My short story, Never Go Back, can be found in the new edition of The Literary Hatchet (#14). It’s the third in a loosely connected collection of tales about a fictional village called Wood Forge, where some pretty weird shit happens. Ghosts and hauntings, trolls living under bridges, zombies, strange disappearances. You name it, Wood Forge has (or will have) it.
This story was rejected a bunch of times because of a particular scene which one editor called, ‘distasteful.’ He’s not wrong. But hey, I write horror, not pop-up books. I thought it was funny, in a twisted kind of way, so the scene stayed. Credit to The Literary Hatchet for having the balls to go with it and let me do my thing.
Coincidentally, The Literary Hatchet also published another Wood Forge story, What Happened Next, (the sequel to What Happened to Huw Silverthorne) back in 2014. I’ve always been a fan, it’s a great quality mag with a huge reputation, and it’s an honour to be included. This bumper 318-page issue on Pear Tree Press also features fiction by Eugene Hosey, Cody Schroeder, Stanford Allen, Mary King, Molly Richard, Tim Waldron and a whole bunch of others, as well as some cool as fuck artwork. Don’t miss out.
“They always say never go back. I never really understood why, until I went back to Wood Forge, the little village where I grew up.”
You can download the PDF version for free, shell out for a physical copy, or you can be a chump and do neither. Your call.
The Literary Hatchet #14 is available HERE
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