Meet the WEIRDos: 2024 BRAVE NEW WEIRD Award Winner Emma Burnett

Emma Burnett is a researcher and writer. She has had stories in Nature:Futures, Mythaxis, Northern Gravy, Radon, Flash Fiction Online, Apex, Utopia, MetaStellar, Milk Candy Review, Roi Fainéant, JAKE, and more. Her favourite story this month is “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Teleporter” by M.J. Pettit in Flash Fiction Online. You can find Emma on Bluesky or emmaburnett.uk.

Her BNW-winning story “Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3]” originally appeared in Nature Journal.

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. 

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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?

Hope and scream and hope and rage and hope again.

Is the order of these steps precise, or can I start (and likely end) with screaming?

Do you take naps?

Do I take naps? Does rain make your shoes soggy? Is Tom Holland lip synching “Umbrella” the hottest thing ever? Is today a day that ends in -ay?

Oooh, I get my own Q&A!

1. …Yes, that’s what I asked?

2. Yes! Unless you wear booties.

3. I- what? Oh shit, this is modern pop culture isn’t it, I’m terrible at these things.

4. Probably! What am I, a calendar maker? (note: Alex, are we making calendars yet?)

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.

You killed me on this. I legit needed help. The best I've got is: Ex Machina x The Decemberists. I might be wrong. It might be Girl, Interrupted x Led Zeppelin.

The correct answer is Ex Machina x Led Zeppelin.

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

People like my writing. NGL it blows my mind every time. I'm the kind of person people ignore in a boardroom, or think is just a Weirdo in social settings. I'm not used to being taken seriously. But here, in the wilds of the written word, I'm a reliable witness to my own stories. Mind blowing.

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

You can preorder it here.

(Emma cannot though; apparently we killed her. Whoops, our bad.)

Meet the WEIRDos: 2024 BRAVE NEW WEIRD Award Winner Erik McHatton

Erik McHatton’s passion for horror literature began in grade school and can be credited to an early fascination with the “Terrific Triples” horror collections of Helen Hoke. He began writing fiction seriously in 2019, and has since been published several times in print and online publications such as CHM Magazine, Vastarien, Tales to Terrify, and Lovecraftiana. His first fiction collection, Straw World and Other Echoes from the Void, will be published in 2025 by Undertaker Books. He currently lives in Kentucky with his beautiful wife and kids, along with dear friends and family; surrounded on all sides.

His BNW-winning story, “The Man Who Collected Ligotti”, originally appeared in Cosmic Horror Monthly.

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.

A man is going around collecting Ligotti of all kinds, with dire consequences for all.

Great, so you wrote a story about Carson Winter. Like we don’t publish enough of that guy.

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?

While it may be cliche, the best advice I've ever gotten is, "Keep your chin up." Remember that all things pass, and the pendulum always swings the other way. People are mostly good, even if they disappoint you, and as Mr. Rogers said, "Look for the helpers."

Do you take naps?

Sometimes. More and more the older I get.

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.

Clerks x Jim Steinman

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

Once, when I was a teenager, I had a group of people come up to me in a town I didn't live in and insist that they knew me, while calling me another name. They wouldn't let it go, and even after I insisted over and over I wasn't this person, they walked away giving me strange looks. I think about that a lot.

They did the same thing to me. I just insisted that I was Carson Winter. 

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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 WEIRDos: 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 WEIRDos: 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.