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After receiving over 300 poems for Chiral Mad 3, the submission window for poetry is now officially closed. The anthology will include 20 poems from 10 different poetry contributors (2 from each) to be symmetrically placed around the fiction. The first half of the accepted poems (and their creators) will be announced… right now, listed below  (in no particular order):

01. Elizabeth Massie: “Black River #1” and “Black River #2”
02. Marge Simon: “Mirror Image” and “Reflections through the Raven’s Eye”
03. Stephanie M. Wytovich: “Put Me to Dream” and “Welcome Home, Darling”
04. Bruce Boston: “Beyond Symmetry” and “Reflecting on Reflections”
05. Erik T. Johnson: “Whisper #1 (A Warning)” and “Whisper #2 (A Prophecy)”

Illustration for Lin

The poetry received for this project has been astounding, to say the least. There are currently 20 contributors (40 poems) on the short list, and a few invited guests who should be sending in their work for consideration relatively soon. Hopefully, sometime within the next few weeks, the five remaining poetry contributors (and final 10 poems) will be decided, and announced in the next Chiral Mad 3 update. Fiction submissions are not open at this time (currently invite only until further notice); however, if you are a previous contributor to any Written Backwards project, feel free to query; if you received an email stating that your submission to a previous project is still in consideration for this or for any other Written Backwards project, feel free to send an email for a status update.

Illustration for O’Neill

Chiral Mad 3 will include 20 stories, each illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne (some of his work for this project is sprinkled throughout), known for his black and white illustrations.

The first two accepted stories are new works by Ramsey Campbell, whose story “The Word” was reprinted in Chiral Mad 2, and Gene O’Neill, who will have appeared in all three Chiral Mad volumes once this one is complete, and whose novella At the Lazy K will be released later this year by Written Backwards, the first of the ALLEVON series of novellas. Gene also has a story called “Broken Lady” in the forthcoming The Library of the Dead, a project he and Gord Rollo imagined and brought to Written Backwards.

Illustration for ?

For Chiral Mad 3, the list of accepted fiction has expanded to include a short story by Jessica May Lin, and a novelette by Paul Michael Anderson, who recently helped proofread The Library of the Dead, and has a story in Qualia Nous called “In the Nothing-Space, I Am What You Made Me.” Paul seems to have a record selling me stories with long titles (see below). And, as a side note, I asked to read this story after hearing about it on social media, and later received the story in an email from Paul with a subject line of “That realistic horror story that is SO not CM3.” Well, he was wrong. Jessica, on the other hand, is new to Written Backwards, thanks to a referral and some kind words by Jack Ketchum (who, like Gene, may also appear in all three volumes of Chiral Mad).

Anyway, here’s where the anthology stands in terms of fiction (in no particular order):

01. Gene O’Neill: “3-Dot People”
02. Ramsey Campbell: “Know Your Code”
03. Jessica May Lin: “Red Runner vs. The Surgeon, Issue 18”
04: Paul Michael Anderson: “The Agonizing Guilt of Relief (Last Days of a Ready-Made Victim)”

Stay tuned…