Jessica McHugh

Women are expected to suffer in silence. Throughout history, myriad weapons of oppression have been launched at their intelligence, sexuality, compassion, & strength. Still, they endure. And in secret, the sisterhood grows. While trauma transforms, love germinates, and hope expands their power, women everywhere are united by something deeper than blood, affection, or pain. Quiet as mycorrhizal fungi, immortal ink colonizes their roots, branching from the iconic characters of Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, & Marmee March and connecting them to a diverse web of women with appetites only destruction can quell. Paying homage to the 155th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," 2x Bram Stoker Award Nominee Jessica McHugh's "The Quiet Ways I Destroy You" examines Alcott's timeless literary brood through 155 pieces of cosmic horror blackout poetry and celebrates the unapologetic & ever-evolving symbiosis of sisterhood, feminine rage, and the joyful vengeance that spreads in women's whispers. Cover by Lynne HansenInterior photography by B. Hill Saunders

She wakes up in a 1973 Volkswagen Kombi, naked and afraid... An aspiring singer/songwriter, Sophie Francis is searching for inspiration, pining for connection, and desperate to know why she feels so different from everyone else. Maybe it's the ghosts whispering in the apartment above her, or the chilling thoughts writhing in her mind when the ghosts are quiet. Maybe she's a reincarnated saint abducted as an infant and raised by a former serial killer. Or maybe she's just sixteen. Upon meeting an intoxicating musician named Liam LaSalle and an enigmatic community of misfits known as the Choir of the Lamb, Sophie scampers down a rabbit hole of music, martyrs, and madness. There, she discovers her link to a dangerous legacy and a fiery little girl named Avery Norton. From 2x Bram Stoker & Elgin Award nominee, Jessica McHugh, Hares in the Hedgerow leads Sophie Francis on a disturbing and transformative journey to expose and harness the darkness in the roots of her family tree.

Twelve-year-old Avery Norton is head over heels in love with her best friend. With Paul Dillon at her side, she's invincible against the slippery roofs of Martha's Vineyard gingerbread houses, indifferent to sermons from her overprotective mother, Faye, and excited for another buoyant summer on the island. According to the staff at Taunton Asylum, she's also a crazed killer. After uncovering a gruesome secret in her basement, Avery tumbles down a rabbit hole of death, doubt, and deception that leads to her incarceration in Taunton Asylum and threatens to keep her separated from Paul forever. But the more she learns about her past and the matriarch of the Norton family, the more she realizes how much danger she and Paul are in. From Bram Stoker Award Nominee, Jessica McHugh, the twisted mind behind The Green Kangaroos and Nightly Owl, Fatal Raven, Rabbits in the Garden begins Avery Norton's horrifying journey to unearth the truth about her past and the woman who raised her to be a good little gardener.

the secret about dying arrived scrawny. it's growing stronger & fatter though & whispers, "go mad." Beyond ancient gates, among thorny overgrowth and carnivorous blooms, a raven called Death waits tirelessly for its chance to roost within us. Using scraps of love, remorse, anger, and pain, it weaves. With erasure, memory, and discovery, it binds. And from the garden of wounds that grows within our broken hearts, it builds Strange Nests. In the follow-up to her Bram Stoker and Elgin Award nominated collection, A Complex Accident of Life, Jessica McHugh uses poetry, design, and illustration to unearth the horrific, consumptive, and transformative nature of grief from the pages of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic, The Secret Garden.

Since the rise of The Council, an oligarchy of despots and deviants, the legendary Capesman undertakes daily soul collections from Cartesia's wasteland cities and battlefields. He also frequents Malay Prison, where a vigilante named Shal plots her escape. Armed with a thirst for vengeance and a sharp Shakespearean tongue, Shal must navigate a maze of trauma to save Cartesia and protect her sister from the brutal machinations of Chancellor Doa. It will require all of Shal's strength and cunning to resurrect her former army, battle the betrayals of the past, and avenge her father's death. Will she survive long enough to see the Council fall, or is the Capesman coming for her next?

Last year saw the launch of Burdizzo Books 12days anthology. It began with twelve stories based on each day of the twelve days of Christmas. These are those stories in a collected separate volume. Each year we plan to rewrite these with different authors.

This is how the world ends. This is how the world ends. This is how the world ends. Not in a bang, but in a book. 58 flash fiction stories of the final hours. Passion, pain and horror of the end of days, all in short vignettes. Featuring stories from: Christine Morga, Essel Pratt, Cameron Suey, T. Fox Dunham, Guy Anthony De Marco, Mandy DeGeit, Jessica McHugh, Kristopher Kelly, E. Catherine Tobler, Jamie Lackey, George Cotronis, William R. D. Wood, Lee Clark Zumpe, Lincoln Crisler, Eryk Pruitt, Michael H. Antonio, Kallirroe Agelopoulou, Steve Calvert, Rebecca J. Allred, Darcie Little Badger, Erik B. Scott, Terry M. West, Glenn Rolfe, Josh Strnad, J. A. Martin, Darryl Dawson, DJ Tyrer, Joana E a de Queiroz, Lex T. Lindsay, Arno Hurter, Cameron Shifflet, J. P. Freeman, Marie DesJardin, Dusty Wallace, Doug Murano, Ken MacGregor, Victoria Dalpe, Kelda Crich, Pedro Iniguez, Joey Capora, S. R. Mastrantone, Damir Salkovic, Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, Jason Sharp, Leslianne Wilder, Jennifer Loring, Bryce Hughes, L. C. Mortimer, Rebecca Barbee, E. E. King, David Turnbull, Richard Thomas, Rose Blackthorn, K. Z. Morano, Adrian Ludens, Kenneth W. Cain, Michael Haynes, Michael Penkas