Meet the WEIRDo's: 2024 BRAVE NEW WEIRD Award Winner Sharang Biswas

Sharang Biswas is an NYC-based writer, artist, and award-winning game designer. He has won IndieCade, ENNIE, and IGDN awards for his games and has showcased interactive works at numerous galleries, museums, and festivals, including Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. His nonfiction writing has appeared in publications such as Dicebreaker, Eurogamer, Unwinnable, and First Person Scholar, while his fiction & poetry has been published by Fantasy, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Nightmare, Augur, Baffling and more. His short stories have been selected for two editions of the annual We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction and his first book The Iron Below Remembers released in Spring 2025 from Neon Hemlock Press.

His BNW-winning story, “Waiting for Jonah”, originally appeared in Nightmare Magazine.

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th.

You can preorder it here.

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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-winning story.

Jonah. Smart, handsome, ambitious Jonah. You wanted to be his friend. You wanted to be him. You wanted him.

The weird book he found didn't change things.

Grotesque occurrences at school didn't change things.

What would it take to change things?

This world is friggin' Weird in a lot of ways right now, and many of those ways are not the fun kind. What secret tips can you share to help others navigate this mess on a daily basis?

Arrange more phone-dates with friends: socializing keeps us sane.

Eat more kimchi/miso or other probiotics: gut health = all health.

Support indie games or indie speculative fiction: art keeps us alive.

I am adding that second one to my daily regimen promptly. Hails, gut health!

Do you take naps?

Every single day, usually after lunch. Even when I worked in consulting, I tried to power nap in one of the conference rooms!

On the Tenebrous Discord board, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

Bend It Like Beckham X Mika

What's the capital-W Weirdest thing that's ever happened to you (that you're comfortable sharing)?

I'm not really a magnet for Weirdness... The closest I can come to is a stranger on the subway chasing my friends and me between train cars, yelling at me to take the train all the way to JFK Airport for a plane back to India because, "Indians owned more slaves than anyone in history" (gentle reader, they did not).

Alas, that’s less Weird than nausea-inducing. We’re just glad you’re here making shit Weird for the rest of the world.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th.

You can preorder it here.

Meet the WEIRDo's: 2024 BRAVE NEW WEIRD Award Winner Kay Vaindal

Kay Vaindal is an environmental scientist and fiction writer who lives in Baltimore. Her favorite smells are sagebrush, dog paws, corn chip smell, and dimethyl sulfide. Her fiction has appeared in Seize the Press, the Drabblecast, and many anthologies. 

Find a complete list of her work at kayvaindal.com. 

Her BNW-winning story “Pig House” originally appeared in Seize the Press.

A personal note: Kay is a regular rabble-rouser in the Tenebrous Discord and when she says below that nothing Weird ever happens to her, she’s a damned liar. Weird shit is magnetically drawn to Kay.

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th.

You can preorder it here.

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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-winning story.

“Pig House” is a story where this girl wants to find and touch a pig in a post-apocalyptic world filled with giant corn and acid rain. She’ll die to touch that pig. She’ll kill to touch that pig. 

And who among us wouldn’t?

This world is friggin' Weird in a lot of ways right now, and many of those ways are not the fun kind. What secret tips can you share to help others navigate this mess on a daily basis?

I like to suck on my sweatshirt tassels, personally. But really, I don’t know. It comes in waves for me. I like to think I’ve developed a decent capacity for tolerating the bleak. But God it’s super bleak out there. 

I think the only thing we can really do is get ourselves all wet this summer. Like, in the sea or a lake or even a river. That’s what helps me.

Do you take naps?

I used to! I don’t so much anymore. But I was a napping fiend a while back. I had a big concussion in 2021 and I just haven’t been a napper since. I dunno how that all works. Brains are interesting.

On the Tenebrous Discord board, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

Apocalypse Now x the Wiggles.

What's the capital-W Weirdest thing that's ever happened to you (that you're comfortable sharing)?

Believe it or not, nothing Weird has ever happened to me. Just kidding. Once I was on a certain substance and I developed a super sense of smell. Like a bloodhound version of the limitless pill. I sniffed out a dead raccoon, barely rotten, from a mile and a half away, and I smelled that there was a harvestman on my shoulder before I saw it. The harvestman smelled like that deet-free bug spray. Ants smelled sooo good, too. My superpowers only lasted until I woke up the next day. Brewed coffee. Smelled like coffee. Sad.

I had to look harvestman up. I assume you were referring to was this:

Because this one would have been Weird even for you:

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th. It may give you superpowered smell**.

You can preorder it here.

**It will not.

Meet the WEIRDo's: 2024 BRAVE NEW WEIRD Award Winner Matthew Mitchell

Matthew Mitchell is a fiction and comics writer from the Ozarks. His award-winning novella CHAINDEVILS was published by Weirdpunk Books, and his short fiction is collected in RELEASE THE HORSE from Filthy Loot Press. Matthew's comics have appeared in Heavy Metal Magazine and he is co-editor of the HORRORIUM comics anthology. 

His BNW-winning story, “Knight Rumors”, first appeared in Profane Altars: Weird Sword & Sorcery, edited by Sam Richards (Weirdpunk Books).

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th.

You can preorder it here.

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Give us the elevator pitch of “Knight Rumors”.

“Knight Rumors” was born out of love for grimdark fantasy, rural American folklore, and the way FromSoftware writers choose to tell stories. 

This world is friggin' Weird in a lot of ways right now, and many of those ways are not the fun kind. What secret tips can you share to help others navigate this mess on a daily basis?

I struggle to be the kind of person who dispenses advice that don't upset the mind—who wants to be told “become a shadow-person,” you know? But if I was to say anything in the midst of the walking, talking evils which plague this fuckin’ planet, I would say:

“If you don't know where to put all that defensive violence running circles around your heart, just throw it on the damn page.”

Do you take naps?

Only against my will. Coming out of a nap transforms me into the lead of an anti-drug infomercial: a shambling, despondent, and useless thing.

On the Tenebrous Discord board, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

In my waking life, I am The Rover x Buck Owens & His Buckaroos. As a writer, I hope to serve Winter's Bone x Harm's Way.

What's the capital-W Weirdest thing that's ever happened to you (that you're comfortable sharing)?

I sure hate to tell a ghost story, but I was involved in a high-speed graveyard car-chase in which the pursuing vehicle drove in reverse and appeared to be without a driver.

Also, I removed God's tail and tucked it into my back pocket, so maybe that's a better answer.

Too many gods with too many tails runnin’ around as it is. You done good.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th.

You can preorder it here.

Meet the WEIRDo's: 2024 BRAVE NEW WEIRD Award Winner Tim Pratt

Tim Pratt (genderfluid, any pronouns) is the author of more than 30 novels, most recently multiverse/space opera adventure The Knife and the Serpent. She’s a Hugo Award winner for short fiction, and has been a finalist for Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, Mythopoeic, Stoker, and other awards. He posts a lot at Bluesky and publishes a new story every month for patrons at www.patreon.com/timpratt. Their BNW-winning story, “The Liminal Space Dating Agency,” is one of them.

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th.

You can preorder it here.

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Give us the elevator pitch of “The Liminal Space Dating Agency”.

Dating apps? Speed dating? These are hopelessly outdated. What if there was a better way? A way to find true love in our immersive slow-dating program? What if finding true love was your ONLY OPTION

This world is friggin' Weird in a lot of ways right now, and many of those ways are not the fun kind. What secret tips can you share to help others navigate this mess on a daily basis?

I wear cute clothes, send money to trans people (and organizations that support them), and hide from reality in fictional worlds, both written and read (and watched and played).

Do you take naps?

I love naps. I'd take them every day if I could. I usually wake up confused about what's happening for a little while, which these days is a bit of a relief. 

On the Tenebrous Discord board, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

Gonjiam Haunted Asylum x Sidney Gish

What's the capital-W Weirdest thing that's ever happened to you (that you're comfortable sharing)?

One time I was at home with my then-girlfriend, in bed, middle of the night, when the window was suddenly flooded with blindingly bright light, the entire room illuminated like a sports stadium during a night game. We're not talking about a guy with a flashlight here. The lights stayed on for a minute or so and then went off. The thing is, there was nothing outside that window but trees, and no place for a lifted truck with extra lights or anything of the sort to set up. I thought it was aliens. She (being of a more folkloric bent) thought it was fairies. We went out back the next day and found no indentations in the ground, no tire marks, no clear explanation. 

I've also seen a couple of ghosts but I think they were just instances of sleep paralysis.

Aliens, without doubt.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out June 24th.

You can preorder it here.