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.

***

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

You can preorder it here.

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: Final Table of Contents announced, Preorders open

Hey Ho, Tenebrous Cult!

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the 2024 Brave New Weird Awards! The following twenty-six individuals will comprise the Table of Contents of BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Volume Three, available to preorder now!

art by Matt Blairstone

Table of Contents:

Angela Liu - A Contract of Ink and Skin

Emmett Nahil - Vining

K.A. Wiggins - The Tangle (Did Not Kill Kitsault)

Ainsley Hawthorn - Big Cats of Newfoundland

F. J. Bergmann - The Museum of Etymology

[sarah] Cavar - Mad Studies

Matthew Mitchell - Knight Rumors

Azure Arther - Reciprocity

Hannah Greer - To Be Human

SJ Townend- I Have Seen Seven Bad Things

Ira Rat - Soft

Kay Vaindal - Pig House

Sharang Biswas - Waiting for Jonah

Tehnuka - You Can Leave Your Helmet On

Tim Pratt - The Liminal Space Dating Agency

Tiffany Michelle Brown - Full Immersion

Leo Oliveira - They Remember Faces

M. L. Krishnan - Measurements Expressed as Units of Separation

Emma Burnett - Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3]

Samir Sirk Morató - EGREGORE

Shantell Powell - The Snow Hath No Queen

Plangdi Neple - Not All Your Bones Are Yours

Sonya Vatomsky - The Yolo Wallpaper

Susan L. Lin - Gravitational Pull

Erik McHatton - The Man Who Collected Ligotti

Zoe Kaplan - Traveling Salesman **(more information below)

As in previous years, it was both a no-win and a can’t-lose situation narrowing down this list. Having winners implies that there were losers, which…nah. We don’t play that. We maintain that BRAVE NEW WEIRD’s primary function is to serve as a snapshot of an ever-changing Weird Fiction scene that, regardless of trends or shifts in the greater publishing world, remains at the vanguard of quality prose. You are going to be hearing from these incredible writers for years to come.

Thank you to everyone who submitted: themselves, on behalf of others, the indie presses and self publishers alike.

Hail New Weird Horror…+ More.

***

As we celebrate these twenty-five gifted Weirdos, we feel obligated to share some sad news, as well.

Our Table of Contents was intended to be twenty-six writers long. In our process of securing contracts and contact information for each recipient, we had to do some deep digging to track down the final winner.

In our search, we learned that she had passed away just a scant few days after submitting her Brave New Weird-winning story, “Traveling Salesman”.

Zoe Kaplan was only twenty-eight years old; she was an astounding writer with a limitless ceiling. There is a lovely memorial page here with memories and anecdotes provided by her loved ones.

Her family and friends have also set up the Zoe Sarah Kaplan Memorial Award for Jewish Speculative Fiction in her honor; you can contribute here if you’re able.

We didn’t know Zoe personally; only through her writing. She was previously short-listed for a BRAVE NEW WEIRD award in our inaugural year, a fact which she proudly lists on her author page on her website. We’re equal parts profoundly moved and heartbroken by that.

The Cosmic Background, original publisher of Zoe’s BRAVE NEW WEIRD-winning story, “Traveling Salesman”, has left it up to read for free, and we encourage you to do so. It would not be right for us to re-publish it in our volume—we cannot know her final wishes on the matter—but we will be certain that she’s properly honored, and a link to the story will be provided for future readers of the book.

Thank you, Zoe, for making the world a Weirder place.

***

Preorder BRAVE NEW WEIRD Volume Three here.

Announcing the Shortlist for BRAVE NEW WEIRD Volume Three!

Hails, Tenebrous Cult!

It takes three to establish a pattern, and one of the patterns we’re establishing is this: the BRAVE NEW WEIRD calendar year is about thirteen-and-five-eighths months long, as opposed to the standard-issue twelve-month Gregorian calendar.

And why wouldn’t this be the case, when you think about it? Time is Weird™. Also, we don’t ever wanna cut corners or shirk in our duties of showing you the most accurate cross-section of Weird Fiction circa 2025; every story submitted deserves our full attention, regardless of timeline. This forthcoming volume is the culmination of an entire year’s worth of Weird, and boy howdy this year has been Weird. Have I said “Weird” enough this paragraph? I need an editor.

Weird Weird Weird.

(…also, this little ramble feels suspiciously similar to what I said last year around this time. I hate to burst your bubble, Cultists, but I think the forecast is nothing-but-Weird-years for the time being.)

Regardless: we’re gonna focus on the good kinda Weird. and to that end, it’s time to announce the…

BRAVE NEW WEIRD VOLUME THREE SHORTLIST!

As usual, it was agonizing just to narrow this list down to sixty worthy contenders from the nearly 1,000 submissions we worked through. And it’s gonna be agony to further sculpt a final Table of Contents from this list.

A couple points of note that Alex wanted me to stress:

1. Additional categories like anthology, special issue, games, etc. are still going to receive awards, they're just not shortlisted and will go straight to the final round. Those announcements will be made soon-ish.

2. We mean this very seriously: not being mentioned is not an indicator that your work isn't good enough. We understand that awards can feel exclusionary, but what we're doing here is only attempting to showcase a range of what was published over the past year that fits into our vision for our genre and voice. This is a selection of stories we chose to showcase; there are many amazing stories we couldn't, largely because of genre fit and space. Those stories are worthwhile too and we hope more and more spaces will choose to do showcases like this one (equitably, openly, and without using it as a platform to champion themselves and their own work, there's plenty of that already going around).

Okay, enough from both of us.

The BRAVE NEW WEIRD SHORTLIST:

Ainsley Hawthorn - Big Cats of Newfoundland

Aleksandra Ugelstad Elnæs - Spolia

Alex Fox - The City of Cities, Inverted; A Shadow Cast By Many Hands

Angela Liu - A Contract of Ink and Skin

Ann LeBlanc - Memories Held Against a Hungry Mouth

Avra Margariti - Unbirthday Means You Wish Yourself Unborn

Azure Arther - Reciprocity

Briar Ripley Page - Birth Of a Sucker

Calla Eris Orion - Kiss of a Toad

Casey Lawrence - Ten Things I Have Learned About Human Skin: A Presentation

[sarah] Cavar - Mad Studies

Dane Erbach - Something Else

David Corse - The Amassing Man

E.G. Condé - Sibilance

E.M. Linden - Mangrove Daughter

Elad Haber - End of Line

Elana Gomel - Mother Black Hole

Eleanna Castroianni - Zarghána

Emma Burnett - Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3]

Emma E. Murray - An Angel of God

Emmett Nahil - Vining

Erik McHatton - The Man Who Collected Ligotti

F. J. Bergmann - The Museum of Etymology

Faith Allington - Teacakes for Foxes

Guan Un - Painted Surfaces

Hannah Greer - To Be Human

Ira Rat - Soft

Jack Klausner - Cardboard Faces

Jack Lennon - The Scottish Welfare Fund Application Form

James Cato - Wonders of a Plastic Ocean

Jes Malitoris - The House of Coiled Earth

Jess Elizabeth Reed - The Belly

K. A. Roy - Welcome to Rebirth Grove

K.A. Wiggins - The Tangle (Did Not Kill Kitsault)

Kay Vaindal - Pig House

Kelsea Yu - Creature

Lena Ng - The Halloween Horror Show

Leo Oliveira - They Remember Faces

Leslie What - Wayback

Lor Gislason - fumes

Lucas Yao-Bendimerad - So Dramatic

M. L. Krishnan - Measurements Expressed as Units of Separation

Madalena Daleziou - Hauntless House

Matthew Mitchell - Knight Rumors

Nayt Rundquist - Flashes of Neverwhen

O F Cieri - The Tragedy Brotherhood

Plangdi Neple - Not All Your Bones Are Yours

Raluca Balasa - Cogs in the (War) Machine

Ryan T. Jenkins - The Potato Problem

Samir Sirk Morató - EGREGORE

Shantell Powell - The Snow Hath No Queen

Sharang Biswas - Waiting for Jonah

SJ Townend- I HAVE SEEN SEVEN BAD THINGS

Sonya Vatomsky - The Yolo Wallpaper

Susan L. Lin - Gravitational Pull

Tehnuka - You Can Leave Your Helmet On

Tiffany Michelle Brown - Full Immersion

Tim Pratt - The Liminal Space Dating Agency

Timaeus Bloom - Memorabilia

Zoe Kaplan - Travelling Salesman

Congratulations to everyone on this list, and a heartfelt, exhausted thank you to everyone who submitted, on their own behalf, or on behalf of their peers.

We’ll announce the final Table of Contents shortly-ish; sometime before Release Day**, I can safely say, because we haven’t figured out how to manipulate time any further than that.

**currently scheduled for June 10th, though I’ve grown slightly smarter; enough to leave us a few weeks of flexibility around this particular book, because I know how much it kicks both my and Alex’s ass. In the most rewarding way.

Hail the Weird!