Unnerving, hilarious, grotesque, and emotionally gripping, this collection of social, psychological, and suburban horror expresses what disturbs us most about our experiences internally and interactions with the world around us—including with the HOA, our landlords, live-ins (human or otherwise), neighbors, or, in the end, our eternity with the undying ones. Costs of Living is an inclusive collection with stories from brand-new writers as well as old-hand award winners, including…
Advance Praise for Costs of Living:
“A well done, page-turning anthology of stories about home being where the horror is.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“While I devoured every bit of this anthology, I could barely look away […]. Costs of Living is a riveting horror anthology that speaks to our sense of security and comfort.”
– Christina Persaud at Articles of Horror
“With editor Stephen Capone’s first anthology, Whisper House has announced itself (by scream!) as one of the most promising small horror presses today, and Costs of Living proves itself to be an anthology that’s very much of the moment and will promise to frighten the ever-living hell out of you—wherever you live.”
– Ed Simon, Public Humanities Special Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University and author of Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain
Contributing Authors.
These thirty-five authors contributed to Costs of Living, and I’m grateful to them. If you’ve been following our behind-the-scenes blog, you know what work they’ve put in as I’ve probably asked more of them than most editors of their contributors. I am thrilled to introduce to you a diverse cast of contributors! Read their bios, visit their pages, and connect with them online.
Stay tuned to our YouTube channel for new video interviews with many of our authors! As of 9/1/2025, I still have eight more to edit and post.
Summer Alexis is a graduate of Northern Arizona University where she majored in English and Women’s and Gender Studies. She received the Charles E. Bull Creative Writing Scholarship for poetry, her literary analysis has been featured in Magazine Americana, and she has fiction featured in Parhelion Literary Magazine and Dark Mirrors: An Anthology of Horror. Summer enjoys reading and writing horror and thriller stories and lives in Minneapolis, MN, with her two cats.
Here’s the video interview with Summer.
Beth Kette Anderson placed in the Top 25 New Writers for Glimmer Train. Since then, she has had stories published in The Saturday Evening Post and numerous anthologies. Beth lives with her husband at the very end of the Puget Sound in Washington State.
Abby Andresen started writing horror after discovering the work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and other women writers of dark fiction. Since publishing her darkly comic novel, An Inappropriate Crush, in 2017, she’s had stories published in three horror anthologies, most recently in Land of 10,000 Nightmares: Minnesota Tales of Terror (Glint Media, 2023). Previously, she wrote articles and essays for several Minnesota publications, including Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine, and worked as a Minneapolis-based standup comedian. She tries to mix a little humor into her horror, when appropriate. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from American University.
Abby’s author interview is here.
Robert Bagnall was born in Bedford, England, in 1970. He has written for the BBC, national newspapers, and government ministers. Five of his stories have been selected for the annual Best of British Science Fiction anthologies. He is the author of sci-fi thriller 2084 – The Meschera Bandwidth and two anthologies, each of which collects 24 of his eighty-odd published stories. He can be contacted via his blog at meschera.blogspot.com.
You can find Robert’s author interview on our YouTube channel HERE!
J. M. Bask lives in the suburbs, which are a horror unto themselves, the greatest terror being the nonstop moan of leaf blowers. When she is not writing, she is doing typical suburban things to blend in, such as raising children and petting people’s dogs. She has been previously published in Allegory Magazine and is currently working on a novel.
Melissa Bobe is the author of Season of the Witch, Nascent Witch, and Sibyls. Her collection Electric Trees won the 2023 New York Author Project. She has recently published fiction with Intrepidus Ink, Bards and Sages, Urhi Publishing, Wyldblood Press, and World Weaver Press. After years of teaching college English, Melissa now works as a librarian. You can find her on social media @abookbumble and abookbumble.com.
Here’s the video interview with Melissa.
Tiffany Michelle Brown is a Los Angeles-based writer who once had a conversation with a ghost over a pumpkin beer. She is the author of How Lovely To Be a Woman: Stories and Poems and cohost of the Horror in the Margins podcast. Her fiction and poetry has been featured in publications by Black Spot Books, Dread Stone Press, Death Knell Press, Hungry Shadow Press, and the NoSleep Podcast.
John Bukowski was previously a researcher and medical writer with professional publications ranging from journal articles to website content to radio scripts. In fiction, he has two novels and seventeen short stories in publication. He’s a native of the Midwest but currently lives in eastern Tennessee.
Rob Francis is an academic and writer based in Bedfordshire, England. He mainly writes short fantasy and horror, and his stories have appeared in magazines such as The Arcanist, Apparition Lit, Metaphorosis, Tales to Terrify, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and Weird Horror. Rob has also contributed stories to several anthologies, including DeadSteam and DeadSteam II by Grimmer & Grimmer books, Under the Full Moon’s Light by Owl Hollow Press, and Alternative War by B Cubed Press. He lurks on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) @RAFurbaneco.
Rob’s Whisper House Press author interview is available HERE!
G. Gormley (they/them) is a writer based in Washington state. Their short stories have appeared in magazines such as The Chamber and Rural Fiction Magazine, and their novels Sing The Angry Children and Weep Our Wretched Land were published under the pen name Celia J. King. They enjoy writing everything from sci-fi to gay rat poetry.
Christina Griffith is a journalist and freelance writer living in Philadelphia with her dog, two cats, and her significant other, a human. She digs music, sci-fi, and cooking, and is originally from New York’s Hudson Valley.
Kay Hanifen was born on a Friday the 13th and once lived for three months in a haunted castle. So, obviously, she had to become a horror writer. Her work has appeared in over forty anthologies and magazines. When she’s not consuming pop culture with the voraciousness of a vampire at a 24-hour blood bank, you can usually find her with her two black cats or at kayhanifenauthor.wordpress.com.
Here’s the video interview with Kay.
Tyler John Kasishke lives and writes in Portage, MI, where he is a student of creative writing at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. His work has been published in The Horror Zine’s Book of Monster Stories. You can find him lurking on Twitter @TKasishke.
Here’s the author interview with Tyler Kasishke. Check it out!
Jordan King-Lacroix is a Jewish writer from Sydney, Australia, via Montreal, Canada. His first book, the non-fiction Ugly: A Bikie’s Life, was published by Penguin-Random House in 2021, and his short story “The Last Chosen”, in the Jewish Futures anthology (Fantastic Books, 2023), was well-received by critics. When not writing, he can be seen gigging around Sydney in his punk band The Limited.
Jordan’s interview is here on our YouTube channel! Check it.
Spencer Koelle is a stressed bisexual living in the City of Brotherly Love. He shares his row house with a partner, a roommate, and four orange cats. His website is spencerkoelle.com and his twitter handle is @KoelleSpencer. He enjoys fake meat, red wine, and scary movies. He also loves feedback from readers, so feel free to drop him a line!
Here’s our video interview with Spencer. Check it out.
Andrew Kozma’s fiction appears in Apex, Factor Four, and Analog, while his poems appear in Strange Horizons, The Deadlands, and Contemporary Verse 2. His first book of poems, City of Regret, won the Zone 3 First Book Award, and his second book, Orphanotrophia, was published in 2021 by Cobalt Press. You can find him on Bluesky at @thedrellum.bsky.social and visit his website at andrewkozma.net.
C.R. Langille spent many a Saturday afternoon watching monster movies with her mom. It wasn’t long before she started crafting nightmares to share with her readers. She is a retired, disabled veteran with a deep love for weird and creepy tales. This prompted her to form Timber Ghost Press in January of 2021. She is an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association, the DEI Chair for the League of Utah Writers, and she received her MFA: Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in 2014. Find her work in Cosmic Horror Monthly and elsewhere.
Here’s the author interview with C.R. Langille!
Editor’s note: C.R. Langille in her role as EIC of Timber Ghost Press was recognized in August 2024 by the League of Utah Writers as the Editor of the Year. Congratulations! You’ve earned it.
Jon Lasser lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and two children. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Lightspeed, Analog, Interzone, and elsewhere. He’s a graduate of the Clarion West writers workshop. Find him on the web at twoideas.org and on Mastodon as @disappearinjon@wandering.shop.
Daniel Lumpkin is from Georgia. He currently teaches college English Lit and Comp courses at Shorter University. He loves being a husband and dad. You can reach him at nonprofitstepbystep@gmail.com.
John Mahoney is a writer living in one of New Jersey’s less cheerful locales. His short stories were published by The Yard: Crime Blog, Pinky Thinker Press, Etched Onyx magazine, and That is SO Wrong: An Anthology of Offbeat Horror. Highlights magazine published a joke he wrote before he knew Santa Claus wasn’t real.
Lena Ng lives in Toronto, Canada. Her short stories have appeared in publications including Amazing Stories and Flame Tree’s Asian Ghost Stories and Weird Horror Stories. Her stories have been performed for podcasts such as Gallery of Curiosities, Creepy Pod, Utopia Science Fiction, Love Letters to Poe, and Horrifying Tales of Wonder. Under an Autumn Moon is her short story collection.
Gevera Bert Piedmont is a neurodivergent cyborg swamp witch living on the edge of a frog pond in Connecticut with her spouse, cats, and an impressive collection of rubber lizards. She is the author of The Maw and Other Time-Traveling Lizard Tales, the Mickey Crow paranormal series, co-author of Airesford (the other author is an actual zombie), editor of the Necronomi-RomCom Cthulhu Mythos duology and co-editor of Horror Over the Handlebars, an anthology of Connecticut horror. Her short stories have been published in Love Beyond Death, The Fellowship of the Old Ones, Doomscrolling, Wicked Sick, and others. Her novel Fat Monster will be published by Nightmare Press in 2025. Bert has an MFA in creative writing and belongs to HWA, Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association, and New England Horror Writers. Connect at facebook.com/geverabertpiedmontfac, geverabertpiedmont.com, obsidianbutterfly.com, or her Amazon and Goodreads author pages.
Stephen S. Power is the author of the novel The Dragon Round, and his new novel, Safe at Last, a story about a traumatized woman trapped in a smart house, is currently under submission. His short fiction has appeared most recently in Unorthodox Stories and The Arcanist, Dark Recesses, and Dread Machine and will soon appear in Heathen, Lightspeed, Stupefying Stories and the anthology The Growers: The Best of NewMyths, Volume 5 as well as on the podcast Creepy. He lives in one of New Jersey’s more cheerful locales, his site is stephenspower.com, and he skeets at @stephenspower.bsky.social.
Here’s our video interview w/ Stephen S. Power. Check it out!
Nigel Quinlan has written two books for children, and several short stories, published in the collection This Way Up, as well as in Ember Journal, Albedo 1, The Caterpillar, Slant, and The Book Smugglers’ Quarterly Almanac. He lives in Ireland.
Jonathan Reddoch is co-owner of Collective Tales Publishing. He is a father, writer, editor, and publisher. He writes sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and especially horror. He has been working on his enormous sci-fi novel for over a decade and would like to finish it in this lifetime if possible. Find him on Instagram: @JonathanReddochAuthor.
Vanessa Reid is an English teacher in Atlanta who writes about the human monsters that haunt us. You can find some of her stories in Georgia Gothic and The Fourth Corona Book of Horror Stories. A member of the Broadleaf Writers Association and the Horror Writers Association, Reid lives with her adorably macabre family, an evil cat named Moreland, and a dog who tries to avoid his wrath. For more information, visit vanessareidfiction.wordpress.com.
Vanessa’s interview with Whisper House Press is here on YouTube.
Michael Allen Rose is an award-winning writer, musician, editor and performance artist based in Chicago, Illinois. His stories have appeared in The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, Heavy Feather Review, and Tales From The Crust, among other periodicals. He has published several books, including Jurassichrist (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing) which won the 2021 Wonderland Award for best bizarro novel, and The Last 5 Minutes of the Human Race, winner of best collection in bizarro fiction 2022. He is the host of the annual Ultimate Bizarro Showdown at Bizarro Con in Oregon. Michael also releases industrial music under the name Flood Damage. He lives with an awesome cat named Dr. Light, and enjoys good tea. You can find more at www.michaelallenrose.com.
Jesse Rowell (he/him) is an award-winning science fiction author whose work explores naturalism, technology, and the human condition. He can be found at jesserowell.com.
J.D. Simpson is a Kentucky teacher and author currently based in Barcelona. Under his pen name “John Beardify,” he has written campfire-style horror stories that can be found via the NoSleep Podcast, Blair Daniel’s Halloween Horrors anthology, and other publications. His work is based on the folklore of places he has lived and worked during the past decade, including Japan, the Republic of Georgia, and Appalachia. In his free time, he enjoys hiking in the Pyrenees with his family.
Find J.D. Simpson’s author interview on our YouTube page.
Katlina Sommerberg (xe/xyr/xem) is living xyr best queer life in a menagerie of stuffed animals. Xyr work has previously appeared in Zooscape and other places. sommerbergssf.carrd.co.
Michael Subjack was born in a small town in Western New York and has since relocated to Pasadena, California. He’s published two short story collections, and his work has appeared in the anthologies 101 Proof Horror, It Calls from the Forest, Trigger Warning: Curses, and Heavy Metal Nightmares. He’s also had a story read on an episode of the horror podcast Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. Most recently, he had a story published in The Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear.
Elizabeth Suggs is the co-owner of the indie publisher Collective Tales Publishing, owner of Editing Mee, and is the author of a growing number of award-winning published stories, one of which titled “Into the Dark” part of the Collective Darkness anthology was Amazon Bestseller, and another was selected for second place in the Quills Short Story Contest “Technicolor Tears.” She is also a book reviewer (EditingMee.com), popular bookstagrammer, and cosplayer (@ElizabethSuggsAuthor). When she’s not writing or reading, she’s traveling the world.
Here’s the video interview with Elizabeth.
William Wandless teaches English by day, and by night he writes speculative fiction. His latest work can be found in Bourbon Penn as well as the Hidden Realms and Home Sweet Horror anthologies. He can be found on Bluesky as @billwandless and on Twitter as @ArsGoetica.
Sam Weller is a two-time Bram Stoker Award winning writer of fiction and nonfiction. His collection of supernatural gothic stories, Dark Black, was published by Hat & Beard Press in 2020. Sam is the authorized biographer of the late and legendary Ray Bradbury. His book, The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury (HarperPerennial) was a national bestseller. Sam lives and writes in Chicago. You can follow him on X @Sam__Weller or learn more on his website: samweller.net.
Here’s the video interview with Sam.
Angela is a biochemist-turned textile artist who listens to scary podcasts while walking her dog through the deep, dark woods of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Occasionally, she happens across an abandoned cabin. She always goes in.
Here’s our author interview with Angela—check it out!
Some updates.
Sept. 2025: The book is live. We’ve gotten great reviews from Kirkus and early readers and have sold a few dozen pre-orders. Spread the word!
May 2025: The book is completed, marketing and promotions are underway, and you can pre-order a copy of Costs of Living right now. We’d provide those links, but truly, you know where to go. Bookshop.org, Abebooks.com, your local indie shop directly, or Amazon.com / barnesandnoble.com for the big boys.
January 2025: Costs of Living is nearly complete. Test copies and ARCs are out. We’re using these Q1 and Q2 months in 2025 to promote the book and recoup some of our costs via a Kickstarter campaign (Feb 1 – 22). High on our priority list are the following: submitting the book for review with Publishers Weekly and Booklist as well as Kirkus (we got the review!) and other high-respect reviewers, sending ARCs to our favorite horror authors and booksellers, and alerting the horror community (via the Horror Writers Association) to the existence of our collection of suburban, psychological, and social horror. We are shooting for the clouds here with hopes of gaining the attention of those voting for award winners.
More behind the scenes reporting here.
Whisper House Press 