Tales from the Hearth Anthology
Greetings darklings:
I gathered flowers and herbs this morning. I want to press them and then mount the plant specimens in a three-ring binder. I will make good use of the new binder, the white sustainable printer paper, glue sticks. Actually, I have to stock up on glue sticks. I press the flower(s) first, wait for them to be pressed, and then I arrange them on the page to find a design that I am happy with. Then I glue them onto the page and include a label . The label includes information about the plants such as the day I foraged them, the weather conditions, the flower I chose, the binomial name of the herb or flower, the origin, color and what exactly I foraged- bark, seed, fruit, etc. That all tells me where I found the plant, what I foraged, and the date I found it, etc. I plan to make my herbarium into a collection of plants that are all grown locally. I am quite happy with the progress so far. I store the piece of paper with the dried, preserved flower and the label in a clear page protector and put it into the binder.
I even made my own herbarium labels. It is nice to know I am continuing a longstanding tradition of the preservation of beautiful plants. All the plants will be arranged in alphabetical order. I could organize them according to the plant family if I wanted. I think just going with an alphabetical order will suffice, for now.
I also plan to include a monograph of each collected plant specimen and a witchy monograph. I will store all that in the binder. I hope I am able to collect lots of plants. A monograph offers even more identifying information about a plant, including its medicinal properties. I hope to gather an impressive collection of plant specimens with medicinal properties to guide me on my plant journey over time.
I want to focus on cosmic indifference as a theme in horror fiction. Cosmic indifference may have its deep roots in Lovecraftian fiction. It has been a popular theme or trope in horror fiction ever since Lovecraft’s stories were published- and celebrated.
Cosmic indifference means that there may be a point where people realize that humans are totally insignificant to ancient forces. We all know we are really tiny in the vast, vast universe. But being insignificant to an ancient cosmic force is different. They are not the same thing. I am no expect on cosmic indifference. I have a hard time reading Lovecraftian fiction and I bought a beautiful tome of Lovecraft’s writing. I had to close the book. I am ready to give up on understanding Lovecraft. I will try one more time and ask for more help. I really want to ‘crack the code’, so to speak.
I write about the trope/ theme of cosmic indifference in my novella The Cult of the Spider People. Dreamweaver Press is republishing it in August! I am so excited.
My characters Piper and Cory unwittingly push back the veil to the dangerous realm of Arachnall and step through the portal. When they find themselves trapped, they are met with savage beings that crave their blood and are absolutely indifferent to their suffering. The Arachnas possess the same cosmic indifference, they do not care about their fate. Their indifference is so extreme that it’s terrifying. That terror carries through the entire novella. The stakes are high and danger is everywhere. Humans are nothing but a blood feast to the Arachnas.
They trap their human victims in cocoons. The cocoons are large enough to fit an adult human, whether male or female. They do not care about your gender if they want to kill you. They have no mercy, no warmth. Their world is dark, dangerous. Sinister. Surreal. The Arachnas do not free their prey, they wait until they want to feast on blood. There is no escape, no hope, nothing.
The indifference of the Arachnas to their human prey is terrifying. Readers can see Piper and Cory’s efforts to survive the savage and dangerous world of Arachnall in the pages of my soon to be republished novella out in August.
Twisted Dreams Press is publishing an anthology of horror fiction. My story, I am proud to say, is included! I can’t wait to read the anthology, titled Tales from the Hearth!
“Dreamweaver Press is thrilled to reveal the cover for our very first original anthology!
Tales from the Hearth is a collection of stories both shocking and horrific! From spinetingling tales of woodland horror to monsters preying on young victims, these stories will chill and delight fans of horror stories that make their skin crawl!
This anthology includes work from the following authors:
Bryan W. Alaspa
Nemo Arator
Shannon Bradner
Dawn Colclasure
Zach Ellenberger
Matthew J. Gleason
Boe Healy with Chisto Healy
Emmanuel Herrera
Whitney R Holp
Heddy Johannesen
C Lenz
EM Otero
Destiny Eve Pifer
Christine N Rifkin
Isabelle Robinson
Dare to read these chilling stories of horror that can only come from storytellers gathered at the fire, eager to share their tales of terror!
Cover design by Crystal Baynam.
COMING SOON!”
I’m excited about my book being published – again! and the anthology! I can’t wait to read the stories written by the other talented authors in the book! I hope it’s released soon.
I shall keep you posted!
Blessings, Spiderwitch
