The story behind "Coffin Walker," a writer's reunion

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My story "Coffin Walker" has finally come out! I'm so excited for this one. I wrote it a while back. I had read "Dracula" and had a sudden urge to write something really elegant and poetic, yet horrific at the same time.

I had no ideas at all in my head, but the urge for poetic elegance was in my fingers, so I grabbed my computer, sat on the floor in the middle of my cold messy room, and began to write. The whole thing came out right then and there. I went over it a couple of times and I was done.

After that, the rejections rolled in and I wondered if I needed to work on it, but those who had read it said "Don't touch it." So "Coffin Walker" wandered the world, as lost as the main character in the story. Everybody hated.


Siren's Call Publications had a submission call for Women in Horror Month. I had been trying for that magazine FOREVER because that magazine is WOW, and I've always gotten rejected or almost made it, so this time I was like, "What do I have to lose?" I sent it in, and a few weeks later, I had an acceptance letter from them.

Being in Siren's Call Publications has been one of my hugest goals and desires, but something more happened. When I had first started out, I was published by Sanitarium Magazine, and from there, invited by Gwendolyn Kiste, the author of The Rust Maidens, to be in her anthology A Shadow of Autumn. Several of the authors I had come to know through these publications were in this issue of Siren's Call. I saw their names and felt like I was having a reunion.

That was a beautiful thing.

Download issue 43 of The Siren's Call Publications here and get stories from some of my first writing buddies.

Scarlett R. Algee, Miracle Austin, Jamie R. Wargo, and Tawny Kipphorn

And from new ones: Elaine Pascale and Nina D'Arcangela.

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