New Issue! Book 23! New Ghost Story Writing Workshops!

Dear Reader, 

Welcome to the strange and haunting world of Book 23! It is always a fascinating process reading through the submissions each time we open. It gives us a small glimpse into the consciousness and worries of humankind at the time. We had many submissions concerned with war, gun crime and AI. Unsurprisingly, these are topics on our doorsteps, flooding newsfeeds and social media. These things are bleeding into our creative consciousness whether we like it or not. Of the stories that were selected, organic themes occurred: grief, ritual and female relationships are predominant. But also imagined futures and the terror and ethics of advancing technology. Horror is everywhere, it feels inescapable sometimes. But as awful as real life can be, when we apply these existential anxieties to our creative process, a kind of dark magic – or conjuring happens. In that little prickle of unease, comes a resolution, a new perspective and a deeper understanding of a messed up World. We have thoroughly enjoyed putting this issue together and we really hope you enjoy what follows… 

In ‘The Bell Witch’ by Ella Newell, bereaved sisters become the focus of a dreadful speculation that their mother is a witch, causing harm and death to her own kin and community. Is she really just a bereaved and desperate woman? And what is that black dog-like creature seen at the edge of the forest whose footsteps skirt the threshold of their house? In ‘The Choir Loft’ by Henry Martin, a church warden hears footsteps up above in the choir loft – a place that should be inaccessible, shut off after a tragic accident 12 years earlier. In Steven Sheil’s tale, ‘The Sun, The Sea and the Shore’, Cassie, a good swimmer, on a family holiday at the beach, leaves her husband and sons on the beach to go for a swim but soon becomes disorientated by what she can see on the shoreline. No sign of her family any more, except their lone beach umbrella. Have they really just left her out there, and how long has she been? ‘Lost and Found’ by E.J. Braithwaite is a short and terrifying tale of guilt and the ghost that simply won’t let you leave without it… Catrin Kean’s story ‘Queen’ is a tale of grief and friendship where the supernatural weaves itself into the natural world and the story sings with a haunting and uncanny magic. In ‘Holy Thursday’ by Mario Senzale, each year, on Holy Thursday, a gargoyle on the church comes alive. The townsfolk must placate it with an ‘offering’ but surely not little Lucy’s older brother? In Benjamin Brittain Wignall’s story ‘Ms. Rachel’s Replacement Organs’, Mary Kennedy gets the job offer of her dreams, to work for geneticist, Josef Morrow, growing artificial human tissue, quickly and cheaply. Excited that all her studies were not in vain, she goes to her interview, where she realises exactly how this human tissue is growing. In ‘Cradle to Grave’ by K.E. Redmond, a photographer is asked to take some ‘product’ shots for a businessman selling ‘body doubles’ called Matthew’s Mannequins, and this one, seems a little too real… In Allison Pottern’s story, ‘Soul Candle, Living Light’, the only surviving daughter in a family gripped by grief, is haunted by the spirits of her dead siblings. When her mother gives birth to a baby girl who starts to display symptoms of a terrible sickness, she undertakes a powerful ritual to try to help her sister to live. 

To order your copy HERE

And finally, there are still spaces on May’s ghost story writing workshop on Sunday 24th 4-6pm BST. For this session we will be looking at the techniques and methods of Sheridan Le Fanu and and M.R James for creating truly spine chilling ghost stories! Join us if you dare… !

Click HERE to book.

Rebecca Parfitt 

Editor 

The Ghastling