Greetings to you from Ravenstone. I am a day late this week, but it is not tardiness. It was deliberate. One of my stories was due for publication today, and I wanted to include the link in this issue; you can find it below. Also, I attended the Medieval Festival at Bosworth Field this weekend, where the Tudors offed Richard III and launched their dynasty under Henry VII, a man famed for being a good accountant and tax collector. They also set about creating the future Shakespearean Richard as a bitter, twisted hunchback weirdo. I joined the Richard III Society while I was there. I don’t necessarily want to campaign for the rehabilitation of his reputation; they’re just a decent medieval interest group. Next week I should have the new interface for the forty Tales from the Woldwood in place so that you can select the starting point that interests you most, whether that be magic, objects, people or realms.

A tithe surveyor maps a parish. The records reveal a place the living chose to forget.

The Apportionment of Slyne Birch

In 1843, a tithe surveyor arrives in an Oxfordshire parish to map every field and account for every acre. The older records describe a settlement the living knew of but preferred to forget. The dead are not interested in remembrance. They want someone to finish their paperwork. They call this bureaucratic folk horror, and it is a strange thing, but the message is an old one. From the dead to the living. As you are, so once were we

A new story publishes every week at edvanestories.com where you can access and read, or listen to, the entire archive.

Published today. A girl, a blood moon, and an open window.

The Red Lesson published in Gnome and Bone Magazine

My story The Red Lesson appears today in Vermilion Cinders, Issue 2 of Gnome and Bone Magazine. A young girl named Maisie ignores the old advice to never let the fair folk in, especially beneath a blood moon. This is my second piece for them, and you can read it at their website now.

A new way to discover the Marchlands

By the next issue, I will have a new interface on the website to discover the forty Tales from the Woldwood. Tales will be categorised into 18 groups, covering schools of magic, the wands, the objects, the main characters, the world and the tethered realms. It is very close.

Fiction has five default ways of writing a witch. Most of them flatten her into something convenient.

Writing Witches in Dark Fantasy

Shakespeare, Pratchett, Miller, James and three of my own stories.

The hag. The cunning woman. The victim. The feminist icon. The eccentric with a cat.

I wrote this post about why the interesting stories begin when a writer refuses to settle on any single version and allows the witch to remain genuinely uncomfortable.

VSS365 is a daily micro-fiction challenge on X. One prompt word, one complete story, 280 characters. Each week I will share my favourite of the seven. My favourite prompt this week was #dice.

I chose this for a specific reason. The current Host, Monique, with the handle @Starfish72 has been subject to a bunch of abuse for that name. Sure, I get the joke, but who are these scum-suckers who make it so personal? There’s no need. So I made this post to show a bit of solidarity with a fellow flash-fiction writer and fan.

The shipwrecked gambler clung to a plank for three days, with nothing left but his dice. At last, certain he would die, he tossed them into the sea. A starfish surfaced beneath them and laid them back upon the plank. "Never throw away your last chance." The gambler looked up. Beyond the waves, he saw land.

Discover my VSS365 flash fiction posts on X and Bluesky.

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Thanks for your support, and remember, Stay Dark.