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17 authors bring you 21 magnificent dark tales. Stories of magic, monsters and mayhem. Tales of murder and madness which will make your skin crawl. These are the tales that explore your darkest Midnight Garden... if you dare.
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Support Great Artists
Buy your copy of Midnight Garden or it will haunt you for the rest of the Halloween season!
Three lucky winners will receive a digital copy of Midnight Garden in a random drawing following the tour. All you have to do to enter is follow the tour and leave a comment at each stop that you visit.
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Paul Kane's Drip Feed
Inspiration for “Drip Feed” by Paul Kane
I had so much fun writing ‘The White Lady’ for Kaye’s previous anthology, Midnight Roost, that when the opportunity to write something else for the next one in the series cropped up, I put my thinking cap on about another one.
‘Drip Feed’ is sort of the spiritual cousin to a story I wrote over a decade ago now, called ‘Rag & Bone’ – or at least the beginning of it is. First published in The Butterfly Man from PS Publishing, that one got picked up for Best New Horror so I’ve been trying to think of how to do something similar for a while now (although the two stories ended up being nothing alike really).
‘Rag & Bone’ begins with the main character hanging around in what he thinks is a serial killer’s lair, which is the conclusion Daniele in ‘Drip Feed’ also leaps to here. Both have twists about what’s actually going on, of course – it’s never as simple as just a ‘serial killer’ in one of my horrors – but in this case it was sort of influenced by the surge in spiking people’s drinks these days. We saw something about it on breakfast TV and I figured it would be appropriate in this tale.
There are bits that are nods to certain movies, and if you read ‘Drip Feed’ you’ll understand what those are and why I can’t mention them; Daniele herself has seen the films and although she can’t remember the titles, you’ll get where she’s coming from, or at least I hope you will.
I wanted to do a tale this time that offers a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, instead of that just being a train coming to run you over. There’s a glimmer at any rate, and that won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t read it yet, because that’s not the full story by long chalk. The ending I think will still surprise you, as indeed it does Daniele.
It’s enjoyable sometimes to do a piece that’s self-contained. Something which, although a back history is hinted at, doesn’t contain huge amounts of mythology or whatever that you need to know. Just a beginning, middle and end. I also like doing stories that are circular, though I’m not entirely sure this one is. We definitely leave it in a place where things are going to continue on, but then that’s most tales anyway isn’t it – unless you end the world that is (and I’ve done that a few times too).
So sit back and read Daniele’s struggles to overcome her obstacles – her background, if not her predicament, are similar to mine; though in art and writing, rather than acting. Things are tough out there, and the only way to get through life is to become tougher.
If you can, that is.
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About Paul Kane
Paul Kane is the award-winning (including the British Fantasy Society’s Legends of FantasyCon Award 2022), bestselling author and editor of over a hundred and fifty books – such as the Arrowhead trilogy (gathered in the sellout Hooded Man omnibus), Hellbound Hearts, Wonderland (a Shirley Jackson Award finalist) and Pain Cages (an Amazon #1 bestseller). His non-fiction books include The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark. He has been a Guest at many conventions, as well as being a panellist at FantasyCon and the World Fantasy Convention, and a fiction judge at the Sci-Fi London festival. A former British Fantasy Society Special Publications Editor, he has also served as co-chair for the UK chapter of The Horror Writers Association and co-chaired ChillerCon UK in May 2022. His work has been optioned and adapted for the big and small screen, including for US network primetime television and as the feature film Sacrifice starring Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, You’re Next, Suitable Flesh). His audio work includes the full cast drama adaptation of The Hellbound Heart for Bafflegab, starring Alice Lowe (Prevenge), and the Robin of Sherwood adventure The Red Lord for Spiteful Puppet/ITV. He has also contributed to the Warhammer 40k universe for Games Workshop. Paul’s latest novels are the sequels to RED – Blood RED & Deep RED (aka The RED Trilogy) – the award-winning hit Sherlock Holmes & the Servants of Hell, Before (an Amazon Top 5 dark fantasy bestseller), Arcana, The Storm and The Gemini Effect. In addition he writes thrillers for HQ/HarperCollins as PL Kane: the sellout novels Her Last Secret, Her Husband’s Grave and The Family Lie. Paul lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife Marie O’Regan. Find out more at his site www.shadow-writer.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Catriona Ward, Dean Koontz, Olivie Blake and Guillermo del Toro.
Socials: Facebook, X (@PaulKaneShadow), Instagram (@paul.kane.376) and Bluesky (@paulkane.bsky.social)
Joseph Carrabis told stories to anyone who would listen starting in childhood, wrote his first stories in grade school, and started getting paid for his writing in 1978. He’s been everything from a long-haul trucker to a Chief Research Scientist and holds patents covering mathematics, anthropology, neuroscience, and linguistics. After patenting a technology which he created in his basement and creating an international company, he retired from corporate life and now he spends his time writing fiction based on his experiences. His work appears regularly in several anthologies and his own published novels. You can learn more about him at https://josephcarrabis.com.
There exists a tree that is timeless, spanning across all dimensions, which absorbs every life as those who are hanged as they die… and it remembers every one. The stories within are a select few of the Tales From the Hanging Tree. Tales from the Hanging Tree is a wonderfully dark, themed anthology which revolves around an ephemeral and timeless hanging tree that absorbs the memories of all hanging victims. This WordCrafter Press anthology was created by invitation only and includes stories from authors Kaye Lynne Booth, Paul Kane, DL Mullan, C.R. Johansson, Joseph Carrabis, Sylva Fae, and Matt Usher.
As soon as Kaye
mentioned that there was a Wordcrafter anthology coming up she was gathering
stories for, called Tales from the Hanging Tree, something clicked. I
remembered an old tale I’d started many years ago, in fact not that long after
I’d begun writing and sending submissions off to small press magazines back in
the 1990s. Back then, I’d also attend events with like-minded people, all
chatting about their influences – such as MR James, Arthur Machen, William Hope
Hodgson, Lovecraft and so on.
I’d read a few of those kinds of tales growing up,
usually in supernatural anthologies, but was really coming to horror/supernatural
writing via ’70s and ’80s fiction by authors like Jim Herbert, Stephen King,
Clive Barker, Anne Rice, Ramsey Campbell, Graham Masterton et al. So I went
away and read some of those recommendations from my fellow writers, and loved
it all – so much so that it influenced tales like ‘Shadow Writer’, ‘St August’s
Flame’ and ‘Star Pool’. I eventually moved more towards the modern kind of
horror writing again, but still liked to keep my hand in with the more
old-fashioned style of tale.
Which is where ‘The Hanging Men’ comes in. I began
writing it in either the late ’90s, or early 2000s, aiming to produce something
that was a mix of ghost story and folk horror; the kind of thing that might
morph into a myth or legend itself. There’s definitely more than a whiff of
James about the whole thing, probably also influenced by those wonderful BBC AGhost Story for Christmas adaptations of the ’60s and ’70s.
Either way, I’m delighted Kaye took the story for Tales
from the Hanging Tree, giving it a new lease of life. A tale that spans 25
years or more, not in the narrative itself, but in the writing of it. I hope
readers enjoy this short shocker when they pick up the book!
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Support Great Artists
Buy your copy of Tales from the Hanging Tree anthology at these fine retailers:
Paul Kane is the award-winning
(including the British Fantasy Society’s Legends of FantasyCon Award 2022), bestselling author and editor of over a hundred and fifty books –
such as the Arrowhead trilogy (gathered in the sellout Hooded Man omnibus), Hellbound Hearts,
Wonderland (a Shirley Jackson Award finalist) and Pain Cages (an Amazon #1 bestseller). His non-fiction books
include The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark. He has been a Guest at many
conventions, as well as being a panellist at FantasyCon and the World FantasyConvention, and a fiction
judge at the Sci-Fi London festival. A former British Fantasy Society SpecialPublications Editor,
he has also served as co-chair for the UK chapter of The Horror Writers Association and co-chaired
ChillerCon UK in May 2022. His work has been optioned and adapted for the big and small screen, including
for US network primetime television and as the feature film Sacrifice starring Barbara Crampton
(Re-Animator, You’re Next, Suitable Flesh). His audio work includes the full cast drama adaptation
of The Hellbound Heart for Bafflegab, starring Alice Lowe (Prevenge), and the Robin of Sherwood
adventure The Red Lord for Spiteful Puppet/ITV. He has also contributed to the Warhammer 40k universe for
Games Workshop. Paul’s latest novels are the sequels to RED – Blood RED & Deep RED (aka The
RED Trilogy) – the award-winning hit Sherlock Holmes & the Servants of Hell, Before (an Amazon
Top 5 dark fantasy bestseller), Arcana, The Storm and The Gemini Effect. In addition he writes
thrillers for HQ/HarperCollins as PL Kane: the sellout novels Her Last Secret, Her Husband’s
Grave and The Family Lie. Paul lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife Marie O’Regan. Find
out more at his site www.shadow-writer.co.uk
which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Catriona Ward, Dean Koontz, Olivie Blake and Guillermo del Toro.
Socials:
Facebook, X (@PaulKaneShadow), Instagram
(@paul.kane.376) and Bluesky (@paulkane.bsky.social)
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