In Bark & Bone, thirty-three writers venture into the woods in search of refuge, enchantment and buried secrets. They find the forest a site of mutation, throwing up a continual translation between the human and the arboreal. While some travellers thrive in the backwoods, others lose themselves entirely.
The Contributors
Abida Akram is a 62 year old retiree. She has been writing poetry and very short fiction for a good few years but only recently started sending work out. She had two poems on an immigrant’s experience published in a Victoriana Press anthology.
Alex Harwood found an old typewriter in the loft when he was ten and clattered out a poem about a dragon who liked shiny things. Decades later, he’s still writing about things that don’t exist but really should.
Bex Hainsworth is a poet and teacher based in Leicester, UK. Her work has appeared in Atrium, Prole, Honest Ulsterman, bath magg, and trampset. Her debut pamphlet of ecopoetry was published by Black Cat Poetry Press.
Bitter Karella is a writer, text game designer, and horror aficionado behind the microfiction comedy @Midnight_pals, which asks what if all your favourite horror writers gathered around the campfire to tell scary stories.
Caspar Wort is a poet from Essex. He holds a BA in English and Drama as well as an MA in Creative Writing and the Writing Industries. His poems have appeared in Magma Poetry, Consilience Journal, and Ink, Sweat and Tears.
Based in Australia, Charlie Winter is an academic by day and, by night, still an academic but much more distractible about it. He writes fantasy celebrating everyday magic, positive masculinities, eco-optimism, and queer identities.
To satisfy a wizard’s curse, Cormack Baldwin must remain within twenty feet of a tree. Luckily, he can edit Archive of the Odd, a speculative found fiction magazine, within most major forests. You can find a list of his works at cmbaldwin.carrd.co
Deborah Tyler-Bennett is a European poet and fiction writer, with nine books and chapbooks of poetry published by various presses including Smokestack and Shoestring. She regularly performs her work.
Emma Lee’s publications include The Significance of a Dress and Ghosts in the Desert. She co-edited Over Land, Over Sea, was Poetry Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib, and reviews for magazines and blogs at emmalee1.wordpress.com
e rathke writes about books and games at radicaledward.substack.com. A finalist for the 2022 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, his fiction will appear in Queer Tales of Monumental Invention, Mysterion Magazine, and elsewhere.
Erin Jamieson (she/her) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University. Her writing has been published in over 80 literary magazines, including a Pushcart Prize nomination. Fairytales is her latest poetry chapbook (Bottlecap Press).
G. O. Clark’s writing has been published in Asimov’s, Analog, Daily SF, and more. He’s the author of 16 poetry collections, most recent, Tombstones: Selected Horror Poems. His third fiction collection is Aliens & Others. Retired, he lives in Davis, CA.
Holly Schofield travels through time at the rate of one second per second, oscillating between the alternate realities of city and country life. Over one hundred of her speculative stories have appeared in publications throughout the world.
Born in Scotland, Ivan Richardson studied Mechanical Engineering at Leicester University (UK). Ivan is also a member of Leicester Writers club which helped him perfect his writing skills. He holds a 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon do.
Jennifer Ruth Jackson writes about reality’s weirdness and the plausibility of the fantastic. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Star*Line, Apex Magazine, and more. Visit her on Twitter @jenruthjackson
J.K. Fulton grew up at Scottish lighthouses and now lives in Leicester. His stories have appeared in Shoreline of Infinity, Leicester Writes Short Story Anthology, Best of British Science Fiction 2018 and Dark Scotland. His novels include The Wreck of the Argyll.
John Kitchen’s work has appeared in Emma Press anthologies. He has been read on Radio 3 and organised two flash fiction sessions for a New Writers group. His play, Clamber up the Crucifix, had two runs at The Western and a short tour.
JP Relph is a working-class Cumbrian writer hindered by four cats. A forensic science degree and passion for microbes, insects and botany often influence her words. She writes about cryptids and apocalypses, but not together, yet.
Julia LaFond got her master’s in geoscience from Penn State University. She’s recently had flash fic published in The Martian Magazine, Funny Times, and Thirteen Podcast. In her spare time, Julia enjoys reading and gaming.
Kate Boyes is a speculative nature writer who focuses on the near-future environments of Earth, Mars, and several exoplanets. Her work was in a poetry anthology honouring Ursula K. Le Guin. Her debut novel was Trapped in the R.A.W.
L. P. Melling’s fiction appears in places such as Flame Tree Press, Dark Matter Magazine, Solarpunk Magazine, Interzone (Digital), and some Best of anthologies. When not writing he works as a Specialist Adviser for a legal charity.
Lyndsey Croal is an Edinburgh-based author of speculative and strange fiction. She’s a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, former Hawthornden Fellow, and LOHF Writers Grant Recipient.
Mark Brandon is a fantasy and science fiction author based in Leicester. His previous work includes a collection of steampunk short stories called The Colossus of the Thames, which was published in 2021.
Matthew Pegg lives in Leicestershire. His short fiction has been included in a number of anthologies and his plays include a puppet play that toured to Nottingham care homes, and Escaping Alice, a show for York Theatre Royal.
Max Turner is a gay transgender man based in the U.K. He is also a parent, nerd, intersectional feminist and coffee addict. Max writes speculative and science fiction, fantasy, furry fiction, many sub-genres of horror, and LGBTQ+ romance and erotica.
Michele Witthaus is based in the UK. Her pamphlet, From a Sheltered Place, was published in August 2020 by Wild Pressed Books. She was the 2020 winner of Leicester Writers’ Club’s Ena Young Award for Poetry.
Phillip Temples resides in Massachusetts. He’s had five mystery-thriller novels, a novella, and four short story anthologies published in addition to over 220 short stories online. Phil is a member of GrubStreet and the Bagel Bards.
Richard Urwin is a semi-retired embedded software engineer. When he’s not writing speculative fiction, he is playing role-playing games or programming micro-controllers. He might get back into hill-walking if he can find any flat hills.
R. J. Howell is a writer, an artist, and a library nerd. Her short fiction has appeared in Arsenika, Frozen Wavelets, Beyond the Stars: Infinite Expanse, Wicked West, and more. You can find her online at rjhowell.com.
Rod Duncan is the author of twelve books. His debut novel, Backlash, was shortlisted for the New Blood Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association. His 1st science fiction novel, The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter, was shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award.
Shelly Jones (they/them) is a professor at a small college in upstate New York, where they teach classes in mythology, folklore, and writing. Their speculative work has been published by F&SF, Apex, The Future Fire, and elsewhere.
UK-based Terry Grimwood teaches, acts and directs on the amateur stage, and also sings and plays harmonica with The Ripsaw Blues Band. He has three published novels, three textbooks, five novellas and numerous short stories to his name.
Victoria Haslam lives near Melton Mowbray and is fascinated by history, landscape and folktales. She won the Poetic Republic Short Story Prize in 2015, has work in Mismatched Metacarpi and The Forgotten and the Fantastical 4.
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