Our mission: Whisper House Press publishes and promotes horror capturing life's mundane absurdities. We are committed to empowering and lifting diverse voices, to radical transparency and fairness, and to celebrating human creativity.
Our core values: Radical Transparency, Respect and Equity, and Backing the Upstart.
We produce and promote horror. Finding the terror in life’s mundanities makes us laugh and cry at once.
We aim to share profits with our authors with industry-breaking fairness. Remember in all your pursuits that money should only flow in one direction: to the writer.
We are committed to telling you how the production process works so you’ll know exactly what you’re supporting by buying our books.
We believe in inclusion and equity and in using the privileges we’ve been gifted to boost the voices of those with fewer opportunities. We celebrate submissions from frequently marginalized groups and offer extended deadlines to those who face structural challenges in everyday life.
Who We Are & What We Love
An independent press based in Salt Lake City, Utah; Whisper House Press is a new venture (founded April 2024) spearheaded by longtime academic and author Steve Capone, Jr.
We love horror that reminds us of Event Horizon (McDonald then adapted by Eisner, 1997), Knocking (Broström & Theorin, 2021), Master (Diallo, 2022), The Handyman Method (Cutter & Sullivan, 2023), Get Out (Peele, 2017), Gæstern / Speak No Evil (Christian and Mads Tafdrup, 2022), The Last House on Needless Street (Ward, 2021), or Dear Hannah (Stage, 2024).
Who We Are Not & What We Don’t Love
We realize that splatterpunk and other forms of extreme horror are appealing to many, but that’s not us.
We don’t want anything that uses animals as emotional manipulatives, that relishes in abuse and trauma (though much of what we do appreciate is in the aftermath of trauma and in the impact trauma has on the human psyche), or that trades in sexual violence.
AI Statement
We do not use AI in any creative stage of producing books, and all our authors sign contracts affirming they didn’t use AI to develop or create their story. We believe strongly that AI mustn’t play a role in inventing or writing our stories. We avoid AI in our covers and their design and aim to support artists creating covers without AI. We value human creation, generally. Where creation is not at stake (the analysis of contracts, for instance—or for advice about coding our website), we occasionally consult AI tools. We do not and will never feed our authors’ stories into AI tools.
Behind the Scenes / Transparency Efforts
For a look behind the scenes in developing the anthology Costs of Living and beyond, check out the “From the Editor’s Desk” series on this site.
Want to know more? Send us an email at editor [at] whisperhousepress [dot] com. You can also find Steve on social media outlets updating folks on the progress of various WHP projects (though he tends to spout about more than only that.)
Whisper House Press is a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association.
Whisper House Press 