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mattblairstone.bsky.social
Matt Blairstone
@mattblairstone.bsky.social
1.1K followers 400 following 260 posts
Publisher/Founder @tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Shirley Jackson Award-nominated editor.
Illustrator of slimy things.
Devotee of comic books & guit-fiddle music of every stripe.
OPEN for both editing & art gigs.
He/him
Portland OR
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mattblairstone.bsky.social
Matt Blairstone @mattblairstone.bsky.social · May 22
Need Human Art for your book/shirt/band/life in general? I'm open for commissions!

Holler:
1.) DM me
2.) email mattblairstone at gmail dot com
3.) mattblairstone.carrd.co

Recent client work:
@brandenburgdm.bsky.social @shortwavebooks.bsky.social @nwreader.bsky.social @tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Book cover art (Wonka-style miscreant circled by a robotic centipede) + retractable banner art (a slobbery were-beast in a hoodie against a checkered ska-tone) for author Matt Brandenburg Artwork for Shortwave Publishing, white on black and black on white, a radio tower atop a stack of books, for use on both a shirt and tote bag Illustration/cover art for Truborn Press, a cross-hatched ear with the Devil lurking within, alongside the final cover art (I did not design final cover, only the illustration) Cover art wrap, sans text, for BRAVE NEW WEIRD Volume 3; a Weird breakfast table and various sordid goings-on
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
stevenpatchett.bsky.social
It's a shite state of affairs. Show me the new writers, not the people who's tired, formulaic, phoned in rubbish swamps the dubious honour of the best seller lists. Give me the new ideas
alexwoodroe.com Alex Woodroe @alexwoodroe.com · 3d
It's dire when you try to help authors find where to submit excellent manuscripts, and there's just hardly anything. Not even talking about the chances of acceptance; just anywhere to even *try* that's all of: the right genre, open, open to unagented, decent, and safe. Everyone's closed.
November 22, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
alexwoodroe.com
It's dire when you try to help authors find where to submit excellent manuscripts, and there's just hardly anything. Not even talking about the chances of acceptance; just anywhere to even *try* that's all of: the right genre, open, open to unagented, decent, and safe. Everyone's closed.
November 22, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
alexwoodroe.com
But if I talk about the long-term effects of press owners engaging in star worship, nepotism, gatekeeping, and clout chasing, I'm the asshole who gives these poor dudes a hard time and doesn't understand how brave and plucky they are for entering that bidding war over Stephen King's used tissues
November 22, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
🔥 COVER +TITLE REVEAL + SUBMISSIONS OPEN🔥

YOUR BODY IS A FEVER DREAM: A Cosmic Body Horror Anthology from Trans & Gender Nonconforming Voices

A Charity collection coming in October 2026🖤☠️🏳️‍⚧️

Art by @mxmorgan.com

All the info here: tenebrouspress.com/blog/2025/11...
Cover art, a swan alights on a cosmic celestial sea, the sky in the colors of the trans rights flag
November 20, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Weird Year in Review:
8 books.
3 magazine issues.
2 sleep-deprived co-publishers.
Let's do it again in '26!

Missing anything from your bookshelves? Hit up our webstore🖤☠️
store.tenebrouspress.com
11 Tenebrous titles, all in a row
November 17, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
On days where I fret whether we're waving our Weird flag w/enough vigor, I remind myself of the 3k-word cheat sheet that @goresorcerer.bsky.social wrote up to explain PUPPET'S BANQUET.

@eveharms.com thought it was badass; that's good enough for us, should be for you too🖤☠️

store.tenebrouspress.com
Screenshot of a snippet of text: "Multiple valid intended interpretations with space left for more …and potentially somehow all true at once -The main, ‘literal’ interpretation, as perceived by the protagonist" Text snippet: "I call this book a “diseased gothic”. This is an aesthetic declaration but also an assertion that the text itself is sick, warped. There are parts of this story that shouldn’t hang together, great howling voids in the logic of it that exist for ideas to be able to come in and out of, like worms into a carcass, making flesh into soil." Cover art by Donna A. Black, a horrifying centipede-cracked baby doll monstrosity, + nice blurb by Eve Harms. Cover copy: Married couple Celia and Martin are brutally attacked on their drive through the Irish countryside. The attack leaves Celia with a violent schism in her mind, seemingly existing in two places at once: one the “real” world, the other a howling maelstrom of abstract monstrosity. Of her husband, there is no trace…until weeks later, when Martin is discovered in a hospital for rare and abnormal diseases, his body spliced together with that of an unknown woman. And they are very pregnant.
November 18, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
danielkraus.com
I gotta read this, this is tripping every one of my triggers
tenebrouspress.bsky.social Tenebrous Press @tenebrouspress.bsky.social · 14d
🎉🖤RELEASE DAY🖤🎉

@rascalhartley.bsky.social's DEAR STUPID PENPAL is out now everywhere!

Sci-Fi, Cosmic Horror & Queer Romance meld effortlessly in this tale of a deep space mission thought lost forever & the bonds that keep us human at the edge of the universe.

Get it:
store.tenebrouspress.com
Cover art by Carly A-F: against the blackness of space, a lone astronaut sits at their console, which drifts into the heavens in multicolored pixels.
November 14, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
By my count…eleven? I dunno, that seems a reasonable number 🖤☠️
11 Tenebrous releases in 2025. The joke is that I’m being a butthole and implying that ALL of our releases were masterpieces, and no one else’s were. Sure. “Joking”.
November 14, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Today is all about scheduling the 2026 calendar; giving myself a heart attack *now* so I don't have 70 small heart attacks next year, or at the very least cutting that 70 down to a healthy 30.

2026 Book Club subscriptions open in TWO WEEKS🖤☠️
A fetching skeleton with one helluva head of hair blowing in the breeze admires our nine (fiction) releases for 2026: WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE by Danger Slater SPLIT SCREAM: CURSED PLACES by Sonora Taylor & Matthew Pritt BRAVE NEW WEIRD Vol. 4 MIDWESTERN CHROME by Michael Bettendorf KAYAK by Kristal Stittle ALICIA IS IN THE BASEMENT by Santiago Eximeno OLYOKE by Vincent Endwell DIVE by Allison Mick YOUR BODY IS A something or other
November 13, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Astronaut hates space, ship, other crew members💀

Not too fond of his assigned penpal either (at first)💀

Shit goes bananas at the edge of the universe💀

Time gets crazy💀

People die💀

Cosmic Horror💀

...Meet Cute?❤️

DEAR STUPID PENPAL by @rascalhartley.bsky.social
OUT NOW: store.tenebrouspress.com
Cover art by Carly A-F: against the blackness of space, a lone astronaut sits at their console, which drifts into the heavens in multicolored pixels. Blurbs by Emma Cole and Ide Hennessey.
November 14, 2025 at 7:53 PM
mattblairstone.bsky.social
I'm actually not overly prone to impulse purchases but when you are cassette tape sequel to the first Stygian Bough album which is prolly the best doom album of the past I dunno how many years decades? then you get impulse bought🖤☠️
Stygian Bough Volume II cassette tape by BELL WITCH and AERIAL RUIN
November 14, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
alexwoodroe.com
"...unsettling and immersive sci-fi thriller. Readers will be on the edges of their seats."

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BABY

www.publishersweekly.com/9781787589186
The Night Ship Alex Woodroe. Flame Tree, $26.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-787589-18-6 Woodroe (Whisperwood) expertly maintains suspense throughout this unsettling and immersive sci-fi thriller about an apocalyptic event in 1987 Romania. Heroine Rosi has “made it a point of survival to think as little as possible about... goings-on beyond what was strictly in front of her.” She’s taken advantage of the logging truck used by her fiancé, Gigi, to facilitate her smuggling business. On a routine excursion in that vehicle, the pair pick up a hitchhiker, Sorin, who claims to be a philosophy student, though Rosi soon comes to suspect that he is a government informant, if not actually a member of the country’s notorious secret police. Before she can test this theory, darkness falls like a physical force from the sky and “swallows the world.” In this new pitch blackness, segments of once solid ground are replaced by an inky substance that drags down all objects that land in it. With the truck’s cabin one of the only safe refuges, this unlikely trio set out to make sense of what’s happened and rescue survivors. Woodroe parcels out reveals about the nature of the dark void gradually but effectively. Readers will be on the edges of their seats. (Jan.)
November 13, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
From today's newsletter:

"Not as many people will read DEAR STUPID PENPAL as *should*. But the ones who do? Get ready to hear them talking about it a whole lot, for a long time to come. This book changes people. It changed me."

Preorder @rascalhartley.bsky.social's debut:
store.tenebrouspress.com
Cover art by Carly A-F: against the blackness of space, a lone astronaut sits at their console, which drifts into the heavens in multicolored pixels. TEXT: LOST. LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME. FRIENDS & LOVED ONES GONE. BUT SOMEHOW, HE IS STILL THERE. AND ALWAYS WILL BE. Blurb: "Veer from funny to dread-inducing and back again...sits alongside THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR as a blueprint for compelling, propulsive, gorgeous [fiction]." -Emma Cole, Love Never Dies, editor at Harlequin Books An epistolary Cosmic Sci-Horror November 2025 from Tenebrous Press.
November 6, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Hails to The Line-Up!
They agree that @rascalhartley.bsky.social's DEAR STUPID PENPAL is a must-read.

This unique blend of sci-fi, cosmic horror, buddy comedy & romance is one of the best things you'll read all...ever.

Out next Tuesday, order now here:
store.tenebrouspress.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
This person mos def wins the coveted Sexiest Tenebrous Cultist of the Day.

But share & share alike, we always say; this is a title that can be proudly paraded by multiple folks at once!

So: who else wants to be Sexiest Tenebrous Cultist of the Day? You know what to do🖤☠️
store.tenebrouspress.com
Part one of a big ol' order from our webstore. Part the deux.
November 6, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
This is gonna be great. @spicycloaca.bsky.social is a Brave New Weird award winner, an incredible writer, & a hell of an interior art designer for THE SKULL & LAUREL magazines to boot🖤☠️
cursedmorsels.bsky.social Cursed Morsels @cursedmorsels.bsky.social · 18d
A little preview of how fucking cool Gore Poetics is going to be. Can't wait to publish this one next year.
A fraternity massacre births rewritten history, a supernatural entity, and a survivor obsessed with both. Two bog bodies ponder their star-crossed love. A chronically ill house consumes its unwilling, equally unwell tenant. A housewife discovers she's made of several million ticks—but only after they leak from her new nipple piercings. The stories in Gore Poetics explore intimacy and annihilation through visceral, wet prose. Samir Sirk Morató makes a name for themself as a master of strange, erotic, and transgressive horror in this stunning debut collection.
November 7, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
2025 so far:

💀3 issues o'Weird shorts
💀Dystopian Feminist Sci-Fi
💀Freaky Novelettes of Loss & Rebirth
💀Indigenous Supernatural Chiller
💀Cronenbergian Phantasmagoria Mindfuck
💀Best New Weird Horror of the Year
💀Eco-Body-Coral Horror
💀Tarot-themed Terror

Get some Tenebrous🖤☠️
store.tenebrouspress.com
10 10p titles from 2025, all in a row.
November 7, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
jacymorris.bsky.social
Blurb, blur, blurb. Blurb is the word. Here's part of a killer blurb from @mattblairstone.bsky.social Matt Blairstone, Cult Leader over at @tenebrouspress.bsky.social Also, got a bit of a promo video for One-Shot in the comments. Click that link, maybe buy a book, maybe get weird with me.
November 6, 2025 at 7:50 PM
mattblairstone.bsky.social
Dudes who can’t get hired anywhere else and took the worst possible lessons from cosplay💀

theonion.com/ice-agent-7-...
ICE Agent, 7-Year-Old Both Wearing Same ‘Military Commando’ Halloween Costume
theonion.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
Also, oh hey bookstores and shop owners! If you wanna carry Tenebrous books without all the hidden markups that In**amSp**k adds, all the deets are here:

tenebrouspress.com/wholesaledis...

Better % for you; better % for us and our authors🖤☠️
October 31, 2025 at 5:39 PM
mattblairstone.bsky.social
Most of my life has been in restaurants, at every level, from dishwasher to rat catcher to general manager.
There is sooo little money in restaurants. That it’s falling to them to feed this country for free should shame both worthless political parties.

www.wweek.com/food/2025/10...
More Portland Restaurants Offer Free Meals During SNAP Shutdown
Options now include Cafe Olli, Grassa, Laughing Planet and more.
www.wweek.com
October 31, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
tenebrouspress.bsky.social
🎃HALLOWEEN READS🎃

Cuz books don't have expiration dates

@jolietoomajan.bsky.social & @carsonwinter.bsky.social's POSTHASTE MANOR takes you on a tour of the most f%&ked up haunted house imaginable. Think HAUSU (Japan, 1977) but middle America

Art @slimyswampghost.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/28ez4hb6
Cover art by Trevor Henderson, featuring a half dog-half rat looming over a foreboding manor; trope list includes: HOMICIDAL HOMES & GARDENS TORTURED ARTISTS (DECEASED) SO. MANY. DEAD. HUSBANDS. KINKY SWINGERS (DECEASED) NOSY REPAIRMEN (DECEASED) ARE YOU DOG OR RAT?
October 29, 2025 at 5:47 PM
mattblairstone.bsky.social
My latest cover for Tenebrous. Definitely had some Carpenter Brut rattling around in my skull while working on it.

ALSO: my commissions are OPEN again.

Indie publishers, indie authors: I'm keen to get you unique art for your project that won't break the bank.

DMs are open🖤☠️
tenebrouspress.bsky.social Tenebrous Press @tenebrouspress.bsky.social · 27d
Check out the cover to BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror (+ More) Vol. 4, out June 2026!

🔥And then go grab a copy of this year's Vol. 3 at 20% off from our webstore through the weekend🔥

store.tenebrouspress.com/products/bra...

Art by @mattblairstone.bsky.social
Cover art by Matt Blairstone. Stark red on black art, the flesh is dissolved from the upper body of a male figure, revealing the skeleton beneath. His right fleshy hand is on a book bearing the Tenebrous logo; his left skeleton arm is thrust into the air and transforms into a death's head moth. In the background is a cityscape of tall skyscrapers and a behemoth pyramid dwarfing them. Text: BRAVE NEW WEIRD: THE BEST NEW WEIRD HORROR + MORE VOL. 4, EDITED BY ALEX WOODROE It's just like that episode of Seinfeld that they don't air anymore. You know the one.
October 29, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Matt Blairstone
alexwoodroe.com
If you're a reviewer and willing to do a girl a solid, there's definitely something on this list for calls for reviews that would treat you right.
And also there's my hoodlum of a book

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/02/c...
Calls for Reviews & Essays: January 2026
The Ancillary Review of Books publishes reviews and essays with an emphasis on utopian impulses and systemic injustices. ARB seeks to build a community of radical thinkers writing about amazing, sp…
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org
October 28, 2025 at 8:08 PM