I’m thrilled to have my story “Maternity Leave” in the brand-new Baneberry Book of Horror from Baneberry Lit. The book’s official release date is October 6, but you can pre-order it at BN.com. Grab yourself a copy for some early Halloween treats!
My story is a tale of stalking, isolation, and madness, set mostly in a single bedroom where my protagonist devolves amid endless surreal hours alone with her newborn (and the angry neighbor next door).
What are baneberries, you ask? Juicy, poisoned delights, naturally!
baneberry noun : any of several perennial herbs (genus Actaea) of the buttercup family having acrid poisonous berries also : one of the berries
“Dark Figures” by Rico Lebrun, 1961, National Gallery of Art
A couple of years ago, I wrote a short story called “Maternity Leave” about a woman who, due to unfortunate circumstances, is alone in her apartment with her colicky newborn. With nobody to help her, sleep deprivation devolves into madness, while a neighbor stalks and threatens her because he’s tired of hearing the baby cry.
This was one of those stories I thought would never find a home. It got rejected 25 times (plus 7 non-responses). This summer, the stars must have aligned, because it got accepted twice in the span of 24 hours: for a horror anthology and for a podcast. Maybe it was the Lindsay Clancy criminal trial bringing renewed attention to postpartum psychosis. Or maybe it was just this story’s time to shine.
I often find myself writing about the horror of pregnancy and the postpartum period. My own experience of being pregnant was pretty cool: feeling the baby kick, anticipating what it would look like and so forth. But I wasn’t prepared, and maybe nothing can prepare you, for the extreme sleep deprivation that comes with caring for a baby who sleeps only an hour or two at a time for weeks on end. I’ve never feared for my sanity before that, and I might not be here today without the support of my husband and family. That baby is now a smart, beautiful, funny, capable 17-year-old, and still, nearly two decades later, I haven’t forgotten the fear I felt during that period (what if I really and truly lost it? Would I be aware of it? Would my baby be safe?).
My as-yet-unpublished novel, Gyre Island, touches on these themes, which I feel deserve more exploration in fiction generally, and in the horror genre specifically. What I experienced myself is far from the worst scenario I could imagine. So many horrors are unique to pregnancy. The terror of getting pregnant when you’re not ready. The visceral weirdness of watching your own body transform, of seeing a tiny footprint pressed into your skin from the inside. The fear that something could go wrong during pregnancy or childbirth, up to and including the death of your baby and yourself. The primal fury I and others feel toward politicians who would force us to gestate and give birth to a child even when the pregnancy resulted from rape. The torture of carrying a fetus that has passed away, waiting for nature to take its course while well-meaning strangers fawn over your belly and ask when you’re due. The fact that women are expected to grin and bear all of this without complaint, as if our fears don’t matter.
I’m not allowed yet to reveal where “Maternity Leave” will be published, but stay tuned!
Shout out to the critique group of the Horror Writers Association’s Chicagoland chapter, who helped me hone this story and shape it its devastating ending.
It’s been a fun and eventful year in writing for this author:
A year ago, I challenged myself to write at least one blog post a month on average in 2025. This post is my 18th for the year. Mission accomplished!
In response to a challenge by my husband, I wrote eight horror comedy short stories. Two of them—Kitty’s Hobby and Armed—got published, and a third , “Food Baby,” will be part of an anthology next year. (One of my dreams is to publish a collection of my horror comedies, because I came up with the best title EVER, which I am keeping secret until I make it happen!)
I won third place in the NYC Midnight 100-word Microfiction Challenge 2025. This was thrilling for many reasons, including beating out 4,300+ competitors, the cash prize, and the accomplishment of finally placing in a contest I’ve entered dozens of times without making it into the top 10.
Speaking of NYC Midnight, I entered their inaugural Scary Story Challenge, which was great fun despite its unusual 400-word limit. I liked my story so much that I’ve already revised it into a slightly longer 500-word piece that made it onto a shortlist for Dark Holme’s monthly Dark Descent contest.
My short story Break Time got published after being rejected 19 times over the years. I thought that story would never find a home. It’s an odd one, and I’m glad it resonated with the folks at Whisper House Press.
My story The Window-Room, based on a family ghost story, appeared in the June issue of parABnormal Magazine.
My creepy mannequin story Andie appeared in the anthology Weird Tales to Haunt Your Reptilian Brain from Burial Books.
My gothic horror story The Painted Man appeared in Pretend You Don’t See Her from Kandisha Press. The book got a very nice review on Horror Tree.
And finally, what might be my favorite highlight of the year: my story “The River’s Revenge” was published in Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories. What an honor and a kick it was to appear alongside so many talented Chicago-area authors.
And that’s not all. I’ve written 74,000 words of my first horror novel, the idea for which came to me in a dream earlier this year. While I hoped to be done by year end, it didn’t quite happen, but it will happen soon, because I’m not giving up on this creepy story of isolation and madness.
As much as I’d like to write full-time, I have a day job as well as very full life and people I love. My kids are now 13 and 17. Spending time with them and my husband is my greatest joy. Everyone’s familiar with the feeling of looking back on “the good old days.” For me, the good old days are happening right now, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I told Maggie, my oldest, that I had resigned myself to not being done with the draft by the end of 2025. Her response: “So finish it by the end of the Chinese lunar year.” I love that kid.
This anthology truly has something for everyone: history, madness, murder, time travel, vengeance, local legends, animal attacks, blood, and of course my story “The River’s Revenge,” which I would describe as campy horror with monsters. All stories are set in the city of Chicago and are written by Chicago-area authors.
I couldn’t pick a single favorite story in this book, but here are my top 3:
“Lucky Charms” by Sandra Jackson-Opoku is a delightful time-travel piece that bridges the days of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable (for whom Lake Shore Drive was recently renamed) and the modern era.
“All You Are Is Bright and Clear” by Bendi Barrett, a neon-glow nightmare that would make an excellent Black Mirror episode.
“Lives Matter” by Jotham Austin II, which had me side-eyeing birds in my neighborhood for a week.
Reviewer highlights:
“Collectively, Red Line’s contributors create a thrilling mosaic of Chicago—past, present, and future—in all its complex, terrifying beauty. From golden hour on an el platform to the labyrinthine depths of Wacker Drive, familiar settings become unforgettably uncanny in these writers’ hands.” – Emily McClanathan, Chicago Reader
“…a multifaceted abstract of the city’s soul with splashes of ghost stories and sci-fi highlights. In foregrounding the love of Chicago in his collection, Phillips creates a metaphor for loving horror. Disaster, mass murder, genocide, abuse, torture, ghosts… all things one should run from, but horror fans with their love of a good story, cannot look away. Chicago is like that. The stories in this collection aren’t ripped from the headlines, but Phillips’ selection of stories uses Chicago’s grittiness to create a tragically flawed protagonist that readers will love.” – Randy Hardwick, Chicago Review of Books
“Chicago’s lively neighborhoods, monuments, architectural wonders and colorful residents might be as deadly as they are lovely.” – Donald G. Evans, NewCity Lit
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. If something is worth saying “I resolve to do this thing!”, then it’s worth doing on whatever day of the year it occurs to you. Declare “I will save money by purchasing fewer Disco Diva costume mods in The Sims” on April 25 and I won’t judge. State “I shall reduce my carbon footprint by recycling my grocery bags into hackey sacks” on September 16 and I’ll cheer you on, dude.
But there’s power in the borders of things, to quote one of Sharyn McCrumb’s characters. The start of a year is an exhilarating time to think about what’s next. It’s a lofty precipice to stand on and contemplate the landscape before making a leap. Plus, if you come out and say that you’ll do something, that makes it happen, like speaking a demon’s name to call it forth.
In that spirit: I’m going to write more this year. I’ve fallen out of my daily habit of writing and I miss it. And I’ll start with something I slacked on last year: blogging. I only posted here 4 times in 2024. Surely I can manage 12 blog posts in 2025. Eleven and a half, really, since I’ve halfway written this one already!
I was quiet here in 2024 partly because I didn’t have much writing news to share. That’s because I spent less time writing and more time querying my novel (which was quite the learning experience but will be its own post).
While writing less, I read more: 23 books (including Stephen King’s The Stand, complete and unabridged, which at 1,149 pages should count as at least two books by itself). That’s a lot of books for a slow reader like me, especially compared with the five books I read in 2023. (Yes, like a true nerd, I track my reads, in a Google doc called “Books Read.” Mostly I do that because, whenever anybody asks me “So, what good books have you read lately?”, my mind goes infuriatingly blank, so I need that doc for reference!)
I did manage to write 11 new short stories last year, and the final quarter of 2024 brought a flurry of happenings:
Three of my microfiction stories entered the world as part of the 42 Stories anthology (and I was the Story of Excellence award winner for the Myth chapter),
I signed a contract for “Andie,” a horror flash story, which will be published later this year by Burial Books,
My story “The Painted Man” got accepted as a reprint by Kandisha, a woman-owned horror press that I’ve had my eye on for years, and
I met for the first time with my Horror Writers Association chapter’s newly formed critique group, a terrific experience that I hope to repeat in 2025.
What are your non-resolutions, readers and writers?
I’ve been on a horror comedy kick lately. What can I say? I love both horror and comedy, and there’s something extra enjoyable about writing them both at once.
This story was a lot of fun to write, and also my first time as an invited author. Thanks, Page Turn Press, for bringing these stories to life.
Yesterday my horror story, Roots, went live. If you like campy horror reminiscent of the 1980s TV series Amazing Stories, you’ll like this one.
It’s part of the “Two Thousand Word Terrors” series by Rooster Republic, and I’m delighted to be working with them.
This story began life four years ago as a screenplay that I entered into NYC Midnight‘s Short Screenplay Challenge. I decided it would make a fun short story, so I expanded it. I’m pleased with the result, which is seasoned with plant horror, aliens, and 1980s nostalgia.
