What Screams May Come: The Day of the Door by Laurel Hightower

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The Day Of The Door by Laurel Hightower
A Ghoulish Books Publication (April 2024)

cover of The Day of the DoorThe Synopsis

Once there were four Lasco siblings banded together against a world that failed to protect them. But on a hellish night that marked the end of their childhood, eldest brother Shawn died violently after being dragged behind closed doors. Though the official finding was accidental death, Nathan Lasco knows better, and has never forgiven their mother, Stella.

Now, two decades later, Stella promises to finally reveal the truth of what happened on The Day of the Door. Accompanied by a paranormal investigative team, the Lasco family comes together one final time, but no one is prepared for the revelations waiting for them on the third floor.Continue Reading

Kang Tae-kyung on Webtoons and The Bequeathed

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Kang Tae-kyung is the pen name for two creators, Kang and Tae-kyung, who have published multiple webtoons, including their horror title The Bequeathed. Webtoons are comics from South Korea that can be read digitally, and they’re becoming more popular globally and in America. The live-action show The Bequeathed, from award-winning writer and director Yeon Sang-ho, is currently on Netflix, and he worked with Kang Tae-kyung to also make a webtoon version of this creepy story about murder and secrets. Cemetery Dance spoke to Kang Tae-kyung about their background, why they think webtoons are good at conveying horror stories, and how they approach getting horror across. Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: No One Is Safe from Philip Fracassi

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No One Is Safe! by Philip Fracassi
Lethe Press (April 2024)

cover of No One Is Safe!The Synopsis

No One is Safe! presents fourteen stories of macabre, pulpy terror — a book filled with futuristic noir mysteries, science fiction thrillers, alien invasions, and old-school horror tales that will keep you up late into the night. Inside these covers, you’ll discover haunted dream journals and evil houses, birthday wishes gone wrong, a neighborhood cat that cures any disease, a flesh-eating beach, and mysterious skeletons on a hidden moon base. You’ll meet wise-cracking detectives, suburban vampires, murdered movie stars, and monsters of the deep. Don’t get too attached to the characters you’ll meet on these pages because anything can happen, and no one is safe.Continue Reading

Night Time Logic with Dan Franklin

Night Time Logic with Daniel Braum

“Ghosts. Monsters. And Things that Linger.”

photo of author Dan Franklin
Dan Franklin

Night Time Logic is the part of a story that is felt but not consciously processed. 

In this column I explore the phenomenon of Night Time Logic and the strange and uncanny side of horror and dark fiction through in-depth conversation with authors. 

My short story collection with Cemetery Dance is titled The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales in homage to Robert Aickman’s strange tales. It can be found here

 In February 2024 I spoke with Cemetery Dance’s own Dan Franklin about his new book, ghosts, monsters, folklore, and much more. You can tune into our conversation here on YouTube.

Franklin’s newest novel These Things Linger is out now from Cemetery Dance. We begin our conversation here at the very, very beginning of the book…Continue Reading

The Cemetery Dance Interview: Stephen Mark Rainey

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Stephen Mark Rainey

Writing from Martinsville, Virginia, Stephen Mark Rainey (that’s Mark to his friends, peers, and others who he doesn’t owe money to) is the author of over 200 short stories, some of which are available as collections (Other Gods, Fugue Devil: Resurgence) and the editor of the award-winning magazine, Deathrealm (1987-1997). Rainey is also the editor of a few fine anthologies such as Evermore, The Song of Cthulhu, and Deathrealm: Spirits, which is the book that prompted me to chase him down and ask nicely to corner him for his remarkable knowledge of our beloved horror genre.

Rainey did not disappoint and satiated my curiosity, at least for now, about how the tides of the horror industry has changed, the significance of having Deathrealm back in the spotlight, how he managed to rally today’s most esteemed and promising authors writing today under one unified literary roof, and a whole lot more worth leaning forward in your seat for.
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The Cemetery Dance Interview: Stephen Graham Jones

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When we opened the first pages of Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart Is a Chainsaw back in 2021, we fell in love with Jade Daniels, Graham’s perfect vision of teenage imperfection. She was scrappy and self-deprecating yet willfully too smart for her own good; her encyclopedic brain for horror trivia featured an artist’s instinct to hyper-relate the genre to the world at large. But growing up in a small doomtown like Proofrock, Idaho, is not a large world. Rather, it’s a suffocating microcosm of our crumbling society where the walls are closing in, largely to the fault of her own imagination and the occult boundaries her mind crosses to materialize various personifications of said doom.

Stephen Graham Jones
(Photo by Gary Isaacs)

Then through 2022’s Don’t Fear the Reaper, we grew up with Jade, only to realize the more things change, the more they stay the same, even while the body count of Proofrock’s finite population rose with the tide of that cursed lake. All the while there’s a serial killer named Dark Mill South who seemed only a red herring, where even after his capture, he kept escaping; all the while paling in comparison to something untouchable under the surface of everything.

And when we commit to surviving something like Graham’s brilliant trilogy, even in the beginning, you’re already dreading the ending. And because of the inherent gravity of heartbreak, we knew there would have to be a finale for the finest final girl, Jade Daniels. In The Angel of Indian Lake, the third and last installment of the Indian Lake Trilogy, Graham successfully ties up every loose end, like serpents slithering down our neck, shedding from multiple real time eternities from the condensed Savage History of Proofrock. 

And now it’s all history, just like that?

I had to ask the man.Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: Bill Mullen’s THE THING IN THE WIND

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The Thing In The Wind by Bill Mullen
Crystal Lake Publishing (April 5, 2024)

cover of The Thing in the WindThe Synopsis

A woman who has found her place in the world has it overturned by news of her mother’s disappearance in a remote region of northern Saskatchewan. She, her father, and a small group set out to find answers about how and why her mother and colleague disappeared and are suspected to be dead, all the while being haunted by dreams, premonitions, and a strange presence of something stalking them…something not human.Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: Richard Farren Barber’s ONE OF THE DEAD

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One Of The Dead by Richard Farren Barber
Crystal Lake Entertainment (March 18th, 2024)

The Synopsis

cover of One of the DeadTerror doesn’t stumble and moan—it walks silently among us, cloaked in the guise of the overlooked. 

Nick, burdened with the rare ability to see these dead predators for what they truly are, faces a nightmare when his girlfriend, Abby, becomes ensnared by their sinister intent.

These are not your typical undead. They blend in, their appearances mirroring the forgotten faces of society, making their predatory nature all the more chilling. A touch is all it takes for them to latch onto their prey, draining life in a way that leaves the body walking but the spirit doomed.

As Abby becomes the focus of such a being’s obsession, Nick is drawn into a desperate struggle not just for her life, but for her very soul. Their fight for survival takes them from the deceptive safety of city streets to the foreboding quiet of a cemetery, where the boundary between the living and those claimed by the shadowy grasp of the dead becomes perilously thin.

One of The Dead weaves a tale not of a zombie apocalypse, but of a quiet invasion, a creeping horror that targets the heart. It’s a story of love tested by unfathomable forces, of a battle against an enemy that never rests, never forgives, and never ceases its pursuit until you become one of its own.Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: Owen King’s THE CURATOR

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The Curator by Owen King
Gauntlet Press(limited/signed editions)/Scribner & Schuster (March 2024)

The Synopsis:

cover of The Curator It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest,” distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.

Dora, a former domestic servant at the university, has a secret desire — to understand the mystery of her brother’s death, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum — only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be. Set against the backdrop of an oddly familiar and wondrous city on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth will unravel a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.Continue Reading

WE’RE NOT OURSELVES TODAY: A Chat with Jill Girardi

cover of We're Not Ourselves TodayJill Girardi is no stranger to horror. She runs the independent publisher Kandisha Press, which so far has put out five volumes of Women of Horror Anthology series, among other titles. Her latest work is We’re Not Ourselves Today, a pulp anthology featuring short stories by Girardi and fellow horror writer Lydia Prime. Cemetery Dance spoke to Girardi about the stories in We’re Not Ourselves Today, her horror influences, and what’s going on with Kandisha Press. Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: John Durgin’s KOSA

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Kosa by John Durgin
Dark Lit Press (May 17th, 2024)

The Synopsis

cover of KosaIn a secluded mansion hidden away from the outside world, young Kosa lives under the strict and overpowering rule of her enigmatic mother. For Kosa, the rules set by Mother are the guiding principles of her life, shaping her beliefs and actions. She has been sheltered from the truth about the world beyond the confines of their home, conditioned to fear the darkness and malevolence that supposedly lurks outside.

However, as Kosa grows older, she begins to question the reality she has been presented with. Doubts eat away at her, fueled by a deep-rooted curiosity and a burgeoning sense of independence.Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: John Urbancik’s STALE REALITY

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John Urbancik

Stale Reality by John Urbancik
Dark Fluidity (March 26th, 2024)

The Synopsis

“What happens is, the world, everything we know, this thing we call Reality, it exists in our heads. It doesn’t really exist. And someone decided they didn’t like Reality. Or maybe not that they didn’t like it, but they wanted to try another. They wanted it so hard, Reality changed, and now we’re in their head. Not our own. See, their Reality shifted, and in it, you don’t exist. You just got left over.” Welcome to Kevin Nichols’ new Reality.Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: Jeff Strand’s IT WATCHES IN THE DARK (EEK!)

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It Watches in the Dark (Eek!) by Jeff Strand
Sourcebooks (April 2, 2024)

The synopsis:

cover of It Watches in the Dark (Eek!)“She glanced over her shoulder. Had the scarecrow moved? It stood there, smile stitched on its face, but now it felt like a smirk.”

Prepare to be scared silly in this creepy middle-grade novel! Twins seek medical help in a remote village after their father is in a canoeing accident…only to discover the scarecrow that stands watch in town may have a stronger hold over the residents than expected. Perfect for fans of R.L. Stine, Dan Poblocki, and Mary Downing Hahn.

Twins Oliver and Trisha love going on adventures with their dad. Canoeing and camping on the Champion River will be their best trip yet! But when they capsize in rapids, their father is knocked unconscious. Alone and without cell phone reception, their only choice is to continue down river for help.

Hours of paddling brings them to an old dock, and a narrow path leads them to a small village. The townspeople are kind and helpful, but strangely focused on the giant scarecrow in the village square. “He watches over us,” the twins are told in whispers. “He keeps us safe.”

An old woman warns the twins not to spend the night in the village. Not if they ever want to leave. But with the sun soon to set and their father not well enough to be moved, how can they escape? More importantly, can they survive?Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: MEAN SPIRITED by Nick Roberts

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Mean Spirited by Nick Roberts
Crystal Lake Publishing (March 15, 2024)

cover of Mean SpiritedThe Synopsis:

An alcoholic teacher and father’s world spirals out of control when a former student is killed and he is left with her dog and the dark presence that follows it.

Matt Matheny teaches during the day, drinks at night, and barely hides his functioning alcoholism from his veterinarian ex-wife, Lucy, and his six-year-old son, Mikey. His world spirals out of control when a former student is killed, and he’s left with her dog, Conehead. But something isn’t right with Conehead. A dark presence follows him, and very soon, people around him die. Matt realizes the only way to protect his son is to sober up and work with Lucy to expose the dog’s mysterious past and face a secret so shocking — an evil so relentless — that it threatens to unleash hell on an entire town.Continue Reading

The Cemetery Dance Interview: Kristopher Triana

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Kristopher Triana

Kristopher Triana is a Splatterpunk Award-winning author of extreme horror who needs no introduction — but I’ll give you a brief one here anyways. Author of such critically acclaimed fan favorites as Gone To See the Riverman (and it’s recent sequel, Along the River of Flesh), Full Brutal, The Ruin Season and That Night In the Woods, Triana is an animal-loving Connecticut writer you don’t want to miss. Although he also writes noir, crime, westerns. literary fiction, and is a columnist with Backwoods Survival Guide Magazine, this conversation centers around the soft spot I have for his particular brand of nightmare fuel. Fans of his work will be taken aback by the scope of his often traumatic, always heartfelt style of bringing us in his full throttle world of terror. Book after book, Triana continues to prove himself as a dependable curator of thought provoking, gut wrenching, ridiculously immersive and frightening stories any fan of this dark thing of ours is thrilled to get caught up and lost in.

Most recently, Triana was kind enough to let me pick about his evolution as an author, his proudest moments and a few morsels on how he does what he does so damn well. Continue Reading