It’s here! GOTHIC BLUE BOOK V: THE CURSED EDITION!

First, I have to say I can’t believe this is our 5th book. When we started Burial Day Books 5 years ago we did it to give people a platform where they could share their traditional horror tales. Now, here we are, 5 years later and we have continued to grow. Each year we see more submissions and each year I get less and less sleep in reading your great stories, fighting with the Undertaker as to which story to publish, and of course formatting and editing the books.

I do admit, it’s gotten harder each year, but each time I step back and look at the finished product I’m so proud; I’m proud of our writers and I’m proud of myself that I can put this together so quickly. As many of you know, we take submissions, read them and publish the edition in less than a year’s time – a pretty fast turnaround for publishing.

We are excited to have a wonderful collection of poetry by Stephanie M. Wytovich, and fantastic fiction by Maria Alexander, Max Booth III, K. Trap Jones, Jennifer A. Smith, Kerry G.S. Lipp, and so many more.

Again, I’d like to thank our authors, and I especially want to thank all those that submitted and our supporters. I’m beyond thrilled that we’re still here after 5 years, and I’m thrilled that you all have continued to reach out to us, say hello, submit your stories, and enjoy our collections.

Print Edition

eBook Edition

Thank you so much.

Cynthia (cina) Pelayo
Gravedigger/Publisher
Burial Day Books

Burial Day Books is honored to announce our featured fiction writer for GOTHIC BLUE BOOK V, Maria Alexander! Maria Alexander is a produced screenwriter, published games writer, virtual world designer, award-winning copywriter, interactive theatre designer, prolific fiction writer, snarkiologist and poet. Her stories have appeared in publications such as Chizine Magazine, Gothic.net and Paradox, as well as in acclaimed anthologies alongside legends such as David Morrell and Heather Graham.

Burial Day Books is honored to announce our featured poet for GOTHIC BLUE BOOK V, Stephanie M. Wytovich! Stephanie M. Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, a book reviewer for Nameless Magazine, and a well-known coffee addict. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-nominated poetry collections, Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, and An Exorcism of Angels can be found at www.rawdogscreaming.com, and her debut novel, The Eighth, will be out in 2015 from Dark Regions Press. Follow Wytovich at stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com and on twitter @JustAfterSunset.

“Horseshoe and devil” by Creator:George Cruikshank – The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil by Edward G. Flight, 1871; image at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13978/13978-h/13978-h.htm. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

The other day I purchased a lucky horseshoe charm. Why? I don’t particularly know why other than I was compelled by the design. I have also heard of “Lucky Horseshoes,” but I suppose I didn’t know exactly why horseshoes are considered lucky. I suppose I purchased the charm because I somehow believed it would bring me good luck. This then compelled me to do some further research on Lucky Horseshoes.

A standard horseshoe is a constructed device fashioned out of metal that is intended to protect a horse’s hoof from wear. The most commonly used materials are steel and aluminum. The shoes are attached to the surface of the hooves, and are nailed through a part of the horse’s foot that is insensitive. Horseshoes can also be glued to the horse’s foot. A farrier is a person whose occupation is the fitting of these devices. The farrier‘s job is to assess the horse’s hoof, design appropriate shoes, and apply the product.

Now, it’s believed that the origin of the tradition of the lucky horseshoe originated with the story of Saint Dunstan and the Devil. Dunstan, who would later to become the Archbishop of Canterbury in AD 959, was a blacksmith. One day, the Devil asked him to reshoe his horse, and Dunstan nailed a horseshoe – through the Devil’s hoof, which caused the Devil much pain. Dunstan agreed to remove the horseshoe and release the Devil if the Devil promised to never enter a place where a horseshoe was hung over a door.

As there is a specific production and application involved in creating a horseshoe for wear, there is a specific placement of a horseshoe for use as a talisman in the home. First, some believe that a true lucky horseshoe should be found, not purchased. Then, the horseshoe should be hung above one’s entry door. It’s then believed that a horseshoe should be hung pointing upwards. The ‘U’ shape is thought to hold good luck that passes by. Hanging it upside down is believed to be bad luck, as it is thought all of the good luck will fall out. However, there are some who believe that the horseshoe should indeed be hung pointing downward, as it allows good luck to flow into the home.  To some, it does not matter how the horseshoe is hung (pointing upward or down), as long as it’s hung above the door because it’s presence alone is believed to draw good luck.

Do you have a horseshoe hung over your door? Is it pointed upward? Or, is it pointed downward. Let us know at @burialdaybooks on Twitter.

-Gravedigger

It was a wild year end. We are excited to enter another year here at Burial Day and look forward to reading all of your tales. For those of you who have yet to receive a submission status for our monthly posting we will send you a status this week. Thank you for your patience, and yes, we are open for monthly submissions!

Last week, as we were recuperating from the madness of the holiday season we decided to take a drive to another cemetery, Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois to specifically visit Showmen’s Rest. Large elephant statues flank the hundreds of markers commemorating their circus family. The elephants each have a foot resting on a ball, and their trunks are lowered in mourning.

What makes this Showmen’s Rest so sad is that it’s where dozens of performers are buried from one of the most tragic circus accidents in history. On June 22^nd, 1918 over 56 employees of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus were killed when an engineer fell asleep and ran his train into the rear of the troop train. Many died from the impact of the crash. Many others died due to the fire that broke out after. There are legends of elephants racing to douse the firey trains with water, succumbing themselves to the fire. A few years prior, The Showmen’s League of America formed in 1913 with its first president Buffalo Bill Cody had purchased 750 burial spaces in Woodlawn Cemetery for its members. Many of the victims of the train accident were laid to rest there in a mass grave.

Many of the victims were unrecognizable and are commemorated on their graves simply as Unknown Male 15, Unknown Female 43, all the way up to Unknown Male 61. Some accounts say 56 people died in the accident, but an accurate casualty count is unavailable because of the fire.  There are a few stand out names, such as Baldy. One wonders if he were a clown or a driver. It’s said many of those who died were roustabouts, people who travelled with the circus putting up tents and performing various other jobs before disappearing at the end of the season. Most were known only by their nickname.

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus formed in 1907 in Peru, Indiana (now the site of the International Circus Hall of Fame) was the second largest circus besides Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey.  The Hagenbeck-Wallace circus continued through to 1929 when it was sold to Ringling Bros.

There is plenty of folklore that surrounds Showmen’s Rest, primarily to do with the elephants. Some claim to hear the roar of elephants at night, but it’s said no elephants were buried at Showmen’s Rest. There is no official marker that indicates the Hagenbeck-Wallace disaster either at Woodlawn Cemetery or at the crash site in Indiana.

Other performers are buried at Showmen’s Rest. It’s a place of rest for other circus folk who have lived with the spirit that the show must go on.

Here are some pictures that we took at Showmen’s Rest. We hope you enjoy.

-Gravedigger

GOTHIC BLUE BOOK IV: THE FOLKLORE EDITION is now available on Kindle! Featuring new fiction by New York Times bestselling author JayBonansinga, author of the Walking Dead novels, and Bram Stoker and Pushcart Prize winning author Bruce Boston! The print edition is to follow.

Jack the Ripper’s identity may finally be revealed, bringing a new level of horror to the story.

I should preface by saying that my attitude toward the recent mitochondrial DNA evidence is one of cautious optimism. Disregarding for the moment that the evidence has yet to undergo peer review, it’s a bit shocking to have a face and name for what was, for over 125 years, an unfathomable monster. Aaron Kosminski may be the name, the face of whom is a mentally ill survivor of yet another type of horrific violence: the pogroms of Tsarist Russia (which included modern-day Poland).

“Pogrom” is another word for a massacre; it’s like a riot that erupts in violence that targets a specific ethnic or religious group. In Kosminski’s homeland, anti-Semitic demonstrations and mass murders took place throughout most of the 1800s; Kosminski and his family were impoverished Jews who fled in the 1880s to Whitechapel, London.

This was less than a decade before Jack the Ripper terrorized Whitechapel, which was, at that time, a slum. Its population consisted mostly of Irish and Jewish immigrants, who were deemed the lowest of the low in Victorian England, possibly lower than the 1200 prostitutes who worked Whitechapel’s streets. What I’m saying is, Kosminski may have led the most pathetic life imaginable in post-Medieval Europe.

Man, the more we find out about this guy, the more of that sexy edge we lose from the story of Jack the Ripper. Kosminski was a refugee, with stints in mental hospitals, and, according to testimony from his day, had a history of “self-abuse” (the 19^th century euphemism for jerking his chicken, or stroking his bishop, or masturbating at every opportunity even if it involved horrified onlookers). I’m starting to understand why this guy was a chief suspect for over a century.

The DNA evidence, by the way, was in the form of ejaculate found on a shawl belonging to one of the Ripper’s final victims. So even if a match is confirmed, there will always be detractors who say that Kisminski’s DNA could have ended up on Catharine Eddoews’ shawl due to circumstances unrelated to her murder. After all, the man apparently had a habit of leaving his semen in every corner of Whitechapel. He and Eddowes may have even had consensual sex hours before she died.

What this news story brings us, however, is not the possibility of a resolution to one of the world’s most famous cold cases; it is just another piece of the puzzle that is the human mind.

Kosminski was a mentally troubled person (to say the least), targeted in his homeland with anti-semitic violence, which likely exacerbated his issues. He lived in a time when the mental health industry was not remotely a thing. There were no psychologists or therapists or counselors; if you were weird, they locked you in a building far away, whether you were an epileptic or liked to fingerpaint with your own feces.

So the horror of the Jack the Ripper story has not diminished, but the nature of it has changed. Now, instead of a faceless demon, Jack the Ripper represents the evil within the mind, kept in check only by mental processes that are immeasurable and unquantifiable; an evil that is unleashed and fed by nonsensical violence in perpetuity.

Jack the Ripper’s story will never be over. He was not a man, but the personification of human psychosis. And he’s still out there.

BIO

M. N. Hanson has been published previously in Vine Leaves, Burningword, Revolver, and Gothic Blue Books I & II. M is a student of the absurd bordering on the grotesque. Favorite word: Diapsalmata. Second favorite word: Ithyphallophobia. Please visit http://mnhanson.com to complain.