes down by one, Posey. Don’t forget.
I started at five hundred.
Drifting through the rest of the day in this half-there state, I sit with my feelings locked tight in a jar of my own design. I’ll preserve my emotions like lemons, until they’re laden with salt and mellowed in their sourness. That feeling, or lack thereof, feels warm as home to me, and my deep yearning for Nukeville ebbs into a soft ache that gently rubs my heart into a smoother, steadier rhythm. There will be no need for counting when there’s no feeling to (dis)regulate.

For fans of terry pratchett, katabasis, throne in the dark by ak caggiano, nobody in particular by Sophie Gonzales, rivals to lovers femme x femme, this may end badly by samantha markum

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Anna is editing gothic horror 💌 @annahirsch.bsky.social · Sep 15

Presenting the #AgentsGuide to my #gothic #horror novel THE BANSHEE OF CLAN MURTAGH 🖤

#AmQuerying starting TODAY!

The black sheep of a powerful family pursues a doomed romance with the banshee who's haunted his estate for generations, even as the black plague closes in. 🥀

An agent's guide to The Banshee of Clan Murtagh, a 71,000 word gothic horror by Anna Hirsch

TROPES/COMPS:
He’s human, she’s immortal / Only one grave / Byronic hero protagonist / Uncovering lost memories / Medieval Irish setting / Tragic ending

For fans of the folkloric love story of Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid, the death-touched love of Nosferatu (2024), the family trauma of the Haunting of Hill House, the Catholic guilt of The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas

PITCH
Ireland, 1348: When Ciarán Murtagh hears the cry of his family’s banshee for the first time in a decade, he knows one of his own is fated to die. But they don’t believe his warnings—why would they? The last time Ciarán heard the banshee he didn’t tell a soul until after his cousin’s tragic death, and they’ve never trusted him since.

Desperate for redemption in his family’s eyes, Ciarán hunts down the banshee in search of answers. She’s equal parts frightening and alluring, and in his struggle to confront her, he inadvertently triggers the banshee’s memories. Memories of when she was a servant of his household, generations ago, named Deirdre.

Deirdre claims that Ciarán’s physical touch restores her memories, and demands more. He agrees to meet by moonlight in hope of learning whose death she foretold. With every encounter, Ciarán’s attraction to Deirdre grows, setting him on a path of macabre desire. When the devastating bubonic plague befalls the Murtagh household, and Deirdre’s memories reveal a dark scandal in the family’s history, Ciarán must decide whether to stay by his family’s side in their final hours or embrace the seduction of the death-bringer.

PAGE ONE

All my life I was tempted by death. And like the sinner I was, I never could resist her sweet voice, even when she came for those I love.

First was my grandfather, when I was a boy of four. I still recall standing atop the hill, which I’d claimed as my kingdom like so many others on our land, hearing the banshee’s cry ring out from the forest.

That night, my grandfather finally succumbed to his long illness. But not without leaving his scars on the family, like great rips through a painting. We tried to stitch it back together, plaster the canvas with more layers of paint, but the gashes were always visible beneath.

I was ten when I heard her next, entranced as in a waking dream. She cast tendrils of keening over the forest, unfurled her slender fingers of song into the dark reaches of my heart. I should have known what it meant. I should have warned them.

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Sam Weller @samwellerauthor.bsky.social · Sep 2

My story in COSTS OF LIVING is a rare venture into Chicago writing for me. It is about those grotesque Midwest millipedes that invade our homes every summer. I hope you will share this post and support this book!

#horrorsky #booksky #booklaunch #horror #anthology #shortstories #fiction

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Velox Books @veloxbooks.bsky.social · Sep 14

My fellow astronaut died in orbit. I had to store his body outside, but now something is tapping on the hull, trying to get back in.

books2read.com/broke...

#Horror #NoSleep #HorrorBooks #Kindle #supernaturalhorror #weirdhorror #strangefiction #Creepy #CreepyPasta #horrortbr

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · Sep 14

watching a dog mark his territory

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O. A. Bhatti, Author @oabhatti.bsky.social · Sep 13

Check out my horror debut, Veilrender!

books2read.com/u/mvENO8

linktr.ee/oabhatti

💙📚👀📢📚😱 #HorrorAuthor
#indieauthor #Booksky 📚💙 🩸📚 #horrorbooks #heavymetal

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DM Pelley @dmpelley.bsky.social · Sep 13

Hey folks-my book drops next Wednesday! It's a goody!

#ufo #ufosky #uap #horror #horrorbooks #indieauthor #werewolf

A graphic showing a book called "The Beast of Orange Blossom Trail" being available on Amazon starting September 17th.

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joe @darknweird.bsky.social · Sep 12

wowza, I'm in the pirated works database. It's a paper I wrote forever ago. It's not a full request Friday, but a little sumtin' sumtin'

#writers #horrorwriting #WritingCommunity #writersky #authorsky

Ryan Estrada @ryanestrada.com · Sep 6

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.

OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

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