VINTAGE VIGILANCE No. 1: JOHN POLIDORI’S “THE VAMPYRE” By L. P. Van Ness SOMETHING VAMPIRIC in nature has been draining away the energy and resources of contemporary America. Fortunately for us, our leaders are time travelers. In the closing words of his inaugural address, our new president offered us encouragement by taking us back with [...]

Join The Austin Chronicle, BookPeople, and 107.1 KGSR for the Seventeenth Annual Short Story Contest Reception! The winners of the Seventeenth Annual Austin Chronicle Short Story contest will be announced at BookPeople at 7pm on Wednesday, February 11. You are invited to hear the first-, second-, and third- place winners read their short stories at [...]

UNDERWOOD AND PRYM: THE MYSTERY OF THE SECOND SCRAWL By L. P. Van Ness Originally published in Gathering Darkness Like most old mansions, Beryl House had a history. It was the first elaborate dwelling rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; it was rumored that its patriarch, Ezra Crowell, was a warlock. All his [...]

Check out the new gallery of animation stills from Neil Gaiman’s upcoming film Coraline on Film.com! Click here! Bookmark to: Hide Sites

The Transubstantiation of Edgar Allan Poe By LP Van Ness THE SOUL is a most mysterious and profound thing. Scholars err grievously when they assert that Poe’s writing is merely psychology. He was the Master of the Metaphysics. Because I diverged from the canon of the status quo, my thesis was denied, and I was [...]

Regret by Gabrielle S. Faust Originally published in Ladies and Gentlemen of Horror 2008 Marcus sat curled with his pale boney knees against his chest. For hours he had remained motionless in the exact same spot, in the worn leather armchair – the one he had scavenged from a neighbor‘s garage sale earlier that summer [...]

Battle to the Death By Wendy Darling **Originally Written in 2001 for a Vampire Chronicles FanFic Contest with the Theme of “Death”… On the back of his eyelids, he saw red. His every vein and artery screamed to be colored, drowned, filled with this red, this crimson, this shimmering darkness. His tongue ached with the [...]

Horror author Mark Rainey’s short story “Demon Jar” is the featured short story this month over at Horror World… A lengthening shadow on the floor drew Bob Cooper’s eyes away from his desktop computer screen, and he caught a faint whiff of jasmine soap as he turned to regard his twelve-year-old daughter. “What is it, [...]