short story

2025 Begins

Happy New Year! A couple of quick updates:

First, glancing back, All the Hearts You Eat made Paste Magazine’s “The Best Horror Books of 2024,” one of fifteen titles full of nightmares. Honored that my vampires made the cut, calling the novel “a triumph in a career increasingly full of them.”

Supernatural crime novella Cranberry Cove also got a mention in The Lineup’s “2024 Horror Book Highlights.”

Now to this year! I have two books coming, both in quarter 3:

A Game in Yellow releases from Saga on August 12, 2025, a queer erotic cosmic horror novel tangling with the infamous King in Yellow.

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons releases from Titan on September 16, 2025, a collection of coming-of-rage stories about our most difficult years and the horrors that find us. Among the new stories are two new novelettes and the inclusion of a very special cannibal.

I’ll have other short fiction releasing through the year, including “Prey Instinct,” coming in the first anthology to be based off a Stephen King novel, The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand. The TOC is frankly jaw-dropping, and I’m overjoyed to have a story amid the work of these much-celebrated authors.

Lastly, A Game in Yellow made Paste Magazine’s “The Most Anticipated Horror Books of 2025.” So many fantastic-looking books lie in wait. It’s going to be another tremendous year for horror!

3-book deal + A Game in Yellow cover reveal

Posted on 2024-12-12 by Hailey Piper a game in yellow Announcement collection novel novelette short story teenage girls can be demons this movie doesn't end the way we want

A giant monster battle of news landed last week, so there’s a bit of ground to cover here, but I’ll keep it short and snappy!

Titan Books announced a three-book deal with me, with titles releasing over the next three years. First up will be Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, a collection of coming-of-rage horror including new stories, among them two new novelettes, and some returning favorites about our teenage years and the monsters within them. That releases on September 16, 2025. In 2026, a new novel releases, This Movie Doesn’t End the Way We Want, followed by a TBA novel in 2027.

Also coming in 2025, my erotic cosmic horror novel A Game in Yellow from Simon and Schuster, and now it has a wonderful cover by Caroline Teagle! It’s up for pre-order at the usual places, and releases August 12 next year!

New September Stories

Posted on 2024-09-26 by Hailey Piper short story

We’re finishing up September with two all-new stories in two fantastic anthologies!

First is “The Hollow Ones Weep Greasepaint.” I was immediately drawn to Fear of Clowns by its mission statement of not wanting stories about people dressing as clowns for a killing spree. Mine is a dour story about family trauma and isolation in a world where showing sympathy for clowns can lead to a terrible fate.

Next is The Darkest Night, an anthology of winter horror. It includes my grief horror tale “The Vermin Moon,” which is kind of like Willard meets Laurel Hightower’s Crossroads along with something else I won’t spoil.

Both these books are stuffed with talented authors and incredible stories.

I should have at least one more short story coming out this year in Old Moon Quarterly, so I’ll be sure to share about that once issue 7 is released. And we’re less than 3 weeks until the release of my vampire novel All the Hearts You Eat.

“Unkindly Girls” in Fears, All the Hearts You Eat in Autostraddle

Posted on 2024-09-11 by Hailey Piper all the hearts you eat novel short story

A bunch of coolness out this week!

First, my story “Unkindly Girls” has returned to print in Fears, edited by Ellen Datlow. This anthology focuses on human monsters and psychological terror. 99.9% of the time, I’m at least waist-deep in the speculative, but here the horror is people.

I’ll have a couple more stories out this month, one coming on Tuesday the 17th, and one more on the 24th. Possibly another as well, but I don’t have a date on that one yet!

Off into the territory of the weird and the queer, my upcoming vampire novel All the Hearts You Eat has appeared on multiple anticipation lists!

First in Autostraddle’s “72 Most Anticipated Queer Books Coming Out Fall 2024,” a tremendous honor alongside queerness of all genres!

Next, Bookstr including it in their “Fall Fantasty Spotlight” of 2024.

And last but not least, Book Riot included it alongside a number of fascinating-sounding queer books in their list “10 Biggest and Buzziest New Queer Books Out in Fall 2024.”

I’m so psyched to see all the excited readers, and I can’t wait to introduce you to Cape Morning and its seaside of bloodsuckers and tragedy this October 15th!

“The Majestic Art of Flesh” and “A Year in the Angel-Handed House”

Posted on 2024-08-31 by Hailey Piper queen of teeth short story

Unfortunately I’m a little behind on updating short stories here! Let’s make up for that with TWO Neon Hemlock anthologies I have stories in:

The Crawling Moon published on July 30, a book filled with queer gothic depravity by Suzan Palumbo, Donyae Coles, Caitlin Starling, myself, and many more! My tale “A Year in the Angel-Handed House” follows a couple thrown into the shadowy uncertainties of hauntings, legacies, genders, and strange futures.

And then even more recently, Embodied Exegesis released August 27, an anthology of transfem cyberpunk with stories by Maya Deane, Ryka Aoki, Jess Levine, and more!

I never thought I would return to the world of my first novel Queen of Teeth, but “The Majestic Art of Flesh” returns three years after the book and across the river from Newark, where a new business has taken root, a business of flesh. You don’t have to have read the book to read the story, though book fans will have a different perspective on the world. Maybe I’ll come back again someday! We’ll see.

“Possession No. 239 in E Major, Op. 1” and TGONG paperback cover

Posted on 2024-07-20 by Hailey Piper audiobook collection cranberry cove novella short story the ghostlands of natalie glasgow

Previously only available as a limited edition direct from the publisher, Playlist of the Damned has now released wide! Nearly 30 stories of music-based horror from cursed albums to doomed cosmic concerts. My story “Possession No. 239 in E Major, Op. 1” follows what happens when a song won’t stay stuck in your head, but wants the rest of you as well.

Also previously only a limited edition hardcover, I’m excited to share the paperback and ebook cover for The Ghostlands of Natalie Glasgow!

Hardcovers have been landing over the last few weeks, and the wide release should spread sometime in August.

Last but not least, haunted hotel novella Cranberry Cove is coming to audio from Tantor and the incredible Jenn Lee, who also narrated Queen of Teeth and Cruel Angels Past Sundown. That releases on July 30th, so not long from now!

“Between the Mind and the Dark” in Cosmic Horror Monthly

Posted on 2024-05-07 by Hailey Piper novella short story song of the tyrant worm the worm and his kings

I have a new story out today!

I’m pleased to return to the wonderful Cosmic Horror Monthly in their 47th issue with my tale “Between the Mind and the Dark,” set in the summer of 1977, when a widower’s art project becomes an otherworldly obsession.

You can check it out here!

Also the final book in The Worm and His Kings trilogy, Song of the Tyrant Worm, is up for paperback pre-order at Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Amazon. The Worm saga’s finale releases June 8th!

These two pieces of news just might be related. You’ll have to see!

“Modern Art Curse, Mixed Media” in Scissor Sisters

Posted on 2024-01-29 by Hailey Piper short story

My first short story of the year is out!

It actually came out last week, but for various reasons I haven’t been able to update about it until now. “Modern Art Curse, Mixed Media” appears in the new anthology Scissor Sisters, a book of villainous sapphic stories, a theme both salacious and delightful. My story tells of a murder, an unfinished painting, and the answer that lies within the art.

Check it out!

“One Is the Only Number” in Back 2 OmniPark

Posted on 2023-12-17 by Hailey Piper short story

December surprise time: I have one more short story out this year! I truly thought everything was finished with last month’s tale, but Back 2 OmniPark is out this weekend.

Follow-up to the Bram Stoker Award-nominated original anthology, Back 2 OmniPark gathers stories of OmniPark’s origins, from its construction to how its strange sections came to be.

My story “One Is the Only Number” opens on the construction site, where a worker is digging a hole only to find another man looking up from inside. He says they’re building a park on his side, too. Wouldn’t you like to see it?

That should certainly do it for short stories this year. It’s been a wild one. Eager to share what’s coming in 2024!

“The Ruins of Elfland,” Even the Worm Will Turn audiobook

Posted on 2023-11-07 by Hailey Piper audiobook even the worm will turn flash fiction novella short story

My final (I’m pretty sure) short story of 2023 released today in The Seventh Terrace’s new anthology, Solstice in Purgatory, a flash fic snowstorm of winter holiday horror. My tale, “The Ruins of Elfland,” shows the secret cost of Christmas in a world going cold for the sake of toys.

Also, on Halloween the audiobook for Even the Worm Will Turn released from Tantor! Allyson Voller reprises her role as narrator from The Worm and His Kings to bring this sequel to audio, and she’ll be returning for the final book next year, Song of the Tyrant Worm.

Audio at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, LibroFM