Christine Lai’s 2023 novel Landscapes is an elegiac and deftly crafted hybrid novel set in the near future, where the world has been pushed to the brink by climate catastrophe. Penelope and Aidan live in Mornington, a crumbling English manor house, which also serves as a home for those seeking refuge. They have been forced…
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Andrew Kozma recommends “Sideswipe” by Soren Narnia
I’ve been listening through the Knifepoint Horror archives over the last two years, and it’s the formula that Soren Narnia uses that gets to me. Almost every story starts with the narrator introducing themselves, and then telling about an experience from their past. Narnia’s way of telling stories is basically an updated version of those…
Lyndsey Croal on Scottish ghost stories, ambiguity in folklore, and her book Dark Crescent
This month I’m talking to Lyndsey Croal about her luminous and fantastical book Dark Crescent, which was published by Luna Press Publishing in June 2025. This collection brings together short stories (and a novella) inspired by Scottish mythology including some well known favourites, such as kelpies and selkies, to much lesser known stories like the…
Sally Parlier recommends “The Monsters of Heaven” and “Sunbleached” by Nathan Ballingrud
Nathan Ballingrud’s 2013 collection North American Lake Monsters has a double punch of stories back to back—“The Monsters of Heaven” and “Sunbleached”—with images that still haunt my dreams. A wingless, taloned, dark angel fallen into a dumpster gets taken into a bleak menage à trois. A pulpy, burnt wreck of a vampire seduces boys from…
Interview with Caleb Bethea, author of Disco Murder City
This month I’m speaking to Caleb Bethea about their debut novel Disco Murder City, published by Maudlin House this September. This is a seductive, trippy story soaked in blood and sequins. Murder City is a nightmarish world where sleep paralysis demons stalk the dancefloor, committing extreme acts of violence in the nightclubs of this metropolis….
Z.D. Dochterman Reviews “In the Dream, He Is Skinless and Beautiful” by Spencer Nitkey
Recommending a single story is a bit of an impossible task for me, since I’ve been reading so much short fiction I admire this past year. So I’m going to bend the rules a little bit and mention three authors who I assume many Seize the Press readers will be familiar before making my final…
Interview with John Chrostek, author of Feast of the Pale Leviathan
John Chrostek’s debut novel Feast of the Pale Leviathan is published on the 26th August by Deep Overstock Books. It is a dark fantasy adventure story about Owen, a man who drifts out to sea and finds himself trapped in the belly of a giant Leviathan-esque kaiju. Within the belly of the beast he discovers…
Gessica Sakamoto Martini reviews “The Family Nightwatchman” by Can Xue
“Why are you all afraid of the corpse drivers?” Little Fly asked Momo. “Because, because we’re human,” Momo said. The dialogue at the beginning of the short story “The Family Night Watchman”, between the protagonist, Little Fly, and his friend Momo, points to the existing boundary between the living and the dead, and to the…
Interview with NM Whitley, author of “Clarinet” and “Manywhere, Manyone, Manything”
Hey Nicky, thanks for dropping in for a natter. I’m always banging on about looking for more non-American writers to publish in STP; as an American living in Spain, maybe we can consider you an honorary European. How did you end up living in Barcelona and how does it compare to the US? I’d be…
We’re back!
It’s been a bit longer than usual between issues, but Seize The Press #12 is now loose in the world! I’ve been open about the reasons for the delay between issues, and it’s simply because I couldn’t find the right stories I wanted to accept. I absolutely didn’t want to just start accepting stories for…