Deep Marks by Ali Jones

The first time it had happened, and he’d really seen her, he’d been trawling the pools, tracing his knuckles over crusted rocks, trailing his fingers in the water.

Submissions open, and a somewhat sad announcement

Dear readers, writers, and friends of Lonesome October Lit,

Our submissions are opening a little earlier than I intended after our summer break, but unfortunately they come with some news that has been weighing on my heart.

a murder by Rebecca Kokitus

corn farmer’s nightmare, Appalachian reaper.
hills turn a blind eye when the death harbingers
cry three times like midday chime.

The Humming Casket by J. Hugo

An open pasture rusted with wild lilies, isolated
on the northern edge of town, a small pond
in the middle ringed by thriving maple:
it was there, thirty years ago,
that Uncle Bill killed himself.

Sundown Town by Richard Wayne Horton

+++++Those are big horses out front. Never seen horses like that. Course we’re your average tourists passing through. You get a bunch of us I bet.

In Defense of Horror by Madison McSweeney

I believe in the nameless things that crawl in the night
that science and reason tell us are figments
of a disturbed imagination.

Tiamat by Eris Crow

Ageless Dark Mother, coiled Serpent,
Worm of creative destruction.

Lilies for Lily by Meg Gripton-Cooper

I bought lilies for Lily,
my lunar girl, skybright and glowing.

Ghosts by Peter Burrows

‘Ghosts are what we fear and what we hope for.’ Adam Nicholson

I always believed in ghosts
Fearing the inevitable
That someday I would see one.

pennsylvania gothic by Rebecca Kokitus

~ getting lost on a back road. someone keeps saying I can’t believe we’re just outside the city but you can believe it. cities are an illusion.