The Black Beacon Book of Pirate Tales

Black Beacon Books is now open to submissions for a pirate anthology! Our Patreon patrons voted for this theme during a recent poll. The usual submissions guidelines apply to this anthology, but read on for the specific details.

The Black Beacon Book of Pirate Tales

What are we looking for?

For this anthology, we're looking for pirate tales, preferably about pirates and buccaneers from the 16th to 18th centuries. Stories set in completely fictional/fantasy worlds will be considered but are likely to be a hard sell. That said, we're interested in stories belonging to various genres just so long as the central characters and setting are pirates or centred on the theme of piracy, even if the story is set in the present. For example, a ghost story featuring a legendary pirate or a mystery about a lost treasure. We're not looking for sci-fi or futuristic stories. As usual, if you have any questions, just get in touch.

The submissions window will remain open until December the 31st. Now, raise that black flag and get back to your writing desk!

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Sam Dawson

The Black Beacon Book of Horror will be released on Friday the 13th of October; the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads list today. To get you in the mood for a particularly spooky Halloween this year, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. The first Black Beacon Book of Horror is bound to give you the creeps!

Hi Sam,

Why do you write horror?

Because that’s what I started with and I suspect it’ll never release its grasp. I’ve written history and a (not yet published) non-horror novel, but every time I turn to a new short story some twisted element to the situation will always present itself and request inclusion.

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

The Floppy Man was a character I used to scare friends with when telling stories in my teens. Later, when I finally had the confidence to write something he sprang to mind. The original Morris Dancers were at a badly chosen countryside pub which turned out to be a hunt meeting place, and it took a while to separate in my mind the one harmless tradition from the other, anything but, one.

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

If you’d asked me years ago, maybe, but there’s such a fantastic canon of both classic and new work out there now that it would be invidious to choose just one or two.

What books did you grow up reading?

Anything that was at hand, and luckily, something always was. Boyhood favourites included Biggles, John Buchan and Alistair Maclean, historical stories, classics, A Century of Creepy Stories and similar ghost anthologies from the 1930s. By age 11, thanks to school, I’d been exposed to Dickens, Conrad, George Orwell and Laurie Lee, and at home had just discovered Poe. From there on it just got better and better.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

On paper, I’d rather not. In good company, maybe after a drink or two, probably yes.

Where can we find you online?

https://www.facebook.com/sam.dawson.31924

Thanks for answering our questions.

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Matthew R. Davis

The Black Beacon Book of Horror will be released on Friday the 13th of October; the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads list today. To get you in the mood for a particularly spooky Halloween this year, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. The first Black Beacon Book of Horror is bound to give you the creeps!

Hi Matthew,

Why do you write horror?

Stephen King’s answer comes to mind: Why do you assume I have a choice? It’s not something I pursued intentionally; this is just how it turned out. When I was younger, I wrote more comedic things, or action stories that were all battle, all the time…but I always had a yen for the darkness, at least in fictional terms. When I wrote my first “adult” short stories at fourteen – tales that featured entirely made-up characters and didn’t blatantly reflect my inspirations – they were horror stories: “Dark Side” had a schoolgirl flipping over into a grim, shadowy parallel world populated with living shadows and heart-eating demons, and “Storm Drain” followed a teenager’s accidental descent into the titular structure to discover the corpses of two missing girls and a horrible answer to how both they and he got there. The die was cast…

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

I suppose there is. I worked day and night at the Royal Adelaide Show last year as a box office supervisor, and as I wandered around the showgrounds and took in the spectacle, I thought: there’s a story here. (This happens a lot.) I didn’t want to head in a spooky-carnival, haunted-ride direction, so what other angle could I take? It wasn’t long before Ruby appeared in my mind, back in the last place she ever wanted to be and struggling with horrific past trauma as everyone else blithely had fun around her, and the story spun out from there. I might as well point out that, unusually for me, “Ruby’s Syzygy” includes not one but two possible author cameos! The ticket seller in the first paragraph wasn’t explicitly intended to be me, but if you squint, he could well be – and one of the songs on the ghost train’s playlist is “Cemetery Girl”, a theremin-laced graveyard waltz from Champagne Tragedy, the first Blood Red Renaissance album, which was entirely written by me. That reference was a placeholder that I forgot to take out before submission, so there you go… a version of me exists in Ruby’s universe!

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

Just one? You’re kidding, right?

What books did you grow up reading?

Amongst other things: Little Golden Books, various comics, Doctor Who novelisations, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke; as I entered my teens, Dungeons & Dragons novels, Raymond E. Feist, Christopher Pike, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz; and from there, everything!

Do you have any writing rituals?

No, I don’t. I just make the time, figure out what I’m doing, and sit down to let my fingers fly. I’ve written flash fiction on my phone whilst sitting on my partner’s couch, and I’ve edited a novel on my laptop whilst sitting in my car at the beach or on a bench in a park. You just get it done however you can.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

We’ve already done this question in another interview, but hey, I’m so obscure I can answer this a dozen times over, so here goes: when I was fifteen, I was so clueless about my future (excepting the whole rock star/horror novelist thing) that when a guidance counsellor asked me what job I could see myself doing, I replied, “Police officer?” Holy shit, dude.

Where can we find you online?

Where you least expect me. You might Google my name, and then, by doing so, you’ve called to me. It doesn’t take an old whistle to bring me to you; just a thought will do. Does your shadow feel thicker, the hairs on the back of your neck more tense and alert? I could be behind you right now. Don’t look – it’s safer if you don’t look. Maybe I’ll get bored and go visit someone else. Maybe.

Thanks for answering our questions.

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Kev Harrison

The Black Beacon Book of Horror will be released on Friday the 13th of October; the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads list today. To get you in the mood for a particularly spooky Halloween this year, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. The first Black Beacon Book of Horror is bound to give you the creeps!

Hi Kev,

Why do you write horror?

I grew up with irresponsible parents who let me watch horror movies and raid my dad’s library of novels by Herbert and King, and a whole collection of The Unexplained magazine at a too young age. I first wrote a scary story for a talent show on a school camp at the end of middle school. Lots of the other kids stayed up all night, refusing to turn their lanterns off. The teachers were furious, but I was delighted. That really flicked a switch in my head.

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

The Choir is a story I wrote a couple years ago now. It was one that, when I sent it to beta readers, they all came back saying it was perhaps the best short of mine they’d read. But the length and the fact it has a lot of central themes meant that it wasn’t a good fit for a lot of venues. So, I’ve been waiting for the right home for it to come along. I’m delighted I now have done.

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

My favourites tend to change almost as often as my socks. One which always sticks with me is Michael Griffin’s short novella, Hieroglyphs of Blood and Bone. Something about the weird and the mundane meeting, symbols for the reader to decode (or not), the ambiguous nature of so much of it just hits exactly the right spot for me. I think about how I felt when reading that story often.

What books did you grow up reading?

My first horror novel was The Rats by James Herbert, followed by Salem’s Lot and It. I was young enough that some of the nuances were doubtless lost on me. But I also liked fairytale-like stories such as Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nimh, or the grotesquery and dark humour of the work of Roald Dahl.

Do you have any writing rituals?

I used to have a few, but life changes in response to the pandemic meant that I really had to ditch them and learn to write in those pockets of time I had, whenever they cropped up. I still prefer to be sitting in my Poang chair in my lounge with a cold drink and some instrumental mood music playing, but if thirty minutes on a rickety train is all I have, then I’ll pop my earphones in and do what I can with that.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

When I was at university in the West Midlands of England, I worked in a Poundstretcher store selling cheap products as a way to earn beer money. While there, I learned that a ghost lived in the attic storage area. It would open bottles of knock off buttercup syrup cough medicine and throw it all over the walls when there were only two of us in the building, both downstairs. The smell was awful.

Where can we find you online?

My Twitter/X handle is @LisboetaIngles, my website is www.kevharrisonfiction.com – do reach out, I’m very friendly.

Thanks for answering our questions.

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Edward Lodi

The Black Beacon Book of Horror will be released on Friday the 13th of October; the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads list today. To get you in the mood for a particularly spooky Halloween this year, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. The first Black Beacon Book of Horror is bound to give you the creeps!

Hi Edward,

Why do you write horror?

Human beings feel pain—often agonizing pain. They fear death and the loss of loved ones. Knowing their vulnerability to pain, and knowing the certainty of death in an uncaring universe, they seek solace—some in religion, others in philosophy. Others choose to confront their fears, to somehow allay them, by reading horror, and a few by writing it.

Is there a story behind your story in The Black Beacon Book of Horror?

At the age of twenty-one (many decades ago) I found myself in Puerto Rico participating in a program based on British Outward Bound training, the purpose of which is to teach survival techniques. One day a group of us rather foolishly decided to explore a recently discovered cave that had been uncovered by a small landslide. On the side of a mountain, the cave was accessed by lowering oneself down a narrow passage. Once inside the cave, we found ourselves ankle-deep in bat guano. But what I most vividly remember are the cave spiders, huge, the size of baseballs (or so it seemed). In all the years since, I have never encountered spiders that even came close to those suckers. As for setting: For many years my wife and I were frequent visitors to Maine. Friends of ours bought an old sea-captain’s house in Belfast and invited us to stay for a few days. The house, though not as isolated, is the inspiration for the house in my story.

Do you have a favourite horror story?

Childhood impressions last a lifetime. I would have to say Dracula.

What books did you grow up reading?

A voracious reader, I devoured hundreds of books. My fondest memories are of the science fiction magazines readily available in my youth.

Do you have any writing rituals?

No. I wish I did. I might then write more.

Tell us something we don't know about yourself.

I quit my job teaching English at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and for a brief period lived the life of a hippie in San Francisco. I loved San Francisco, and wearing shoulder-length hair, but had no interest in other aspects of the hippie “scene,” so I returned to Massachusetts, taught part-time for a couple of years at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, then (having only a Masters degree) became a social worker.

Thanks for answering our questions!

Horror Anthology: An Interview with David Turnbull

The Black Beacon Book of Horror will be released on Friday the 13th of October; the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads list today. To get you in the mood for a particularly spooky Halloween this year, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. The first Black Beacon Book of Horror is bound to give you the creeps!

Hi David,

Why do you write horror?

In simple terms because I am huge fan of the horror genre. I read it. I watch it on TV. I go to see it in cinemas. Probably all caused by watching episodes of the Twilight Zone and Friday night horror films on TV when I was growing up.

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

I’m claiming back Halloween for its Celtic roots. Trick of Treat didn’t start in America and get exported across the world. It started with the guisers in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. But the guisers in my story come from another world entirely, and the tricks they play are pretty unsettling.

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

I suppose it would have to be Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I love the way Ray Bradbury writes and the motif of a sinister fairground visiting a small town is the perfect mix of the ordinary tainted by the uncanny. A book that scared me was The Rats by James Herbert, because it seemed plausible and possible. I remember reading the part where one of the characters is on a London Underground platform. He hears a thunderous roar coming from the tunnels, accompanied by a strong gush of air. But it is not an approaching train he’s hearing. It’s a ravenous horde of fresh eating rodents. Even now, many years later, I can’t sit on a tube station platform without getting a flashback of the imagery of that scene.

What books did you grow up reading?

I was an avid reader of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series. Those really got me into a love of short stories, particularly horror stories.

Do you have any writing rituals?

I usually write stuff at my PC sometime during the day and then edit it in bed on my laptop first thing in the morning.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

I have recently qualified as a guide with the Lambeth Tour Guides Association and I have developed a number of walks which take in film and TV locations as well as writers and novels associated with different part of South East London.

Where can we find you online?

www.tumsh.co.uk
https://fiction4all.com/writerdavidturnbull.htm
https://lambethfantastical.blogspot.com/

Thanks for answering our questions! 

Dark Reflections: Cover Reveal and TOC

Here it is! Check out Greg Chapman - Horror Author & Artist's cover for the forthcoming dark fiction collection from Paul Kane. We hope you love it as much as we do. Dark Reflections will be published in December, just in time for ghost story season. These short stories are a wink and a nod to Paul's influences, including M.R. James, Charles Dickens, William Hope Hodgson, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe. The foreword is provided by the legendary Kim Newman, Kim Newman's Anno Dracula books. So much talent in just one book! Keep looking in that mirror...

Dark Reflections

Stories Influenced by the Masters of Dark Literature

Proudly presenting the table of contents:

In Hyding (Traumas, published by Black Shuck Books, 2020)

Signals (Ghosts, Spectral Press, 2013)

Life Sentence (Albions Alpträume: Zombies Eloy Edictions, 2006)

Humbuggered (Festive Fear, Tasmaniac, 2010)

The Greatest Mystery (Gaslight Arcanum, Edge Publishing, 2011)

Dracula in Love (Dead Things Issue 5, October/December 2000)

Heartless (Original to this Collection)

Masques (Return of the Raven, Horror Bound Books, 2009)

Paw People (Original to this Collection) 

Thicker Than Water (Innsmouth Nightmares, PS Publishing, 2015)

The Grey Room (Original to this Collection)

Tenth Anniversary Update

This Halloween marks our TENTH ANNIVERSARY! Our first release back in Halloween 2013 (no longer available through Black Beacon Books) was Marty Young's 809 Jacob Street, and we've published a great range of suspense, mystery, horror, and post-apocalyptic titles since then. Time to slow down? Out of the question! We're riding this wave! As promised, our tenth year in publishing is on track to be our biggest yet. Here's the rundown...

February: Tales from the Ruins, a post-apocalyptic anthology

July: The Second Black Beacon Book of Mystery

October: The Black Beacon Book of Horror

December: Dark Reflections, a collection by Paul Kane (cover reveal soon!)

But that's not all, we're also taking submissions for The Black Beacon Book of Ghost Stories between Halloween and Christmas Eve and we're in the early stages of planning a call for a pirate anthology featuring short stories based on a map we'll soon be sharing with you...and it doesn't end there, because we will be making announcements about novels due out in 2024 before the end of this year.

We hope you're celebrating as hard as we are!