Summer Scare Time Is Near!

You can feel the chill in the air as things heat up – 2 weeks to go!

Jun 05, 2025

TWO WEEKS AWAY! Summer Scare starts on 20 June 2025, Summer Solstice. Gather up your tales of ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night, maybe a zombie or two, a werewolf, even a wendigo. Readers await, sweating in the heat and wanting that chill that only your scary tales can convey. And, for you readers, rest assured that the writing is ALL done by humans, but not necessarily alive or in one piece!

Oh, and I will be including excerpts from my new book From the Files of Fontaine Investigations, a paragraph or two to give you a clue as to some of the lesser known goings on in the U.S. capital city.

NOTE: Every writer named here has assured me they don’t use AI in any aspect of their writing. I don’t knowingly promote AI-generated junk. Thanks for reading.

Some Scary Previews by Other Humans Here:

Starting you off with Jennifer Morrow who keeps that scary stuff coming year round and inspired this push on my part to ratchet up the shivers this summer:

Autumn Lives Here

It's Autumn Lives Here's Third!

It’s true. Three years ago, I was loopy enough to start a horror/Autumn Substack in the middle of June. I blame it on a desperate need to see a flickering light at the end of the ring in Hell that is Summer in Arizona. And I wanted to talk about the scary books I read and Autumn food. Anyway, June marks my third anniversary. So many crimes, so much body…

a year ago · 9 likes · 8 comments · Jennifer Morrow

A scary little item from Chris J. Franklin posted as a Note:

For anyone who’s grown up around cornfields, the scarecrow is a common sight, one that Grace Anderson-Author presents that iconic figure in a somewhat different light:

Grace’s Spook Show

The Scarecrow

I built the scarecrow a week after my dad's death. I thought it looked just like him…

a year ago · 17 likes · 8 comments · Grace Anderson-Author

This multi-part story from C. Lee McKenzie throws a bit of a twist and kept me waiting each week for the next part:

Heartless, Part 1

A Weekly Dose of Fiction

Short Story Wednesday

Dear Readers…

a year ago · 16 likes · 5 comments · C. Lee McKenzie

Check out Honeygloom for some stories that chill like this one:

Honeygloom

When Lambo?

Chad sucked a cotton candy high from his chrome vape pod and held the liquid smoke in his lungs for a count of five, four, thee, two, one. Smoke curled into the night and dissipated, like ideas, he thought. Disseminating, spreading, infiltrating, enough vape in one place could fog up a room and ideas were- he yawned and stretched his legs…

a year ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · Honeygloom

Like ghost stories? Check out Bill Hiatt ’s The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, easily accessed through his episode list:

https://billhiatt.substack.com/t/haunting-of-guaritori-diolco

And don’t forget that scary stories also fit in other genres, such as this science fiction tale from Michael B. Morgan :

AroundSciFi | Read. Imagine. Discover.

The Black Hole

Kinda messed up, honestly. Ain’t the sorta thing you expect outta a house in the sticks. Yeah, we were pumped to finally see it with our own eyes, check out where all that crazy went down. When we pulled up, sky was real blue, like, weirdly blue. But the sun? Looked wrong. Dim, small, like a busted flashlight bulb hangin’ up there. Trees looked dead, al…

a year ago · 12 likes · 9 comments · Michael B. Morgan

Just a taste of things to come.

Oh, and don’t miss John Coon ’s story and seven more in the new horror anthology Feral Lands from Samak Press.

Strange New Worlds

New Release: Feral Lands

a year ago · 7 likes · 4 comments · John Coon

The Scare Team (in alphabetical order):

Some writers on here who, as far as I’ve seen, write stories in that scary arena. If I’ve missed adding you here or have tagged you in error, please let me know.

A. B. Frank – Victorian Vignettes – Exploring eerie elegance of Gaslamp Horror in Victorian era

Adi Out Here – Turn on the Light – Murder, mystery, sex, romance, sci-fi, horror

Amanda V Shane – Monsters & Mystics – Fantasy, paranormal romance

Andy Futuro – Cyberpunk, horror, dirtbag literature

Brian B Baker – My Head is Unraveling – Horror writer, book reviewer

Brian Schell – Horror Weekly

Bryan Beal – Dead Heretic – Cyberpunk, Science fiction

Caroline Barnard-Smith – SwampWitch

Chris J. Franklin – Tales of the Zeitgeist – Contemporary fiction, humor, horror, Science fiction

Colin Devonshire – Colin’s Dark Stories

Connor McGwire – Ars Corvi – Gothic, noir

Dungeon Mistress – Dungeon Mistress Chronicles

EJ Trask – Age of Aquarius

Emily S Hurricane – The Eye of the Storm – Romance, erotica, horror, gamelit

FranB – Tales at Twilight – Speculative stories with dark edge, humor

Garen Marie – Only Child Originals – Horror and dark stories inspired by fairy tales and folklore

Grace Anderson-Author – Grace’s Spook Show

Honeygloom

Jennifer Morrow – Autumn Lives Here

Jessica Maison – Monster of the Week

John Coon – Strange New Worlds – Science fiction, horror, humor/satire

Leigh Parrish – Halcyon Horror

Lyndsey Resnick – Poison Ivy House

M.P. Fitzgerald – Graphomania with M.P. Fitzgerald – Darkly humorous Science fiction & horror

Natalie Phillips – Plotted Out – Cornish fantasy & dark humor

Nocturnal Narrator – Speculative Fiction and Dark Tales | Nocturnal Narrator – Dark speculative fiction, builds interactive worlds to tell strange stories

Patricia J.L. 👻🧶🖊️ – Twisting the Myths

Redd Oscar – ReddOscarWrites – Fantasy, science fiction, and horror

S.L. Stallings – Ghost Stories – Paranormal fiction, tech horror, dystopia

Sam Bartol – Ghost Notes

Scrawls of Dread – Scrawls of Dread’s Substack

Shane Bzdok – Matte Black – Science fiction, dystopian, horror

The Dread Legacies – Reimagining classic monsters

Theo Priestley – Tales of the Unexpected

Travis Blake – Dracula’s Ghost

DOOM FICTION