Lore And Disorder is a mutated folklore and folk horror fiction anthology with 13 extraordinary tales by talented writers in the field. As co-editor, along with Rym Kechacha, I am honoured to continue to make this digital anthology available to all on a donations basis, with the proceeds going to Fareshare.

About the Lore & Disorder anthology

A song-stealing changeling, unbound.
A pit of devilry.
A rural urban legend, come to life.
Banshees beneath the city streets.
A woman whose wings should never be clipped.
A ski resort on reclaimed swampland losing all its power.
Rumour beasts paid their dues by wise children.
Trees becoming people becoming trees.
A deep-watered pond that will never let you leave.
An ill-fated beating of the bounds.
A birth caul like no other.
A wordless visitor from afar who offers only what you need.
A storytelling seer on a mission.

13 tales by 13 authors weave the deepest elements of folklore into stories for today in Lore & Disorder, an anthology of mutated folklore and folk horror fiction.

All proceeds from the sale of this anthology are being donated to food bank charity Fareshare. We are honoured to share that we have raised nearly £1,400 for Fareshare to date, with thanks to your donations.

Although we might agree the existence of this wonderful charity shouldn’t be necessary, it is. It’s vital, and we want to support that in any way we can.

Creatures from dreams and myths don’t vote; they have no known political affiliation and no manifestos. But they come from the people who live with the land and sea, as all 7 billion and more of us do, and so their stories are deeply entwined with what is is to be a moral being. They speak of justice and injustice, love and hate, birth and death and the passages between. Their stories belong to us all – just as a decent meal should – and it is our pleasure to offer these gifts as we hope your offerings will be gifted on to those so much in need of them.

Cover Image: Nell Latimer. The Green Man, 2019.

Editors

Magda Knight

Mookychick’s Co-Founding Editor-In-Chief Magda Knight wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. She explores folklore and genre through a dark mirror, with speculative tales in 2000AD, the For Books’ Sake anthology and many more. Two of her novels were longlisted for the Mslexia Children’s Writing Prize. Find out more at magdaknight.com or on Twitter: @magdaknight

Rym Kechacha

Rym Kechacha is a writer and teacher living in Norwich. Her debut novel, Dark River, was published in 2020 by Unsung Stories and shortlisted for two BFS awards. Set between mesolithic Doggerland and a near-future UK, Dark River is about motherhood, sacrifice and awe of the natural world. You can find out more on Rym’s website and Twitter: @RymKechacha.

Authors & Creators

(In Alphabetical Order)

C.B. Blanchard

C. B. Blanchard is a writer of queer horror and fantasy. Their work is coming up in the anthologies Unfettered Hexes and Xenocultivars, as well as in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. An occasional poet, you can find their poetry in the anthology ‘Tell Me Who We Were Before Life Made Us”. You can keep up with them on Twitter as @BridhC or on Facebook as CBBlanchardAuthor. When not writing they enjoy looking for bones in the woods and annoying their two cats. Their piece for Lore & Disorder was very loosely based on the legend of The Callow Pit.

Peter Haynes

Peter Haynes lives and writes in the UK. His debut novel The Willow By Your Side was published by Unsung Stories in 2018, and his short fiction has been published widely online and in print. Find him on Twitter @ManOfZinc.

Tom Hirons

Tom Hirons has been storytelling publicly for over 15 years and writing for much longer. In 2015, he co-launched Hedgespoken travelling storytelling theatre and Hedgespoken Press. Sometimes a Wild God is fast becoming a subcultural passport all about the world.

Verity Holloway

Verity Holloway was born in Gibraltar in 1986 and grew up following her Navy family around the world. Her short stories and poems have been variously published and anthologised, including in The Ghastling, Far Horizons, and The Shadow Booth. She is the author of the ‘delightfully weird’ novella Beauty Secrets of The Martyrs, the portal fantasy novel Pseudotooth, and The Mighty Healer, a biography of her Victorian cousin who made his fortune with questionable remedies. She can be found at verityholloway.com, or on Twitter as @verity_holloway.

Natasha Kindred

Natasha Kindred is a writer and rare book dealer (High Jack Books) mightily obsessed with remains and resurrection. She can often be found communing with unearthly delights, city rivers, headless saints, and unhallowed grounds. Find her on Twitter: @tashkindred.

Nell Latimer (Cover Art)

Cover artist Nell Latimer is a Printmaker, Illustrator, creator of The Commonplace Oracle + Tarot Deck, and an ogham whittler. Visit her shop, Unquiet Arcadian, and follow her on Twitter: @LatimerNell.

Elizabeth Lee

Elizabeth Lee won the Curtis Brown Creative Marian Keyes Scholarship, and her work has been selected for the WoMentoring Project and Penguin’s WriteNow Live. Her debut novel Cunning Women was published in April 2021. Find her on Twitter: @EKLeeWriter.

Tobi Ogundiran

Tobi Ogundiran is a British Science Fiction, Shirley Jackson, and Nommo award-nominated writer. His dark and fantastical tales have appeared in The Dark, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, FIYAH, Tor.com among others. Find him at tobiogundiran.com and @tobi_thedreamer on Twitter.

Andy Paciorek (Foreword)

Andy Paciorek is an author and illustrator, inspired mostly by folklore, horror, supernatural phenomenon, curiosa and strange anomalies. His work has appeared in or on numerous books, magazines, television programmes, record covers, websites and posters. He is the creator of the Folk Horror Revival & Urban Wyrd Project, Northumbria Ghost~Lore Society projects and the indie-publishers Wyrd Harvest Press and drēmour press.

He has spoken on folk horror/folkloric subjects at various locations including Cambridge University, Edinburgh Summerhall and the British Museum in London as well as online for events such as the Denmark Folk Horror Festival and The Library of Congress: Tradition Folklore in a Digital Age Symposium. He is one of the commentators interviewed on the Woodlands Dark & Days Bewitched folk horror documentary. In his younger days he ran away with the show-folk on a travelling carnival that toured Asia. Find him on Twitter: @Andy_Paciorek.

George Sandison

George Sandison is a publisher, editor and writer. He runs the multiple award-winning independent press, Unsung Stories, which specialises in literary and ambitious genre fiction, and is Managing Editor for Titan Books, where he works with authors such as V.E. Schwab, Paul Tremblay, Stephen Graham Jones, H.M. Long, Francesco Dimitri, Aliya Whiteley and many more. He has edited books which have been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, British Fantasy Awards, British Science Fiction Association Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, James Tiptree Jr Awards and more. You can read more of his short stories in Hinterlands (Black Shuck Books) and get entirely irregular updates from www.georgesandison.com and @GeorgeSandison.

David Southwell

David Southwell works as writer, photographer and folklorist. A reformed author of bad books, he now follows the advice given to him by J.G. Ballard to: ‘Concentrate on place, nothing without a sense of it is ever any good.’ Originator of the landscape punk approach to writing, you can occasionally find him talking about ghost soil and the open resources of the lost county of Hookland and the London Borough of Repton at literary festivals, universities and galleries. He can also be found on Twitter: @HooklandGuide or @CultAuthor.

Sylvia Warren

Sylvia Warren is a writer and academic editor. Their fiction has been published in the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Anthology, Open Pen, Berfrois, Rituals & Declarations, and The Arsonista amongst others. They are a contributing editor at 3:AM Magazine. Find them on Twitter: @sylvswarren.

Aliya Whiteley

Aliya Whiteley’s novels and novellas have been shortlisted for multiple awards including the Arthur C Clarke award and a Shirley Jackson award. Her short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Black Static, Strange Horizons, The Dark, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and The Guardian, as well as in anthologies such as Unsung Stories’ 2084 and Lonely Planet’s Better than Fiction. More information can be found at her website, and you can find her on Twitter: @AliyaWhiteley.