Sean Markey, here, publisher of Psychopomp (and The Deadlands and Fantasy Magazine) with a post about the end of things.

But not EVERY thing.

I’ll rip the Bandaid off quickly, and then expand a bit below:

1 – We will no longer be publishing novellas at Psychopomp.

2 – We will no longer publish novelettes on Psychopomp.

3 – Publishing nonfiction on Psychopomp is on hiatus.

4 – Fantasy Magazine is going on hiatus after our December issue.

Okay, that sucked, that was painful.

So let’s talk about WHY this is happening.

why

It’s tough times out there. I don’t have to tell you that.

The biggest reason we’ve arrived at this point is the most obvious one: funding.

With the exception of the first year’s fundraiser, the majority of The Deadlands funding has come out of my own pocket. All of our novella publishing efforts have been paid out-of-pocket. The purchase of Fantasy came in part from last year’s fundraiser, but after someone who stepped up to help us backed out at the last minute, the funds came from me.

Making a long story short:

• we did not sell enough copies of novellas to make it a viable pursuit going forward.
• we did not sell enough subscriptions of Fantasy Magazine to be on track to break even.
• we did not sell enough coins this year to fund The Deadlands.

My financial situation has changed, and I cannot keep paying out-of-pocket for these ventures.

Of course, it’s not ALL about money (it’s the art!) but having money sure does help…

This year, our Coins For The Ferryman fundraiser brought in less than half of what it did last year. And I want to say, for the record: I get it! I am grateful for all of the support we receive–I know I am not entitled to funding, and as I said: it’s tough times out there.

But that includes tough times for me, too.

And I can no longer afford to run a publishing venture at a wild loss.

what does this mean for Psychopomp novellas

We just published our last novella of 2025, K.L. Schroeder’s brilliant No One To Hold the Distant Dead. You should read it! It’s very good.

We will be publishing our last standalone novella next February with Bernie Jean Schiebeling’s House, Body, Bird (also very good, it will be available for preorder very soon!).

Amal Singh’s amazing The Three Apocalypses of Kabir Vasudeva will be published in the July issue of The Deadlands.

Thomas Ha’s novella Scion has found a new publisher and we’re VERY excited to see that published–it’s a story near and dear to our hearts, but I’ll let the author and the publisher announce that on their own terms.

All of the novellas and books we’ve published previously are still available for sale on our site, but I will be returning the rights of those works to their respective authors–I’ll always be a champion of these amazing authors, and will not do anything to hold them back. (Authors: I will be in touch about this via email!)

what does this mean for Fantasy Magazine?

December’s issue 99 will be the last issue we publish before going on hiatus. I do not know what the future of this magazine holds, but it has been an amazing experience being able to publish it (my first real fiction sale a million years ago–it’s special to me!).

I will close the ability to buy this issue via “subscription” on December 1st, and the magazine will be for sale here on Psychopomp.com for anyone who wants to read it.

I want to thank all of the authors who submitted stories for consideration in March’s issue, I wish we could have made it one more issue, but no money is no money, and this is a casualty of that.

You can withdraw the stories you’ve submitted via Moksha if you’d like. I’m working on a way to return those to you without marking them as “rejected,” because, truly, they were not.

Old issues will continue to be for sale, and will continue to be available to read here on Psychopomp.com

what does this mean for The Deadlands

For now? Nothing.

Deadlands will continue to be published quarterly. Diana Dima’s lovely novelette The City In White, originally purchased to run here on Psychopomp will be a part of April’s issue.

As mentioned, Amal’s novella will be in July’s issue.

Right now, our Patreon accounts for about 50% of what it costs to run The Deadlands.

We try to run a fundraiser–not a Kickstarter but a cool, wholly original fundraiser selling death-themed challenge coins to help bridge that gap. Unfortunately, this year’s fundraiser–after the cost of buying the coins, paying for the art, and shipping the coins to buyers (included in the purchase price)–won’t cover a single issue.

Maybe in the future we’ll look to expand again, but I’ve learned a hard lesson about focusing, I guess, and we will not be launching any new projects until such a time as The Deadlands is fully funded.

If we never get there? Well, I’m an optimist. I know we’ll get there.

In the middle of this bad news I do want to thank everyone that has supported us on Patreon, bought a coin, bought a copy of our books, and just generally spread the word and helped other people get HYPE about what we’re up to.

Really grateful about that. Thank you all!!

the future

We had an absolutely fantastic year:

Hugo nominations!

Nebula nominations!

An Ignyte win!

Theodore Sturgeon Award finalist!

Locus Awards finalist!

Shirley Jackson Award finalist!

Wow. Seriously.

We published so much good stuff. Talented authors, and a dedicated staff. Thank you all so so so so much.

Last thing before I go:

The best and most helpful thing you can do right now, if you’re moved to, is to sign up as a patron.

$2/mo gets you 4 ePub issues of The Deadlands per year.

$5/mo gets you 4 print issues (and ePub) of The Deadlands per year.

In 2026, due to rising costs, we will be raising these tiers by a small, but meaningful amount.

If you sign up now and stay subscribed, your cost will not increase.

If you sign up now and stay subscribed, you will help us continue to bring amazing deathy fiction, poetry, and nonfiction to readers everywhere.

Thank you all for your support.

Here is the link to sign up at Patreon.

???

Music has been something I’ve been passionate about since I was very young. And from well before the launch of Psychopomp the small press, and Psychopomp the cool, gothy blog, I always knew that I’d create Psychopomp the music publisher.

Today I’m excited to announce the realization of that idea, that we’ve signed our first band on at Psychopomp.

Hail Your Highness is a Michigan-based dream rock duo making an original soundtrack (OST) to Aimee Ogden’s upcoming Psychopomp novella Starstruck.

I talked to Hail Your Highness and author Aimee Ogden about the project:

Introducing Hail Your Highness

Describe your sound for people who have never heard your songs before. What’s a good introduction to Hail Your Highness?

We think of Hail Your Highness as bigger than its individual parts, a project with no easy genre. We started out in the hardcore/screamo scene of Michigan back in the mid 2000s where bands like Chiodos and Still Remains were representing the scene, and growing up with that influence is always something HYH has tapped into, and is still built into our foundation. 

Our sound is further influenced by a love of indie pop and a deep passion for K-Pop. We like to think of our sound as constantly evolving, a sentient concept of sound grounded the the music-sphere of a dream-like state. Listen to how songs like “Imagine the Cure,” “Dandelion,” and “Duality” swing from dream pop to grunge to rock-driven trap

What drew you to this project?

The combination of books and music are two of our top tier passions. To be able to combine them into a project creating an OST for the first time felt like a fresh opportunity to do something new that we were ready to step into. After reading Starstruck, the visual and musical storyline instantly came together and developed into a tangible, layered sound that pushed us outside our box and normal musical structures. We’re always looking for unique projects to take on outside of our standard “music industry flow” of release a single, promote it, tour it, onto the next. This project leneded us a hand up in a state of ruminating and figuring out what our next move as a band would be. 

What can we expect from this OST

We dove into our back-catalog of music after reading the story, of songs that have been piling up since pre-Covid and instantly knew several that would work perfect for this story. Being such a soft, almost Ghibli-like adventure fantasy featuring vivid anthropomorphic characters, we were able to take a fresh approach on how we structure songs and tap into multiple genres that we’ve specialized in over the years.

Each song not only showcases a different style of music we love playing, but we also took an approach of giving each character their own theme. As soon as we read about Prish, Alsing, Otra, and Wick we were able to instantly romanticize the beautiful writing and character descriptions that Aimee provided us with as readers.

As musicians, we took to the path of creating a cinematic score, in a way, where we have songs for intros, opening credits, character themes, and ending credits. That helped us create this epic sort of vibe to this adventure of finding companionship in the most unlikely of characters. It’s such a visually written story, it was so easy for us to see the world and feel the emotions of these 4 core characters that Aimee has created. 

What’s the best way for people to follow Hail Your Highness and support the band?

Our most active social media platform is Instagram and we’ve been leaning more into testing out Blue Sky and Threads as well even though you can follow us on literally everything. But the best way to support and stay in contact with us is on our Patreon. We’ve been able to create this beautiful little safe community over the past 8 years where we share everything from demos, new music first, livestreams, and group chats, to handwritten monthly postcards, exclusive merch and even one-on-one mentoring sessions in songwriting from us. It’s free to join with access to exclusive blogs and photo galleries and many different subscription based tiers starting at just $5 for even more content you can’t find anywhere else. We always answer comments and DM’s and just have such a nice time being humans and talking about life while showing people everything that goes on behind the scenes to make what we do as an independent DIY band a reality.

Buying music is huge source of support these days in the digital streaming age, so Bandcamp is a great place to buy our physical media from CD’s, to cassettes that we put out on our own label, to our first vinyl that we were able to team up with our longtime friends at Rotten Princess Records to make happen just last year. You can find many exclusive releases on our Bandcamp as well, along with lots of other merch like shirts, stickers, and anything else we can dream up in the moment.

You can find all the links to support our band here: http://linktr.ee/hyhband

Bio:

On paper alone, Hail Your Highness sound poetic: two sisters from Michigan, who play dreamy emotional music that swirls together aspects of genres ranging from hard rock to shoegaze to trap. But it’s their music, with its unorthodox song structures, dreamy dual vocals, and lava-flow undercurrent of distortion and aggression, that completes the picture. Hail Your Highness (HYH) was officially founded by sisters Jessie and Niki Bobenmoyer back in 2008 as a 4 piece band, but their true awakening to full potential started in 2016 when they dove in head first as a 2 piece dream rock duo. It was a formative year teaming up with sound engineer Brian “Bone” Thorburn of Threshold Studio Productions and Justin Wheeler at Clean Cut Entertainment that helped support the duo that evolved into the underground powerhouse team that is the HYH we know today.

Three Questions With Aimee Ogden

What’s the genesis of this story?

Before it was a novella, this story was a young adult novel told from Wick’s perspective; before that, the origin point was the Beauty Heart Radishes I used to buy at the Dane County Farmers’ Market. I loved the vibrant color hiding on the inside, beneath the dull yellow-green exterior, and when I imagined a world where living things could become ensouled by a falling star, I knew that one of those people would be exactly that kind of radish. The story crystallized around the ending first, before I knew anything else that happened: an accident, a terrible choice.

What are your thoughts on having a band create a soundtrack to something you wrote? 

My first reaction is “oh no, I’m not cool enough for this!” Fortunately, my second reaction is to be relieved, because Hail Your Highness will take excellent care of all the parts that require being cool. This is something I would never have dreamed of putting on my writing bingo card, but I’m thrilled that I get to be part of something so special!

Do you listen to music while you write?

I almost always listen to music while I’m working (and I think I’ve accidentally trained myself to reach for a keyboard when I hear certain songs). Mostly when I’m writing, I prefer instrumental music; when there are lyrics in a language I speak, my verbal input and output start to get tangled up. But I get a lot of mileage out of the soundtrack from the first campaign of The Adventure Zone, Holst’s Planets, and swing/jazz from the 1930’s and 40’s–my favorites are Django Reinhardt and Duke Ellington. I also put together playlists for longer projects, which I like to listen to while I’m taking a walk or cooking or doing something less word-intensive, like outlining. Those end up being a pretty eclectic mix: CAKE, Norma Tanega, Katzenjammer, OK Go, The Amazing Devil, Brittany Howard, Slimane, and The Hard Lessons are a few that figure heavily in the current rotation.

Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. Her debut novella, “Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters” was a Nebula Award finalist, and her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has never met a watermelon radish she didn’t like (although the watermelon radishes might not have been wild about her).

Starstruck

Sometimes a star falls and collides with a living thing that brings it into sapient consciousness. Prish, a radish, is one such being. Her wife, a fox named Alsing is another. Together they live in a cabin and greet newly starstruck people as they come to life. But it’s been some time since the last star fell, and there have been no more starstruck to welcome into being. Prish and Aisling decide to leave the forest for the city and meet some interesting characters on their travels; a starstruck rock (which they thought impossible!), and an abandoned young boy whose parents were scientists trying to harvest the magic of the starstruck for themselves.

Come along on a journey through a strange place, with a found family you’ll want to make your own.

Starstruck, a novella by Aimee Ogden will be published by Psychopomp on June 17th, 2025

Starstruck OST by Hail Your Highness will be available from Psychopomp on June 13, 2025

Sign up to our newsletter for updates about Starstruck, we’ll soon be sharing the cover and the entire first chapter:

I wanted to write a whole fancy thing about this, but I’m just too excited, so I’ll stick to the straightforward story:

I was super bummed to hear Fantasy was closing. I know many people reading this were as well.

I immediately reached out to John Joseph Adams (publisher of Fantasy at the time it closed) to see if it was a possible to pick up Fantasy Magazine where they left off in October 2023.

Why?

Because I love Fantasy, the magazine.

I also love fantasy the genre.

I love publishing things and figured this could be a fun project. I’d launched a magazine from scratch already (The Deadlands), I thought it’d be a different kind of adventure to continue publishing one that had a big history and was in motion.

John wrote back and said he wasn’t yet ready to sell (and as a publisher, I totally get this).

Consequently, Arley Sorg (co-editor of Fantasy Magazine from 2020 to 2023) reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in creating a magazine with him, as he enjoyed his role at Fantasy.

Me? Sure! I said. I love publishing things!

We chatted for a few months and Arley wanted to bring on a co-editor, that was the model Fantasy had used for the past few years and he liked a lot about it.

“I want to ask Shingai Kagunda if she’d like to be co-editor.”

Shingai? Sure! I said. I love Shingai—we’re publishing a novelette by her later this year.

Long story short, Shingai said yes (“YES!!!“) and we worked on putting together a new magazine.

But Then

But then! In October 2024 I reached out to John pretty randomly and said “how about now.”

He was open to it, and after checking that Arley and Shingai were interested in taking on the co-Editor-in-Chief roles at Fantasy, I quickly worked out a deal to acquire Fantasy Magazine.

So here is Fantasy Magazine, risen from the dead once more (dramatic? Yes, but that’s my whole thing here at Psychopomp, Death!).

Everything You’ll Want To Know

Psychopomp will publish Fantasy Magazine on a quarterly schedule.

We plan to release our first issue June 1st.

You will be able to subscribe to Fantasy Magazine via email for $5 per quarter. When we release a new issue you’ll be sent the ePub. You’ll also receive new stories/poems/nonfiction in your inbox. A year’s sub will be $20, and you can pay it quarterly.

We will publish all of our stories/poems/nonfiction on the website for free, after an exclusive-to-subscribers period.

Digital issues will also be available at Psychopomp’s Grave Goods store (coming soon!), and on WeightlessBooks.com.

What happened to the Fantasy-Magazine.com website?

Right, you may have noticed that if you go to Fantasy-Magazine.com it forwards to Psychopomp.com/fantasy/

(You may have also noticed that TheDeadlands.com also forwards to its own page on Psychopomp.)

Managing more than one website is a huge, resource-intensive commitment. Keeping Psychopomp + The Deadlands working was maxing out my ability to troubleshoot issues and keep everything working. Adding in a whole third website—one we’d need to redesign so it didn’t look like Nightmare and Lightspeed is beyond our budget, so I made the decision to move everything here to the publisher’s site, Psychopomp.

Each magazine will have its own distinct home on Psychopomp—we’ll still publish one-off stories and essays on Psychopomp; meanwhile Fantasy Magazine and The Deadlands will publish content under their respective sections.

It might take a little getting used to, but this change will result in a much stronger overall experience for you, the reader.

All of the links out in the wild will still work, and still get you to the page you’re intending to click on, so it should be a painless transition. However, there will be some bugs to squash here and there, so please pardon our digital dust while we wrap this very big change up.

Currently, the first issue of Fantasy Magazine from Psychopomp is slated to go live on June 1st (but this is subject to change).

For writers:

We plan to have a brief submissions window soon, welcoming short fiction, flash fiction, and poetry.

You can read the submission guidelines here. We will share the submission link via the email list first.

If you’re interested in staying up to date about this, I encourage you to sign up for the Psychopomp email list here:

In addition to staying up to date about all things Fantasy Magazine, you’ll also receive updates about the stellar novellas, novelettes, and short stories we’re publishing at Psychopomp, as well as updates around The Deadlands. We’ll email you at most once per week, and always with cool things to share.

Fantasy Magazine will pay $0.10/word for fiction and $50/poem (same as The Deadlands).

A Final Note About The Reality Of Publishing Things

We need at least 335 subscribers to keep Fantasy Magazine going. We’re starting with zero, but I’ve seen how much the community loved what Fantasy was doing, the stories and poems they published, and I feel very strongly the support will be there.

Here’s how you can help!

Subscribe to Fantasy Magazine here.

There’s a lot of great things coming from Psychopomp in 2025—your support means we get to keep it going into 2026 and beyond!

Finally, please help spread the word about this exciting acquisition on Bluesky, you can find us here:

Fantasy Magazine Bluesky

The Deadlands Bluesky

Psychopomp Bluesky

Vajra Chandrasekera did an amazing job as guest curator (and you can pick up his edition here, shipping now!).

For 2024’s stories we’re extremely excited to announce Sheree Renée Thomas will be our guest curator!

Submissions open September 4th for the 2024 edition of Afterlives.

You can find the guidelines and submission info here.

(please read the guidelines!)

About Sheree Renée Thomas

Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer and poet. She was honored as a Hugo Award and Ignyte Award Finalist twice, and won the Locus Award and is also a three-time World Fantasy Award-winning editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science, Hoodoo, and Mississippi Delta conjure and has earned her fiction fellowships at the Millay Colony of the Arts, Bread Loaf Environmental, with the Cave Canem Foundation, and many others. Her work is widely anthologized and appears in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. The author of three collections, including Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life, and Shotgun Lullabies, Sheree is a co-editor for Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, Trouble the Waters: Tales of the Deep Blue, and is the editor of the groundbreaking Dark Matter speculative fiction anthologies that first introduced W.E.B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction and explored 165+ years of Black Speculative Fiction. In 2023 she was honored with the Octavia E. Butler Award. She is the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy of Science Fiction and associate editor of the 49-year old, peer-reviewed literary journal, Obsidian.

Her poems appear most recently in This is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets and The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry. Her collaboration with artist Janelle Monáe on the “Timebox Altar(ed)” novelet appears in The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer (HarperVoyager), a New York Times bestseller. Sheree is a Marvel writer, including the novel, Black Panther: Panther’s Rage (Titan/Penguin Random House), an adaptation of Don McGregor’s legendary graphic novel, and her comic book debut, “The World Is Not Ready” featuring the Black Panther and Storm appears in Marvel Voices: Legends #1 (January 31, 2024). She has new stories in Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda and in Captain America: The Shield Sam Wilson (January 14, 2025). Her essays have appeared in The New York Times and Scientific American. She lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee near a mighty river and a pyramid. Visit shereereneethomas.com

photo source: weird fiction con in Rhode Island

Sign up to be notified when Afterlives: 2024 is published

Join the Psychopomp.com newsletter to get notified when this year’s best anthology is released, as well as the cover art reveal, fun bonuses, and more!

Sean, here, publisher of PSYCHOPOMP, a death-focused small press.

A BELOVED death-focused small press publishing amazing novelettes and novellas.

Speaking of novellas, we received SO MANY good ones last novella open season that we bought several. Whoops we bought two years worth of novellas.

????????????

So I thought I’d make one big post to introduce the novella, the author, and a quick synopsis so you can GET SERIOUSLY HYPE.

More info–including tentative release dates–will be forthcoming, but in the meantime you should definitely sign up to our email list if you haven’t to get all the info:

Scion, by Thomas Ha

A young man searches for his ailing father in the heart of a house where the halls move without warning, deranged relatives stake out miniature fiefdoms, and fearful servants flee a murderous stranger. Every room of the family home holds a particular history, which together tell the twisted tale of a crumbling lunar settlement that has only grown stranger since its fall.

Thomas Ha is a Nebula, Ignyte, Locus, and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated writer of speculative short fiction. You can find his work in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Weird Horror Magazine, among other publications. His work has also appeared in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and is forthcoming in The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy. Thomas grew up in Honolulu and, after a decade plus of living in the northeast, now resides in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

Starstruck, by Aimee Ogden

Prish has always been a radish who knows what she’s about; chiefly, her wife, Alsing, a literal and figurative fox. They’ve woven together a cozy life organized around welcoming other starstruck beings into the world—plants and animals ensouled by a falling star—but when the stars stop falling, all of that unravels. Prish gives in to Alsing’s longing to move on, and their new path leads them to two unlikely companions: an abandoned human child, and, impossibly, a brand-new starstruck who is neither a plant nor an animal, but rather a chunk of anthropomorphized granite with delusions of destiny.

Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. Her debut novella, “Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters” was a Nebula Award finalist, and her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has never met a watermelon radish she didn’t like (although the watermelon radishes might not have been wild about her).

Summer in the House of the Departed, by Josh Rountree

A boy and his dying grandmother spend the summer of 1982 in a haunted house, communing with ghosts and searching for occult answers to the afterlife. Years later, the boy is facing his own mortality, and revisiting that old house may be the only way to solve the mysteries that have haunted him for a lifetime.

Josh Rountree is a novelist and short story writer who works across multiple genres, focusing mostly on horror and dark fantasy. His novel The Legend of Charlie Fish was released by Tachyon Publications in 2023 to wide acclaim, making the Locus Recommended Reading List, and being named one of Los Angeles Public Library’s best books of the year. More than seventy of his short stories have been published in a variety of venues, including The Deadlands, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Bourbon Penn, Realms of Fantasy, PseudoPod, Weird Horror, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror. Several collections of his short fiction have been published, including Fantastic Americana, and most recently, Death Aesthetic, featuring tales of death and transformation. Rountree lives in Austin, TX with his lovely wife of many years, and a pair of half-feral dogs who demand his obedience. 

House, Body, Bird, by Bernie Jean Schiebeling

Birdie grew up in a dollhouse museum, surrounded by models of “perfect” daughters that she could never be. When she says goodbye to her girlfriend and returns to help with renovations, she expects the dolls will be the only ones watching her—but the House let Birdie go once, and it refuses to allow her to shame the family again. 

Bernie Jean Schiebeling (she/they) is a queer author living in the Midwest who writes about uncanny experiences, family histories, and brief moments of comfort. Their work has appeared in The Deadlands, The Future Fire, and Reckoning, and she is also the script editor for the indie science fiction podcast Gastronaut. When the mood strikes, she makes plush frogs. They can be found on BlueSky at @bernie-jsyk, on Instagram at @bernie_jsyk, and on their website at berniejeanschiebeling.com.

No One to Hold the Distant Dead, by K.L. Schroeder

Dr. Inga Nyström leaves her body behind on Earth and travels to the tiny planet of
Nordenmark to help a community in crisis. But when she arrives, she finds a world in
advanced ecological collapse, beyond all hope, and that she has also lost something in
transit—something that’s kept her alive. While Inga struggles to find answers about the
missing pieces of her new life, something uneasy stalks her from the empty spaces they’ve left.

K.L. Schroeder is a microbiologist, aging goth, and speculative fiction writer who was forged in the cold dark winters of Canada and Sweden. Their short fiction can be found in the Northern Nights anthology (Undertow) and the And Lately, the Sun climate fiction anthology (Calyx). They can be found on Bluesky as @klschroeder.

The Three Apocalypses of Kabir Vasudeva, by Amal Singh

Kabir Vasudeva, necromancer, saint, prophet, god, dies leaving a world shattered by a war his devotees have raged in his name. Surmai, Kabir’s staunchest follower, believes he can still be resurrected. For wasn’t he supposed to be immortal? Wasn’t he supposed to save the world? But all Kabir has left in his wake are lies. When another god claims to know Kabir’s darkest secrets, Surmai’s beliefs are put to test. What does a believer do when they know the true face of their god?

Amal Singh is a Sturgeon Award nominated author of science fiction and fantasy from India. His short fiction has appeared in numerous prestigious venues online. His debut novel The Garden of Delights is published by Flame Tree Press. By day, he juggles screenwriting, audio-writing, editing, and creative production. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking and running. He is represented by Kanishka Gupta of Writer’s Side Literary Agency.

A reminder:

If you are a reviewer you can sign up to be on our review list here.

If you are a librarian/book-buyer/some other person we should definitely meet and know to help you connect with our books, please send us an email: press AT psychopomp dot com

Thank you.

We hope you love this as much as we do–the link to pre-order your copy is at the end of this excerpt.

Chapter One

Doomsday Dot will wake the day the world ends. That’s what everyone says, yours truly included. One day, her little finger’s gonna crook just so. Her eyes are gonna flicker beneath lids purple with resting blood. Those rosebud lips will part, and maybe she’ll scream like she means to break the world’s bones, or maybe she’ll gasp like a swimmer clawing up from the last river, or maybe she’ll sit quiet and watch the stars fall.

Doomsday Dot’s part of a travelling show. There’s Rufus, who usually ends up taking care of her. They’re the gentlest wolf you ever did see; you can pay for a private tea with them. Tea-drinking’s a performance, see. You should hear their theories about pouring this way or that. Then there’s Emmaline, who’s sometimes a swan, and mostly a lady, and always good for warming up the crowd and doubling the take when the hat gets passed.

And then there’s Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time, impresario extraordinaire and all-around swell. More on him later.

They all travel in a wooden whale, a giant one. That’s important.

Doomsday Dot ain’t even the star attraction. Her glass-topped casket lies in a patched-up tent next to Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time’s canvas palace. But with the dust storms raging and no rain falling, most folks figure she’ll wake up soon. A nickel or a fresh egg buys you five minutes of her silent company. Don’t try to slip Rufus a week-old egg, they’ll sniff it out. Dot don’t offer compelling conversation, but everyone wants to be the first to catch sight of Doomsday. They turn out in droves to scrutinize Dot’s sleeping face and convince themselves they spy some twitch, some hitch, some switch in her breathing that heralds the world’s swift-coming end.

The day this story starts—if you can pick one day it starts—Bryony’s in line outside Doomsday Dot’s tent, clutching a damp nickel and a handbill ripped from the saloon wall. The handbill shows Doomsday Dot. It’s a pretty good likeness, enough that Bryony’s heart jumped into her throat when she saw it.

With afternoon wearing on, the crowd’s thinned out some, but the mood broods like the distant clouds, spiked with lightning-cracks of nervous laughter. A hot wind tosses grit into Bryony’s eyes. Wiping her face, she glances past the tents, past the Whale, all the way to the flat horizon. The sky looms black, but the air tastes like sweat, not ash. If a dust storm sweeps in, she’ll have to forget about seeing Doomsday Dot, so she rubs her nickel between her thumb and forefinger and prays the black blizzards stay put.

Two people ahead. The crowd’s mutters build. Not everyone wants to just look at Dot. They’re gonna bang on the glass and snap that girl awake. They’re gonna rattle the casket until the lid pops off, and then they’ll steal a kiss from her dreaming lips. Or they’re gonna wait until they’re alone, and they won’t ever touch her, but maybe they’ll undo their own trousers, and—

“Didn’t nobody teach you manners?” Bryony snaps, swinging around.

Two kids snigger. Fourteen years old, maybe fifteen. Bony boys with dust-stiffened hair. Their faces burn with the sort of hunger that can’t go anywhere, so it sharpens into cruelty instead. Bryony tracks their gazes as they rake her up and down. She likes boys’ clothes, moves easier in them, but her torn trousers and oversized jacket make her look like a kid herself, easily settled with a few quick punches.

She ain’t, she’s a decade past that. Sweeping her rush hat off, she adds, “Why you gotta be that way?”

Their grins falter when it turns out she’s a grown-up. One kid sneers. “Why you gotta be that way, lady?”

If she knew, she wouldn’t be stuck in line going nowhere fast. Her goddamn mouth’s responsible for every last problem in her life, and she’s trying hard to muzzle it. Burning, she tells herself to take her lumps, but then a soft voice calls, “Next, please.”

The kid stares coolly. “Tell Dot to get ready.”

Hating herself, Bryony stalks into the tent. Fabric and darkness smother her. The casket waits in the center, like someone dropped it there and forgot. Long, but narrow; glass blank. Smooth handles ring the casket all around, but the wood’s bleakly black, unornamented. Like the tent. No signs, no lamps, no nothing. Late afternoon spills through a gap in the canvas, rubs dusky light all over the glass. Bryony can’t see inside the casket yet, but her knees turn to jelly. As she casts about for something steadying, someone takes her elbow. “Goodness! Are you all right?”

“Just swell.”

The grip on her arm lets off. A wolf stands on hind paws. Bryony’s head barely brushes their snowdrift chest. Tiny golden spectacles perch on their muzzle, and a neatly mended floral dress swishes around their legs. “Would you care to sit?” the wolf asks.

“Where is she?”

The wolf’s whiskers twitch. “Is this your first time visiting Doomsday Dot?”

“No. Maybe. What’s it to you?” The words burst hot and stinging from her lips. Now that she’s here, her heart’s thudding too hard and she doesn’t dare tilt the moment one way or the other.

The wolf coughs. “Entry costs a nickel. Or an egg. We’ll also take a vegetable, if you’ve got one. I’m dying for parsnips.”

Bryony fishes the nickel from her pocket. The wolf’s rough paw pads itch against her palm, and then the coin vanishes into a beaded pouch at their side. “You needn’t stay the full five minutes, if you’re frightened.”

Fuck frightened. She’ll feed the wolf nickels until next week if she wants to. But her legs don’t budge.

“This is Doomsday Dot.” The wolf’s murmurs creep under Bryony’s skin like dust getting past a window pane. “For three thousand years, she has slept without stirring. When the last trumpet sounds, when the last morning dawns, she will rise to cross the river…”

Heart quickening, Bryony kneels beside the casket. All this time searching, and she was right. She crumples the handbill without realizing, a sob knotting under her ribs.

“Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time succored and sheltered her in our little show. On our ever-winding way, we watch to see that she slumbers still…”

The sob hardens to a hot little coal.

“If you dare stay, see that she does not stir with vexing dreams, or mutter the stars to fall….”

“Bullshit.” The word cracks in the middle.

The wolf blinks. “I beg your pardon?”

“That’s my sister.”

But me, I want to tell you about the river at the end of the world. Broad and deep, smooth and silent. Mist veils its face; you can’t see the farther side.

That doesn’t stop people trying to swim it. The riverbed falls out from under their feet mighty quick. At the heart of the crossing, the waters open dark and depthless. You’ve got to swim through the mist if you’re going to make it, and I hear that greyness is even colder than the deeps.

Some swimmers return saying, “Yeah, I saw the other side. It’s a dead land, barren. All broken rocks and dried-up trees.” Then they go away and they never think of the river again, except to sigh out their disappointment in empty cups and lonely beds.

Others come back, and they keep their silence. They stand along the riverbank, staring at the mist and looking thoughtful. These swimmers all wade into the water again; they never return a second time.

The wolf’s jaws snap shut. “I beg your pardon?”

“That’s my sister.”

Fishing out a handkerchief, the wolf mops their forehead. “Excuse me.” Flinging wide the tent flaps, the wolf calls, “Dear friends, we have finished our visitations with Doomsday Dot for today. Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time waits to entrance and enthral! Do proceed to the larger tent, and beg assistance from the Swan Maiden in procuring your seat.”

With that, the wolf ties the tent flaps shut again. A pink tongue darts between curved fangs. Prickles run down Bryony’s spine, but she’s got bigger things to worry about than winding up lunch. The casket dares her to take a peek. She can’t look. She can’t stop looking. It’s Dahlia, but Dahlia done wrong.

“What’s your name?” the wolf asks.

Her stomach hurts. “Bryony Rush.”

“Rufus.” They lean forward. “Bryony, folks will claim kinship with Doomsday Dot.”

“Dahlia.”

“And certainly, we’re all siblings on the winding road…”

“I can prove it.” She can’t uncurl her fingers; all her anger’s pulsing hot to her fists. “She’s got a scar. Above her left elbow.” Dad threw—but she’s not saying squat, not to someone she just met. “I’m right, yeah?”

What right does Rufus have, peering at her down their snout like she’s a half-squashed possum? “Well, yes,” they say. “But I’m not sure that’s proof, miss.”

“I’m taking her home.” She crushes her wrist against threatening tears; there’s no one gonna see her cry, never again.

“How long have you been searching for her?”

“Why do you care?”

Rufus holds their paws up. “Only curious.”

“Seven years. Almost eight.”

Rufus ducks their head. “I’m impressed by your fortitude.”

She’s a tough lady, skin of steel and everything, but that almost undoes her. They were gonna build a house together. That was the plan. That is the plan.

Rufus passes her their handkerchief. Waving it off, Bryony steadies herself. She’d rather Rufus eat her up, if they’re sending her away without Dahlia.

“You’ll have to speak with Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time,” Rufus says, soft-like. “Our manager and ringmaster.”

 “Fine.”

“His act’s about to start.”

“I’ll wait.”

Rufus’s smile comes out pained and toothy. “You’re more than welcome to see the show.”

“How do I know you won’t run off with Dahlia?”

“You don’t.” More teeth crowd in. “But the Whale won’t move if he isn’t driving. I wouldn’t get far.”

Teeth aside, the smile makes her unclench, just a bit. “You swear to me?”

“On my mother’s den.”

The earnestness stings. Bryony hates it. “If you’re not here when I get back…”

“I will be.” Rufus moves to untie the tent flaps, and then hesitates. “Do you want to say goodbye? Just for now,” they add.

Bryony crouches at the casket. In the gloom, Dahlia’s face gleams sickly pale. Bryony’s guts twist harder. She’s back in the room they shared as kids, peering at Dahlia’s sleeping face across the bed. The lonely years crash down all at once, and before she realizes what she’s doing, she raps on the glass.

Dahlia doesn’t move. Of course she doesn’t.

A warm, furred foreleg wraps around her shoulders. “I know it’s hard.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“Go see the show,” Rufus says, like they didn’t hear. “Talk to Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time. I’ll keep your sister safe.”

Chapter Two

Stragglers linger outside, scrounging cigarettes. Ragged kids, faded women. The Whale holds court, windows dark along its flanks. Its painted grin gleams in the dimness, like it’d be pleased to meet you and eat you. Bryony ignores it. A double row of lanterns borders a path stamped flat to the big tent. Inside the globed lantern glass, sparks drift in circles. Fireflies, she reckons at first, but they move wrong. Too steady, too cold, like caged stars.

At the main tent’s entrance, the flaps are already tied shut. After Rufus’s song and dance, she isn’t expecting that, let me tell you. Light leaks between canvas and ground. What’s she gonna do, knock? Feeling ridiculous, Bryony taps the tent’s side. Nothing happens.

She squints into the wire of light between flap and flap. Not enough space to see. The blaze spilling out dazzles her anyway. Bryony steals a glance behind.

Since no one’s paying attention, she drops to her knees. The tent’s lashed tight to the ground, but she hoists it enough to belly under and in. Inside, the tent’s a bubble of sunset lamps and shifting shadows. Wooden benches make loose horseshoes a few rows thick. Bryony’s nose wrinkles. It smells like you’d expect. Half these folks wouldn’t know soap if it halloed to them at Sunday church, the other half sweated buckets on the walk here, and they’re all packed together cheek by jowl, stewing in their own reek.

Looking left and right, she finds they’ve strung up a second set of canvas walls, carving the tent into playing space and a backstage passage. Since Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time’s not in front of the crowd, he must be awaiting his cue, so she sidles backstage.

Well, she tries. Someone grabs her shoulder. “Where are you going?”

Dropping low, Bryony wriggles free and spins to face an honest-to-Almighty ghost. Except ghosts don’t grip that strong, so she tells her juddering heart to knock it off. It’s a lady, after all. At first glance, she looks ancient, dead white hair hanging past her shoulders, but not a line creases her chalky face. Her eyes burn like pitch on snow, hot enough that Bryony’s gaze drops. Dirt edges the hem of the lady’s long white dress. Her feet poke out bare.

Bryony frowns. There’s something funny about her toes, but it’s too dark to tell exactly what. Anyway, the lady’s glowering fierce. “How’d you get in here?”

“Bought a ticket.”

The lady laughs, but it’s more like a bark, her lips uncurving. “I remember every coin I take, and you didn’t give me a thing.”

Bryony’s out of nickels, but she’s got an apple she meant for later. She offers it.

“Thanks.” The lady tosses it, catches it, and slips it into an unseen pocket. “Next time you’re late, you visit Doomsday Dot instead.”

“I did,” Bryony snaps. “Rufus sent me.”

“They did?”

“Dahlia’s my sister.” When the lady stares blankly, Bryony adds, “Dahlia. Doomsday Dot. We’re sisters.”

 “Of course you are.” The lady sighs. “All right. Fine. You can watch from here.” She gestures to a crummy bench right at the back.

“I gotta speak to Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time,” Bryony hisses, sliding into place. “You’ll have to introduce me.”

“You’ve got some nerve.” A pause. “I like that.”

Without moving her head, Bryony tries to steal another glance at her face, but the lamps in the ring beyond are extinguished one by one. In the darkness, something stirs.

Preorder Your Copy Today!

(Release date: June 11th)

About KT Bryski

KT Bryski is a Canadian fantasy author. Their short fiction has appeared in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Apex, among others. They have been a finalist for the Sunburst, Eugie, and Aurora awards, and they co-founded and-co-chaired the ephemera reading series. When not writing, they frolic about enjoying choral music and craft beer.

Tentative release date: August 13, 2024

Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in The Deadlands, Lightspeed Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and other publications. Born and raised across the Midwest, she now lives in Indianapolis with her family, works as a part-time indie bookseller, and writes for Book Riot. From These Dark Abodes is her first book.

St. Edah’s, a house without exit: Lethe and Petunia are mortal prisoners, servants to immortal creatures who unzip from their skin each night and party as skeletons.

Lethe has no memory of how she came to be trapped in this nightmare, only that despite the tenderness she feels for Petunia, she must escape. Together, they traverse the infinite house, searching for passage while finding evidence of their former lives—lives that are not what they believed them to be.

Lethe must decide: join the immortals in their revelry or escape St. Edah’s once and for all.

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Here it is, the cover of From These Dark Abodes

art by: John G. Reinhart
layout by: Christine M. Scott

Review Copies

If you’re a reviewer and you’re looking to grab a copy to write about, you can fill out this form. We’ll also have this available on Netgalley by the end of the week.

More details below, but here is the ToC! Celebrate!

Day Ten Thousand, by Isabel J. Kim

Loving Bone Girl, by Tehnuka

The Gates of Lanvil, by Michael Roch, translated by Karine Saint Jacques

Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge, by Eugenia Triantafyllou

Notes on the Burning Place, by Will McMahon

The Bone Meal Corps, by Bendi Barrett

Pomegranate Anatomy, by Diana Dima

Don’t You Weep, by Eden Royce

Spring Woods Spring, by B. Pladek

Death Comes for the Sworn Virgins, by Avra Margariti

Buffalo Gothic, by EC Dorgan

A Name Is A Plea and a Prophecy, by Gabrielle Emem Harry

Brainworms, by Samir Sirk Morató

Interstate Mohinis, by M. L. Krishnan

I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm, Jill Tew

Great Things of Which to Speak Of, Osahon Ize-Iyamu

Liwani, Sydney Paige Guerrero

All the Dead Astronauts, J.A.W. McCarthy

This will be available in print and ebook from Psychopomp in early July, I’ll share a specific date when the month draws closer.

In the meantime, sign up to our email list and you’ll be the first to know when this book is ready for action. It’s free, and we’ll never use it for spam purposes (only to share great fiction, essays, and news with you).

We’re sharing the first three chapters of this unique take on haunted houses.

The links to purchase (available in our Grave Goods store or on Amazon) are at the bottom of this preview.

Please enjoy!

I. But Is The House Truly Haunted?

Of course the house is haunted. If a door is closed on the first floor, another on the second floor will squeal open out of contrariness. If wine is spilled on the living room carpet and scrubbed at furiously and quickly so that a stain does not set, another stain, possibly darker, will appear somewhere else in the house. A favorite room in which the supernatural quietly occurs is the bathroom. Many speculate as to why this room draws so much attention. One might think that in a bathroom, where the most private of acts are committed, that any damned inhabitants could let down their hair, or allow a tired sigh to pass through their doomed lips, that things would be more carefree.

Perhaps this is exactly what they are doing in the bathroom, though, and we have misunderstood them. They turn on the shower and write letters in the steam gathered on the mirror (usually the letter “B” but sometimes a “Be” which seems appropriate given the existential circumstance of whoever writes these vague missives). They tip perfume bottles over, squeeze the last of the toothpaste out of its tube; they leave curls of red hair in the sink. And no one who lives in the house—no one living, that is—has red hair. What’s worse is when they leave the toilet seat up. They’ll flush the toilet over and over, as though entranced by the sound of the water being sucked out. This is what these restless inhabitants are endlessly committing: private acts.

II. The Latest Victims

 There has always been a family subject to the house’s torture. For nearly eighty years, it was the Addlesons. Before that, it was the Oliver family. No one in town, not even our oldest residents, can remember who lived in the house before the Olivers. We have stories, of course, oral recountings of the family who built what we all refer to now as Button House, but their name has been lost to history. 

If anyone is curious, there is the library with town records ready to be opened, but unfortunately barely any documentation remains regarding Button House, other than that it was noted in one history of the town to have appeared in quite an odd fashion. By that, the historian was referring to the order in which Button House and its surrounding orchards and fields had been built and cultivated. 

It was odd, the writer noted, that it was first the orchard that had been seeded and grown to full fruit-bearing capacity prior to the house itself having been built later. This was odd, because in those days it had been tradition for a home to be erected, and then the land around it to be cultivated. 

Some of our eldest community members even speculate that the orchard of Button House must have been one of those planted by Johnny Appleseed himself, as he worked his way from his first orchards across the border in Allegheny Valley, Pennsylvania at the turn of the century, traveling westward through Ohio, seeding as he went to make settling the land easier for those who eventually followed. 

They suspect this due to the randomness of the orchard’s origin, but also due to the fact that the kind of apples those trees grew were the kind the legendary Appleseed was known to plant. Not the type to be plucked and eaten, these were small, tart apples people used to make brandy and hard cider. 

Regardless, a hole in the house’s history gapes in the town records until the first family, whoever they were, had already moved on, gone missing, or died, leaving the place open for the Olivers to settle in. In the absence of that knowledge, we have filled in the blanks with oral history, speculation, rumor, and gossip, much the same as some birds will make their nests out of mud, twigs, pine needles, straw, and random pieces of glittering plastic.

Rose Addleson believed the house was trying to communicate something. She told her husband women know houses better than men, and this is one thing Rose said that many of us in town agree with. There is, after all, what is called “women’s intuition.” What exactly the house was saying eluded Rose, as it eludes the rest of us. Where Rose wanted to determine its motivations, the rest of us wanted it burned to cinders.

“Communicate? Through all these years?” her husband, Jonas, said. 

It was not Rose Addleson who grew up in the house after all, as he had, it was not Rose Addleson who experienced the closeness to these events, the fits the house threw, these fits that her husband had suffered through since childhood. 

“If the house is trying to communicate,” he told Rose, “it has a sad idea of conversation.”

Rose and Jonas have no children. Well, to be precise, no living children. Once there had been a beautiful little girl named Emily, with cheeks that blushed a red to match her mother’s, but she did not take to this world. She died when she was only a year old. On a cold winter’s night, when the house was frosted with ice, she stopped breathing. It wasn’t until the next morning that they found her, already off and soaring to the afterlife.

“A hole in her heart,” the doctor said after examining her, pinching his forefinger and thumb together. “A tiny hole.” They had never known it was there.

After their first few months of marriage, Rose and Jonas had become a bit reclusive. Out of shame? Out of guilt? Fear? Delusion? No one was really able to supply a satisfactory reason for their self-imposed isolation. After all, we don’t live in that house, and frankly, none of us ever would.

If walls could talk, though—and some believe the walls of Button House do talk—perhaps we’d understand that Jonas and Rose Addleson had good reason not to go out or to talk to neighbors. Even Rose’s mother, Mary Kay Billings, didn’t hear from her daughter except when Mary Kay called on the phone, or showed up on the front porch of Button House, something she rarely did.

“That house gives me the creeps,” Mary Kay Billings often told us. “All those stories? Well, I believe them. Why Rose wanted to marry into that family is beyond me.”

Mary Kay has told us this in her own home, in her own kitchen. In a chair by her old landline telephone, with us across the table from her. Once, she said, “Just you wait and see,” then dialed her daughter’s number. A few rings later, Rose answered, and they started talking. “Yes, well, I understand, Rose. Yes, you’re busy, of course. Well, I wanted to ask how you and Jonas are getting along. Good. Mm-hmm. Good. All right, then. I’ll talk to you later. Bye now.”

She put the phone down in its cradle and smirked. “As predicted,” she told us. “Rose has no time to talk. The house, Mother, I’m so busy. Can you call back later? Of course, I’ll call back later, but it’ll be the same conversation, let me tell you. I know my daughter, and Rose can’t be pried away from that house.”

We all feel a bit sad for Mary Kay Billings. She did not gain a son through marriage, but lost a daughter. This is not the way it’s supposed to happen. Marriage should bring people together. We all believe this to be true.

III. The Beginning of the End of Her

Rose has heard voices since she was a little girl. Rose Addleson, née Rose Billings, was always a dear girl in our hearts, but touched with something otherworldly. If her mother doesn’t understand her daughter’s gravitation to Button House, the rest of us understand it all too well. 

Our Rose was the first child to speak in tongues at church. Once, Jesus spoke through her. The voice that came through her mouth never named itself, but it did sound an awful lot like Jesus. It was definitely a male voice, and he kept saying how much he loved us and how we needed to love each other better. It was Jesus all over, and from our own sweet Rose.

We do not understand why, at the age of twelve, she stopped attending services. 

But Rose also heard voices other than the Lord’s. Several of us have overheard her speaking to nothing, or nothing any of us could see. She’s hung her head, chin tucked into breastbone, at the grocery store, near the ketchup and mustard and pickles, murmuring, “Yes. Of course. Yes, I understand. Please don’t be angry.”

Rose heard the voices in Button House, too. This is why she married Jonas: The house called her to come to it.

It was winter when it happened. Rose was eighteen then, just half a year out of high school. She worked in Hettie’s Flower Shop. She could arrange flowers better than anyone in town. She had a way of listening to our needs and desires and understanding them completely, even better than some of us understood ourselves. When the mayor’s daughter asked for centerpieces at her wedding reception that would look magical yet reserved, Rose put together bouquets of white roses, crystals, and pearl drops that, in the hazy dimmed lights of the reception hall, seemed to grow from the tablecloths like strange, flowering trees, and glowed. We all always requested Rose to make our bouquets instead of Hettie, but Hettie didn’t mind. She owned the place, after all.

On her way home from work one evening, Rose’s car stalled a half-mile from Button House. She walked there to get out of the cold, and to call her mother, since her phone wasn’t getting a signal. We can all only imagine how desperate she must have felt as she approached that place, climbed the stairs of its front porch, and rapped the old brass, lion-headed knocker three times. Then the door seemed to swing open on its own, and wind rushed past her like a sigh. She smelled dust and medicine and old people. Something musty and sweet and earthy. Jonas stood in front of her, his brown hair flopping over one of his dark blue eyes, a frown on his sad young face. He was already an orphan in his mid-thirties. 

“Yes?” he asked in a tone that implied that he couldn’t possibly be interested in any reason why Rose was appearing before him. “Can I help you?”

Rose was about to ask if she could use his phone when she heard a voice calling from inside. 

“Rose,” the voice called, rustling like leaves in a breeze. “Rose, please help,” the house pleaded. And then she thought she heard it say, “Need, need, need.” Or perhaps it had said something altogether different. She couldn’t be sure. The walls swelled behind Jonas’s shoulder, inhaling, exhaling, and then the sound of a heartbeat could be heard.      

“Are you all right?” Jonas asked. “Rose Billings, right? I haven’t seen you since you were a little girl.”

“Yes,” said Rose, but she didn’t know if she was saying yes to his question or to the house’s plea. She shook her head, winced, then looked up at Jonas again. Light, silvery and stringy as webs, cocooned his body.

“Come in,” he offered, moving aside for her to enter, and Rose went in, looking around for the source of the voice as she cautiously moved forward, looking into the corners of the shadow-dusted foyer, cocking her head to the side as she tried to get a look at the rooms that lay beyond.

Mary Kay Billings didn’t hear from her daughter for three days after that snowstorm. That night, she called the police and spoke to Sheriff Dawson. He’d found Rose’s car stuck in a drift; the still-falling snow had obscured her footprints. They called Hettie’s Flower Shop, but it was already closed. Then they phoned the pharmacy, because Rose was supposed to pick up cold medicine for Mary Kay on her way home from work. Eventually, after three days of hearing nothing from her, the phone rang, and when Mary Kay picked up, it was Rose calling. “I’m okay,” Rose said, after Mary Kay barraged her with questions. “But I’m not coming home. Can you pack my things and send them to me?”

“Where are you?” Mary Kay demanded.

“Have someone bring my things to Button House,” Rose said.

“Button House?!” Mary Kay shook her head, confused. Clearly Sherriff Dawson hadn’t checked in at Button House during his search. But then, who would have guessed anyone would seek shelter at Button House, when we teach our children to avoid it at all costs?

“Why on earth are you there, Rose?” Mary Kay asked.

“I’m a married woman now, Mother,” Rose explained. 

And that was the beginning of the end of her.

But is the house truly haunted?

Of course the house is haunted.

Button House has stood for centuries, digging its roots and its rot deeper and deeper, consuming all who approach: twin brothers, a child bride, an innocent baby, four young factory workers.

And then came Rose Billings, who had an affinity with the house like no other. Rose, who could hear the house and the pleas of its many ghosts. Rose, who would attempt to solve the mysteries of Button House, or die trying.

From Shirley Jackson award winning author Christopher Barzak comes an obsessive tale of a family haunted by a very terrible house.

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Release date: May 14th, 2024

Lovely Creatures is a journey across a wasteland within the belly of a wooden whale toward a distant, mythical river, by Sunburst, Eugie, and Aurora award finalist KT Bryski.

Doomsday Dot will wake the day the world ends.

That’s what everyone says, yours truly included.

Bryony’s been searching for her big sister for ten years and change, and the trail finally leads her to Mr. Once-Upon-a-Time’s traveling show. There’s a wolf who’ll serve you tea, a lady who’s sometimes a swan, and Bryony’s sister sound asleep in a glass casket. All of them, rolling through the wasteland in a giant wooden Whale.

The Whale’s important, you’ll see.

But Bryony’s not the only one on the hunt. Everyone on the Whale is running from something. And whether Bryony can wake her sister before they’re caught, well, only the Devil herself knows.

The Devil’s important as well. You’ll see that, too.

You can preorder Lovely Creatures now through our very own Grave Goods store, and: BONUS! All preorders purchased through us will receive a pin: designs and details to come!

Pre-order your copy here:

Physical book – $13.99

eBook – $8.99

*Remember: you will not receive this book until May 14th, 2024.

Here is the fantastic cover:

art by: Donn Marlou Ramirez

layout by: Christine M. Scott

Review Copies

If you’re a reviewer and you’re looking to grab a copy to write about, you can fill out this form here. We’ll also have this available on Netgalley by the end of the week.

Today, we are sharing with you the first two novelettes we have acquired, along with a brief synopsis of each:

What Any Dead Thing Wants, by Aimee Ogden (end of February publication)

Joanna’s Bodies, by Eugenia Triantafyllou (early June publication)

Both stories will be free to read on Psychopomp.com, and email subscribers will be sent a .pdf and .epub file to use on the e-reader of their choice.

Psychopomp will be publishing an omnibus of all four novelettes in print and ebook in early 2025.

Sign up here (free!) to get on the email list and get a copy of these stories–you’ll also get our weekly Letters From The Psychopomp deathy email:

What Any Dead Thing Wants, by Aimee Ogden

About the Story:

Hob and his team of clean-up exorcists remove the ghosts of various biota left behind on a planet after it has been terraformed. They’ve performed this work countless times before, but this time they’ll encounter something new and entirely unexpected: a human ghost.

About the Author:

Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. Her debut novella Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters was a 2021 Nebula Award finalist, and her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022. Her third novella, Emergent Properties, came out in July 2023. She would make for a very annoying ghost.

Joanna’s Bodies, by Eugenia Triantafyllou

About the Story:

Eleni and Joanna were best friends that drifted apart. Maybe it would have stayed that way, if Eleni didn’t feel guilty for Joanna’s untimely death. One night she rediscovers an old book of spells they bought when they were younger, and resurrects Joanna. She made a promise to bring her friend back each time Joanna must shed her borrowed body—a promise she’s hell-bound to keep not matter how grim things get.

About the Author:

Eugenia Triantafyllou is a Greek author and artist with a flair for dark things. Her work has been nominated for the Ignyte, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and she is a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop. You can find her stories in Reactor (formerly Tor.com), Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and other venues. She currently lives in Athens with a boy and a dog. Find her on Twitter or Bluesky @foxesandroses, her IG @eugeniatriantafyllou, or her website.

For more information/questions please contact press@psychopomp.com

Release date: March 19th, 2024

A Voice Calling is an obsessive tale of a family haunted by a very terrible house:

But is the house truly haunted?

Of course the house is haunted.

Button House has stood for centuries, digging its roots and its rot deeper and deeper, consuming all who approach: twin brothers, a child bride, an innocent baby, four young factory workers.

And then came Rose Billings, who had an affinity with the house like no other. Rose, who could hear the house and the pleas of its many ghosts. Rose, who would attempt to solve the mysteries of Button House, or die trying.

You can preorder A Voice Calling now through our very own Grave Goods store, and: BONUS! All preorders purchased through us will receive a pin: the pin is of a button, but it’s a PIN and not a BUTTON (design will be shared in the coming weeks).

Pre-order your copy here:

Physical book – $13.99

eBook – $8.99

*Remember: you will not receive this book until March 19th, 2024.

Here is the absolutely amazing cover:

art by: Tetuko Widyahananto

layout by: Christine M. Scott

Review Copies

If you’re a reviewer and you’re looking to grab a copy to write about, you can fill out this form here. We’ll also have this available on Netgalley by the end of the week.

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