PRIVATE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: EXTREMELY WEIRD SPLATTER

The supernatural, the extreme, and splatterpunk are not strangers; splatterpunk pioneer Clive Barker is a dark fantasist, the spark that enables the shocks of Wrath James White’s The Resurrectionist is anything but natural, and demon-infested hellscapes populate classics from White and Monica J. O’Rourke’s Poisoning Eros to the worlds of the Infernal series crafted by Edward Lee and Christine Morgan. Nevertheless…

All generalizations are wrong, but extreme horror—or horror prone to graphic representations of mutilation, dismemberment, sexual violence, and other subjects traditionally considered “off-limits” in mainstream horror—and its close cousin, splatterpunk—horror also interested in direct representation of “off-limits” subjects but with a more overt countercultural edge and/or agenda—are generally on the side of the “grounded,” or tied to what’s commonly considered reality by at least a very, very thin thread. For example, a work might be “grounded” because its body horror could happen because maybe a drug/fungus/virus could actually cause such a mutation. And even that kind of stretch usually isn’t necessary. In standout titles that are lead influencers (and award winners), what happens could happen. A young girl could be tortured, raped, and murdered by her neighbors. A group of young people lost in a snowstorm could get entangled with a militia—and have to place all their hope in an unstable survivalist.

By contrast, the “weird” horror to which Clive Barker and others have been heirs—horror that refuses to stay grounded because it blends horror’s conventions with the conventions of other speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, to craft a bizarre aesthetic and uncanny affect as the outré infects the everyday—doesn’t appear as often in the works that define extreme and splatterpunk today. The weird is on HBO and Netflix. The weird is “quiet.” The weird is literary. It’s respectable.

Thus, we feel a need for Extremely Weird Splatter, an anthology of stories the highlight the awesome potential released when extreme aesthetics and splatter savvy fuse with weird that leaves “grounded” behind.  Historically, “weird fiction” derives from pulp fiction of the early twentieth century, but we seek a distinctly twenty-first century interpretation of the weird, the “New Weird” and other contemporary approaches taken to extremes by 2026 standards, not imitations of authors such as Lovecraft and his circle. Terrifying. Nasty. And bizarre¹ in ways nobody’s ever seen. Extremely Weird Splatter.

THIS PROJECT IS NOT YET FUNDED. WE’RE SEEKING PRELIMINARY BUY-IN FROM WRITERS TO HELP A CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN.

• TYPE OF BOOK: Short Fiction Anthology (Horror, Extreme Splatterpunk, Weird)
• PUBLISHER / EDITOR: Horrific Scribblings / L. Andrew Cooper, https://horrificscribblings.com/ / https://landrewcooper.com/cv/
• LENGTH OF BOOK: 60,000 words of fiction, approximately 20 stories, with an expert editorial introduction
• LENGTH PER STORY: 1500 – 5000 words
• PAY: $.08 / word (contract upon acceptance, payment and publication contingent upon funding)
• SUBMISSION METHOD: Email submissions in .doc or .docx format as attachments to horrificscribsubs@gmail.com. Please begin the subject line “EXTREMELY WEIRD:”
• EARLY DEADLINE: MARCH 31, 2026 (HARD DEADLINE TBD; THIS IS FOR GETTING ON BOARD PRIOR TO OR AT LEAST VERY EARLY IN THE CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN)

1. Note that we want bizarre, not bizarrO. Although bizarro manifestos cast a wide net for what the movement could claim, fiction with the “bizarro” label generally leans toward the absurd and even the (extreme) cartoonish. The “weird” that we seek, by contrast, even when pulpy, takes itself seriously. For more about bizarro, see the article L. Andrew Cooper decided to republish because of this call, “Bizarro World Got Me Dirty and Wet.” ↩︎