About

 

Welcome to the Darker Realms!

Here you will find stories, poetry and prose meant to chill the heart, steal sweet dreams and raise fear about what may lurk in the shadows.

The blog will mainly feature flash fiction and some serialised stories: see my serials ‘The Flavour of Spite’,, ‘Animation’ and ‘Schadenfreude’ at their pages.  More recently I’ve developed a taste for writing short flash fiction in the darker genres so pop by for a weekly fix if that is your taste in story and world. 🙂

From time to time I’ll also write and post poetry offerings of horror and the uncanny, so overall I hope to intrigue and entertain in the most delicious, dark way.

This is a sister blog to my poetry blog at helenvalentina.com, but while some of the poetry I publish there is dark, the exclusive ambience for this blog is that of horror and the night. I realised my passion for this genre a couple of years ago while ago when I wrote a horror trilogy: ‘The Circles’ . It is a story of necromancy, ritual cults, possession and the apocalypse. Writing it made me realise horror is my first literary love and in my blood. I grew up on Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Ira Levin, Edgar Allen Poe, Lovecraft, Bram Stoker and the like, and when I turned my hand to writing in that genre I found it as natural as breathing. Not sure what that says about me…but…all I could think was…why hadn’t I done so before??

Since then I’ve written other paranormal/horror thrillers, proving the genre is really in my blood.  As I begin the journey of seeking publication for some or all of this work, I hope this blog will help me launch my horror writing more broadly and to build a network with other horror/thriller fans and writers.

I’d love to inter-act with others with a similar sensibility in a very direct manner. So if you have photos or artwork with a darker theme you would like to act as a prompt for a story or a poem or a piece of prose please email me at:

helenvalentina66@gmail.com

and we can collaborate.  🙂

You will of course get full credit for any photography or artwork used. 🙂

In the meantime, settle back and enjoy a journey into the night with me.

Safe travels!

Helen V