Although we love the look and feel of our current blog, its functionality was a little lackluster, especially in the user-friendly function of teams. After waiting over a month for a bug in the system to be fixed without progress, we decided to move on to another platform that would, at the very least, give us TEAM capability.

TDS is now using, for the first time ever, WordPress for our blogging. Please update your URL to:
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Let’s say you are a writer with dreams of becoming the next Ann Rice. Let’s say that you have written one top of the line vampire story and are looking for a place to put it. You grab your copy of Writer’s Market and start looking down the list of magazines and under each one’s submission guidelines, you read two words that make your heart sink: NO VAMPIRES. Disheartening, isn’t it?
 
There are two reasons that this occurs: either the magazine has over-bought vampire stories, or it thinks that the vampire craze has run its course and it’s waiting for the next big thing. A writer, a fan of THE DARK SIRE, once submitted a serial killer story to a major magazine. The editor loved it, however, she told him that serial killers were passé.  No one was interested any more. The next year, Dexter hit the stands. Her observation was wrong, which begs writers, readers, and editors alike to re-evaluate what should be prioritized: a great story or a trend? So are vampires passé? Romantically, the market is saturated, but vampire as fiend - not even close.

In fact, vampire stories that actually delve into the fiendish behavior of earlier vampires, like Dracula, need to be explored more. Vampires used to scare, delight, and use our fears against us. Now, as one young reader so eloquently put it, "Vampires aren't scary anymore." And it's true, thanks to the oversaturation of vampires as lovers. Romance Vampires (though a beloved category of fiction) are the kinds of vampires that we need less of, not because of quality or story but because that's where the overdone tropes are. To create the next level of vampire story, writers, poets, and artists must dig deep into the past, when vampires were scary and haunted your nightmares. Then, a revival of the fiendish vampire will surface, bringing about a revolution of the next big vampire take-over.

So, now we observe the other magazine's difinitive view on vampire stories: NO VAMPIRES.
 
No Vampires?! You have got to be kidding! Vampires are amazing creatures. First, they occupy two worlds: the living and the dead. This gives writers many avenues to explore other dimensions that dovetail our own. The vampire stories that appear in THE DARK SIRE explore vampires from all angles. Our lead story in Issue 1, Grave by W.C. Mallery, looks at the vampire as the hunter and humans as his prey. Vampyre by Sarah Brown Weitzman (Issue 1) looks at the vampire as something to be pitied. Once Bitten: A Vampire's Lament by Maureen Mancini Amaturo (Issue 3) depicts a vampire grieving for his love and lost humanity through self-isolation. The Village series by David Crerand (Issues 1-5) always paints vampires as the villian, the despot creatures who prey on humans. And let's not forget the three serializations. The last Summer by Frances Tate (Issues 4 and 5) delves into a different breed of vampire that navigates humanity and nightwalker. Vampyre Paladin by Brenda Stephens (Issues 1-4) creates a whole world where vampires are fiends that prey on innocent children. Kyuuketsuki by S. M. Cook (Issues 1-5) explores the vampire simultaneously as predator and prey, heroine and villain.
 
Second, because vampires occupy two worlds, writers can explore what their characters have gained and what they have lost. Within every vampire story is the struggle for survival, both of the vampire and of its prey. Vampire stories tease the fight or flight impulse in everyone. The reader is treated to a vivid look into society’s conflicts that are hidden behind the allegory of one who survives on the blood of others.
 
Third, vampires can be alluring, romantic and compassionate. Under the masterful pen of a TDS storyteller, they can even display empathy. The important thing to remember is that vampires have common issues with those whom they hunt, the ultimate one being the desire to live. The nuances are endless. And this struggle between preying on humanity and devouring one's own soul is the kind of twisted, demented story that needs to be told.

Vampires, there is no doubt, have a place and a home in literature today and it would seem that THE DARK SIRE is their safe haven. You will never see a “NO VAMPIRES” sign above our door. We love them. They are our bread and butter. To us, they are the next big thing. They have always been relevant through the years. Ever since Bram Stoker published Dracula (1897), vampire stories have been flowing in and out of the mainstream of literature.  After Dracula, there was Prisoner of the Planet Mars (1908); The Young Vampire (1920); I am Legend (1954); The Vampire Saint-Germain Series (1978 to the present); The Hunger (1981); and that’s not even touching Ann Rice’s books or the books written by Stephen King.
 
At THE DARK SIRE, we love vampires. There is a dynamic tension in their actions, loves, and desires that makes them the perfect literary fodder for a magazine such as ours.  In many ways, they reflect the trials and tribulations that we, as readers, experience in our everyday life. A great vampire story lets us clean the shadows out of our subconscious and poses as a metaphor to better mental health.

Shaun Power's work is beyond reality, beyond artistic. It's pure magnificence and mastery. In our minds, Mr. Power's artwork is magical, one in which the viewer is taken on a journey to other worlds, then gently brought back to the real world. You don't want to miss a minute of it!
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​If you have questions for Shaun Power, please ask them in the comments and we'll get you the answer.

Somewhere along the line, you have probably heard someone ask: Which came first, the
chicken or the egg? That question could easily apply to poetry and fantasy. They both
go back so far in human history that it’s impossible to pinpoint the first poem or the first
fantasy. Homer’s Iliad is an epic poem in which the gods fight along side men and
control their destinies. It’s a poem and a fantasy rolled into one and it was presumably
written around the 8th Century B.C.E. Plato hated it. Aristotle loved it.

Poetry and fantasy emerged from the darkness of prehistory hand-in-hand. Fantasy has
always centered around world building whether its the world we see around us or the
world inhabited by the powers that man did not understand. And poetry, because of its
rhythmic nature, made the story easier to remember. Like Virgil (The Aeneid),
Spencer (The Faerie Queene), and Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), the poets
that write fantasy and grace the pages of THE DARK SIRE are the direct descendents of
some of the greatest literature ever written.

When we think of modern fantasy, we immediately think of J.R.R. Tolkien and his Lord
of the Rings trilogy. At THE DARK SIRE, Tolkien is the bell weather author whose
works epitomize the kind of fantasy literature that we are looking for. Tolkien was a
classicist. He incorporated the poetic history of his created world into the stories. There
are over 60 poems scattered among the three books. There are poems unique to the
humans. There are poems unique to the Elves. There are poems unique to the Dwarves.
These poems were written in the Aristotelian tradition. In his Poetics, Aristotle said that
one of the keys to poetry was “imitation”. Poetry needed to imitate life. In his poetry,
Tolkien does just that. His Elvian poetry encompasses the traditions of the Elves
allowing the reader a glimpse into their history and folklore. Likewise, in the poetry of
the Dwarves, we see into their folklore and history. These poems help explain the world
in which these characters live and therefore go hand in hand with one of the key concepts
of Fantasy.

Poems involving fantastic worlds of gods and terrible monsters and alternative realities
have existed in oral form long before the advent of the printed word. Now that they can
be captured in written form, THE DARK SIRE seeks to be thee platform to continue
this marriage between Poetry and Fantasy. So write your poems; invent your worlds. Let
us read and publish them. Help us continue a tradition that, at its core, defines who we
are, our hopes and fears and, most importantly, our dreams.

​What makes a good horror story? We ask that question of ourselves at THE DARK SIRE almost every day because we look for it, good horror, that is. Horror has been part of human literature since time immemorial. You can find it in Gilgamesh, the earliest known piece of literature written some 6,000 years ago. What we, in this modern age, consider “horror” crystallized with the publication of Mary Blythe Shelley’s Frankenstein, the first modern horror novel. But Aristotle wrote about the cathartic nature of horror in his Poetics centuries before.

A good horror story is designed to elicit its hair raising effects by exploring the human psychological phenomena of fear, disgust, and revulsion. These are emotions that poison and undermine our lives with anxieties. Aristotle felt that we needed to flush these emotions from our systems and clear the air. That was as true in 350 B.C.E as it is now, and because of that, modern horror is the direct descendant of classical Greek tragedy. Throughout horror fiction (and poetry) recognition scenes abound, gore practically drips from the pages. In his Poetics, Aristotle said that tragedy is characterized by its interest in the pity and fear of the audience, two of the emotions that modern horror directly feed upon.

Readers pick up a horror story and read it knowing that they will be immersed in the horrific events that will befall one or more of the characters just as the ancient audience knew that they were going to witness the murder of Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon or the blinding of Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus Tryannus.

To Aristotle - and to us today, horror is cathartic. It purifies our systems. It leaves us healthier in the knowledge of our own well-being, having steered our fears into harmless channels. Maybe that’s just what we need during the time of renewed COVID concerns and shutdowns. We confront real fears daily. We need something to redirect those fears and act as an Aristotelian anodyne. And maybe a good horror story will do just that. In fact, a key to good horror is that it follows a narrative that appeals to the psyche of the readers: the setup, the conflict, and most importantly, the resolution. It is the resolution that allows for the emotional release. The greater the scare, disgust, revulsion the greater the delight at the resolution. This catharsis allows us to access emotions with which we are uncomfortable. In effect, it allows us to deal with emotions that we are not likely nor want to experience in our normal lives. It gives us the chance to indulge ourselves in the negative emotions that we spend our waking hours trying to avoid. And in doing so, we are better prepared to deal with real-life horrors, such as COVID.

And that's the best part of reading Horror. It takes us into a make-believe world that we can escape from. It literally lets us satiate our curiosity without our having to really live it. Horror stories highlight the uncomfortable but in a safe environment. Since none of us want to feel real fear, a horror story allows us to feel the symptoms of that fear while we are safely nestled in our favorite reading chair, or curled up on the couch with our favorite dog taking up the next cushion. You can empathize with the characters in the story, but, at the same time, you know you are not part of their dilemma. When you put the story down, you may want to look under your bed, but, intrinsically, know that you really don't have to because nothing's there.

Aristotle's idea of catharsis, then, proves true in reading horror. By reading horror, we live out our fears so that we can relieve tension, anxiety, and fear. And by doing so, we can better face the real horrors of our current world, COVID included.
  
At THE DARK SIRE, we look for stories that will appeal to our reader’s horror connection. Reading any issue of TDS will help, especially Issue 5 (which is the Anniversary/Halloween issue). If you want some suggestions to get you started, read: Gina Easton’s Tainted Love (Issue 1), Carl Hughes’ The Mask (Issue 2), and J. Pinaire’s Becoming (Issue 5). These stories are sure to please any horror lover!

The Mask by Carl Hughes (Issue 2) is a truly horrifying story.  It is the kind of story that nightmares are made of.  The kind of story that doesn’t just give you the chills, but gives you the shudders.  It is, in point of fact, the kind of story that is perfect for THE DAEK SIRE.  Faced with that quality of horror, that quality of terror, and that quality of writing, TDS has come up with some questions that true fans of the Horror genre might like to ask and Mr. Hughes was kind enough to take the time to answer them.
 
 
TDS:  What served as your inspiration for this story?
 
Carl Hughes:  There are a number of stately homes around Britain that exhibit wax casts of the death mask of Oliver Cromwell, who installed himself as Lord Protector of England after having King Charles I beheaded on Whitehall in London in 1649. One of those masks is in the Tower of London and, as you might imagine, it’s quite a striking and even gruesome object. It was during a visit to the Tower, when as a journalist I was researching an article for The Times newspaper, that one of the famous Beefeaters showed me Cromwell’s death mask. I was smitten immediately by the idea of writing a short story that would feature such a mask – a mask that would come with its own especially grim and horrific story.
 
TDS:  How did you decide on the setting/location of this story?
 
Carl Hughes:  There’s a coastal village on the island of Anglesey in North Wales called Trearddur Bay which in winter is constantly storm-lashed by wind and rain that rages in from the Irish Sea. While staying in this village one November, and loving anything even vaguely gothic, I stood for a long time simply gazing at a greystone place, reminiscent of a miniature castle, that stood on a slight promontory at the edge of the sea. The Spookery, I dubbed it whimsically. On that bleak and stormy day it appeared wonderfully sinister as the wind and sea lashed its walls. I realised instantly that it would form a perfect setting for a gothic horror story. It inspired me to get writing but I decided to set the tale in Scotland rather than Wales. I have a great admiration for the Scots, whose writers and scientists have given so much to the world, but many Scots have in recent decades formed an unfortunate (to my mind) loathing of the English. So I thought it might be a good idea to turn the tables and have an Englishman mete out vengeance to an irascible Scot. One of my passions is a study of past-life memories, or reincarnation, and I decided to bring that into play in my story.
 
TDS:  How did you come up with the backstory to "The Mask?" Was it difficult to write a story that took place in two different times and find a way to weave them together and wrap up the story perfectly?
 
Carl Hughes:  I have in my files literally hundreds of story ideas, and almost as many full outlines, but I’ll never get around to writing most of them as life simply isn’t long enough to accommodate them all. In this case I decided to combine two of those ideas, one set in the 17th century and concerning the torture of an English Royalist by a fanatical Scot who opposed the union of the two nations. The other idea came from a desire to portray something of the growing sense of Scottish patriotism that vilifies anything English and desires to break up the United Kingdom. Throw in a dash of horror, a helping of gothic, and I had my recipe for something really rather nasty.
 
TDS:  What does your writing process look like? Do you plan your stories ahead of time or write as you go?
 
Carl Hughes:  I’m not one of those people who fly by the seat of their pants. I have to know in advance how the story will start, how it will progress and how it will end, although the journey in getting from beginning to end can diverge down many byways as the writing goes on. I don’t have a scene-by-scene breakdown of the story, merely an outline that can vary from 200 words to more than 1000. I find it best to work this way rather than start off with no clear ‘destination’ in mind, only to find I’m either running out of steam/ideas or realise that I’ve started in the wrong place, so have to begin all over again. That strikes me as a great waste of time and mightily unprofessional. As a journalist, I’m accustomed to working to tight deadlines and there’s no time to keep going back, having second thoughts, and restarting from scratch. I build that into my fiction-writing regimen. Sometimes, however, as with a story I’m working on at the moment, the realisation strikes me that the ending isn’t the most appropriate and so it has to be rethought.
 
TDS:  What risks have you taken with your stories that have paid off?
 
Carl Hughes:  Not so much paid off as not paid off. I’m not of the woke generation and frankly I have little patience for political correctness in its many minacious forms. I’m a great believer in free speech, which means the ability to state an idea or a thought process even though some might consider it unfashionable or even offensive. I’ve written stories featuring black characters and had them rejected because as a white man I’m said not to have knowledge of how a black character would feel. I’ve even been accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ – the latest buzz phrase. My belief is that all human beings are equal and aspire pretty much to the same ideals whatever their colour or heritage. No one ‘owns’ a particular culture, type of clothing, hairstyle or mode of speech. I’ve also written stories from a female point of view and been told that I can’t possibly understand how a woman would feel, say, in a bad marriage. By the same token, I don’t know how Tolkien, for instance, could understand the workings of a Hobbit’s mind but he didn’t make such a bad job of it, did he? As for George Orwell and Richard Adams with those animals – well, enough said.
 
TDS:  Your story, The Mask, has a folktale/legend vibe. Is there a local legend or folktale that helped inspire you to write this story?
 
Carl Hughes:  Not a folk tale but history certainly. The English king, Richard II, was murdered at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire in 1327 by having a white-hot poker thrust into his anus, thereby roasting his bowels. A chronicler recorded, ‘His screams could be heard for miles around.’ That image always struck me as peculiarly hideous and no one would deny that it was an extraordinarily cruel way to perish. As soon as I learned that bit of morbid history I decided that one day I’d incorporate something similar into a story of my own. And I did.
 
TDS:  Is writing a part of your daily routine, or do you only write when you feel like you have an idea you want to work with?
 
Carl Hughes:  It’s often been said by writing tutors that you should write every day, even if you’re sick or you’ve just suffered a bereavement. It doesn’t matter what you write, or how bad it is, just as long as you get something down. That’s the mantra. I don’t go along with it, certainly as a fiction writer though naturally journalism is by definition different. Frankly, I’d prefer to write no fiction than write rubbish, then have to go back the following day and redo it. I’d much rather wait for a few hours until I feel in good writing form, then go at it for as long as the creative juices flow. As a general rule I write every day but I’m not one of those who can put in a stint of eight or ten hours at a throw. I find I’ve pretty much squeezed out of myself all I have to give after two or, at most, three hours. Any more than that and it leaves me feeling hung over next day. I do write quickly, however (my journalism training, no doubt), and find that during those three hours I might get down 10,000 words. I reckon that isn’t bad for a day’s work. It means that in ten days I’ve created the equivalent of a good-sized novel.
 
TDS:  Who are some authors who influenced your work? Who are some authors that made you want to be a writer?
 
Carl Hughes:  At school we were made to read the classics, which in those days meant such luminaries as Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy and Trollope. I could never get into Shakespeare. Poetry just doesn’t float my boat and, frankly, I have a hard job understanding most of it. As for Hardy and Trollope, their flowery and discursive writing was fine for its day, no doubt, but not very instructive for our times. Dickens was the most flowery and discursive of all, frequently building five or six clauses with many semicolons into a single sentence. But his mastery of characterisation, atmosphere and description were second to none. So yes, I learned a lot from Dickens. Of contemporary writers, I massively admire the intricate plots and devious designs of Dean Koontz’s novels of the 1980s; I enjoy Stephen King’s short stories for their grittiness and couldn’t-give-a-damn characters with whom most of us can readily identify; and on the ‘literary’ side I most admire Kazuo Ishiguro and Rose Tremain. Ishiguro’s work appears on the surface to be so simple, yet its undercurrents are profound. Best of all, he doesn’t try to baffle his reader by injecting liberal doses of the dictionary into his stories. You never find, with Ishiguro, that you’re left scratching your head and wondering what the hell this word or that word means. As for Rose Tremain, she’s brilliant at plot and characterisation whether writing historical fiction or setting her themes in the present. On the negative side, she fills her novels with anachronisms, which smacks of non-research. To give one example, she has Beatles discs dominating the airwaves long before the Fab Four had even been heard of outside Liverpool. If you can live with that and many other instances like it, I heartily recommend her books.
 
TDS:  Are you a member of any writing organization or community? If so, which ones? What benefits do you see from belonging to a community that encourages writers?
 
Carl Hughes:  I was once persuaded to undertake a correspondence course in creative writing, as the British government was offering to pay half the cost. I’m afraid I was sadly disillusioned, as the tutor (who came with great credentials, it has to be said, and was touted as being an expert on all forms of short fiction) proved to understand far less of the current requirements of a short story than I did. Worse, her grasp of grammar and punctuation were atrocious. It seemed she was only interested in romance and women’s magazine fiction – she scorned anything other than that. Never again. As for writing groups and circles, I’ve heard that some are great and some are abysmal, with lots of backbiting and jealousy. I have never been a member of a writing group. I prefer to park my backside behind a computer and get on with the business of writing rather than sit around talking about it.
 
TDS:  What message do you hope readers take away from this story?
 
Carl Hughes:  In the past I’ve written many ‘literary’ stories in which I tried to embody a message and a load of symbolism. That’s par for the course with that genre. I don’t find the need or desire to emulate such a process with a horror story. I just hope my readers will relish the yarn for what it is – a piece of creepy or escapist fiction to be enjoyed, not studied and analysed. If there’s a hidden message in ‘The Mask’ I’d be interest to know what it is, as I haven’t a clue what it could be!
 
TDS:  Have you published any books?
 
Carl Hughes: I have lots of novels and books of short stories published in e-format for the Kindle and on other digital platforms such as Barnes & Noble, Apple and Kobo. I don’t claim, as do far too many self-published authors, to be ‘an international bestseller’. I write only to entertain and hope that readers will enjoy what I’ve written without feeling they’ve had to pay through the nose for the privilege. If they decide they’ve passed a pleasant and grisly or spooky hour with my prose, then I’m satisfied at a job well done.
  
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If you have any questions for Carl Hughes, please leave them in the comments sections and THE DARK SIRE will be happy to get them answered for you.

Written by Kami L. Martin, Reviewer and YouTuber
https://twitter.com/KamisKorner

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I had the privilege of being contacted by Editor, Bre Stephens, about the opportunity to read and review a new venture she had started: The Dark Sire. As a regular reviewer of fiction in all forms, I thought, what a unique opportunity to try something new! And I am so grateful I did! What a delightful treat!

The debut magazine was released in the Fall of 2019. (Halloween for those of you like me that enjoy the extra shade of dark.) This venture was, at the time, only available online and collected works of stories, poetry as well as art of the darker persuasion. We were given a taste of these categories touching on gothic, horror and psychological works of fiction and poetry offering readers a nice balance no matter your tastes or interests.

Grave by W.C. Mallery was certainly a stand out short story, and Beneath These Boards by Michael Thomas Ellis offered a poem sure to make you shudder and shiver. The cover art presented by Christian-Rhen Stefani is by far my favorite of the entire year's worth of covers. It is a work of art that speaks to you well after you close your eyes.

A unique gift this magazine features is that of not one but two serializations: Vampyre Paladin by Brenda Stephens and Kyuuketsuki by S. M. Cook. Both offer exquisite detail and well-formed stories that have you turning the page to find what happens next. I was captivated immediately by both. Each will give you a reason to continue revisiting the magazine. Jam packed at 105 pages, this was one hell of a debut!

The Winter of 2019 offered us the second volume of The Dark Sire literary magazine. Now with 500+ readers, we were now able to both continue reading online as well as purchase a paperback copy through Amazon! (Prime membership ships free!) Writers are able to submit their dark works for consideration in fiction, poetry and art. The serializations continue to pack a punch as the stories progress but the stand out of this particular issue for me was the poetry! I loved every single poem included! Such texture, richness and deep, dark descriptions. The art was a nice mix of creepy, too!

Spring 2020 had us with volume 3 in our grasp. 6 months in, readership had grown over 2k and new subscription boxes were introduced. This is a great testament to a magazine that is rapidly growing with great success and positive feedback! Again, the fiction does not disappoint. Once Bitten: A Vampire’s Lament by Maureen Mancini Amaturo was a great gothic tale that was a top contender for my favorite. Poetry remained solid, especially with The Vision by Gregory E. Lucas and Progeny by Michael Walker. This issue also brought us some standout artwork by Shaun Power that any author of the macabre should want to snag up for future novels!! This particular issue was also made available in color print for the first time! B&W copies of all previous issues, including this one and its color copy, are also still available for purchase through Amazon.

The fourth and most recent volume was released in the Summer of 2020 and shows continued growth and promise. The cover and interior artwork continue to impress. Stephens certainly has a great eye! The artwork really seemed to flow well within this issue. One item of fiction I haven’t given much attention that I certainly feel deserves it has appeared in each of the quarterly magazines and can be considered a continued serialization of sorts: The Village Series by David Crerand. True horror broken down into parts 1-4. This is something you definitely want to devote some time to!

This is one literary magazine you’ll want to check out and won’t be disappointed you did! Writers are encouraged to take a look at the website for interest in submitting work for future volumes and being a part of this dark family of incredible talent. There wasn’t a moment that I was not entertained and delighted. This literary magazine is well-rounded for lovers of the macabre with a bit of something for everyone! Thank you, Bre Stephens, for the opportunity to share the contributions of many talented writers - yourself included! You are certainly the phoenix that rose from her ashes to share your gift with us eerie readers!

The TDS Staff would like to thank Kami for her wonderful review of The Dark Sire. We're overjoyed at how much she truly loved the reading experience and can't wait to bring the readership even more great content in Year 2. Thank you, Kami, for all you do to review fiction; and thank you for taking a chance on a new magazine that just needed an opportunity to prove itself.

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It may be our birthday, but the presents are all for you, our readers.
 
It’s time to celebrate!  Not just our first birthday but also the arrival of our latest issue.  THE DARK SIRE is proud to present Issue 5, the Halloween-aversary issue.  This may be the beginning of a new year for us but it is the continuation of our goal to present to you the finest in Gothic, Horror, Fantasy, and Psychological Realism.  The stories and poems that you will read in Issue 5 will make you shudder, make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and thrill you to no end.  Some of these works will so enthrall you that you will want to read them again just to see if you got it right the first time.  Yes, our authors are that good.
 
Issue 5 is a treasure trove of Horror featuring Unnoticed by V. Willows; The Deal by June Trop; Becoming by J. Pinaire; and Newton’s Law by Craig Crawford.  V. Willows is a student at Ashford University and this is her first published story -- an impressive beginning to what could be a long and storied literary career.  June Trop is an award-winning middle school science teacher and an active member of the Mystery Writers of America.  She is the author of The Miriam bat Isaac mystery series.  J. Pinaire lives in England and writes on death as a vehicle to explain the nature of reality.  Craig Crawford is a prolific horror story writer.  His imagination is sure to make you look over your shoulder.
 
Interspersed throughout the magazine, you will see the chilling art of Shaun Power and Kailey Reid.  Their works are the perfect counterpoint in our harmony of horror and fantasy.
 
Not to be outdone,  our poets have contributed their brand of horror to our banquet of creativity.  I Feel Your Pain by Michael Baldwin will oblige you in your pursuit of fear.  Mr. Baldwin is an award-winning poet and multi-genre fiction writer.  Blue Lips by Reagan Phelps teases you with a triptych of love, hate and sanity.  Ms. Phelps is another young writer beginning her career, another young writer to keep on your radar.  Self-Destruction by Dee Espinoza explores the pain behind the mask we all wear.  Ms. Espinoza is an eclectic artist whose photographs were featured in earlier issues of TDS.  Endlessly Callow, Gravely Shallow by Adam Garnett explores the trampling of hopes and dreams.  Mr. Garnett is another first time discovery to grace our pages.  Finally there is Unknown Fate by Gary Ford in which he explores the letting go of reality.  Mr. Ford is another prolific writer with a book of poetry and a Scifi novel under his belt.
 
For those of you following our serializations, we have continued with The Last Summer by Frances Tate and Kyuuketsuki by S. M. Cook.  If you are enthralled with these two stories and want to read what went before, then you will have to buy the back issues of TDS or wait until we publish them as chapbooks.
 
And finally, we offer you a taste of Camelot’s Reckoning by Caleb Kelly.  Camelot’s Reckoning is the first book of the Primis Vipris Saga, available for pre-order now on Amazon. It's official release date is Nov. 20, 2020. (Look for Caleb's interview on the Nov. 16 Creative Nook.)  We hope you enjoy Chapter 1.
 
So welcome to year two of THE DARK SIRE.  We have some great things planned for the future.  There will be more Creative Nook interviews, a dedicated podcast, and more of the great fiction that you have come to expect.  Enjoy Issue 5 and expect more.  Tell your friends.

This has been an incredible year for THE DARK SIRE literary magazine and it’s all thanks to you, the readers: the fans of Gothic, Horror, Fantasy and Psychological Realism.  We knew you were out there.  We knew that the corporate publishers were not satisfying your reading needs.  And that’s what we at TDS set out to do, because we, like you, are fans of that peculiar brand of fiction that graces our pages.  We want you to be as entertained reading our magazine as we are putting it together for you.  So with a new year of our publication just about to start, let’s take a quick look at the kind of stories that we set before you during this, our inaugural year.
 
In Issue 1, we gave you the Gothic stories of  W.C.  Mallery (Grave) and Mike Zimmerman (Chambers).  One was a classic gothic offering and the other pushed the envelope.  Tainted Love by Gina Easton was the kind of horror story you wouldn’t find in another magazine.  It’s subject matter would have upset too many corporate types.  And in The Village - Part One: The Squire by David Crerand, we gave you something unique, the first in a series of stand-alone vampire stories.
 
But did we stop there?  No.  We looked for and found the kind of poetry that exemplifies the dark nature of our publication.  You love the dark.  So do we, and it’s there in these poems:   The Dice Throwers and Haishutsuryou (Output) by Gregory Kimbrell; Vampyre by Sarah Brown Weitzman; Beneath These Boards by Michael Thomas Ellis; Hell’s Love of Heaven’s Hatred by S. M. Cook; and Standing Watch by Katherine Nelson-Born.
 
We also included art work: Shadow Still by Christian-Rhen Stefani and Preston Castle Play Room by Dee Espinoza. 
 
And to cap off that first issue, we added the serializations, Vampyre Paladin by Brenda Stephens and Kyuuketsuki by S. M. Cook in an attempt to fill your plate with the kinds of literature you relish, but can’t find on the magazine racks.
 
But Issue 1 was so good, how could we better ourselves?  We didn’t have to.   There was more than enough quality writing coming from quality authors to insure that we had another issue packed full of horror and gothic for those genres aficionados.

In Issue 3, we were fortunate enough to feature the art work of Shaun Power.  His pastel paintings were truly haunting: We Have the Power in Our Hands (cover), Never Speak to Strange Psychopaths, Leave a Light On, The Grove, The Way to Merriaden, Somehow I’ll Find My Way Home, One Dark Night, Ring a Ring O Roses, You Have No Idea What You Have Done, A Fleeting Glimpse, and Just a Walk in the Rain.

These paintings were interspersed throughout the masterfully crafted stories and poems of the issue. For the first time, all four genres were represented. David Crerand returned with The Village - Part III: The Baroness, the only Horror story in the issue. Representing Gothic was Once Bitten: A Vampire's Lament by Maureen Mancini Amaturo. Psychological Realism was alive and well in Sharps by Ian Richardson and Lifetime Guarantee by Andrea Goyan. That leaves Fantasy for Gregory J. Glanz and his story Shroud of Darkness.

Ironically, and not to be confused with the former, we also printed a poem called The Path of Darkness by Andrew Oram. That poem set the tone for the others, which included Bone-Man by Jessica Van de Kemp, The Vision by Gregory E. Lucas, and Progeny by Michael Walker.

Of course, the serializations by Brenda Stephens (Vampyre Paladin) and S. M. Cook (Kyuuketsuki) brought the issue to a strong end, making the reader thirst for more vampire fiction.
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