CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN (Brooklyn, NY) is the creator of the rigorous storytelling session The Pumpkin Pie Show. His previous publications include Rest Area, Miss Corpus, and The Tribe trilogy Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal, and Academic Assassins (Disney). His films include The Boy (SXSW 2015), Henley (Sundance 2012), and Late Bloomer (Sundance 2005). Theater: Commencement and Hostage Song (with Kyle Jarrow). Comics: Edge of Spider-Verse, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, Vertigo Quarterly: SFX, and Self Storage. Chapman is a writing instructor at the Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University.
A Light Most Hateful (2023) Hailey Piper "What has sprouted out from Hailey Piper's head is a fully-formed goddess of a novel, equal parts terrifying, awe-inspiring, and downright worshipful. I'm still scorched by A Light Most Hateful, even after closing its pages, blinded by its brilliance."
Knock Knock, Open Wide (2023) Neil Sharpson "Celtic creepypasta Knock Knock, Open Wide is a dark miracle and Neil Sharpson is an infernal bard belched straight out from Hell itself. Your next nightmare has just arrived."
Edenville (2023) Sam Rebelein "Sam Rebelein's Edenville is pure cosmic gonzo...This jaw-dropping -- apologies, jaw-ripping -- novel earns its place amongst contemporary classics The Library at Mount Char and The Book of Accidents. You won't read anything quite like it... not in our universe, anyway."
The September House (2023) Carissa Orlando "Peel back The Yellow Wallpaper, check out of The Overlook, and say farewell to Hill House... There's a new haunted house on the market and Carissa Orlando is the realtor of our nightmares. You'll never want to leave once you start reading."
Schrader's Chord (2023) Scott Leeds "Scott Leeds truly has an ear for fear. Any reader who cracks this cursed book open is doomed to devour it in one sitting like I did. Now I hear ghosts wherever I go."
Black Sheep (2023) Rachel Harrison "No other contemporary author harnesses the humanity found in horror quite like Rachel Harrison. With Black Sheep, she warms your heart, then breaks it, then rips it out."
Whalefall (2023) Daniel Kraus "A brutal, unsparing, wildly uplifting book. The sheer buoyancy had me breathless by the end."
Unquiet (2023) E Saxey "Unquiet deceptively presents itself like a frozen lake: The further one treads across E. Saxey's haunting, delicate text, the closer to cracking the ice one gets. I fell through this gorgeously gothic novel and still haven't come up for air."
Burn the Negative (2023) Josh Winning "Josh Winning has won my heart with this Hollywood horror-noir, which plays out like A Nightmare On Sunset Boulevard."
Bunker Dogs (2023) Gage Greenwood "Claustrophobically composed and tautly paced, BUNKER DOGS takes a suffocating plunge into utter what-the-fuckery that will leave you losing sleep just to reach the paralyzing end. I tore through this book."
Looking Glass Sound (2023) Catriona Ward "Catriona Ward is an inspired spider and Looking Glass Sound is her most masterful web yet... while we, dear readers, are nothing more than mere flies happily trapped within the pages of this brilliantly intricate novel."
Linghun (2023) Ai Jiang "Ai Jiang probes the very notion of ghosts to offer us something far more haunting: it is the living who we should fear the most, where the boundless parameters of our own grief lay down the blueprint for an altogether new Hill House to inhabit."
The Haunting of Alejandra (2023) V Castro "V. Castro charts a terrifying legacy of tears with The Haunting of Alejandra, an empathic epic that maps out the birth of a curse and tethers itself to the very ancestry of its tragic protagonist."
Gothic (2023) Philip Fracassi "GOTHIC is the literary equivalent of the abyss gazing right back at you from the hellish depths of its pages. Don't lean in too close, lest you fall into this nightmarish novel and never find your way out again."
A History of Fear (2022) Luke Dumas "A History of Fear presents itself as a disquieting cache of nightmares, a nested doll narrative that reads like a found-footage Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg. Readers, beware: this novel is not safe and will have you questioning what's real for many sleepless nights to come."
Curse of the Reaper (2022) Brian McAuley "Brian McAuley takes Method acting to maniacal meta-horror heights in his Poe-infused slasher Curse of the Reaper, which reads like a pitch-perfect riff off of Peter Bogdanovich's Targets, a Los Angeles-cast Cask of Amontillado, and a Jerry Stahl-penned tug-of-war between Boris Karloff and Kane Hodder. Read it."
What Moves the Dead (2022) (Sworn Soldier, book 1) T Kingfisher "The distilled terror of T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead insinuates itself into the reader's nervous system from the very first sentence and quickly overtakes their sense of self control. I was powerless against this novella's pestilential pull and had to finish it in one sitting... or maybe it finished me. Now it's under my skin and I can't trust the touch of anything anymore."
Black Tide (2022) KC Jones "Black Tide is the ultimate walk-of-shame straight to the end of the world, equal parts cataclysmic thrill ride and acerbic character study."
Echo (2022) Thomas Olde Heuvelt "I just scaled Mt. Olde Heuvelt and let me tell you, the view up here is absolutely terrifying. Reading ECHO caused me vertigo. The sense of dread inspired by this breathtaking novel - the dread of something monstrous wearing the face of someone we love - reaches so deep, I can still feel the lingering chill in my bones well after putting the book down."
Slewfoot (2021) Brom "Brom has made a convert out of me with Slewfoot, which takes hold of the maxim 'sympathy for the devil' and yanks hard on that literary taproot, unearthing a far more elemental and complex truth. Demon or no, evil or not, the mighty stag Slewfoot deserves our love and devotion. He's got mine now. All hail Brom, all hail Slewfoot!"
Chasing the Boogeyman (2021) (Boogeyman, book 1) Richard Chizmar "Chizmar’s Chasing the Boogeyman has been written upon missing person flyers and published on telephone poles. HAVE YOU READ THIS STORY? For your own safety, you should… The Boogeyman will soon enter the pantheon of suburban legends that fill our backyards like summer fireflies, his name whispered into ears all over. Pray you keep yours."
Impacted (2021) Benji Carr "Like a shot of novocaine, Benji Carr injects his novel with enough pitch black comedy to take all my pain away. Impacted had my jaw on the floor, either from laughter or sheer gob-smacking shock. Pray you remember to grab your own mandible back up once you've finished reading this hilarious debut novel."
