And yes, I did mean to spell ‘neighborhood’ like that, because it uses the American spelling.
Dark bleatings everyone! Bit of a different article piece for you this week. I’m involved in an anthology due for release on 1st October 2023, and it was my first time getting to work on a project like this outside of submitting a story. I learned a lot and loved much of the process. I also hated some of the process, and hex it. HEX IT, I TELL YOU! So here are my ups and downs, and the juicy details of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans!
A bit of background first: I work with author Stephen Kozeniewski, who owns an indie press called French Press. I was first aware of him when I reviewed a zombie anthology for Gingernuts of Horror, in which he had an absolute belter of a story. I started following him on social media after that because I love his writing, and at some point years later, he posted a job listing and I got it. He’s taught me so much about the indie publishing industry and become a dear friend over the last couple of years.
Fast forward to now: The Perfectly Fine House is an outstanding ghost novel by Stephen and Wile E. Young – set in a world where everyone comes back as a ghost when they die and the living generally co-exist with them just fine. The scariest thing in a world like this would be if something inexplicable were to start happening to the ghosts….
It’s one of my favourite of Stephen (and Wile’s) works, so I was absolutely thrilled to be told that they wanted to expand the universe with an anthology, compiled of several invited authors and a number of open submission slots. Both Stephen and Wile were adamant about paying all the authors fairly, and so we set up a Kickstarter campaign to pull together the funds. It warmed my heart when we hit the target – the horror community is so supportive and awesome.
So, my job was to be the first pair of eyes on “the slush pile”, as it’s referred to. My task was basically to filter out any that weren’t suitable (for example, if they didn’t fit the theme). We didn’t initially plan to have a second round, but we had an unexpectedly high number of submissions, which made it necessary. I spent months – literally – reading all of the submissions and putting them into ‘No’ and ‘Second Round’ piles, and then I’d send my recommendations over to Stephen, who would either agree with me, or decide I was nuts. I suspect he quite often decides I’m nuts, but that’s for other reasons.
I really enjoyed this part of the process because I got to read all day. Additionally, the vast majority of the stories were very enjoyable, so sitting there reading weird takes on ghosts all week, cup of tea in hand, was an absolute dream. What was really difficult, however, was having to reject anything. I found this hard even when the story didn’t work with the theme, especially if the story was great. But fair is fair, and with the number of submissions versus the small number of slots for the book, it wouldn’t have been right to just sneak things in that didn’t fit. Being an aspiring author myself that has been on the receiving end of many a rejection, I did not enjoy having to send that news to anyone. Publishing… what a savage beast!
The submission window closed, and that left us with going back through the stories that made The Second Round. Oh man, I thought the first stage was difficult, but it was nothing compared to this. It was time for Stephen, Wile, and I to band together to make a joint decision on which few stories made it into the book. Due to the fact that we’d received submissions from writers who were also friends of ours, it was decided that Wile would be sent the second round stories with no author information attached, so he’d be totally impartial. (We discussed the perils of this in a live video, which you can find HERE, if you’re interested.)
Once we’d all read everything and made our own ‘Top 10’ lists, we had a meeting. I have no idea how long it went on for, I have never experienced anything else like it. I assumed that we’d all more or less have the same favourites, but we didn’t. We were mostly in agreement with which stories were great, but I don’t think we ranked any of them in the same order.
The other issue – which didn’t dawn on us until this stage – was that we all had several favourites, but many of those favourites all belonged to the same theme. For example, serial killers. There are three stories that come to my mind now that we all agreed were outrageously good, but you can’t have an anthology where a quarter of the stories all have the same theme, or it becomes a ‘samey’ anthology. And the ghost detective stories – holy cripes, my dudes. That, by far, was the theme that received the most submissions, and it honestly pained us because most of them were so damn good. Do you have any idea how hard it is to reject stories that you desperately want in the book, but there just isn’t room?
It was an interesting experience and overall, an enjoyable one, but it had its drawbacks! So, with all that said, I am now super excited to tell you the line-up! I’m so honoured to be working with these people, and sitting beside them in this collection of stories, all of which I sincerely think are excellent. Here are the spooky folk!
Stephen Kozeniewski
Wile E. Young
Bev Vincent
Brian Keene
Candace Nola
Jeff Strand
J.C. Smith
Ryan Breadinc
Zachary Rosenberg
Shane Burnham
Annie Knox
Gavin Dillinger
Kay Hanifen
D.C. Hill
And me, Kayleigh Dobbs
Everyone has worked really hard on putting this together, and I’m so proud to be involved in this project. I really hope you love it!
Stay spooky.
If you’d like to pick up a copy, the links are below:
Happy Goat Horror 
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