Tiny Nightmares

TNcover Tiny Nightmares (Catapult 2020)

In this playful, spine-tingling collection, leading literary and horror writers spin unforgettably chilling tales in only a few pages. Tiny Nightmares brings to life broken-hearted vampires, Uber-taking serial killers, mind-reading witches, and monsters of all imaging, as well as stories that tackle the horrors of our modern world from global warming and racism to social media addiction and online radicalization. Writers such as Samantha Hunt, Brian Evenson, Jac Jemc, Stephen Graham Jones, Kevin Brockmeier, and Rion Amilcar Scott expand our understanding of horror fiction with inventive and blood-curdling new tales.

Buy it: Bookshop.org, Amazon, IndieBound.

Press

from PW: “Masterful . . . This carefully crafted and genuinely scary collection is sure to impress.”

from Booklist: “42 authors of both horror and literary fiction surprise, scare, and confound in this outstanding anthology… Highly recommended for all fiction collections.” Also a Booklist 2020 Editor’s Choice.

Rave from New York Times: “Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto, chose stories that deliver a huge emotional impact, their power directly inverse to their word count.”

Rave from Library Journal: “A better entry into the world of horror as it stands today would be hard to find.”

Rave from Kirkus: “Exquisitely crafted fragments of horror…fans of innovative horror films like Get Out and Us will have a blast.”

Rave from Tor: “the perfect horror read for this season.”

O, The Oprah Magazine includes Tiny Nightmares in “33 Best Halloween Books for a Spooky Night In”

Rave from Criminal Element: “This is an exquisite collection of short stories perfect for spooky season… an excellent treasury of short horror fiction that belongs on the shelves of every reader who enjoys a good little scare.”

The Millions most anticipated books: “In their second “tiny” anthology, editors Michel and Nieto gather 40 established and emerging writers— including Samantha Hunt, Jac Jemc, and Hilary Leichter—to spin small tales of terror.”

Willamette Week on “books you should read immediately”: “Tiny Nightmares gives readers a collection of bite-sized horror stories from a sprawling cast of new and veteran writers.”

Book Page: “This collection is a fusillade of fear.”

Vol.1 Brooklyn: “If you like your creepy tales to be innovatively told, look no further.”

PW recommends in holiday gift guide: “In this masterful anthology, Nieto and Michel bring together 42 chilling works of flash fiction that capture terrors both supernatural and mundane.”

Paperback Paris: “Do you scare easily? If so, then be wary when reading Tiny Nightmares, a collection of “very short tales of horror” edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto. Divided into four parts — heads, hearts, limbs, and viscera — this collection holds over 40 uniquely creepy stories. Each tale is 1,500 words or less – hence the name “flash” fiction– so they are perfect quick reads. You can sneak one or two in a night before bed…if you dare.”

The Daily Star: “Inventive, contemporary, and thought-provoking, the stories are frightening because they take intimately real issues of human civilization, from racism and global warming to homelessness, addiction, and social media.”

Bmore Art: “With an enduring Scorpio intensity, Tiny Nightmares weaves in human and environmental agendas alongside zombies and vampires”

Horror DNA: 5/5 stars “The very best horror stories play on our insecurities – they find our weakness and poke at it until we recoil, something that feels like has already been happening to us for the entire year. Many of these stories do just that, making the collection something the reader is compelled to race through, and simultaneously find deeply disturbing.”

Zyzzyva: “a great collection to escape into. Topping out at nearly 300 pages, but containing more than forty stories, Tiny Nightmares lives up to its title.

Shelf Awareness: “In sinister tales brimming with suspense, this slim yet potent collection of flash fiction probes humanity’s dark side and the horrors born of global crises . . . Each entry conjures a creepiness that lingers . . . Tiny Nightmares is the rare horror collection that will distress the hardest of hearts.”

New York Times Wirecutter: “Your horror-loving gift recipient has no need for another Stephen King novel. And if they’re overwhelmed by the current state of the world, they may not be able to focus on anything that long anyway. A much better gift is a collection of horror flash fiction: Get them Tiny Nightmares.”

Refinery29: “This collection of snackable, addictive horror stories (really, bet you can’t read just one) is populated by some of the most talented, twisted writers working today, from Samantha Hunt to Rion Amilcar Scott to Jac Jemc. The terrors contained within are not limited to classic horror tropes, but rather explore very modern plagues, ranging from climate change to social media. Allow yourself to be horrified by these brilliant writers — and, you know, the world in which we all live.”

Locus: “The second [horror collection of 2020] that rose above everything else is Tiny Nightmares, edited by Lincoln Michel & Nadxieli Nieto. With a table of contents packed with names like Samantha Hunt, Sam J. Miller, Brian Evenson, Jac Jemc, Stephen Graham Jones, Corey Farrenkopf, Lilliam Rivera, Monique Laban, Hilary Leichter, Ben Loory, Kevin Brockmeier, and Rion Amilcar Scott, this collection of flash horror fiction is varied, wonderfully curated, and sustains a level of quality that pushed it to the top of the heap.”

Lit Stack: “Here, given the hybrid of horror (which depends on shock, fear, and sometimes repulsion), the literary (which operates on character and language, among other devices), and the abbreviated form of flash (with its concision and intensity), the scary story takes on a fresh shape. The stories launch swiftly and the compressed action manages to heighten the suspense of what might be coming.”

The Seattle Times: “From serial killers who take Ubers to a demon that lives in an art exhibition, societal ills and bone chills, these tales might be small, but they have lasting power.”

Chicago Tribune: “You’ll be impressed how quickly you can be unsettled.”