Before Kim Graff and I ended up here at the The Society, we were blogging over at ya-asylum.com, but tragically as life got busier, The Asylum got pushed put further and further back on the back burner. It wasn’t from a lack of desire—we simply felt that we weren’t doing anything unique that helped push the genre forward. However, we didn’t want to give up on the site either, we just wanted to do something that people couldn’t get anywhere else.
So we started a biannual e-zine for YA and MG horror short stories, Strange Far Places.
Horror has one of the strongest, if not the strongest, short story traditions in lit. YA not so much. So Kim and I wanted to bring that tradition to the YA field while creating a place where writers could be as dark and as scary as they wanted.
We also wanted to show that there is a market for horror that isn’t the usual cliches and third-rate b-movie cliches. The #1 complaint I hear from people bad mouthing YA and MG horror is that it isn’t scary. We want to prove them wrong.
But to do all this we need you, dear reader. We need you to spread the word if you’re a horror fan, and send in your short story submissions if you write YA or MG horror.
We plan to have our first issue out in February 2016. You can find our submission guidelines and subscribe to the zine here. (And we have monthly giveaways—the next one starts Friday). You can also follow us on twitter.
A note from Kim from the comments below:
“If you are a fan of UNDER THE JUNIPER TREE, the online lit magazines started by literary Agent Bree Ogden, she gave us at Strange Far Places a shout out yesterday saying we’re a great alternative now that UtJT is on hiatus.”
Kim Graff
***If you are a fan of UNDER THE JUNIPER TREE, the online lit magazines started by literary Agent Bree Ogden, she gave us at Strange Far Places a shout out yesterday saying we’re a great alternative now that UtJT is on hiatus.
And awesome post, Timon!
Kathy Palm
AH! THIS IS FABULOUS! More scary YA/MG! I wonder if I have anything to submit? O.O
Jolene Haley
I love it! This is such a fab idea and what better two people to head this!!!!?!??!
Brian
Great post, Timon! Love to see those Books of Blood collections in your pile. Barker’s short stories are amazing and a huge influence for me.