Out of the Darkness, in collaboration with mental health charity Together for Mental Wellbeing, challenges some of the most exciting voices in horror and dark fantasy to bring their worst fears out into the light. From the black dog of depression to acute anxiety and schizophrenia, these stories prove what fans of horror fiction have long known – that we must understand our demons to overcome them.
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, what began as a mental health crisis has rapidly become an unprecedented tsunami. The Centre for Mental Health has estimated that 10 million people will need mental health support in the UK as a direct consequence of Covid-19, with a staggering 1.5 million of those being under eighteen.
Edited by Dan Coxon (This Dreaming Isle) and featuring exclusive stories by Alison Moore, Jenn Ashworth, Tim Major and Aliya Whiteley, this collection harnesses the power of fiction to explore and explain the darkest moments in our lives. Horror isn’t just about the chills – it’s also about the healing that comes after.
All royalties and editor’s fees from this collection are being donated to the mental health charity Together for Mental Wellbeing.
Verity Holloway was born in Gibraltar in 1986, and grew up following her Navy family around the world. She graduated from Cambridge’s Anglia Ruskin University with a First Class BA in Literature and Creative Writing and went on to earn a Distinction Masters in Literature.
Her short stories and poems have been widely published, with her story 'Cremating Imelda' being nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In 2012 she published her first chapbook, Contraindications. Her novella, Beauty Secrets of The Martyrs, was released in 2015. Her first non-fiction book, The Mighty Healer: Thomas Holloway’s Patent Medicine Empire (Pen & Sword), a biography of her Victorian cousin who made his fortune with questionable remedies, was published in 2016.
Aliya Whiteley was born in Devon in 1974, and currently lives in Sussex with her husband, daughter and dog.
Aliya is the author of the critically acclaimed novellas, The Beauty, and The Arrival of Missives, which have been shortlisted for various awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Shirley Jackson Award, James Tiptree Jr Award, the British Fantasy Society Awards, British Science Fiction Association Award and the Saboteurs.
Her short stories and non-fiction and has been published in places such as The Guardian, Interzone, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Black Static, Strange Horizons, and anthologies such as Fox Spirit's European Monsters and Lonely Planet's Better than Fiction I and II. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice, and won the Drabblecast People's Choice Award in 2007.
She lives on the South Coast of the UK.
Sam Thompson grew up in the south of England and now lives in Belfast. His first novel Communion Town was longlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, and his second novel Jott was shortlisted for the 2019 Encore Prize. His novel for children, Wolfstongue, is published by Little Island in May 2021, and his story collection Whirlwind Romance will be published by Unsung Stories in 2022. His short fiction has appeared in Best British Short Stories 2019 and on BBC Radio 4. He teaches writing at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Malcolm Devlin's stories have appeared Interzone, Black Static and the anthologies Aickman's Heirs, Gods Memes And Monsters and Nightscript Volume 2. He attended the Clarion West writers' workshop in 2013.
