Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

Fowler, Christopher “An Injustice,” House of Fear .

Frost, Gregory “The Dingus,” Supernatural Noir .

Gresh, Lois “Wee Sweet Girlies,” Eldritch Evolutions .

Hand, Elizabeth “Near Zennor,” (novella) A Book of Horrors .

Hand, Elizabeth “Uncle Lou,” Conjunctions 57: Kin .

Harwood, John “Face to Face,” Ghosts by Gaslight .

Hirshberg, Glen “After-Words,” The Janus Tree and Other Stories .

Hodge, Brian “Hate the Sinner, Love the Sin,” Picking the Bones .

Hodge, Brian “Scars in Progress,” Demons .

Johnstone, Carole “Electric Dreams,” Black Static 23 , July/August.

Jones, Stephen Graham “Little Monsters,” Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters .

Kiernan, Caitlín R. “The Maltese Unicorn,” Supernatural Noir .

King, Stephen “Under the Weather,” Full Dark, No Stars .

Langan, John “The Third Always Beside You,” Blood and Other Cravings .

Langan, John “The Unbearable Proximity of Mr. Dunn’s Balloons,” Ghosts by Gaslight .

Lees, Tim “Durgen’s Party,” Black Static 22 , April/May.

McMahon, Gary “What They Hear in the Dark,” chapbook.

Miéville, China “Covehithe,” Guardian , May.

Nate Southard “The Blisters on My Heart,” Supernatural Noir .

Oliver, Reggie “A Child’s Problem,” (novella) A Book of Horrors .

Oliver, Reggie “Dancer in the Dark,” Mrs Midnight and Other Stories .

Oliver, Reggie “Hand to Mouth,” Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead .

Partridge, Norman “Vampire Lake,” Subterranean Tales of Dark Fantasy 2 .

Piccirilli, Tom “But For Scars,” Supernatural Noir .

Pinborough, Sarah “The Screaming Room,” The Monster’s Corner .

Shearman, Robert “Alice Through the Plastic Sheet,” A Book of Horrors .

Shepard, Lucius “Ditch Witch,” Supernatural Noir .

Smith, Michael Marshall “Sad, Dark Thing,” A Book of Horrors .

Stalter, K. Harding “A Summer’s Day,” Black Static 24 .

Tem, Melanie “Afraid of Snakes,” Portents .

Thomas, Lee “Comfortable in Her Skin,” Supernatural Noir .

Travis, Tia V. “Still,” Portents .

Tremblay, Paul G. “The Getaway,” Supernatural Noir .

Valentine, Genevieve “Bufonidae,” Phantasmagorium #1.

Wall, Alan “The Salt of Eliza,” Black Static 22 , April/May.

Warren, Kaaron “All You Can Do is Breathe,” Blood and Other Cravings .

LAIRD BARRONis the author of two collections: The Imago Sequence , and Occultation . His work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. His novella, “The Light is the Darkness,” was recently published in a limited edition by Infernal House. His first novel, The Croning is being published June 2012. An expatriate Alaskan, Barron currently resides in Upstate New York.

“Blackwood’s Baby” was originally published in Ghosts by Gaslight , edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers.

Born in Wolverhampton, SIMON BESTWICKescaped at the age of two and now lives in the wilds of Lancashire. So far he’s published two short story collections, A Hazy Shade of Winter and Pictures of The Dark , a chapbook, Angels of The Silences and two novels, Tide of Souls and The Faceless . Forthcoming are a chapbook, Cold Havens , from Spectral Press and a collection, The Condemned , from Gray Friar Press. In between working on his next novel and reams of new stories, novelettes and novellas, he tries in vain to have a life and catch up on his sleep.

“The Moraine,” the first of Bestwick’s two stories reprinted herein, was originally published in Terror Tales of the Lake District , edited by Paul Finch.

Simon Bestwick’s second story reprinted in this volume, “Dermot,” was originally published in Black Static #24 .

LEAH BOBETdrinks tea, wears feathers in her hair, and plants gardens in alleyways. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous venues including Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy , and several year’s best anthologies, and her first novel, Above , will be published by Arthur A. Levine Books in April 2012. For more, visit http://www.leahbobet.com.

“Stay,” was originally published in Chilling Tales , edited by Michael Kelly.

GLEN HIRSHBERG’s 2011 collection, The Janus Tree and Other Stories , includes both “You Become the Neighborhood” and the Shirley Jackson Award-Winning title novelette. Each of his previous collections, American Morons , and The Two Sams , won the International Horror Guild Award. He is also the author of two novels, The Snowman’s Children and The Book of Bunk . A new novel, Motherless Child , will be published in 2012. With Dennis Etchison and Peter Atkins, he co-founded the Rolling Darkness Revue, a traveling ghost story performance troupe that tours the west coast of the United States and elsewhere each October. His fiction has appeared frequently in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror , and The Best Horror of the Year.

BRIAN HODGEis the award-winning author of ten novels of horror and crime/noir, over 100 short stories, novelettes, and novellas, and four full-length collections. His most recent collection, Picking the Bones , became the first of his books to be honored with a Publishers Weekly starred review. His first collection, The Convulsion Factory , was listed by critic Stanley Wiater as one of the 113 best books of modern horror.

Works slated for 2012 include a collection of crime fiction, No Law Left Unbroken ; a novella, Without Purpose, Without Pity ; and hardcover editions of a couple of early novels.

He lives with his soulmate, Doli, in Boulder, Colorado, where he’s currently engaged in a locked-cage death match with his next novel. He also dabbles in music, sound design, and photography; loves everything about organic gardening except the thieving squirrels; and trains in Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which are of no use at all against the squirrels.

Connect through his web site (www.brianhodge.net) or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/brianhodgewriter), and follow his blog, Warrior Poet (www.warriorpoetblog.com).

“Roots and All” was originally published in A Book of Horror .

STEPHEN KINGneeds little introduction. Since the publication of his first novel, Carrie , in 1974, King has been entertaining readers with novels such as Salem’s Lot, The Dead Zone, The Stand, Cujo, The Dark Half, The Green Mile, Duma Key, Under the Dome , and most recently 11/22/63 . The author’s short fiction and novellas have been collected in Night Shift, Different Seasons, Skeleton Crew, Four Past Midnight, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Hearts in Atlantis, Everything’s Eventual, The Secretary of Dreams (two volumes), Just After Sunset and Full Dark, No Stars . He has won numerous awards, including the O’Henry Award, the Horror Writers’ Association and World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Awards, and a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.

“The Little Green God of Agony” was originally published in A Book of Horrors , edited by Stephen Jones.