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A.C. Hessenauer

@a.c.hessenauer

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👻THE NOVEMBER THEME IS: The Other Side of Ordinary This month, our boxes are overflowing with terrifying tales and disturbing delights. In case you missed it, all of our full monthly boxes will now come with two books in addition to other goodies! 📚 BOOK 1 HINTS: PSYCHOLOGICAL | FOUND FOOTAGE | ECO HORROR This twisted tale from Cemetery Dance features a documentary filmmaker exploring the wreckage of a vessel lost to Lake Superior. It is an eerie, gripping tale told through a mixed media style. Within the depths of this tense plot, the risks are high. As strange occurrences unfold and a local legend comes to light, the crew begins to question what they’ve encountered, and whether they can trust their own senses. Some secrets are better left beneath the surface. 👀 THE TWISTED EDITION INCLUDES: -Redesigned dust jacket with foiling and spot gloss by @ruthannaevanshorrors -Faux-leather hardcover with foiling details by @veronicalexgm -Stenciled edges by Jefrian Syahm -Endpages by @mothra_studio and @daydreamstd_ -Signed by the author 📚 BOOK 2 HINTS: SHORT STORIES | LITERARY HORROR | SURREAL This compilation of haunting tales explores the strange, the unsettling, and the deeply human. They blend surreal horror, dark fantasy, and dark imagery to reveal something lurking that is far from ordinary. Beauty and horror are not as different as they might seem. 👀 THE TWISTED EDITION INCLUDES: -Redesigned dust jacket with foil and gloss by @david_gardias_designs -Hardcover with foiling by The Cover Designer -Illustrated endpages by Yassine Sey and Ayan Colorscape -Watercolor stenciled edges by Daria Kul -Signed by the author Book 2 is only in the full box *SWIPE FOR SPOILERS* 👻​ITEM HINTS: In addition to your two books, the full box also contains a full sized candle with Natural Pure Honest (our final item with them as the owner is retiring her business 😢), something for your home, and many more themed goodies TBA. ⚠️ NOVEMBER AVAILABLE FROM OCTOBER 23 - NOVEMBER 22 ⚠️ ( #twistedretreat #horrorbookbox #horrorgram #bookbox #bookstagram )
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I am so looking forward to Going to the Six. Big appreciation to Amanda Hessenauer for sending it over. 🖤
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A.C. Hessenauer is a writer of horror, chaos, and madness. Her latest novel, Going to the Six, published by Cemetery Dance Publications in June 2026, was selected for the Cemetery Dance Trade Paperback Book Club alongside works by Jack Ketchum, Bentley Little, and Brian Hodge. The novel was also released as an audiobook by Simon & Schuster Audio's Simon Maverick imprint. If that weren’t enough, she also spearheads Dread House Publishing, which has produced some fantastic horror anthologies. Join us as we discuss curating anthologies, found footage books, the path from indie to traditional publishing, horror as a source of hope, and her favorite writing advice! #horrorbooks #horrorauthor #Horrorpodcast #horror #authorsofinstagram
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Sharing a reminder that submissions open November 1st for the Subliminal Anthology. We've tried to respond to anyone who sent in a submission early with a message back. Please wait until the submission window opens so your submission does not get lost in the shuffle. See full submission guidelines below 👇and on our website at www.dreadhousepublishing.com Subliminal: Below (Sub) + threshold (limen); Existing or operating below the normal limit of conscious awareness. Give us your best horrors hovering just below the threshold … think spaces, transitional states, moments of suspension, the in-between, metamorphosis of consciousness … stretch the limits of our perception and imaginations, and expose what lurks just below the surface. Dread House Publishing is looking for stories which fall in the category of horror only for this anthology. This will be an open call. The submission window opens November 1st and closes November 30th. ABSOLUTELY NO AI!!! 📢 Period. If you use AI in your writing, your cover art, or to promote your work on socials, this is not the press to submit to. Word count limit is set to 6,000 words max. Reprints will not be accepted for this anthology. Simultaneous subs allowed. Only one submission will be considered per author. Selected stories will receive $20 and a copy of the ebook. Paperback author copies may be ordered at printing cost. Release date TBD, featuring cover art by @druhuf Submissions may be emailed to info@dreadhousepublishing.com starting November 1st. Please submit your story as an attachment following Shunn formatting guidelines, with both the story title and your last name in the file name. Please include your name and contact information in the header of your document along with your total word count. An author bio may be included in your email as well.
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Spooky reads that we think are not talked about nearly enough on Booksta! 👻🩶 QOTD: see any you’ll be adding to your TBR?
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This is my spoiler free review, but Amanda and I dive into the mysteries, hidden clues, and our theories about We Used to Live Here in the newest episode of Night Reads! Link to episode is in my story. Like and subscribe! We Used to Live Here is exactly my kind of horror: surreal, bizarre, deeply unsettling, and completely uninterested in explaining itself to death. What begins with an incredibly simple and uncomfortable premise, a family showing up at a couple’s house claiming they used to live there, slowly becomes something much stranger. Reality starts slipping. Identities become uncertain. Time and space stop behaving the way they should. And the deeper the story goes, the less you can trust your understanding of what is actually happening. What impressed me most is the restraint. Marcus Kliewer gives us clues, recurring imagery, hidden messages, contradictions, and pieces of what feels like a much larger mythology, but he never hands us a neat explanation. There are answers here if you want to construct them, but Kliewer leaves enough empty space for the reader to participate. And that’s where this book really worked for me. I don’t need every strange hallway mapped or every supernatural occurrence given a rule. The unexplained is what makes weird fiction linger. When a book ends and I immediately want to sit down with someone else who read it and spend hours arguing about what Thomas is, what Old House is, what happened to Eve, and what the title really means, that’s a successful horror novel. It’s surreal without feeling random, ambiguous without feeling empty, and strange without sacrificing the emotional horror underneath it all: the terrifying idea of knowing exactly who you are while reality itself insists you’re someone else. The best mysteries don’t always need solutions. Sometimes they just need enough clues to keep you thinking long after you’ve closed the book. #Bookstagram #Bookpodcasts #NightReads #HorrorBooks #Bookreviews
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Just released! Poisoned Folk Tales Curated by A.C. Hessenauer Foreword by Dan Franklin There are many wonderful stories in here, as well as a few that gave me trouble. The genre is folk horror, so expect less dark fairy tale, and more rural and woods horror, the emphasis obviously on the weird and the uncanny. There are 23 tales in all (and a foreword), quite wide-ranging in theme and writing style, the writing mostly far above average and the themes often original takes on creature horror, woods horror, urban legends, analog horror, and, of course, folk horror. Dan Franklin's foreword opens the anthology with the best opening line in the book: “'Once upon a time' began as a warning." The stories that follow cover a lot of ground. The ones I enjoyed most were: the opening story, Chad Olson's awesome "At the Door", with creature horror, Faustian bargains, and witchcraft; Nick Badot's "The Fetch", one of the anthology's best entries (essentially a conversation between two men, set in Montenegro's baroque town of Perast in 1840), subtle historical horror, with the best ending in the volume; and "What She Built with the Village" by Dustin Smith, an extraordinary revenge tale of a cruel woman hunting down the people that harmed her as a girl - the nasty imagery and the hair-raising ending made this my favorite story in the book! To conclude: this is a very rich anthology, full of solid stories, with almost no gore, though with creepy scenes and disturbing folklore aplenty. A great read overall. I sincerely hope it gets the attention it deserves! (Full review of all stories at Goodreads)
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This week I’ve received some outstanding book mail: POISONED FOLK TALES, the beautiful new anthology from @dreadhousepublishing, edited by @a.c.hessenauer; THE STITCH WITCHES by @krissiekwilliamswrites, an atmospheric historical novel set in the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials; THE CREEPS by @tehlormejia, a spooky MG novel set at an equally spooky motel; and the much-acclaimed Halloween horror novels AUTUMNCROW and AUTUMNCROW HIGH: FRESH HELL by delightful author/booktuber @library_macabre. #books #bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #horrorbooks #bookhaul
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Some horror stories aren't told. They're recovered. #epistolary #horror #horrorbooks #horrorbookstagram
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Look what arrived just in time for release day! The perfect collection of horror stories to add to your TBR this fall 🍁🍂🪾
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It’s release day for Poisoned Folk Tales! 🌲💀 I’m really excited to have my short story “The Keepers” included in this collection, but even more excited to be part of such a great group of horror writers. Poisoned Folk Tales comes from Dreadhouse Publishing, the label run by my friend and Night Reads co-host A.C. Hessenauer, who was kind enough to give my strange little story a home. And I’m in some damn good company. The anthology features 23 stories from writers including A.C. Hessenauer herself, Jack Finn, the one and only Viggy Parr Hampton, and so many more—each putting their own spin on folklore, superstition, old traditions, strange places and the things that probably should have stayed buried. My contribution, “The Keepers,” follows a journalist who travels to an isolated community to investigate a mysterious group that has shut itself off from the modern world. Naturally, everything goes wonderfully for him. 😂 If you’re looking for something creepy to read during October, this is pretty much the perfect Spooky Season anthology. Huge thanks to Amanda and Dreadhouse Publishing for including me, and congratulations to all the authors who helped make this wonderfully weird collection happen. FIND LINK TO PURCHASE IN MY STORY Happy release day, everybody. 🖤 #PoisonedFolkTales #DreadhousePublishing #FolkHorror #HorrorBooks #SpookySeason
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Release day! The Poisoned Folk Tales anthology is out now. It includes my story, The Scent. I’ve been making my way through it, and there some truly great stories/authors in this one! Published by @dreadhousepublishing Edited by @a.c.hessenauer Cover art by @franknobleart Link in bio.
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