Well hello, my little pineapple frittata - allow me to introduce myself...my name is Mallum Colt, proprietor of Colt's Curiosity Corner, located smack bang in the middle of Shallow Creek. With Halloween still lingering in people's minds, STORGY Books wants to celebrate all things eerie by publishing an anthology of dark fantasy and horror fiction dedicated to all things that go bump in the night. 

Think The Twilight Zone, Tales of The Unexpected and Creepshow all rolled into one. Does that make your flesh tingle, my little withered umbilical cord? I hope it does, I really do.

The quiet town of Shallow Creek has a long history of ghost stories and tales of the macabre. Every few generations this strangeness crawls out from the dark places of the quaint settlement’s imagination, seeping into our own reality. We are living through uncertain times now. Let the Creek lure you quietly to the safe place…  

Shallow Creek is an anthology of new horror stories and strange fiction with a sting in its barbed tail, edited by Tomek Dzido of STORGY Books. It collects together twenty brand new unsettling stories that draw upon the ethereal landscape of quiet towns just short of the outskirts of infinity for inspiration. Some of the stories within this tome explore the realms of the supernatural, whilst others are firmly rooted in gritty realism, but they all engage the reader with terror in abundance.  

My little devilish concubine, we're looking for £3,500 to help cover the cost of the book. We will take the money and give it to a selection of deserving people, including: The cover artist, the designer, the illustrator and the Printers.  

We've got Kickstarter exclusives on offer, including T-shirts, bespoke-made bookmarks from illustrator Amie Dearlove and a chance to have your name in the book as part of the amazing community that supports indie publishing. It all kicks off on Friday 2nd November, and the team at STORGY would appreciate it immensely if you could pledge towards making this anthology a printed reality.  

Welcome to Shallow Creek.

What makes Shallow Creek unique? I unveiled a competition earlier this year, calling out to all horror enthusiasts to contribute towards the anthology. Hundreds answered the call and were all summoned to the town, where I personally handed them a specific character, location and item to create tenebrous and twisted tales to disturb your thoughts and tickle your ankles from underneath the duvet at night. They were given a map to explore the darkest regions of our little community - Arkady Asylum, where the patients may not be as mad as the people supervising...a fairground with more than a fun-house to keep the punters entertained...but there's so much more to discover, and when you read my anthology you may find a certain character in one short story popping up in another...it's a glorious concept and one the authors found an enjoyable challenge. In the end, twenty authors produced tales so delightfully morbid that the STORGY team couldn't pick a winner themselves. They had to call in someone who knows horror.

COMPETITION JUDGE - NAOMI BOOTH

Naomi Booth is an award-winning writer and academic, included in the Guardian’s Fresh New Voices: 50 Writers You Should Read Now (2018) and shortlisted for the Not The Booker Prize (2018). Her first work of fiction, The Lost Art of Sinking, was selected for New Writing North’s Read Regional campaign and won the Saboteur Award for Best Novella 2016. Her debut novel, Sealed (Dead Ink Books, 2017) is a horrifying tale of body mutation and environmental contamination, described by the Guardian as “not for the faint-hearted… a marvellous first novel”. Her uncanny short fiction, “Cluster” was long-listed for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award 2018. Naomi is Subject Director of Creative Writing at York St John University.

Sealed by Naomi Booth

Nick Adams
- Tide -

Erik Bergstrom
– The Soil of Stonier Hearts –

Simon Billinton
– Blood Moon Bob –

Daniel Carpenter
– Arrowhead –

Marion Coleman
– Anchor –

J. Stuart Croskell
– Dave Danver’s Final Foray into All Things Woo Woo –

Heather Cuthbertson
– Secret Ingredient –

Andrea Hardarker
– The Fulmar’s Cry –

Eleanor Hickey
– Strange Brew –

David Hartley
– Pentameter –

Tom Heaton
– Janet’s Vision of Love –

Allyson Kersel
– Knock, Knock, Knucklebone –

Adam Lock
– And The World Fades to Black –

Alice Noel
– Behind These Eyes –

Ian Steadman
– We Live In Dirt –

Adrian J. Walker
– Backwards –

Gregg Williard
– The Lurid Trance –

Brian Wilson
– Distraction –

Michael To

Michael To is an illustrator based in London with over a decade of experience. While studying animation, he discovered his love for concept art and illustration. He is greatly influenced by films, gaming and art. You can follow him on Instagram @toart0.

HarlotVonCharlotte

HarlotVonCharlotte is an artist living and working in London – she graduated from the University of Plymouth in 2009 with a BA(Hons) in Illustration, subsequently discovering that the years spent there were a complete waste of time. She primarily focuses on figurative illustrative artwork of the slightly odd and macabre persuasion and has also used sculpting, painting, figure drawing and graphic design to create new styles and unique works of art. She is currently experimenting with laser cut acrylic collages. She collaborates with other artists for live drawing events. Her client list ranges from corporate to personal commissions. You can follow HarlotVonCharlotte on Instagram @harlotvoncharlotte

 Rob Pearce

Rob is a Graphic Designer from London who has worked with clients ranging from Nike & The British Film Institute to The Churches Conservation Trust. He recently designed the cover for the novel The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted The War, which was serialised for BBC Radio 4.

Whilst our primary focus has been to raise the necessary funds to print and publish Shallow Creek and provide authors with valuable exposure, we also want to pay our writers. As a result, our following stretch goals are a combination of raising additional funds to pay our writers, and introducing new writers and new stories. And after such a fantastic first weekend, what better way to celebrate surpassing the half way point of our funding goal than announcing the new residents of Shallow Creek:

• £5,000 - payment to authors & a new story by SARAH LOTZ 
• £5,500 - a new story by RICHARD THOMAS
• £6,000 - a new story by ALIYA WHITELEY

Remember, if you have already pledged you can always increase your pledge to help us reach these new targets. Sharing news about Shallow Creek on social media will also help!

From all of us at STORGY, thank you for your continued encouragement and support.

SARAH LOTZ

Sarah Lotz is a screenwriter and novelist with a fondness for the macabre and fake names. Among other things, she writes urban horror novels under the name S.L. Grey with author Louis Greenberg; a YA pulp-fiction zombie series, Deadlands, with her daughter, Savannah, under the pseudonym Lily Herne; and quirky erotica novels with authors Helen Moffett and Paige Nick under the name Helena S. Paige. Sarah has also had stories published in numerous acclaimed anthologies such as New Fears 2 and This Dreaming Aisle.

You can find our more about Sarah here...

RICHARD THOMAS

Richard Thomas is the award-winning author of seven books: three novels—Disintegration and Breaker (Random House Alibi), and Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications); three short story collections—Staring Into the Abyss (Kraken Press), Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press), and Tribulations (Cemetery Dance); as well as one novella in The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books). 

With over 100 published stories, Richard's credits include Cemetery Dance, PANK, storySouth, Gargoyle, Weird Fiction Review, Midwestern Gothic, Arcadia, Qualia Nous, Chiral Mad 2 & 3, and Shivers VI (with Stephen King and Peter Straub). He has won contests at ChiZine and One Buck Horror, and has received five Pushcart Prize nominations to date. He is also the editor of four anthologies: The New Black and Exigencies (Dark House Press), The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers (Black Lawrence Press) and Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press) with Chuck. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and Thriller awards. 

You can find out more about Richard here...

ALIYA WHITELELY

Aliya Whiteley was born in Devon in 1974, and currently lives in Sussex. She writes novels, short stories and non-fiction and has been published in The Guardian, Interzone, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Black Static, Strange Horizons, and anthologies such as Fox Spirit's European Monsters and Lonely Planet's Better than Fiction I and II. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice, and won the Drabblecast People's Choice Award in 2007.

Her recent novella for Unsung Stories, The Beauty, was shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award and a Sabotage Award, and appeared on the Honors List for the James Tiptree Jr Award. Her writing is often violent, tender, terrifying and funny. Other published works include a collection of short stories, a novel from Dog Horn Publishing, and a blackly comic crime novel from Macmillan. 

You can find out more about Aliya here...

STORGY MAGAZINE was founded in 2013 by Tomek Dzido and Anthony Self as a means by which to explore the short story form and inspire artistic collaboration. STORGY seeks to publish and promote exceptional literary fiction whilst providing authors with the opportunity to reach a wider literary audience. We take pride in discovering new and emerging talent, whilst also celebrating the work of established writers. Since 2013 STORGY Magazine has published over 450 short stories by 200+ authors from every corner of the world. The publication of these inspirational and talented writers remains an immense privilege and we take great care when publishing such an eclectic mix of fiction. We continue to seek cutting edge short stories that challenge literary conventions and experiment with genre, style, form, and content. STORGY Magazine has interviewed some of the best authors in print today, such as Chuck Palahniuk, Donald Ray Pollock, James Frey, Patrick deWitt, Owen King, Grady Hendrix, Max Porter, Carys Bray, Debra Dean, David James Poissant, James Miller, Ali Shaw, Callan Wink, and many many more. In 2016, Ross Jeffery joined STORGY and STORGY Magazine launched a new review section which regularly publishes book and film reviews which has helped us build relations with authors and industry experts. STORGY Books has published three previous Anthologies; 'The STORGY Short Story Prize Anthology; Volume 1' and 'The STORGY Short Story Prize Anthology; Volume 2', both of which are available for purchase as digital downloads on Amazon. Exit Earth is available in print from our online store - this is also now being studied at Leeds Beckett University (creative writing course) as a core text on their contemporary literature module as an example of exquisite short story writing, featuring M.R. Carey, Toby Litt, Courttia Newland, James Poissant and James Miller.

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