Anthologies

Mocha Memoirs Press and Nightlight Podcast are proud to present Blackened Roots: An Anthology of the Undead – a groundbreaking anthology celebrating nontraditional zombie stories from the African diaspora. The anthology is co-edited by Stoker-nominated and award-winning editor and writer Nicole Givens Kurtz and 2022 World Fantasy Award® Winner and 2022 Ignyte® Winner, producer, and editor Tonia Ransom at NIGHTLIGHT.

Blackened Roots is a unique collection and will be a must-have for zombie lovers. Blackened Roots takes the zombie mythos back to its roots. Drawing from a variety of cultural backgrounds, Blackened Roots imagines a world of horror and wonder where Black protagonists take center stage – as zombies, as hunters, as heroes. From a haunting recipe to sibling rivalry, a singing zombie cowboy, a slave ship, and disobedient gods stories, Blackened Roots is a groundbreaking Afrocentric zombie anthology celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the African Diaspora.

Featuring stories by award winning authors Eden Royce, Craig L. Gidney, Milton Davis, Sumiko Saulson, Marc Abbott, Moustapha Mbacké Diop, Steven Van Patten, Brandon Massey, and Errick Nunnally.

“In death – no! even in the grave all is not lost.” -Edgar Allan PoeWandering souls! Restless spirits! The vengeful dead! Those who die with unfinished business haunt the living and make their presence known from the world beyond:

• A scientist’s invention opens a window onto a terrible afterlife.
• A New York City apartment holds the secrets of the dead.
• A grandmother sends text messages from the grave.
• A samurai returns to his devastated home for a final showdown with his past.
• A forgotten TV game show haunts a man with a dark secret.
• A tapping from behind classroom walls leads to a horrible discovery.
• The specter of a prehistoric beast returns to a modern-day ranch.
• And the one seeing eye knows all-including what you did.

Haunted from the other side, these stories roam from modern cities to the shadowed moors to feudal Japan to the jungles of Central America, each providing a spine-chilling glimpse into the shadows not even death can restrain. Do you dare open these pages and peer into the darkness they reveal? Stories by Marc Abbott, Meghan Arcuri, Oliver Baer, Alp Beck, Allan Burd, John P. Collins, Randee Dawn, Trevor Firetog, Caroline Flarity, Patrick Freivald, Teel James Glenn, Amy Grech, April Grey, Jonathan Lees, Gordon Linzner, Robert Masterson, Robert Ottone, Rick Poldark, Lou Rera, and Steven Van Patten.

In this anthology of weird fiction, twenty-two authors who found the Yellow Sign share their harrowing visions of worlds shaped by its influence in stories and poems inspired by Robert W. Chambers’s foundational works of weird horror. From the personal to the historic, from the macabre to the fantastic, the stories and poems gathered here illuminate new, unexpected realities shaped by the King in Yellow, under the sway of the Yellow Sign, or in the grip of madnesses inspired by their power. 

Robert W. Chambers’s classic work of weird fiction, The King in Yellow (1895), contained two stories that have exercised wide influence in the genre. “The Repairer of Reputations” introduced the world to The King in Yellow, a play in two acts, banned for its reputed power to drive mad anyone who reads its complete text. Another story, “The Yellow Sign,” used the experiences of an artist and his model to elaborate on the mythos of the Yellow King, the Yellow Sign, and their danger to all who encounter them. In those tales Chambers crafted fascinating glimpses of a cosmos populated by conspiracies, government-sanctioned suicide chambers, haunted artists, premonitions of death, unreliable narrators—and dark, enigmatic occurrences tainted by the alien world of Carcosa, where the King rules in his tattered yellow mantle. In Carcosa, black stars rise and Cassilda and Camilla speak and sing. In Carcosa, eyes peer from within pallid masks to gaze across Lake Hali at the setting of twin suns. 

Authors included: Marc Abbott • Linda D. Addison • Meghan Arcuri • Greg Chapman • JG Faherty • Trevor Firetog • Patrick Freivald • Carol Gyzander • Todd Keisling • John Langan • Curtis Lawson • Adrian Ludens • Lisa Morton • Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. • Sarah Read • Kathleen Scheiner • Ann K. Schwader • Darrell Schweitzer • J. Daniel Stone • Steven Van Patten • Tim Waggoner • Kaaron Warren

From a city and state that have witnessed all manner of menace—from serial killers and corrupt political machines to natural disasters and terrorist attacks—come twenty-four visions of dread from New York horror authors—all to benefit the next generation of New York writers. Presenting stories set in New York locations, A NEW YORK STATE OF FRIGHT gathers tales by new and established writers who give voice to New York’s everyday fears, macabre mysteries, and worst nightmares. Available through Hippocampus Press.

Table of Contents

Authors Included:  James Chambers,  Alp Beck, John C. Foster, Monica O’Rourke, Patrick Freivald, Hal Johnson, Erik T. Johnson, Steven Van Patten, Kathleen Scheiner, Trevor Firetog, Jeff C. Stevenson, Allan Burd, Teel James Glenn, Marc Abbott, Amy Grech, Meghan Arcuri, David Sakmyster, JG Faherty, Charie D. La Marr, Patrick Thomas, Lisa Mannetti, Elizabeth Crowens, Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee, Grady Hendrix,  J. Daniel Stone

Fourteen talented writers spin tales of tortured love. Writers included are Rayne Hall, Jonathan Broughton, Carole Ann Moleti, April Grey, Phillip T. Stephens, Oliver Baer, Teel James Glenn, Jake TS Wryte, Amy Grech, V. Peter Collins, Steven Van Patten, Rick Poldark, Elizabeth Crowens, Marc Abbott. Ghosts, Werewolves, Vampires, they all want love too.