HOT IRON AND COLD BLOOD: An Anthology of the Weird West available now!

Desperados and yellow-bellies be warned: These ain’t your typical westerns…

Herein find legendary masters of anomalous Western and Horror stories–along with a posse of budding word-slingers–who all bring you an electrifying and frightening collection of extraordinary tales set in the Old West and beyond…

Within these pages, the improbable is made real: cowboys encounter a chimeric critter of the night; dinosaurs return as massive poltergeists; Chinese railroad workers are haunted by invisible frights; outlaws experience Cronenbergian body-horror; fallen-light stalks mother and daughter upon a wintry prairie; a headless horseman roams the badlands; otherworldly creatures hunt within our domain; screaming spectral birds nest within the damned; and gunslinging women with murderous skills annihilate foolish notions of a man’s world. These are just a handful of the offerings in this body of macabre lore. So, mount your saddle-horse and join this gang of rogue authors for a ride down dark trails of terror and unsettling thoroughfares that lead deep into strange, nightmarish territory.

Available in print and digital wherever books are sold.

About the authors:

R.J. Joseph Rhonda Jackson Garcia, AKA RJ Joseph, is an award winning, Stoker Award™ nominated, Texas based academic and creative writer/professor whose writing regularly focuses on the intersections of gender and race in the horror and romance genres and popular culture. She has had works published in various applauded venues, including the 2020 Halloween issue of Southwest Review and The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Series. Her debut horror collection, Hell Hath No Sorrow like a Woman Haunted was released in August 2022 by The Seventh Terrace. Rhonda is also an instructor at the Speculative Fiction Academy and the co-host of the Genre Blackademia podcast.

When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she can usually be found wrangling her huge blended family of one husband, five adult sprouts, six teenaged sproutlings, four grandboo seedlings, and one furry hellbeast who sometimes pretends to be a dog.

She occasionally peeks out on Twitter @rjacksonjoseph or at www.rhondajacksonjoseph.com

Jill Girardi Jill Girardi is the award-nominated, internationally best-selling author of Hantu Macabre. A film based on the book with the same title is currently in the works (directed by Aaron Cowan, a senior member of the visual effects team that won four Oscars for Avatar and Lord of the Rings.) Jill is also the founder of Kandisha Press, an independent publishing company dedicated to promoting women horror authors around the world. She is currently working on Hantu Macabre 2, a short story collection, and a novella titled “Mangrove Jack.” Her favorite published stories to date are “One Every Year” which appears in the Dark Murmurs anthology by Silent House Press, “Mister Olivelli” from Lunatic Lullabies by Pyke Publishing, and “The Ecstasy of Gold” from 25 Gates of Hell by Burwick anthologies. She mainly writes dark humorous creature features and still believes in twist endings.

Find her on Twitter/Instagram: @jill_girardi

Owl Goingback Owl Goingback has been writing professionally for over thirty years, and is the author of numerous novels, children’s book, screenplays, magazine articles, short stories, and comics. He is a three-time Bram Stoker Award Winner, a Nebula Award Nominee, and a Storytelling World Awards Honor Recipient. His books include Crota, Darker Than Night, Evil Whispers, Breed, Shaman Moon, Coyote Rage, Eagle Feathers, The Gift, and Tribal Screams. In addition to writing under his own name, he has ghostwritten for Hollywood celebrities.

Twitter: OGoingback

Brennan LaFaro Brennan LaFaro is a horror writer living in southeastern Massachusetts with his wife, two sons, and his hounds. An avid lifelong reader, Brennan also co-hosts the Dead Headspace podcast. Brennan is the author of Noose, as well as Slattery Falls and its forthcoming sequels. You can read his short fiction in various anthologies and find him on Twitter at @brennanlafaro or at www.brennanlafaro.com. For the most up to date news, sign up for Brennan’s newsletter, Postcards From the Falls at http://brennanlafaro.substack.com.

Vivian Kasley Vivian Kasley hails from the land of the strange and unusual, Florida! She’s a writer of short stories and poetry which have appeared in various science fiction anthologies, horror anthologies, horror magazines, and webzines. Some of her street cred includes Grimscribe Press, Ghost Orchid Press, Diabolica Americana, The Denver Horror Collective’s Jewish Book of Horror, Kandisha Press’s Slash-Her, Death’s Head Press, and poetry in Black Spot Books inaugural women in horror poetry showcase: Under Her Skin. She definitely has more in the works, including her very own first collection. When not writing or subbing at the local middle school, she spends her time reading in bubble baths, snuggling her rescue animals, going on adventures with her other half, and searching for seashells and other treasures along the beach.

Twitter handle: @VKasley

Kenzie Jennings Kenzie Jennings is an English professor residing in the sweltering tourist pocket of central Florida. She is the author of the Splatterpunk Award nominated books Reception and Red Station (Death’s Head Press). Her short horror fiction has appeared in The Avarice, Baker’s Dozen, Slash-Her: An Anthology of Women In Horror, Slice Girls, Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror, & Dig Two Graves, Vol. 1.

Twitter: @kenzieblyjay

Ronald Kelly RONALD KELLY was born November 20, 1959, in Nashville, Tennessee. He attended Pegram Elementary School and Cheatham County Central High School, and, during his junior and senior years, had aspirations of become a comic book artist before his interests turned to writing fiction. Ronald Kelly began his professional writing career in the horror genre in 1986 with the sale of his first short story, “Breakfast Serial” to Terror Time Again magazine. Specializing in tales of Southern horror, his work was widely published in magazines such as Deathrealm, Grue, New Blood, Eldritch Tales, and Cemetery Dance. His first novel, Hindsight, was released by Zebra Books in 1990. He wrote for Zebra for six years, publishing such novels as Pitfall, Something Out There, Father’s Little Helper, The Possession, Fear, Blood Kin, and Moon of the Werewolf (Undertaker’s Moon). His audiobook collection, Dark Dixie: Tales of Southern Horror, was included on the nominating ballot of the 1992 Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album. Ronald’s short fiction work has been published in major anthologies such as Cold Blood, Borderlands 3, Dark at Heart, Shock Rock, Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, The Earth Strikes Back, and many more,

In the mid-1990s, the bottom dropped out of the mass-market horror market. When Zebra canceled their horror line in October 1996, Ronald Kelly stopped writing for ten years and worked various jobs including welder, factory worker, production manager, drugstore manager, and custodian. In 2006, Kelly returned to the horror genre and began writing again. In early 2008, Croatoan Publishing released his work Flesh Welder as a stand-alone chapbook, and it quickly sold out. In early 2009 Cemetery Dance Publications released a hardcover edition of his first short story collection, Midnight Grinding & Other Twilight Terrors. Also in 2010, Cemetery Dance released his first novel in over ten years, Hell Hollow, as a hardcover edition. Between 2011 and 2015, Kelly’s Zebra horror novels were released in limited hardcover editions by Thunderstorm Books as The Essential Ronald Kelly series. Each book contained a new novella related to the novel’s original storyline.

After his comeback to the horror genre, he has written several additional novels, such as Restless Shadows, Timber Gray, and The Buzzard Zone, as well as numerous short story collections: After the Burn, Mister Glow-Bones & Other Halloween Tales, The Halloween Store & Other Tales of All-Hallows’ Eve, Season’s Creepings: Tales of Holiday Horror, Irish Gothic, and The Web of La Sanguinaire & Other Arachnid Horrors. In 2021, his collection of extreme horror stories, The Essential Sick Stuff, published by Silver Shamrock Publications, won the Splatterpunk Award for Best Collection. He is currently publishing two new horror series: The Saga of Dead-Eye and the EC Comics-inspired Southern-Fried story collections with Crossroad Press.

Ronald Kelly lives in a backwoods hollow in Brush Creek, Tennessee, sixty miles east of Nashville, with his wife and young’uns.

Edward Lee Edward Lee is the author of over 50 books in the horror, suspense, and sci-fi genres. He has also had comic scripts published by DC Comics, Verotik Inc., and Cemetery Dance. Many of his novels have been reprinted in Germany, Poland, Japan, Italy, Romania, Greece, Russia, Spain and other countries. He is a Bram Stoker Award Nominee; his Lovecraftian novel INNSWICH HORROR won the 2010 Vincent Price Award for Best Foreign Book (Austria), his novel WHITE TRASH GOTHIC won the 2018 Splatterpunk Award for Best Extreme Horror Novel, and his collaborative novella HEADER 3 (with Ryan Harding) won for Best Extreme Novella. In 2020 Lee won the J.F. Gonzales Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009, the movie version of his novella HEADER was released by Synapse Films. Lee is a U.S. Army veteran and lives in Seminole, Florida.

Drew Huff Drew Huff is the author of Free Burn, coming out on March 2024. Born and raised in eastern Washington, she enjoys writing stories that explore the intricacies of trauma, body horror, and fear. Her short fiction, “Word of Nellie,” is the closing story in Darklit Press’s “The Sacrament” anthology. Another short story was included in Hungry Shadow Press’s anthology, “It Was All a Dream,” and another short story, “Old World Birds” is being featured in Death’s Head Press’s anthology, “Hot Iron and Cold Blood.” Her short story “Same as it Ever Was” is being featured in Night Terror Novel’s charity anthology, and also a flash fiction piece, “The Bird, Frozen in Time”. She is currently editing her other novel, The Divine Flesh, and drafting another novel, The Exodontists.

Website: drewehuff.com Twitter Handle: @dreadnought_dru

David J. Schow DAVID J. SCHOW is a multiple-award-winning American writer. Ten novels, thirteen short story collections, comics (John Carpenter’s Tales of Science Fiction — “The Standoff“ and “HELL”), movies (The Crow, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, The Hills Run Red), television (Masters of Horror, Mob City, Creepshow), nonfiction (The Outer Limits Companion, The Art of Drew Struzan), and can be seen on various DVDs as expert witness or documentarian on everything from Creature from the Black Lagoon to Psycho to I, Robot. Thanks to him, the word “splatterpunk” has been in the Oxford English Dictionary since 2002. Google him.

Twitter: @DavidJSchow

Jeff Strand Jeff Strand is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of over 50 books, including Pressure, Clowns Vs. Spiders, and Twentieth Anniversary Screening. He has never participated in a railroad heist or been thrown out of the front window of a saloon, but he did visit Tombstone. Several of his books are in development as motion pictures…a slow and maddening process. He won the Splatterpunk Award twice and lost one other time, but the loss was to Jack Ketchum, so it’s all good. He also lost the Bram Stoker Award to Peter Straub, Jonathan Maberry, and Stephen King (twice) before his eventual victory. He loses to cool people. He is wanted dead or alive in seventeen counties. You can visit his Gleefully Macabre website at www.jeffstrand.com. Twitter: @JeffStrand

Briana Morgan Briana Morgan (she/her) is a horror author and playwright. Her books include The Reyes Incident, The Tricker-Treater and Other Stories, Unboxed: A Play, and more. She’s a proud member of the Horror Writers Association, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, and the Alliance of Independent Authors. When not writing, Briana enjoys gaming, watching scary movies, and reading disturbing books. Twitter: @brimorganbooks

Patrick R. McDonough Patrick R. McDonough is an editor, writer, and the producer/co-host of the Dead Headspace podcast. His penchant for horror and history leads him down endless paths, growing his interest in forgotten stories. He’s a New Englander currently living in South Jersey with his wife, son, and pets. You can find his short fiction in various anthologies through Silent Hill Press, Cemetery Gates Media, and Crystal Lake Publishing. Twitter: @Prmcdonough

L.M. Labat As a native of New Orleans, author and illustrator L.M. Labat weaves her artwork into horror, occult, and historical fiction stories. With accolades and origins stemming from biology, psychology, and fine art, she continues to fuse her collective knowledge and skills into her work. She debuted with her novel titled “The Sanguinarian Id.” Visit her at http://www.lmlabat.comTwitter: @LMLabat

Jesse Allen Champion Jesse Allen Champion is a native Texan and writer of frequent western-themed stories. From Texas to California, Jesse has worked at dude-ranching, theatre management, technical writing, and editing. As comfortable on a horse as a keyboard, Jesse’s fiction remembers the Old West, with the tumbleweed going wherever it will and a man on horseback as the ultimate arbiter of good and evil.

Joe R. Lansdale Joe R. Lansdale is the author of forty-five novels and four hundred shorter works, including stories, essays, reviews, introductions and magazine articles. His work has been made into films, BUBBA HOTEP, COLD IN JULY, as well as the acclaimed TV show, HAP AND LEONARD. He has also had works adapted to MASTERS OF HORROR on SHOWTIME, and wrote scripts for BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, and SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. He scripted a special Jonah Hex animated short, as well as the animated Batman film, SON OF BATMAN.

He has received numerous recognitions for his work. Among them THE EDGAR, for his crime novel THE BOTTOMS, THE SPUR, for his historical western PARADISE SKY, as well as ten BRAM STOKERS for his horror work, and has also received THE GRANDMASTER AWARD and the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD from THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION. He has been recognized for his contributions to comics and is a member of THE TEXAS INSTITUTE OF LITERATURE, THE TEXAS LITERARY HALL OF FAME, and is WRITER IN RESIDENCE at STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY.

He is in the INTERNATIONAL MARTIAL ARTS HALL OF FAME, as well as the U.S. MARTIAL ARTS HALL OF FAME, and is the founder of the Shen Chuan martial arts system.

His books and stories appear in over twenty-five languages.

Wile E. Young Wile E. Young is from Texas, where he grew up surrounded by stories of ghosts and monsters. During his writing career he has managed to both have a price put on his head and win the 2021 Splatterpunk Award for Best Novel. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in History, which provided no advantage or benefit during his years as an aviation specialist and I.T. guru.

His longer works includes Catfish in the Cradle (2019), The Perfectly Fine House (2020), The Magpie Coffin (2020), Shades of the Black Stone (2022), Clickers Never Die (2022), and Dust Bowl Children (2022). His short stories have been featured in various anthologies including the Clickers Forever (2018), Behind the Mask- Tales From the Id (2018), Corporate Cthulhu (2018), And Hell Followed (2019), Splatterpunk Bloodstains (2020) and Bludgeon Tools: A Splatterpunk Anthology (2021).

Twitter: @TexasCthulhu.

Cover by Robert Sammelin
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