Gwendolyn Kiste

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About Gwendolyn Kiste

Gwendolyn Kiste is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, from Trepidatio Publishing; And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, from JournalStone; and the dark fantasy novella, Pretty Marys All in a Row, from Broken Eye Books. Her short fiction has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Shimmer, Black Static, Daily Science Fiction, Interzone, LampLight, and Three-Lobed Burning Eye, among others. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, two cats, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com

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Books By Gwendolyn Kiste

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The Rust Maidens Nov 16, 2018

by Gwendolyn Kiste

( 86 )

$4.95

Something’s happening to the girls on Denton Street.

It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls’ bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.

As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of “the Rust Maidens” in metamorphosis. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what’s happening or why—except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in secret, they know more than they’re telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood apart.

Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens—and her own unwitting role in the transformations—before she loses everything she’s held dear: her home, her best friend, and even perhaps her own body.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Nox Pareidolia Oct 31, 2019

by Robert S. Wilson , Brian Evenson , Laird Barron , S.P. Miskowski , Gwendolyn Kiste , Kristi DeMeester , Michael Wehunt , Zin E. Rocklyn , Alvaro Zinos-Amaro , Christopher Ropes

( 10 )

$6.99

From the Bram Stoker Award-nominated editor of the 2018 This is Horror Anthology of the Year, ASHES AND ENTROPY, comes a new vision of weird and horrific ambiguity. NOX PAREIDOLIA is fully color-illustrated by Luke Spooner and includes stories by Laird Barron, S.P. Miskowski, Brian Evenson, Kristi DeMeester, Michael Wehunt, Gwendolyn Kiste, Zin E. Rocklyn, Christopher Ropes, Doungjai Gam, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Carrie Laben, Kurt Fawver, David Peak, Don Webb and Duane Pesice, Paul Jessup, K.H. Vaughan, and more.

Other Formats: Paperback

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe Apr 14, 2017

by Gwendolyn Kiste

( 44 )

$3.95

A murdered movie star reaches out to an unlikely fan. An orchard is bewitched with poison apples and would-be princesses. A pair of outcasts fail a questionnaire that measures who in their neighborhood will vanish next. Two sisters keep a grotesque secret hidden in a Victorian bathtub. A dearly departed best friend carries a grudge from beyond the grave.

In her debut collection, Gwendolyn Kiste delves into the gathering darkness where beauty embraces the monstrous, and where even the most tranquil worlds are not to be trusted. From fairy tale kingdoms and desolate carnivals, to wedding ceremonies and summer camps that aren’t as joyful as they seem, these fourteen tales of horror and dark fantasy explore death, rebirth, and illusion all through the eyes of those on the outside—the forgotten, the forsaken, the Other, none of whom will stay in the dark any longer.

Other Formats: Paperback

Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 5 May 1, 2020

by Randy Chandler , Cheryl Mullenax

( 2 )

$4.99

GOING GLOBAL

2019. The year certainly made its mark on the world—and more than its share of scars. It also made for a bounty of good horror stories of the extreme kind, the best of which the tales herein serve to illustrate.

2019 was the year Year's Best Hardcore Horror went global. Not by design but because the stories inside just happened to have been written by authors hailing from various parts of the globe. From Australia by way of South Africa, to Italy, Scotland, Norway, Taiwan, North America and India--the common denominator being that their tales come from darkest regions of imagination.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

GOING GLOBAL: INTRODUCTION by Randy Chandler & Cheryl Mullenax

FEAST FOR SMALL PIECES by Hailey Piper

GODDESS OF GALLOWS by Kristopher Triana

LATE NIGHT INCIDENT AT THE WHITE TRASH MOTEL by Duane Bradley

A NEW MOTHER’S GUIDE TO RAISING AN ABOMINATION by Gwendolyn Kiste

UPPER CRUST by Michael Paul Gonzalez

REDLESS by Annie Neugebauer

A TOUCH OF MADNESS by Tim Waggoner

PARADISUM VOLUPTATIS by Joanna Koch

RADIX MALORUM by Sean Patrick Hazlett

LACKERS by Leo X. Roberson

WHY DO BIRDS SUDDENLY APPEAR? by Rajiv Moté

DARJEELING by Syon Das

MRSA ME by Alicia Hilton

WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE CHILDREN? by David L Tamarin

HAVE A HEART by Matthew V. Brockmeyer

SWINGS AND SUSPENSIONS by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

KIRTI by Alessandro Manzetti

THE TEA AND SUGAR TRAIN by DEBORAH SHELDON

SCREAMS FOR STARGIRL by Ben Pienaar

QUEER WEATHER by Scáth Beorh

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback

The New Flesh: A Literary Tribute To David Cronenberg Nov 15, 2019

by Sam Richard , Brendan Vidito , Kathe Koja

( 8 )

$4.99

Videodrome. Scanners. The Brood. Crash. The Fly. The films of David Cronenberg have haunted and inspired generations. His name has become synonymous with the body horror subgenre and the term "Cronenbergian" has been used to describe the stark, grotesque, and elusive quality of his work. These eighteen stories bring his themes and ideas into the present, throbbing with unnatural life.
A yoga group brings transcendence and bodily transformation. A woman undergoing Gender Confirmation Surgery is subjected to outlandish techniques. A young man discovers the reality-warping potential of a bootleg horror VHS. A mother comes to terms with the monstrous appetites of her newborn child.
Being terrified is just the beginning.
Become one with us and take a deep, penetrating dive into the plasma pool...
This is THE NEW FLESH.

With an Introduction by Kathe Koja.

Featuring stories by: Brian Evenson, Sara Century, C.M. Muller, Leo X. Robertson, Max D. Stanton, Emma Alice Johnson, Cody Goodfellow, Bruno Lombardi, Katy Michelle Quinn, Jack Lothian, Mona Swan LeSueur & Fiona Maeve Geist, Madeleine Swann, Charles Austin Muir, Ryan Harding, Alex Smith, Gwendolyn Kiste, Brendan Vidito, and Sam Richard.

"Fetish technology. Pleasure technology. Sinister technology. Incomprehensible technology. Inhuman technology. Technology plus velocity, velocity plus death, death plus technology." - From the Introduction by the legendary Kathe Koja, author of The Cipher, Skin, and Under the Poppy.

Other Formats: Paperback

The Invention of Ghosts (Charitable Chapbooks Book 6) May 26, 2020

by Gwendolyn Kiste , Luke Spooner

( 1 )

$5.00

Forty percent of all sales of this eBook will go to support the National Aviary. The National Aviary is America’s only independent indoor nonprofit zoo dedicated exclusively to birds. Located in Allegheny Commons Park on Pittsburgh’s historic North Side, the National Aviary’s diverse collection comprises more than 500 birds representing more than 150 species from around the world, many of them threatened or endangered in the wild.

It starts with rapping in the ceiling and spirit boards that know them a little too well.

Everly and her best friend aren’t your typical college students. Instead of raucous Saturday night parties, they spend their weekends conjuring up things from the beyond. Ectoplasm, levitation, death photography—you name it, and Everly knows all about it. But while this obsession with the supernatural is only supposed to be in good fun, the girls soon discover themselves drifting deeper into magic and further from each other. Then when one evening ends with an inadvertently broken promise, everything they’ve ever known is shattered in an instant, sending them spiraling into a surreal haunting. Now Everly must learn how to control the spectral forces she’s unleashed if she wants any chance of escaping a ghost more dangerous than all the witchcraft she can summon.

A tale of the occult, unlikely phantoms, and complicated friendships, The Invention of Ghosts is the latest strange vision from the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens.

Pretty Marys All in a Row Nov 28, 2017

by Gwendolyn Kiste

( 35 )

$3.99

You’ll find her on a lonely highway, hitchhiking at midnight. She calls herself Rhee, but everyone else knows her by another name: Resurrection Mary. And when she’s transported home each night to a decrepit mansion on a lane to nowhere, she’s not alone.

In the antique mirror, call her name three times, and Bloody Mary will appear. Outside, wandering through a garden of poisonous flowers is Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary, a nursery rhyme come to gruesome life. Downstairs is another jump-rope rhyme—Mary Mack, forever conscripted to build her own coffin. And brooding in the corner with her horse skull is the restless Mari Lwyd.

They are the Marys, the embodiment of urban legend and what goes bump in the night. Every evening, they gather around the table and share nightmares like fine wine, savoring the flavors of those they’ve terrified.

But other than these brief moments together, the Marys are alone, haunting a solitary gloom that knows them better than they know themselves. That’s because they don’t remember who they were before—or even if there was a before. And worst of all, they don’t know how to escape this fate.

That is, until a moment of rage inspires Rhee to leap from the highway—and into the mirror with Bloody Mary. Suddenly, the Marys are learning how to move between their worlds, all while realizing how much stronger they are together.

But just when freedom is within their reach, something in the gloom fights back—something that isn’t ready to let them go. Now with her sisters in danger of slipping into the darkness, Rhee must unravel the mystery of who the Marys were before they were every child’s nightmare. And she’ll have to do it before what’s in the shadows comes to claim her for its own.

PRETTY MARYS ALL IN A ROW is dark urban fantasy that follows the (after)lives and times of five ghosts and their haunts. The novella combines contemporary fairy tale and urban legend in a story that shows that being dead isn't always a bed of roses.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

"Underneath the creepy images and ghostly lore, Gwendolyn Kiste has created a story about the power of women's friendships, a subject often handled with all the cloying sweetness of a bag of candy corn. But these Marys are wicked and wonderful—just the gals you'll want to hang out with on a dark and stormy night. A darkly fantastic delight!" (Wendy N. Wagner, author of An Oath of Dogs)

"Gwendolyn Kiste excels in creating subtle, unsettling disturbia. Her writing is clever, imaginative, eerily beautiful. It lingers with you days later—perhaps long into the night as you stare at the shifting light on the ceiling—twining itself through your thoughts. Pretty Marys harkens back to the writing of Shirley Jackson and Daphne DuMaurier, whose work speaks to the fears of women and our struggle to find and keep our space in the world. The fear of not being heard. Of being replaceable. Perhaps most nerve-wracking of all: being forced to confront the darkness that lies inside all of us, telling us we’re not worthy, we’re not enough. Kiste writes empowering horror, handling these challenging subjects deftly and with a tough tenderness that lets the reader know: yes, there will be a fight... but you can do this." (Eden Royce, author of Spook Lights)

"Wholly original and profoundly haunting, Pretty Marys All in a Row is Gwendolyn Kiste’s finest work to date. Her prose glides effortlessly through the (after) lives of her protagonists, adding an unfamiliar humanity to the women of myth that we feared as children—a humanity that will resonate within the darkest heart.

Other Formats: Paperback

Welcome to Miskatonic University: Fantastically Weird Tales of Campus Life (My Miskatonic Book 1) Jul 15, 2019

by Brandon O’Brien , Bennett North , Kristi DeMeester , Matthew M. Bartlett , Gwendolyn Kiste , Joseph S. Pulver , Gina Marie Guadagnino , Elliot Cooper , Scott Gable , C. Dombrowski

( 5 )

$4.99

Strange tales at a strange university. Some quiet horror, some dark humor, and some college slice of life at this storied and magical institution, steeped in the occult and part of the odd town of Arkham. Come visit this fascinating New England university—where science and magic, tradition and experimentation go hand in hand—and the quiet, secretive town on which it relies.

Odd tales of campus life at Miskatonic University from

Brandon O’Brien • Bennett North • Kristi DeMeester • Elliot Cooper • Liz Schriftsteller
• KG McAbee • Brenda Kezar • Nate Southard • Scott R. Jones • Gina Marie Guadagnino •
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. • Marcus Chan • Gwendolyn Kiste • Matthew M. Bartlett

This is your first year? Welcome! Oh, you’re going to love it here at Miskatonic. Just... be careful. I mean, I’m sure everything will be fine, but you know, things happen. This can be a strange place. You hear stories: people changing and buildings rearranging, ghostly sounds and overly attentive textbooks, odd notions and foul deeds... even monsters! Hah. Just stories, right? Sure.

Faculty struggling for funding in the occult sciences. Students trying to navigate whole new worlds of possibility. Administration striving for growth and progress and not just damage control. And Arkham residents adjusting to the constant influx of new faces.

Just study hard. Party safe. Maybe find love. And don’t die.

REVIEWS

"The stories vary in form and content, but their connection to the university is always clear. [...] There is also beer. This short story collection will fit right in with any horror or new-adult collection." (Booklist)

Other Formats: Paperback

Vastarien, Vol. 2, Issue 1 Mar 31, 2019

by Grimscribe Press , Gemma Files , Fiona Maeve Geist , F. J. Bergmann , David Peak , Sepehr Goshayeshi , Natalia Theodoridou , S. E. Casey , Harry O. Morris , Jon Padgett

( 2 )

$9.99

Vastarien: A Literary Journal is a source of critical study and creative response to the corpus of Thomas Ligotti as well as associated authors and ideas. The journal includes nonfiction, literary horror fiction, poetry, artwork and non-classifiable hybrid pieces.

Contents

Venio
Gemma Files

The Lord is an Active Shooter
Fiona Maeve Geist

The Sisters
F.J. Bergmann

Horror Religiosus The Dark Passions of Mark Samuels
David Peak

The Curse of the Biblical Magi
Sepehr Goshayeshi

Aharesia
Natalia Theodoridou

Silhouette Golems
S. E. Casey

Orchid Architecture
K. A. Opperman

All the Stage is a World
Forrest Aguirre

Burger Shop
Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Rat King
Lia Swope Mitchell

Vanpool
C. M. Muller

Magic, Madness, and Women Who Creep: The Power of Individuality in the Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Gwendolyn Kiste

The Ageless Agelasts
Rhys Hughes

In the Way of Eslan Mendeghast
Farah Rose Smith

Effigies of Former Supervisors
Matthew M. Bartlett

Contributors

Other Formats: Paperback

Nightmare Magazine, Issue 92 (May 2020) Apr 30, 2020

by Nightmare Magazine , John Joseph Adams

$2.99

NIGHTMARE is an online horror and dark fantasy magazine. In NIGHTMARE's pages, you will find all kinds of horror fiction, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror.

Welcome to issue ninety-two of NIGHTMARE! All hotels are a tiny bit creepy, but the hotel in this new story from Yohanca Delgado & Claire Wrenwood (“The Blue Room”) is right up there with The Overlook. Be sure to check in and enjoy the room service! After you read “Decorating with Luke,” a brand-new story from Adam-Troy Castro, you might be ready to make a few changes around your own house. And don’t miss our reprints this month, including work by Jarla Tangh (“The Skinned”) and Steve Toase (“Call Out”). Gwendolyn Kiste brings us the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word.” Plus we have author spotlights with our authors, and a feature interview with author Molly Tanzer.

Horror For RAICES: A Charitable Anthology Dec 25, 2019

by Paul Tremblay , Livia Llewellyn , Poppy Z. Brite , Thomas Ligotti , Usman Malik , Elizabeth Hand , Ramsey Campbell , Laird Barron , Jennifer Wilson , Robert S. Wilson

( 1 )

$7.99

All net proceeds from the sale of this anthology go to RAICES, a wonderful charity that works to provide free and low cost legal services to immigrants and refugees in the United States. Nightscape Press stands with migrants, immigrants, and refugees. These folks are human beings and no border can change that.

Horror For RAICES is an emergency charitable anthology that was created as a way for horror authors to come together and take a stand against the xenophobic actions of ICE and the current US administration toward our neighbors. No children belong in cages. No children deserve to be taken from their families.

Horror has a way of painting a picture of the culture and times in which it has been created. And often what it reflects is awful. Horror For RAICES does just that but it also reflects something beautiful in us all.

Love.

Hope.

And resistance.

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

The Haunting of Lake Manor Hotel Apr 12, 2016

by Gwendolyn Kiste , Scarlett R. Algee , Brooke Warra , DG Jones , DJ Tyrer , E.J. Tett , Joleen Kuyper , Thaddeus White , Nathan Hystad

( 26 )

$2.99

“A pleasantly eerie collection by some young authors whose careers we’ll definitely have to follow.” – Joe Mynhardt, Crystal Lake Publishing

"It’s just good, shivery comfort reading for fans of classic horror." Josh Black - Cemetery Dance Online

13 Rooms. 13 Guests. 13 Stories.

It's been over a hundred and fifty years since a plague ravaged the area around Lake Manor. With few left to bury them, the corpses were unceremoniously dumped into the lake by their surviving loved ones.

Years later, Lake Manor Hotel is alive with the shadows of the dead. Within the hotel's 13 rooms, there are 13 tales to tell. Guests will face evil demons, ghosts, creatures from the lake, and the worst monsters of all: the ones within themselves.

13 will check in, but how many will check out?

This collection features some of the brightest talent in the horror industry. They each tell a story of a character staying in Lake Manor Hotel. You won't want to miss this exciting anthology with a twist.

Other Formats: Paperback

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