TENEBROUS PRESS AIMS to drag the malleable Horror genre into Newer, Weirder territory with stories that are provocative, intelligent and terrifying, delivered by voices diverse & unsung.
TENBEBROUS CULT LEADERS:
Matt Blairstone
Publisher/Founder, Roller de fol, Abuser of Punctuation
Horror Aesthetic: Vintage Black Light Poster Art meets 1920s Surrealism slugging absinthe at London’s Batcave circa 1984.
Crime & the City Solution gigging with Swans all night; Peaceville Three Doom every day; Fabio Frizzi DJ’ing between sets. A grim sexy party linked by ludicrous plot twists and luxuriant set pieces.
Alex Woodroe
Editor-in-Chief, Red Right Hand, Wrangler of Fools, Cracker of Whips
Horror Aesthetic: Sprawling Prog concept albums under Weird suns; weaponized human emotion; the Unknown as a lifestyle choice; woodland horror vacui; cosmic minimalism; optimistic nihilism; & other sharp-edged philosophies.
The Tenebrous Press Mission Statement:
Our goals are as follows:
To define, highlight, and celebrate the genre of New Weird Horror.
To treat our artists with respect, kindness, and love.
To treat our readers with respect, kindness, and love.
To treat our booksellers, podcasters, reviewers, and everyone else in our community with respect, kindness, and love.
To put the well-being of human beings above any other consideration, including profit margins, fame, clicks, likes, and egos.
To treat anyone who doesn’t adhere to the above with kindness and love, but not respect.
To that end:
Tenebrous Press will not prioritize profit at the cost of people.
We will not cut corners in order to churn out ‘content’.
We will never take submission fees, or in any way take money from authors.
We will always set aside any money that is owed to the authors and ensure we never fail to deliver it to them.
We will reinvest any profit that Tenebrous Press makes in further advances, art, and marketing, until those needs are fully satisfied, before we claim any for personal use, regardless of how long that takes.
Tenebrous Press will never replace human artists with machines.
There will be no machine-generated stories, editing, art, or narration. Whatever other future innovation machine learning brings, we will not be using it.
We will maintain anti-machine-generation clauses in our contracts.
We will introduce machine-gen-free disclaimers in our copyright pages.
Tenebrous Press will not prioritize fame.
Tenebrous Press anthologies will not come with an already star-studded list of invites. We do not invite people to be published. We may invite people to submit, or pitch, as a reminder that we’d like them in our slush pile, but their work will be judged against the work of everyone else. Everyone is equally likely to receive a rejection, no exceptions.
For special events (such as the StokerCon pitch room) we will only receive marginalized and first-time authors.
Our award anthology, BRAVE NEW WEIRD, will not be open to the winners of the previous year.
We will have submissions open as often as possible in order to give as many people a chance as possible.
We will volunteer our time to help people get comfortable with submitting and pitching work.
We will take every opportunity to have open lines of communication with authors.
Tenebrous Press will not prioritize its own staff.
We will not be publishing our own books and stories. We don’t believe in granting ourselves the right to circumvent the processes that every other Tenebrous author has to go through. If the processes are not fair toward everyone, they are not fair toward anyone.
Full disclosure: this is part of a learning process, and constantly evolving. Tenebrous’s very first test publication was a self-published chapbook—since removed from print—and a valuable tool to learn the ropes. Tenebrous’s first anthology contains stories by both Publisher and Editor, published prior to our adaptation of current practices. If this feels unethical to you, we’re open to hearing about it, learning, and adjusting.
Tenebrous Press will not deliberately cause harm, but will engage in harm reduction efforts.
We will engage in the constant active effort to learn best practices in order to make sure our presence leaves a positive mark on the world.
At the time of writing, that includes things like warning our readers about content that might be harmful to them; ensuring that all our readers feel represented and respected through our catalogue of work and collaborators; accepting that we don’t know everything and asking for help, extra eyes, and opinions from people who have more experience with sensitive topics than we do; dedicating finances, space and work hours to charitable contributions; and generally doing our best to make ethical, kind, and considerate choices.
We accept that perfection doesn’t exist and that we will make mistakes. We will take accountability for our actions, make amends, and learn as much as we’re able in order to do better after each mistake. We will always prioritize adapting to new challenges and improving our harm reduction efforts.
We will make every effort to support our collaborators and community in their efforts to create a safe and inclusive space.
Tenebrous Press will prioritize creators.
We will always be transparent with our authors when it comes to our goals and what we can accomplish for them, as well as what we expect from them. We will always be transparent in terms of their financial earnings through us. We will always be transparent in terms of how decisions are made.
We will always allow authors to have the final say on any matters related to their editing, on every level, with the sole exception of minor proofreading/typography errors. We edit and collaborate extensively with our authors, but do not impose our views on them.
We will always welcome and consider authors’ input in their art, marketing strategy, or any other aspects of their release, even if it won’t always be possible to fulfill all their wishes.
We will invest equal time and effort in all our authors.
Tenebrous Press will respect its peers.
Whenever possible, whenever our ethical priorities are aligned, we will maintain open lines of communication with fellow editors and press owners. We will share all the resources we have available, including but not limited to things like contracts, contacts, experience, advice, our servers & community, and our newsletter.
We welcome the esoteric; the unorthodox; the Weirdest of
NEW WEIRD HORROR.
Hail the Inferno.
Hail the 10p Cult.