Good morning. I hope everybody is well. Despite my desk being the least appealing venue for focus, due to the heat we have been experiencing in the UK, June was the busiest month the Marchlands has had. Nine tales published, the archive now standing at thirty stories (nine to go), and the world is wider than it was a month ago. There is also publication news worth sharing, a change to how this Dispatch will work going forward, and a great deal happening on the Dark Hearth. All of that is below.

Last Month in the Marchlands

Nine tales published in June, taking the free archive from twenty-one to thirty stories.

22 — The Dryad's Folly. A guardian carries a staff that mends collapsing tunnels the moment she fears for anyone beneath them. It never asks for blood or gold. It takes her beauty in increments so small she can talk herself out of noticing, until the day it decides two lives are a fair price for a repair.

23 — The Fourth Cell. A young man sits accused in a cell beneath the Crooked Mare. In the fourth cell, a hooded figure breathes in time with his own breathing. By morning, one walks out wearing a familiar face, and one leaves nothing behind but folded cloth on a bench.

24 — From Eelpond to Faelen's Watch. Liora leaves a stagnant hamlet to find her half-sister at Faelen's Watch. On the road she meets a man whose easy company conceals a transaction already agreed upon. A story about a young woman who is observed, assessed and priced.

25 — The Falsrott. Ardis Flynt steals a dead man's research and drinks a liquid that blinds one eye in daylight and grants him sight in darkness. He calls himself Augmented. Others call him Falsrott. A story about a man who builds power from borrowed pieces, and what it costs the people closest to him.

26 — An Eye for Detail. Nimus Crill, a Hidren Master, hunts a creature called Ghesh through the Black Bogs of Mock. The creature carries a black disc in its left eye that Crill wants for himself. What he calls a temporary inconvenience will echo through other lives for many seasons.

27 — Draegel's Settled Account. A first-person account recovered from a ledger in the city of Lenth. A creature wearing a mortal shape arrives with wealth and manners, seeking a companion who can leave and not be missed. A study in how civilised systems enable predation when the predator pays well enough.

28 — An Infernal Heat. In Ironreach, a craftsman discovers his steel will not cool after quenching. The blades are finer than anything he has made, and orders arrive faster than he can fill them. But the forge has begun to refuse the clean ending of a banked fire. A story about how evil enters through usefulness.

29 — What the City Permits. Osric Dyer is the reeve of Lenth, the man sent to investigate when the city's darker troubles surface. When a household screaming does not stop through the night, he enters and finds something wearing a man. A story about civic order and the things it will tolerate for trade.

30 — A Volume Set Aside. At Greyholt Abbey, a steward cross-checking shelf marks finds a thin book that will not stay flush with its neighbours. Its six written pages carry characters in no known language. He memorises its position, promises himself he will return when he has earned the right, and never does.

Access the full, free archive at edvane.world.

Last Month on Edvane Stories

Four stories published in June at edvanestories.com.

The Even Ash — four Yorkshire women visit Mother Greenwood's stall at four different fairs, each carrying a question about love. The old woman gives each one the same charm, an even ash leaf folded three times. The charm answers the question spoken, not the protection wished for.

Shall I Come Away? — a curate in Exeter names the Devil from the pulpit to frighten children away from old rhymes. In doing so, he unwittingly gives evil a congregation. When Bucky arrives at his door demanding three lives, the curate discovers what it means to have named an enemy into existence.

The Little Birds of Othery Grange — in 1816, the year without summer, a gardener at a Regency estate uses invented folklore about birds to reshape five courtships around his own desires. A story about a man whose lies and manipulations become the omens others live by.

I Spill It All — in the city of Streindarke, a servant girl below stairs spills wine on a student's uniform. The act looks like an accident. It is not. A first-person account of obedience, rebellion, and the cost of a single deliberate fault inside a system built to crush both. The fourth Streindarke tale of the series.

A new story publishes every Saturday.

Last Month on the Dark Hearth

Five new craft posts published in June at edvane.world/dark-hearth, bringing the total to seven.

How to Build a World That Feels Old, Cruel and Real — A dark fantasy setting feels real when it has a job to do. It should not exist merely as scenery. It should have rules, habits, damage, duties and limits. What my story, The Farewell Chamber, reveals about places with purpose, memory and consequence.

How to Use Folklore in Fantasy Without Copying Myths Whole — Folklore is not a stock cupboard of creatures. It is a way of thinking about the world. What my story, Bramlick the Brownie, shows about adapting old folk belief into living dark fantasy, and why a brownie is never just a small creature in a hat.

What Is Dark Fantasy? — Dark fantasy is fantasy where the wonder carries a shadow. A working definition of the genre, how it stands apart from horror, grimdark and gothic fantasy, and where a new reader might begin. Drawn throughout from tales of the Marchlands, from a staff that mends at a terrible price to a room that keeps the dead who broke their promises.

How to Write Dark Folklore Without Protecting the Reader — Dark folklore keeps the danger that older traditions understood. What my story, The Broomfield Witch, reveals about writing witches who refuse to be victims, folk horror's domestic territory, and narrators who tell the truth and lie with it at the same time.

How a City Built From Four Songs Became a World — Streindarke began as a one-story setting for a Bauhaus song and refused to stay used. What four gothic dystopia tales, each grown from a different song, reveal about treating music as a seed rather than a script.

News from June

I have a story in Nyctophilia Variations. My short story The Keeping of Llyn Gwaered appears in volume one of Nyctophilia Variations, a new literary journal published by Papershell Micropress. It launches on July 10 at Clifton Community Bookshop in Bristol. I cannot attend in person but have sent an extract to be read by the publisher on the day. Free tickets for the launch event at 18:15 on July 10 are available here, and more information is at papershellpress.com/events.

Bluesky is live. I launched on Bluesky in June at @edvane.bskyb.social A little different to X, but follow me there for similar output, adapted for the platform.

The Dispatch is going weekly. Starting Saturday July 11, the Edvane Dispatch will arrive every week rather than once a month. Shorter, more focused, and closer to the work as it happens. The first novel is approaching, and I want you hearing about it from me, not after the fact.

My sincere thanks for your support. The Edvane Dispatch will be back on Saturday 11 July 2026.