A ghost story at an all-girls boarding school just in time for Halloween…
The Matron of Hawthorne Hall was written by myself, and inspired by my time working at an exclusive boarding school in the countryside outside of London England.
The story is read by Kristi Stewart, a professional voice actor and frequent performer for this podcast.
The Matron of Hawthorne Hall is published in the current issue of Max Blood’s Mausoleum HERE.
Max Blood’s Mausoleum: A Home for the Weird and Terrifying
Max Blood’s Mausoleum launched on March 1st with a new home for horror. The editor, Max Blood, says, “We’ve read it all before and will read it all again, so send us something that will really set us back on our heels. Terrify us. Make us squirm. Send us the best of your worst.”
Max Blood’s Mausoleum is a paying market, offering $30 per piece, and has three issues out in the world. He recently published my Halloween ghost story, “The Matron of Hawthorne Hall” and I thought this was a good time to check in with his experiences so far.
AF: How has the reception to Max Blood’s Mausoleum been?
MB: Reception has been fantastic! I’ve had many great authors submit stories to our publication, and this has been really exciting for me. I worried when I started this that I would have a difficult time discovering enough great stories. That was a pessimistic view of the future. In reality, I had too many great ones. There are a ton of exciting, engaging authors out there whom I’d never heard of, and it excites me every time I discover another great one. The hardest part is choosing which stories to accept and which to pass on. I’ve had to pass on some pretty good ones.
On the reader front, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to receive multiple emails from readers praising our stories, and I’ve passed those praises onto the respective authors. It brings me tremendous joy to get to do that.
And then there is the continuing success of our authors. Several of the stories we picked up have since been picked up to be republished in other publications.
And one story (we can’t reveal which at this time) has been picked up by a production company to be made into a short film!
AF: Do you have any numbers as to your downloads and submission stats?
MB: Well, we just published our third issue, so we’re still pretty small. That said, our numbers are not bad at all. In September, we had nearly 400 unique visitors to our site, about half of which were authors viewing our submission guidelines. So, it’s a good place for authors, for sure. That said, I’d say it’s a great place for readers. That’s 200 readers for our latest issue. Your story, “The Matron of Hawthorne Hall,” had a fantastic 32 readers get into it. And these are stories that the authors poured their blood into. They have each brought something special to our site. I certainly plan on increasing those numbers as we continue to publish such brilliant horror stories, but this is not a bad start at all.
AF: What types of stories are you buying/what kind is most likely to be successful?
MB: The ideal story for me is that which I wish I had written. Honestly, it’s that simple. If I read a piece and think, “Why didn’t I think of that?,” that’s a great sign.
This often comes in the form of a story that pushes the limits of comfortability.
Read “The Blood Horse,” by Kurt Newton, published in Issue 3, and you’ll see what I mean in action. That story even pushed my limits, made me uncomfortable. “Pavement Spatula,” by David Vonderheide, is another great example of this. It is psychologically terrifying. I wish I’d written that!
That said, it doesn’t always have to push limits in these ways. I love horror that touches on other genres. Especially Science Fiction. It has to still be definitively Horror, but touching on another genre offers complexity that is often missing in mainstream Horror.
AF: What did you like about The Matron of Hawthorne Hall and why did you send me a revise and resubmit?
MB: There are times when a piece doesn’t touch on the above, but when it comes to actually reading the piece, I simply enjoy it. It’s difficult to qualify a reason behind it, so let’s just call it Magic. Some stories just have a bit of Magic. A bit of Charm. Your story was just such a story. I seriously enjoyed it. That said, it was initially pretty far from what we publish at Max Blood’s Mausoleum. In many cases, no matter how great a story is, this is a hard pass for me, but when that Magic is particularly strong for me,
I will sometimes offer a chance for revision to bring the story at least a little closer to what we are looking for.
It’s important to me that the story remains THAT AUTHOR’s story. I don’t want to get rid of what makes the story unique to them. So, I try to structure some remarks around where I think we can meet halfway. Compared to stories like “The Blood Horse” and “Pavement Spatula”, your story was a bit tame (I mean this in the nicest way) for what we publish normally, but this process worked well, and the story retained its Magic. And perhaps most importantly, you were willing to work with us, to work through drafts of your story. One thing I definitely believe in is rewarding hard work.
AF: How many stories do you buy “as is” and how many do you send back for another chance at acceptance?
MB: This is a tough question, and my answer is closely related to my previous answer. Most stories (let’s say eight out of ten that I am considering), I accept as-is. Those other two stories are the ones that get through on Magic and Charm. I receive hundreds of submissions every month, and I honestly try to give each story its chance. There’s just not a lot of time to go back and forth on revisions, so when I choose to do that, it’s because the story is special to me in some way.
AF: You have an anthology in the works, can you tell us about that?
MB: I would love to. The anthology is the first part of the Terror Songs series of anthologies I’m planning. This first volume is titled “Songs from the Void.” We ran our call for submissions for it primarily over Spring and Summer this year, and I must say, you’re in for a treat. The volume consists of Horror stories set in space. Not sci-fi with horror elements. Horror with sci-fi elements. Horror first is important to us. If you’ve read “Nightflyers” by George R. R. Martin, or watched the “Alien” movies or “Event Horizon”, you’re in the right zone. Many great stories came in, and many were selected. We have seventeen stories for you thus far and are waiting on two more we intend to accept. We have already commissioned human-made art for the end sheets and the cover, and have actually received the finalized cover artwork.
But that is not all. In our current plans for this project, there will be a companion novel to the volume. We are working on something pretty special for it, though we cannot yet give specifics in that area.
A lot of this is subject to changes, as nothing is finalized until we get closer to the crowdfunding campaign that will help fund the printing of these books. The campaign will run on Kickstarter in mid-2025. Anyone interested in keeping up to date can sign up for our newsletter at https://maxblood.pub.
AF: What’s in the future for Max Blood’s Mausoleum?
MB: We intend to continue forward as we have been, though with a slight modification coming at the start of 2025. This year, we experimented with producing quarterly issues. While that has been received well, we believe we can increase exposure for the authors by switching to a weekly format. We will be publishing one new story each week, rather than making readers wait three months between reads. This has another advantage, and this is perhaps the advantage that means the most to us. With a weekly format, we’re not limited to selecting ten stories. This enables us to accept more of the great stories we find. We believe this will be a great opportunity for writers, opening more doors to them, and exposing their terrors to more readers. That is more in line with our vision for the publication in the first place.
We are currently closed for submissions as we finalize Issue 4, but will be opening back up closer to the end of the year. I’m looking at November to post a new call for submissions.
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