Skin Thief

"Pure goth." —Leigh Harlen, author of Queens of Noise and Blood Like Garnets The stories in this collection of dark fantasy and horror short stories grapple with the complexities of identity, racism, homophobia, immigration, oppression and patriarchy through nature, gothic hauntings, Trinidadian folklore and shape shifting. At the heart of the collection lie the questions: how do we learn to accept ourselves? How do we live in our own skin? Includes the stories: "The Pull of the Herd" "Personal Rakshasi" "Her Voice, Unmasked" "Of Claw and Bone" "Propagating Peonies" "Kill Jar" (original novelette) "Tessellated" "Laughter Among the Trees" "Apolepisi: A De-Scaling" "Tara's Mother's Skin" "The Bride" "Douen"   Suzan Palumbo is a two time Nebula Award finalist, Aurora Award finalist and co founder of the Ignyte Awards. Her debut dark fantasy/horror short story collection "Skin Thief: Stories" will be published by Neon Hemlock in Fall 2023. Her novella "Countess" will be published by ECW Press 2024. Her writing has been published in Lightspeed Magazine, Fantasy, The Deadlands, The Dark Magazine, PseudoPod, Fireside Fiction Quarterly, PodCastle, Anathema: Spec Fic from the Margins and other venues. She is officially represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary Agency and tweets at @sillysyntax. When she isn't writing, she can be found sketching, listening to new wave or wandering her local misty forests.   "Suzan Palumbo's Skin Thief wields darkness and beauty to make you cry, scream, and keep turning pages well after it's time for bed. Every story drips with delicious darkness and horrible beauty. In short, it is pure goth." - Leigh Harlen, author of Queens of Noise and Blood Like Garnets "Skin Thief is a love letter and an invitation all in one, to a liminal idea of homeland readers may have not yet encountered." - E. Catherine Tobler, author of The Necessity of Stars "In horror, monstrous is too often a synonym for different. Something that needs to be fought, squashed, destroyed. Skin Thief shows us what is truly monstrous: it's violent husbands, it's grief, it's jealousy, it's conformity. It's the people who don't understand you, and thus fear you. Suzan Palumbo shows the monsters that we need not fear, for our teeth are sharp." - Francesca Tacchi, author of Let the Mountains Be My Grave