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Back to the lagoon for us gill creatures!
This concludes cycle 4. Have a witchin summer & we’ll catch you this fall. Meanwhile, we’re laying out the CDSOB chapbook series (stay tuned!) & planning our 100 days to Halloween watchlists! We’ll remain open for submissions, so please send us your horrors. Thanks for reading & writing & staying weird! - 7/8/2024 -
Watch for Deer by Michael Sikkema
Soon we will all be saying “watch for deer” when we leave the party and go out into that big night. Today, we feature new poems from CDSOB regular Michael Sikkema’s “Watch for Deer” series, in anticipation of his forthcoming CDSOB chapbook of the same name. Watch for deer. Read the poems. -
Friday Feature
Mini-reviews of horror movies, books, albums, and other cultural artifacts dropping every Friday.
Recent Work
Screen of the Heavens: Alien Invasion Weekend, Mahoning Drive-In by J †Johnson
The truth was out there at Mahoning Drive-In’s Alien Invasion weekend, & so were we. JJ gazes at that great screen in the sky & writes about an out of this world 35mm double-double feature🥁🛸📽️🍿
Published June 5, 2024
Dry
by Tim Lynch
What do you see in the face of the monster? Tim Lynch looks the wolf in the eye and sees the man before him, in today’s featured poem.
Published June 10, 2024
Muffin
by Karthik Kotresh
Here, kitty kitty. At CDSOB, we’re cat people. We’re also monster people. Today, we feature Karthik Kotresh’s short story, “Muffin.”
Published June 3, 2024
Since He’s Been Gone
by Cassandra Walters
“The sign outside read ‘Cursed, Not Jilted,’ but the lights in the word ‘Not’ flickered intermittently. You could get your fortune read for $50. Or, guess the owner’s name correctly for a free reading.” And so we arrive at the fortune teller’s table, ready (or not) for some truth to be told.
Published May 20, 2024
Beware of the Owls’ Herald
by Matt Shadbolt
“But in New York, when you tear down a building, you always leave its ghosts.” Here’s where the story takes a turn, and the owl eyes begin to pulse green. Today we present Matt Shadbolt’s hyperreal neo-gothic mystery, “Beware the Owls’ Herald.”
Published May 13, 2024
Spiral
by C.M. Dreibelbis
What shadows do our daily concerns cast over us, become monsters, and what common things do we fear? C.M. Dreibelbis is not afraid to place this question, in its many ordinary forms, on the table. Today we present a poem called “Spiral.”
Published May 6, 2024
Vampire Poem
by Sylvia Gorelick
Creatures of the night do not cease to exist in the light of day. Sylvia Gorelick reminds us that shadows are not the absence of light, but a form of lighting effect at play with bodies. Just so, this monster is both substance & projection, surface & interior condition. If the vampire resists representation, they are no less reflective. Their pleasure, & their queerness, are one.
Published April 29, 2024
Four Poems
by Melissa Eleftherion
The horror books we read as kids reveal a darkness we might spend a lifetime working through, along with the very real terrors we encounter. Melissa Eleftherion parses memories of strange companions from formative reading experiences in poems from their “suture” series.
Published June 24, 2024