Writing
“Weeks sped by. His brother grew, grew, grew and finally broke free from the clay flowerpot’s remains, shaking off worms like a wet puppy, a smaller twin of the boy, a heart-shaped birthmark on his cheek—same as him, same as his mom—and smelly like stale beer, same as his father after a night at the office.”
“Grown Boy” (Magical Realism, Fairy Tale, 969 words)
by Matt Hollingsworth. Read at Intrepidus Ink
~5 minutes reading time
“A story travels from village to village: There once was an old witch who desired youth and beauty, and to achieve her rebirth, she chopped off her daughter’s head. With each telling, the story changes. Every word is eventually replaced, yet the witch still chops off her daughter’s head and steals her youth. If each voice that tells the story is different, if every word has changed, is it the same story?”
“A Witch’s Envy” (Horror, Fairy Tale, 3862 words)
by Matt Hollingsworth. Read at Horrific Scribes
~19 minute reading time
Nominated for 2026 Best of the Net
“The monster lay atop me, shielded my ears with many shriveled hands, and wrapped me in a cocoon of slimy, warty arms. Even though the creature slurped and gulped the neighbor’s godawful music, the noise throbbed through that protective shell. I clenched my jaw.”
“Hush” (Horror, 3655 words)
by Matt Hollingsworth. Read at Horrific Scribes
~18 minutes reading time
Original photo by Caleb Falkenhagen
“The spiders scurried to the rafters and wove a net—the sin catcher. Web threads dangled. Naked, I hunkered down to prepare for the filth those spiders would dump into me. Once my eight-legged assistants finished the sin catcher, two of them crawled onto the corpse, peeled back the eyelids, and bit the eyes again and again.
I crooned, a dissonance unrecognizable as human vocalization—the sin eater’s lament, my lament. The corpse convulsed and shrieked its reply, the chrysalis in its mouth perverting the sound, our voices forming an unholy harmony.
Ebon vapor screamed from the corpse’s eyes and warped the air. The spiders struggled to hold on, to resist being swept away by the current. Smoky plumes billowed up into the hanging mesh, and the webbed filigree curled, blackened, and discharged a stench like burning swamp gas. Sin catcher full, the vapor dissipated.”
“The Sin Eater’s Chrysalis”
by Matt Hollingsworth. Listen at Tales to Terrify
~50 minute listening time
“People everywhere pay for utilities—gas, water, electricity. On top of those bills, Croatia also charges for sleep, a scheme being beta-tested in the Balkans. If you don’t pony up, every time you close your eyes, you get nonstop ads in your head, plugged into an immersive multi-sensory feed, courtesy of the chip. Everyone’s chipped, but those who pay the sleep bill enjoy ad-free slumber. I was skipping payments and squirreling away the money to move us out of this shithole basement, so whenever I dared try to doze, the chip’s sleep blockers kicked in and ads played in my head. Zero sleep for me.”
The city.
Noisy, crowded, ever in motion, the city can be more than a setting—it can be a character, as nuanced and as fickle as a human being, with as many traits and quirks as the best mapped out characters. The city can be the ever-present and constant companion (or foe) to the protagonist and antagonist alike.
Winter in the City: A Collection of Dark Speculative Fiction is an anthology of dark speculative fiction tales that takes place in 18 different cities around the world during the bleak—sometimes harsh—season of winter.
- In Paris a vagrant artist confronts a terrible truth while traveling across a frozen Seine and the well-walked paths of l’empire de la Mort…
- Children depart on a mystical quest to find their parents among the icy tombs of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem…
- In the snow-begotten slums of Manila, a young fighter must disobey her family and society to finally find freedom…
- The white-out conditions in Brooklyn are not nearly as dangerous as deals made in blood and bone…
With a forward by Mercedes M. Yardley.
And stories by:
Mars Albian, Mike Allen, Lily Childs, Anjum Noor Choudhury, Brian Evenson, Matt Hollingsworth, Richard Kadrey, Gwendolyn Kiste, Rick Larson, Tim Lees, Bracken Macleod, Nick Mamatas, Jonathan Papernick, Sarah Read, Sam Rebelein, Christian Fiachra Stevens, Katherine Traylor, Xan van Rooten
Edited by R. B. Wood and Anna Koon
“‘When I Was the Red Baron’ by Matt Hollingsworth feels like a Stephen King story. It has a strong narrative voice, a good sense of narrative time, easily skipping between past and present without losing the reader, and it ends with a narrative punch that is satisfyingly horrific. It also refers to that classic childhood staple of Snoopy and Charlie Brown. The central conceit of a child artist whose magic crayon can do terrible things to the people he draws, also feels like classic King.”
–The Supernova Short Fiction Review
“He got tired, stopped shaking, breathed out a wet sound. I plopped down next to him, rolled my crayon in the pretty red liquid, and made up stories to tell his half-gone head. The crayon glowed. It got so hot I dropped it, then it lay on the floor and whispered scary things to me until Mommy got home. She screamed a lot.”
“When I Was the Red Baron” (Horror, 2790 words)
by Matt Hollingsworth. Read in Interzone #299
~14 minutes reading time
Original photo by Zainab Aamir.
“Mara killed the engine. If she ran the tank empty, she’d freeze to death. Ice opaqued the windshield. From the trunk came the sound of the boy’s kicking and muffled yelling.”
“Sprung” (Action, Fantasy, 966 words)
by Matt Hollingsworth. Read in Wyldblood
~5 minutes reading time
Wyldblood wants to bring you the best stories, but they don’t come cheap – and we’re passionate believers in paying for the blood, sweat and tears that goes into every word (well, not every word, and there’s not always blood).
We’d like to do more – increase pay rates, buy new stories – but we’ll need your help. Please consider a donation – any amount, large or small, will help.
“For the breadth of a breath, she paused.
Aiming.
Trembling.
Redolence of decaying autumn leaves. Her guts in turmoil, stomach cramps. Bone-deep cold. Tears. Blurred vision.
That sliver of a moment captured her life, her war with herself—shoot, don’t shoot—her desperate need for her daughter to do more than merely survive, for her to flourish in a land that wouldn’t crush her body and spirit as the Balkans surely would.
Anything other than despair.
Hope.
Zlata hated that to secure her daughter’s future, she was forced to take from others and keep taking.”
“Candles at Night” (Speculative Fiction, 983 words)
by Matt Hollingsworth. Read at Tales from the Moonlit Path
~5 minutes reading time
Tales from the Moonlit Path loves supporting and promoting speculative fiction and horror in the small press! Please feel free to make a contribution of any kind to help them continue to pay authors.