Whisper House Press

Notes from the desk of the editor are offered in the interests of personal posterity and transparency for writers and other potential editors who wish to learn from my experience.

the editor

The following email went out to Whisper House Contributors today:

Hi everyone.

A few quick updates.

1. Costs of Living and Dread Mondays submitted yesterday to the anthology jury for the HWA’s Bram Stoker Award in that category.
   • YEAR ONE will go out to that jury in December when the submissions for that month’s publications open.
2. Three of our shorts appear on this year’s HWA Bram Stoker Award reading list:
   1. Theodore Hill’s “A Taste” (link)
   2. Ray Van Horn Jr.’s “Bentalou Crush” (in Dread Mondays)
   3. JM Bask’s “I’m Not From Here” (in Costs of Living)
3. I’ve nominated six (the maximum) of our stories for Pushcart Prize consideration:
   1. Val Chatindo’s “The Egg Tree” (link to her featured story from April 2025)
   2. Ben Matthews’ “Mother Knows Best” (link to his feature from the fall of 2025)
   3. “Cutting Room” by NJ Gallegos and Nathaniel J Darkish (in Dread Mondays)
   4. “Impact” by John Mahony (in Costs of Living)
   5. “Just Being Neighborly” by Jordan King-Lacroix (in Costs of Living)
   6. “The Seed” by Chiya Parvizpur (in Dread Mondays)
4. In case you missed it, here’s a download folder for you contributing authors—for your eyes only—for all three books from this year. (You didn’t miss a call for submissions—I decided to turn the web-featured stories into an anthology and paid those authors for additional rights to include their stories in a print edition, and I’ll do the same in 2026).
5. The next call for submissions will be for social media horror, and the tentative title of the anthology is Doom Scroll.
   1. I expect to open the call in early February (post Sundance Film Festival).
6. If you want author copies for any of the three books, let me know. I’ve got links to make the ordering process nice and easy now that they’re published (the first two, anyhow).
7. If you know independent bookstores and want to help us get our books in there, here’s the web page I’ve created for them. If you don’t feel comfortable pushing product, no worries. Let me know what store you think I should reach out to, and I’ll do that. I’ve recently begun a postcard project—sending personal introduction postcards to 50 indie shops, to start with.

If you don’t want to hear from me again, no problem—just respond to this email and let me know.

Otherwise, I’ll keep you in the loop on free downloads, calls for submissions, discounts for the books to which you’ve contributed, and these very few announcements about successes we’re celebrating together. I will not be sending you anything that might be reasonably considered “marketing” emails but rather emails with the core info for the folks who’ve built the things being discussed.

If I’ve missed anything you deem important, send me a note.

I’m proud of the first publishing year Whisper House Press has had, and most of that gratitude goes to the contributing authors, who have graciously allowed me to include your awesome writing in our books.

– Steve