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COVER ART REVEAL: Static Screams by Nico Bell
Cover Art: Static Screams by Nico Bell
Publication Date: March 6, 2024
I’m thrilled to share the cover art to my new sci-fi horror novella scheduled for release March 6, 2024! Thank you to the talented A.A. Medina at Fabled Beast Design for making this image!
Carmen is on the brink of insanity. Her untethered mind twists reality into a nightmare filled with relentless hallucinations. Despite countless doctors, she can’t escape her delusions brought forth by her tragic past.
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Enter Dr. Barbara MacDonald, a brilliant psychologist proposing an innovative and experimental treatment program. Dr. Barbara ignites the last flicker of hope within Carmen, but hope is a double edged sword as the doctor has her own sinister motives.
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Darkness and deception converge, forcing Carmen to choose: surrender to the weight of her trauma or unravel Dr. Barbara’s menacing intentions before it’s too late.
Publication Date: March 6, 2024
My Mental Illness, My Broken Brain, and My New Etsy Shop!
How it all connects:
I have no idea what’s wrong with me. In 2008, I was formally diagnosed with anxiety and depression, put on medication, and started therapy. Later, I battled my eating disorder through two weeks of outpatient treatment and two years of private therapy. Then, my brain broke. Well, I think it was always broken, but due to years of therapy, I now had the agency and vocabulary to express that what I was going through wasn’t “normal.” It was simply my normal.
My mind is a hamster running on her wheel. It’s a million ants crawling under my skin. It’s a never ending nightmare factory that keeps me from sleeping. It also fuels obsessive hobbies. I have no idea what the official diagnosis would be for my brain. One therapist said with great certainty that I have ADHD. A week later, another therapist said with complete resolve that I don’t have ADHD. Autism? I wouldn’t be surprised. Bipolar? I don’t know. I’ve lived with this my whole life, and, honestly, I’m at the point where I think it might just be for the best if I accept it and embrace the positive side of things.
Enter my obsessive hobby of embroidery. I’ve been doing it for years and it’s taken over my house. I have finished hoop art hanging on the walls, propped up on my writing desk, and even displayed in the bathroom. They’re literally outnumbering creatures in the house five to one.
So, I’ve started an Etsy shop! It’s called Bury Your Thread and it has a variety of spooky, sci-fi-, abstract, pop culture, and holiday work. I’m going to be adding more and more as time goes on, but the initial inventory is up! It’s all newly created as my anxiety has been on high alert lately and my hands need to do something, so these designs are all freshly conjured from my brain!
I’m still working out how Etsy works, so there may be a few hiccups at first. Thank you for your patience!
If you want to see what mental illness looks like for me, check out my Etsy shop!
https://buryyourthread.etsy.com
Stoker Eligible Works by Nico Bell
Stoker Eligible Stories
It’s that time of year! Writers nervously get their eligible stories organized and ready to release into the world in hopes someone will like them enough to nominate them for an award.
Like many authors, it’s my dream to win a Bram Stoker Award, which is arguably the most coveted in the horror writing industry. I’ve never been nominated. I’ve never had a book on the recommended reading list, but I’ll never stop hoping!
With that said, here are my eligible stories. Note that my scifi horror novella Static will also be eligible, but it doesn’t come out until October.
If anything looks interesting and you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, email me (nicobellfiction@gmail.com) and I’ll send you a free copy! Also, I will be reading each of the short fiction pieces and excerpts from Open House on my Substack podcast in the coming weeks, so make sure you head over there and sign up for updates!
Realtor Caleb Birch is on the precipice of earning everything he’s ever dreamed: a partner position at his prestigious realty firm, financial stability that would make his mother proud, and a respectable professional reputation amongst Los Angeles’s wealthy and elite. All he has to do is nail his open house and secure a contract. Enter a mysterious woman with an air of familiarity claiming to be the perfect buyer. Her ruse dissolves revealing nefarious intentions and a twisted game that Caleb must win to survive the night. But she isn’t the only threat lurking behind closed doors. There are skeletons in the closet, and they’re coming out to play.
Open House is eligible for the LONG FICTION category.
Originally featured in Ooze: Little Bursts of Body Horror
Body horror is best when it comes in little bursts. In this novella-length collection full of gross, grimy, creepy, crawly, bubbling, bursting fun, what you'll be surprised by is how much heart and story can be packed into such small packages. With twenty up-and-coming authors putting forth their best short works of body horror, be prepared to be smacked in the face with a combination of the classic and the new. There's plenty that you hope for when you pick up a book of body horror---transformation, dissolution, decay---but there are also a delightful number of heartfelt and surprising twists on the idea. Every story is under 2,500 words and many are shorter.
Chrysalis is a seeping menopause story about the power of joyful transformation and eligible for the SHORT FICTION category.
Originally published in HorrorScope: A Zodiac Anthology
Aries. Taurus. Gemini. Cancer. Leo. Virgo. Libra. Scorpio. Sagittarius. Capricorn. Aquarius. Pisces.
It is said that destiny is determined by the stars. The signs of the Zodiac can predict who you’ll love, who you’ll hate, and who you’ll become. But the fates written in the stars are not always kind. Sometimes, they’re terrifying.
In Horrorscopes, you will find 36 dark fantasy poems and short stories all inspired by the Zodiac Signs. Within these pages, you’ll face killer goats, twisted twins and deadly fishies. So, open this book, if you dare, and pray that you weren’t born under a bad sign.
The One Who Came to Save Her is a devious folk horror about revenge and eligibly for the SHORT FICTION category.
To recommend a work for the Stoker Award:
Go to HWA website.
Open the Members Only link.
Log In
Click the red “Recommend Work” button on the right panel.
Publication Day! Open House by Nico Bell
Open House by Nico Bell
It’s publication day! Thank you so much to PyschoToxin Press for giving me this opportunity!
Interview with Horror Author Yolanda Sfetsos
Interview with Yolanda Sfetsos, author of Suffer the Darkness
1. What was the inspiration behind your new book?
The idea for this story started with a simple premise: what if a mother’s desperate need to find her missing daughter becomes a nightmare capable of destroying her family? And then morphed into: what would happen if the girl who came back wasn’t the same as the one who disappeared? Sometimes, what you wish for the most can turn out to be a total nightmare. I wanted to explore the darkest paths of these two scenarios.
2. You described your novella as 'a small-town tale about a desperate mother's attempt to protect her family from her apathetic eldest daughter', can you expand on that?
Molly is a teenager who goes missing in the woods and when she comes back, her mother, Kae, slowly starts to realise that something isn’t quite right. But having her back home is everything she wanted... until it’s not. And actually becomes a dark descent into the monstrous unknown connected to an old urban legend about the woods in their town.
3. If you were only allowed three adjectives to describe your book, what would they be?
I’d definitely have to say: tragic, distressing and unforseen.
4. What came first Molly, the grieving mother, or the creepy woods?
For me, it always starts with the creepy woods. Then Molly turned up, and I wanted to tell her story. Until I actually started writing and discovered that this was going to be her mother’s dark tale. One that pushes her love to the limits.
5. If your book was made into a movie, who would play the leads?
Author Yolanda Sfetsos
Oh, wow. You know, I didn’t think about this until you asked. But I think Rachel McAdams would make a great Kae, Paul Rudd could definitely be Roy, and Kiernan Shipka would make a terrific Molly.
6. Are you a plotter, a pantser, or a combination of both?
I’m definitely a pantser, but I take a LOT of notes. Sometimes, when I start writing I only know the beginning, other times I know exactly where everything is going. Writing a story is always such an exciting, daunting, and magical experience. I love every minute of it and always look forward to that moment when everything clicks into place.
7. Authors always have the best (and most disturbing!) Google search histories. What kind of research, if any, did you do for this book?
I did quite a bit of research about the myths and folklore surrounding creatures/demons that live in the woods. It’s quite the rabbit hole and the more I read, the more my own myth started to come together. I also had to look up the dates for 2014 and 2015 that I was using, as well as the weather. A lot of boring details that were essential for me to know/double check.
8. How much research do you do for your stories?
I actually do quite a bit of research before I even sit down to start writing. And then, I usually have to do another round of research during the revision because other things come up. Or new things pop up that need to be checked. I’ve definitely looked up some pretty strange and even questionable things in the past. But hey, I write horror so that’s expected, right? 😬
You can visit Yolanda’s website at www.yolandasfetsos.com to find out the latest news or catch up on her blog posts. You can also find her on Twitter https://twitter.com/yolandasfetsos/.
Suffer the Darkness will be released by DarkLit Press on June 18, 2023.
COVER REVEAL! Open House, New Horror Novella
It’s time for a COVER REVEAL
Check out the amazing cover of my new book Open House available 6/15/2023 by PsychoToxin Press. It’ll be up on Amazon and other major sites where books are sold!
Realtor Caleb Birch is on the precipice of earning everything he’s ever dreamed: a partner position at his prestigious realty firm, financial stability that would make his mother proud, and a respectable professional reputation amongst Los Angeles’s wealthy and elite. All he has to do is nail his open house and secure a contract. Enter a mysterious woman with an air of familiarity claiming to be the perfect buyer. Her ruse dissolves revealing nefarious intentions and a twisted game that Caleb must win to survive the night. But she isn’t the only threat lurking behind closed doors. There are skeletons in the closet, and they’re coming out to play
Interview with Author Laura Nettles
Interview with Laura Nettles
1. Congratulations on your newest release! Can you please tell us a little about it?
Thank you so much! “Tiny Shivers” is a horror collection of 101 stories divided up into horror subgenres: Cosmic Slithers, Terrors of the Mundane, Angels and Demons, The Seeping Supernatural, Twisted Psychology, Shadowy Gothic, Mutated Sci-fi, and Holiday Food Horror. Fourteen of these stories were previously published in anthologies, magazines, and publisher’s Patreons. It’s my book baby of two and a half years of work. Tales range from short stories to flash fictions to drabbles.
2. What inspired this project?
I had written my first novel (a YA sci-fi, now shelved), and was looking to improve my writing. I came across an interview with Sacha Black where she promoted her book “The Anatomy of Prose.” I devoured it and it changed my life. One of the exercises in the book is to write flash fiction to reiterate faster and focus on the revision aspects, making every word count. I did it. A horror flash about Cthulhu flowed from my fingers and I realized I loved writing horror. Never looked back since. I submitted my stories left, right, and center. After five months and two days I had my first publishing credit in “Shiver: A Chilling Horror Anthology.” I kept going and eventually wanted to release a collection of my own where my stories were all together. As of today, I have twenty-eight stories published in various anthologies. Many of these will be available in my second collection once I have enough horror to fill another volume.
3. I know this is tough, but if you had to pick ONLY ONE of your Tiny Shivers stories to be expanded and made into either a full book or a movie, which story would you pick and why?
I would pick my short story “Tentacles and Boomboxes” for a movie adaptation. It’s a 1980s Lovecraftian LARP gone terribly, terribly wrong. Or right… depending on who/what you are. There is a limited cast of five characters in this version, but I could see it being expanded with more parts to play. More obstacles and locations for our characters to explore on page/screen utilizing the talents of the players. More LARP prop creatures with reflective eyes to unsettle, and make you question reality. By heightening the unease, the real ones will seem all the scarier by the end. Would love to see a new rendition of a Necronomicon, this one made by a college art major. There is already the iconic Evil Dead version, but there’s always room for more iterations. I think the twist could be fun to experience with an audience together. If I had my way, the fx would be practical with cg enhancements. Make it feel more real for the actors and bring the unreal into our physical world.
4. When did you first develop a love for horror and science fiction?
I was a terrified child. Goosebumps was banned in my parent’s house after one episode shown in elementary school gave me nightmares. The one with the plant in the basement replacing the dad. Terrifying. A babysitter put on The Birds when I was six, which also scarred me. Grew up loving Star Wars and then discovered Doctor Who in high school. Dipped my toes back into horror with Abbott and Castello Meet Frankenstein, and then the remake of When a Stranger Calls. Also did the right of passage and watched Psycho. I’d say my love of horror blossomed in college with the German Expressionist part of my film history class. Nosferatu and its shadows drew me in, the painted lighting on sets and actors for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari fascinated me, and wonky sets with no straight lines set my mind alight. Then, all the Universal classic monsters opened that world up. Klaus Kinski as the vampire in the German remake of Nosferatu entranced me. I also watched films like A Haunting in Connecticut, Insidious and The Conjuring. Loved them all.
After college, I discovered the world of Junji Ito and fell in love. The way mundane things like spirals could be cosmically horrifying blew my mind. I wanted to think outside the box as well. Horror was more than just jump scares and pulling the sound out of a scene. I’ve since expanded into reading PTSD Radio as well by Masaaki Nakayama. It’s expanded my mind. These two authors have inspired my love of the drawn horrors. I want to illustrate comic versions of some of my drabbles because of them. So inspiring.
5. When did you first decide to become a writer?
I came late to the writing world. I always thought if I were to be involved in books, it would be as an illustrator. I dabbled in fan fiction in college, but nothing serious. That was, until I heard of this thing called NaNoWriMo in 2018. I made a plot embryo for a YA sci-fi in October and wrote a 51k first draft the next month. It was magical. It was like a part of me I had never known was starting to blossom. I knew then I did not want to give up writing. The high of writing “The End.” It was during the revision process in August 9th, 2020 I found “The Anatomy of Prose” by Sacha Black and turned my hand to short horror fiction in an exercise. I realized what I could do with very few words: the feelings I could invoke, the imagery I could conjure. The rest is history.
6. As well as being an author, you’re a podcaster! Can you please tell us a little about your podcast?
My podcast is Twisted Tendrils: Horrific Writing Advice. It’s a passion project where I give tips on writing horror and interview authors. It’s been on hiatus for a while, but I have two episodes in the can I should be releasing in the coming weeks. I go over things like literary techniques that can be utilized to enhance horror, different horror sub-genres you may want to try and explore, varying sentence types and structures, the concept of healing through horror, and more.
7. Writing shorter fiction may be daunting to some aspiring writers. What tips would you give authors looking to write drabbles?
For a drabble, my advice is focus on a single pivotal moment. A moment of transformation: a birth, death, physical transformation, mental change, absorption, execution of a plan, feeding, etc. Keep the characters limited. Three individuals absolute tops. One or two is better. A mob or group of unnamed count as one. Stick to a single location. Use architypes for shorthand to save on words setting up the scene. (Just say they are a solider wearing a worn but well-kept uniform, not necessarily what rank in what platoon, of which country, waring what type of uniform who had so-and-so for a commander back in the day who railed on them if their shoes weren’t buffed to a shine.) Don’t spend days on backstory or world building, it won’t come through with that limited of a word count. Sometimes I don’t even know my character’s gender, only how their face feels as it freezes in space.
I find something to spark the story idea. It’s usually a prompt/theme for an anthology, a painting, or a single word I weave around. Research can help. If the theme is “Christmas horror” look up folklore surrounding the holiday and see if it sparks anything. Look at images, listen to music or ambience.
Read drabbles to see how others have done it in the past. You can break the mold, but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel at the same time. Study. Experiment with different literary techniques. Have fun! It will only take about half an hour to write it, so throw caution to the wind and go wild. The worst that can happen is you learn what didn’t work for you at that moment and start on a new one. Build up your back catalogue. Push the boundaries of your comfort zone. Make every word fight for its existence in the final edit. Get beta reader feedback. Take a chance and submit to publishers!
8. Do you have a dream podcast guest? Maybe a favorite author?
Dream podcast guest. Either Junji Ito or Masaaki Nakayama. I love both their work so much. I would need an interpreter though as I am just starting to learn Japanese. Their command of the page turn scare is immaculate. Making you not want to see what’s next, yet needing to all the same. Then you turn the page and are horrified and entranced at the same time by their depiction of what you did not want to visualize. Chef’s kiss.
9. Where can readers learn more about you?
My website has a running list with links for where I’m published. You can catch me live on YouTube sometimes as well (my channel is Laura Nettles). I document my writing journey and get things done with other author friends. If you’re interested in my day job, I have an IMDb page for all the movies I’ve lit visual effects for. I’ve worked on a few Del Toro projects, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and more. If you wish to reach out to me, my Instagram DMs are open at nettles.animation, or my contact form on my website.
To buy Tiny Shivers, check out Amazon!
A Bleak Remedy by DS LaLonde Book Review
LaLonde twists the vampire lore into a thrilling biotech genre mashup. A secret lab harbors world's greatest predator: a vampire. The scientists are fascinating with this creature's ability to rejuvenate quickly and decide to study him in hopes of developing medical advancements for humanity. What could possibly go wrong?
This large ensemble scifi horror has many compelling moments. The action, fight scenes, and terror leap off the page and there is a desire to keep reading and discover how all the elements will eventually peace together; however, some readers will be daunted by the length. This isn't a quick read. In fact, it's upward of 500 pages, and when a book is that long, it's only natural to ask, "is every word essential?" Unfortunately, the answer for many will be no. While there's no denying that this is a fun premise with memorable moments, there is also a lot of background information and meticulous details (readers don't necessarily need to know everyone's outfits or what they're eating for lunch) that some readers will find a tad laborious to the reading experience.
Still, others will enjoy the opportunity to sink into a clever and imaginative twist on a familiar villain. The plethora of characters means there's someone for every reader to connect with and plenty of external and emotional stakes. Perhaps if it were streamlined just a bit, it would appeal to a larger audience, but for those who enjoy slow burns and hefty word counts, this is a dynamic and entertaining vampire tale!
BOOK CONTRACT SIGNED!
OPEN HOUSE COMING JUNE 2023
My haunted house horror novella entitled Open House will be published June 2023 by PsychToxin Press!
Caleb is a Realtor on his way to becoming a self-made millionaire. He has worked hard to leave his troubled youth in the rearview mirror. Enter a mysterious woman with her own wicked agenda. She shows up at his open house asking all the right questions, but something feels off. Before Caleb can pinpoint what it is, he finds himself locked in the home and at her mercy. To be set free, he must battle his inner demons, but Caleb isn't as innocent as he looks. The deadly truth will come out and someone is going to pay.
