Californian born, Australian raised, world traveled, Rowan Hill puts her doctorate in Applied Linguistics to devastating purpose throughout her tales of science fiction and terror. Author of the A Dark Witch series and damn near too many short stories to count, Hill has most recently published her debut collection, No Fair Maidens From Earth To Mars. I caught up with Hill in between adventures to chat with her about her Journal Stone/Trepidatio publication and asked her to guide us on a tour of the vast and wonderous worlds swirling within her muse and to show us the sights no matter the dangers that await us. Hill was all too eager to oblige as she opens up about the process of collecting stories with strong woman characters and how they cope with absolute isolation, lethal environments, and vicious outcomes despite their best intentions. Continue Reading
Everyone’s a critic these days, but within the literary universe, the art of critiquing is no task for the meek. Dissecting the nuts-and-bolts of what makes a story work — or not — takes a trained eye. There are miles of distance between a one-star stinker and a five-star phenomenon, and recognizing those differences requires the work of the assertive; those unafraid to flay the flesh from characters and dig deep into the viscera of influences and motives, or to call out those narrative plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. It’s the business of Rick Hipson and the like, shored up by chops that take decades of commitment to develop. Or 
The Synopsis
What should have been a breeze of a bank heist for James Glenn and his crew goes violently wrong, forcing them to flee, blood-stained and angry. They stumble onto a remote lodge that doesn’t open for another month — a perfect place to lie low until the heat’s off.
When the lights go out…that’s when things change. When masks are put aside, and eerie truths are laid bare. It’s when towns grow extra streets and cul-de-sacs which don’t exist in daytime. When whispered wishes and fantasies become reality. When our deepest fears and most powerful longings become flesh. When ambitions become obsessions which overpower us, and leads us to our ends.
The Synopsis
The Synopsis
The Synopsis
The Synopsis
Terror doesn’t stumble and moan—it walks silently among us, cloaked in the guise of the overlooked. 
It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest,” distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.