Shock Totem presents issue #3, their biggest yet, nearly 50% bigger than the first two! It features previously unpublished stories from the likes of John Skipp, Tim Leider, S. Clayton Rhodes, Steven Pirie, and eight others, plus one poem. Also conversations with D. Harlan Wilson and Count Lyle of the band Ghoultown, nonfiction from Mercedes M. Yardley, and much more

Shock Totem 3: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

Literature & Fiction

Shock Totem

Genre Fiction

Shock Totem Publications

Shock Totem celebrates its ninth issue, featuring fantastic tales of nightmares, monsters, ghosts, and severed digits!  Inside you will find not only a brand new, previously unpublished tale by Stephen Graham Jones, but also an interview with this modern master of words. Kathryn Ohnaka presents “Buddy,” a twisting, slithering serpent of a tale. The words are pure poetry, with fangs. “Saturday,” by Evan Dicken, follows, creeping and crawling and filled with Things that whisper of doom.  Similar whisperings can be heard in Bracken MacLeod’s “Thirteen Views of the Suicide Woods” and most of you will know the voices. Tim Lieder’s darkly rhythmic “Hey Man” will get you toe-tapping and “in the mood.” With a touch of science fiction, Emma Osborne’s “The Box Wife” is sure to leave you uncomfortable. The box wife is one and many, but you’ll recognize all.  Stephen King once called Jack Ketchum “the scariest guy in America.” What scares the scariest guy in America? Karen Runge. And you’ll know why after reading “Good Help.” Peter Gutiérrez provides the poetry with his outstanding “Anteroom.” Closing out the fiction in this issue is S.R. Mastrantone’s “Alan Roscoe’s Change of Heart,” a tale that chips away at a well-mined vein--the near-death experience--but manages to produce an untouched gem.  In addition to the previously-mentioned conversation with Stephen Graham Jones, F. Paul Wilson is also interviewed. The seventh installment of our music-meets-horror serial, “Bloodstains & Blue Suede Shoes,” tackles the 80s and Catherine Grant provides the editorial, a scary piece that hits close to home for creators and readers of horror.  All that and more!  Come see why Shock Totem is billed as “...one of the strongest horror fiction magazines on the market today” (Hellnotes).

Shock Totem 9: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

Jones, Stephen Graham

MacLeod, Bracken

Dicken, Evan

Runge, Karen

Totem, Shock

Osborne, Emma

Ohnaka, Kathryn

Mastrantone, S.R.

Wilson,F. Paul

Treats abound! In this special edition of Shock Totem are seven short stories, one poem, and five nonfiction pieces. Of the fiction, John Boden and Bracken MacLeod venture into dark and weird neighborhoods in “Halloween On...” In “Out of Field Theory,” Kevin Lucia gives us a shadowed glimpse of what lurks beyond the frame. David G. Blake’s “Night in the Forest of Loneliness” smells of autumn and the beautiful death she brings. Learn why sometimes it’s better to stay home on Halloween in “Tricks and Treats,” by Rose Blackthorn. Kriscinda Lee Everitt’s “Howdy Doody Time” is a poignant nod to the past. The shadows come alive in “Before This Night Is Done,” by Barry Lee Dejasu, and in the story “The Candle Eaters,” K. Allen Wood explores faith and hope and a darkness that haunts us all. In addition to the fiction, Sydney Leigh provides a very fine poem, “Allhallowtide (To the Faithless Departed).” Authors John Langan, Lee Thomas, and Jeremy Wagner, as well as filmmaker Mike Lombardo and the always wonderful and brusque Babs Boden, provide anecdotal Halloween recollections. No tricks, all treats. Come see why Shock Totem is billed as “...one of the strongest horror fiction magazines on the market today” (Hellnotes).

Shock Totem 9.5: Holiday Tales of the Macabre and Twisted - Halloween 2014

Langan,John

Lucia, Kevin

Wagner, Jeremy

Thomas, Lee

Dejasu, Barry Lee

Blake, David G.

Boden, Babs

Everitt, Kriscinda Lee

Aiden LeDoux is a typical sixteen-year-old boy when the O’Connell brothers nail his father to a tree. He doesn’t believe things can get any worse...until three months later, when a mysterious light bursts forth from his face and heals everyone in his father’s bar, from minor scrape to terminal illness. Once word of this miracle event spreads, crazed townspeople attempt to force Aiden to use his newfound gift to heal those they love. But Aiden doesn’t know how he did it. Or why. Or if he can ever make it happen again. In the heart of a blizzard, in the throes of fanatical entitlement, the townspeople begin to tear the town--and each other--apart, with Aiden and his family trapped in the middle... Shine Your Light on Me is a gripping tale that illuminates the ugly underbelly of humanity. From its tense opening to its explosive finale, the monsters herein are all too real, too familiar, and Lee Thompson's relentless prose will leave you breathless.

Shine Your Light on Me

Thompson, Lee

In this tenth issue of Shock Totem, you will find fiction from Trace Conger, David G. Blake, Thana Niveau, Margaret Killjoy, and eight other fantastic authors. T.E.D. Klein breaks his long silence in an exclusive interview with Barry Lee Dejasu. Paul Tremblay is also interviewed. Plus reviews, nonfiction, and more... Come see why Shock Totem is billed as “...one of the strongest horror fiction magazines on the market today” (Hellnotes).

Shock Totem 10

Killjoy, Margaret

Conger, Trace

Marzioli, Samuel

Anderson, Leslie J.

Pletsch, Mary

Wayrd, D.K.

In his striking debut collection, Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt shows why he is a powerful new voice in horror and weird fiction. From the round-robin, found-footage nightmare of “October Film Haunt: Under the House” to the jazz-soaked “The Devil Under the Maison Blue,” selected for both The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy &amp; Horror and Year’s Best Weird Fiction, these beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant stories speak of the unknown encroaching upon the familiar, the inscrutable power of grief and desire, and the thinness between all our layers. Where nature rubs against small towns, in mountains and woods and bedrooms, here is strangeness seen through a poet’s eye. They say there are always greener pastures. These stories consider the cost of that promise.

Greener Pastures

Wehunt, Michael

Shock Totem 11: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

Malerman, Josh

Matthews, Mark

Trent, Brian

Dries, Aaron

Ford, Robert

Stroup, Chad

Theodoridou, Natalia

Firetog, Trevor

Kuriata, Chris

There is a place where sorrows pile up like snow and rest in your hair like cherry blossoms. Boys have wings, monsters fall in love, women fade into nothingness, and the bones of small children snap like twigs. Darkness will surely devour you--but it will be exquisitely lovely while doing so.  Mercedes M. Yardley’s Beautiful Sorrows is an ephemeral collection encompassing twenty-seven short tales full of devastation, death, longing, and the shining ribbon of hope that binds them all together.

Beautiful Sorrows

Yardley, Mercedes M.

The fifth issue of Shock Totem is yet another eclectic mix of horror fiction and nonfiction. This issue features previously unpublished stories from the likes of Ari Marmell, Darrell Schweitzer, Joe Mirabello, Mekenzie Larsen, and others. There is also a five-part, illustrated microfiction serial, by Kurt Newton, a conversation with horror legend Jack Ketchum, nonfiction by Nick Contor, reviews and more.

Shock Totem 5: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

Jack Ketchum

Shock Totem returns with its sixth issue, featuring stories that range from troubling tales of loss to chilling examinations of mankind’s dark side. In “Lighten Up,” four-time Stoker Award™-winner and Grandmaster of Horror Jack Ketchum gives us a dose of dark humor that still manages to be righteously menacing. “The River,” by rising star Lee Thompson, is a brutal tale of purgatory, wasted life, and regrets.  Soulmates connect through murder, love and revenge in P.K. Gardner’s “For Jack.” In “Orion,” a young girl who has only known darkness makes the ultimate sacrifice—in blood. “No One But Us Monsters,” by Hubert Dade, follows a man who is haunted and tormented by his own crippling fears. Mail hoarding, sin eaters, political horror, Shock Totem #6 runs the gamut.  Also included: Conversations with Lee Thompson and seven-time British Fantasy Award nominee Gary McMahon, as well as narrative nonfiction—a tale of true horror—by Ryan Bridger. An editorial about inspiration; the latest installment of “Bloodstains & Blue Suede Shoes,” which examines the connections between music and horror; plus reviews and much more...  Come see why Shock Totem is billed as “...one of the strongest horror fiction magazines on the market today” (Hellnotes).

Shock Totem 6: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

McMahon, Gary

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