We know how difficult it can be for new writers to break onto the scene. It seems that most presses are either closed for submissions or are invite only. It can get frustrating, we understand. Sinister Grin Press wants to give the new guys and gals a chance to get their foot in the door. Introducing the Fresh Meat Writing Contest! An elimination competition for fresh talent in horror fiction. We are looking for new novels. The winner will receive a contract for their book, along with an advance and royalties. But we’re not going to make it easy on you.

So who’s going to judge this thing?

Our panel of judges is:

Nate Southard

 

 

 

 

Nate Southard’s books include Down, Lights Out, Scavengers, Red Sky, Just Like Hell, Something Went Wrong, Broken Skin, This Little Light of Mine, and He Stepped Through.  His short fiction has appeared in such venues as Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Thuglit, and Supernatural Noir.  His short fiction has received multiple honorable mentions for Ellen Datlow’s The Year’s Best Horror series.  A graduate of The University of Texas with a degree in Radio, Television, and Film, Nate lives in Austin, Texas.  You can learn more at natesouthard.com.

Lee Thomas

 

 

 

 

Lee Thomas is the Bram Stoker Award and the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of THE GERMAN, THE DUST OF WONDERLAND, ASH STREET, and TORN. His most recent release is the short story collection LIKE LIGHT FOR FLIES. Lee currently lives in Austin, TX, where he’s working on his next novel.     

Wrath James White

 

 

 

 

Wrath is the author of THE RESURRECTIONIST, SUCCULENT PREY, YACCUB’S CURSE, SACRIFICE, PURE HATE, and PREY DRIVE (Succulent Prey Part II). He is also the author of VORACIOUS, TO THE DEATH, SKINZZ, THE REAPER, LIKE PORNO FOR PSYCHOS, EVERYONE DIES FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN, THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND SINS, HIS PAIN and POPULATION ZERO. He is the co-author of TERATOLOGIST co-written with the king of extreme horror, Edward Lee, ORGY OF SOULS co-written with Maurice Broaddus,The KILLINGS and HERO co-written with J.F. Gonzalez, and POISONING EROS I and II co-written with Monica J. O’Rourke. His short stories have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies. In 2010 his poetry collection, VICIOUS ROMANTIC was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. Wrath lives and works in Austin, Texas with his two daughters, Isis and Nala, his son Sultan and his  lovely wife, Christie White.

 

Each week, we will have a special guest judge join our panel. That guest judge will bring a special challenge for the remaining writers to complete for prizes or possible immunity. The guest judges are:

Thomas Tessier

 

 

 

 

Thomas Tessier was born in Connecticut and educated there and at University College, Dublin.  He lived in Dublin and London for thirteen years, during which time three books of his poems were published and three of his plays were professionally staged.  For several years he wrote a monthly column on music for Vogue magazine (UK). His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Borderlands, Cemetery Dance, Prime Evil, Dark Terrors, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and Best New Horror.  His first collection of short fiction, Ghost Music and Other Tales, received an International Horror Guild Award. He is the author of several novels of terror and suspense, including The Nightwalker, Phantom, Finishing Touches and Rapture, which was made into a movie starring Karen Allen and Michael Ontkean.  His novel Fog Heart received the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel and was cited by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year.  His latest novel, Wicked Things, was published in paperback by Leisure Books and in hardcover by Cemetery Dance Publications.  In 2013, his new collection of short fiction, Remorseless – Tales of Cruelty, was published by Sinister Grin Press. Thomas Tessier lives in Connecticut.  He is currently working on a new novel, as well as more short fiction.

J.F. Gonzalez

 

 

 

 

J. F. Gonzalez is the author of over a dozen novels of horror and dark suspense including THEY, THE CORPORATION, BACK FROM THE DEAD, PRIMITIVE, SURVIVOR, and THE KILLINGS (with Wrath James White), as well as co-author of the CLICKERS series (with Mark Williams and Brian Keene respectively). More than 80 of his short stories and novellas have appeared in various magazines and anthologies and are collected in three volumes. The fourth, SCREAMING TO GET OUT, will see release in early 2014. Prior to his success as a writer of fiction, he was an editor – he co-edited the dark fiction magazines INIQUITIES and PHANTASM in the 1990′s, with a number of the stories he published going on to either win awards or be selected in various YEAR’S BEST compendiums. He tried the editing game again a decade ago with the anthology TOOTH AND CLAW, but that experience wasn’t very fun. He’s gotten over that, though, and would like to try it again if somebody would let him. More intel can be found at www.jfgonzalez.com

Michael Knost

 

 

 

 

Michael Knost is a Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor, and columnist of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and supernatural thrillers. He has written many books in various genres, helmed anthologies such as the Legends of the Mountain State series and co-edited Redneck Zombies from Outer Space with Jonathan Maberry. His Writers Workshop of Horror won the Black Quill and Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement in nonfiction. He edited the critically acclaimed Writers Workshop of Science Fiction & Fantasy in early 2013—a writer’s guide with works by Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many others. He has served as ghostwriter for several projects with the Discovery Channel and Lionsgate Media. He has several books in the process, including a Mothman novel. To find out more, visit www.MichaelKnost.com.

Mort Castle

 

 

 

 

Mort Castle edited On Writing Horror and its earlier incarnation Writing Horror, both from Writer’s Digest Books. He has written novels, short stories, poems, articles, and comic books, with credits numbering well over 600. Recent works include the graphic format J.N. Williamson’s Illustrated Masques (IDW); Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, co-edited with Sam Weller (William Morrow); and the forthcoming All American Horror of the 21st Century (Wicker Park Press). Castle was cited as one of “21 Leaders in the Arts for the 21st Century” by The Chicago Sun-Times Newspaper Group. He’s twice won Black Quill Awards, has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize, twice for an Excellence in Teaching Award, once for the International Horror Guild Award, and eight-and-a-half or nine times for the  Bram Stoker Award, depending on how you count,  His work has been translated into French, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, German, and Polish, Czech, Serbian, Russian, and Hebrew, and Newsweek magazine (Polish edition) cited the translations of his novel The Strangers and short-story collection Moon on the Water as “two of the best books published in Poland in 2008.”

 

We will choose 6 contestants. Each week, you will turn in 3 chapters of your novel in progress. The judges will critique those chapters, and you will use that information to assist you in writing the next 3 chapters that you will turn in the following week. Each week, one contestant will be eliminated. The judges will get a vote, but the public will be allowed to vote as well. All of your work will be posted online for others to see. The votes will be counted each week, and the author with the least amount of votes will be eliminated.

If you think you are up to the task…submissions are now open! Send the title of your book, a one-sentence logline, a synopsis (1-2 paragraphs), and the first three chapters of your novel to freshmeatcontest@gmail.com

Make sure your title, logline, and synopsis are good. The first week, one contestant will be eliminated based on that alone.

Submissions are open from now until Halloween. The contest will begin in November!

Get to it!

 

The first short story collection in our Cut Corners line of limited edition hardcovers.

Monsters are real. They lurk in the darkest places of this world, waiting to devour you, ready to tear into you. But the scariest monsters are the ones within you, driving you mad, feasting on you from the inside. They will eat you until there is nothing left, until the monster is all that remains. Until there is only sadness and insanity. And cruelty.

Fifteen tales from the mind of horror master Thomas Tessier.

The newest novella from Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee has made the final ballot for the Bram Stoker award in the Long Fiction category! Everyone wish them luck! 

The first novella in our Grimace line. Only 100 copies available, and they’re going fast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doctor Trevor Adams is a genius by all accounts. His ethics, however, leave a bit to be desired. When the Aphrodite Aesthetic Reconstruction Clinic hires him to create a genetic weight-loss treatment, Doctor Adams uses a synthetic retro virus to transport pygmy shrew DNA into clients willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to be able to eat whatever they want without gaining a pound. 

Pygmy Shrews have metabolisms so fast they don’t store fat cells and have to eat every two hours, twice their body-weight in food every day, or they will die. When they are hungry, they will attack and consume prey more than twice their size. They have fangs tipped with a red iron ore, saliva that contains a paralyzing neurotoxin, are the size of a quarter, and are considered to be some of the most vicious animals on earth. When Doctor Adams’s clients begin burning more calories than they can possibly consume, he is afraid he has made one terrible mistake.

For serious collectors only. Sinister Grin Press is doing print runs of 100 for every title in 2013 and beyond (subject to change) and the books are going fast. As a member, you are guaranteed a copy of every book from each of our three lines (Rictus, Grimace, & Cut Corners), and you also get some juicy perks only available to members.

1. Matching numbers for every book.

2. Automatic reservation for each new book. If you want a book but don’t have enough money, we will work out a payment plan with you.

3. Free US shipping. Discounts for international shipping.

4. Access to our Members page. The Members page will have its own blog that only members get to see with insider information on upcoming titles and any other SGP news that will not be released to the public. We will have free short stories and guest blogs regularly. We have a chat room where members will get a chance to talk with a SGP authors and other special guests once a month.

5. A free hardcover chapbook once a year that will only be available to members.

6. A free ebook of each title (when available) so that you can leave your hardcover at home.

7. Cancel at any time. The membership is pretty much free!

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Purchase now in our store! 

Years have passed since thrill killers, Selma Baxter and Derek Thomason, were brought to justice. For the families of their victims, these have been years of mourning and sorrow and even relief. But things have changed. The victims of Baxter and Thomason’s crimes are returning to their loved ones. They bring no messages of affection, no joy, no optimism, no promises of closure. They bring nothing but torment and dread.

The house on Ash Street has burned to the ground. What lived inside, now roams free.

“Lee Thomas always has something on his mind beyond the scares. And he presents it eloquently.” —Jack Ketchum