This Way Lies Madness: Short Stories from the Edge of Darkness

We are excited to begin a new blog series, taking our readers on a tour of all of the authors who have contributed to This Way Lies Madness, an upcoming anthology edited by Lee Murray and Dave Jeffery which showcases "madness" in horror in ways that challenge stigma and promote understanding.

Comprising stories and poems from 23 authors, from well-established to new and emerging, the anthology serves as a vehicle for the development of quality genre literature on the theme of mental health. With accompanying vignettes revealing authors' reflections & personal experiences that inspired their stories, the book offers a valuable benchmark resource for horror creatives, while also offering insights for scholars, social groups and practitioners... and solace for sufferers.

Every Monday and Thursday, we will be spotlighting an author with a blog post which will include excerpts from the introduction, the story or poem in question, as well as from the vignette, together with an author biography.

Follow along and dive into the world of madness with...

Monday 16th June: Kayleigh Dobbs
Thursday 19th June: Jonathan Maberry
Monday 23th June: Emily Ruth
Thursday 26th June: Stephen Volk
Monday 30th June: Cynthia Pelayo
Thursday 3rd July: Grace Chan
Monday 7th July: Freddie Bonfanti
Thursday 10th July: Sayan J. Soselisa
Monday 14th July: C.D. Vázquez
Thursday 17th July: Callum Rowland
Monday 21st July: L.E. Daniels
Thursday 24th July: Ramsey Campbell
Monday 28th July: Sumiko Saulson
Thursday 31st July: Amanda Cecelia Lang
Monday 4th August: Alma Katsu
Thursday 7th August: Ryan Cole
Monday 11th August: Tim Waggoner
Thursday 14th August: Sara Larner
Monday 18th August: Marie O'Regan
Thursday 21st August: Georgina Bruce
Monday 25th August: Sean Hogan
Thursday 28th August: Alan Baxter
Monday 2nd September: Stephanie M. Wytovich
Thursday 4th September: Lee Murray & Dave Jeffery
Tuesday 9th September: Publication day

This Way Lies Madness is out September 9th 2025: Pre-Order Now

"In these pages, you will discover tales of trauma, dissociation, body dysmorphia, psychosis, depression, anxiety, and more, captured in all forms of horror from the extreme to the nuanced. There is jaw-dropping violence, skin-crawling body horror, and quirky dark humour, alongside the quiet, heartbreaking introspections of people spiralling into madness. Yet all the stories and poems in this volume are framed so that the insensitive, stereotypical presentations of mental illness commonly found in horror are resoundingly and appropriately absent. Our authors have achieved this in a number of ways. As well as drawing on lived experience and careful research, they have all made effective and inventive use of metaphor; a conceit also employed by horror masters like Poe and Gilman, to explore the complex effects that mental illness incurs on a person. Conjuring ghosts and poltergeists, vampires, haunted houses, and other unnerving manifestations, our authors have punctuated their tales with powerful symbolism, startling imagery, and compelling, and often confronting, intimacy. For a moment, we are living in the minds of their protagonists, obliged to experience their psychoses first-hand, to listen to their reasoning, to see inexorable lengths they will go to survive. We are forced to watch the horrific loss of self."

– Lee Murray and Dave Jeffery, from the introduction of This Way Lies Madness