"That degeneracy infects the writing, with Koch creating wonderfully dense and poetic prose that puts the reader into a dreamlike state, evoking a literary version of a death metal Sun Ra."
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Joe Koch: horrorsong.bsky.social
@horrorsong
Joe Koch writes literary horror and surrealist trash. Shirley Jackson finalist. Books: THE WINGSPAN OF SEVERED HANDS, THE COUVADE, CONVULSIVE. He/They
Joe Koch: horrorsong.bsky.social’s posts
My whole timeline is on fire with people talking about "women's rights." Good, but remember nonbinary people and trans men can get pregnant. Framing it as "man versus woman" creates divisiveness. The real fight is not about pregnancy, it's about bodily autonomy.
This gave me a laugh in the midst of being pretty sad about him.
I'll be THAT person and point out Gregor tried to go to work that day.
I don't know about the rest of you #HorrorCommunity writers, but all my work is 100% autobiographical. I have mutated a planet. I have traded places with a wax crucifix. I have had sex with my past and future selves. I have raised Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais from the dead.
Cozy Horror. Is it a thing? Shall we make it a thing?
Hey, authors! You don't have to put your home address on subs despite what Shunn format says to do.
Especially women & marginalized folks who are at higher risk of stalking and violence-please don't send your address out to every fly by night publisher who has a sub call!!!
Noticed most people didn't like Men so of course I had to see it. The mellow folk music ripped, the film is absolutely in love with it's setting and with nature as it should be, and despite the silliness, it evokes some deep discomfort. The body horror finale is truly wonderful.
(found this in my unsent tweets)
The Taking of Deborah Logan
Perfect tweet.
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The feline urge to knock shit over
I feel like 80% of you would buy this chair.
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When we say "something should happen" in a story, I think what we mean is there should be movement, and if we study movement, we find it exists even in stillness. There are many forms of movement: pond ripples traveling outward in enlarging circles, 1/4
Cover reveal time!
I've just gotten proofs of my deeply cursed chapbook/zine/whateverthefuck it is. This novelette will be signed & limited edition only available from me, details coming soon. I give you THE SHIPWRECK OF THE CERBERUS
I'm only going to say this once. I apologize to all my readers for the unbearable hotness of my fiction. When you're an 11 plus it's just impossible to tone that fire down and write plausible mids.
I don't think I mentioned that Weirdpunk Books updated my name for the new edition of my cosmic body horror/fairy tale/king in yellow novella The Wingspan of Severed Hands. Behold, I am Joe.
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Might have just signed a contract for my first collection.
I'm editing and it's going well because I've learned to do this right in the first draft: whenever you are writing some weird or abstract or illogical thing, don't write it apologetically. Commit. Don't say "seems." Don't fawn. The more fucked up, the harder you need to commit.
I see trans people striving to be kind and tolerant and accepting and to move gracefully through a libelous maelstrom of hate and I am Old and Tired and want to say No.
No.
Fuck you. I have worked too hard for this. I have lost too much. YOU need to learn how to love.
I sincerely hope posting my happiness about a project or spreading the word about my publications never feels like I'm rubbing your nose in it. Maybe I post too much when good things happen because it seems so unlikely. People pretty much have always called me a freak & loser.
I feel beaten down by transphobia today yet hesitate to mention having such feelings because it invites attack. And I think this is a reaction you fascists are counting on, to keep us isolated and silent. What you don't realize is I've survived much worse. I'm stronger than you.
I've updated my name on my website and hopefully Amazon and Goodreads will play nice by allowing Joe Koch/Joanna Koch as an author name. Huge thanks to my friends who've been on board with the name change for a long time, and especially to Hailey for talking things over with me.
Signed a contract for a little something to be in the next issue of Vastarien. It's a dream publication and still a bit of a shock to think I'll be included. Maybe I'm just imagining it.
Okay, I found the tweet, and I think this whole thing might be my fault guys.
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Cozy Horror. Is it a thing? Shall we make it a thing?
These "drag" bans around the US criminalize public speaking, author readings, and participation in panels for all trans authors by stating you must wear clothing & groom yourself in a way appropriate to your birth gender. Lots of cis people will also be at risk.
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Hey cis writer friends, who are interested in attending AWP 2024 in Kansas City, please keep an eye on MO bills SB429 and HB498, which would effectively criminalize Trans* writers in attendance from reading or speaking in any capacity at the conference. We’re going to need you.
Back to my break momentarily; decided to update my author photo everywhere. Turning 56 tomorrow and there's so many thoughts and feelings. Mostly need to process the absolute shock of still being alive, an inexplicable circumstance I never once expected or planned for.
Today I learned:
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Today is a good day to tell your brain to accept the praise you've been given as an artist or writer. If it argues, put it in the time out jar until it quiets and accepts that you are talented, you are enough.
New cryptid just dropped
It's severed head Saturday post your faves
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Apologies for too much posting today. I'm thinking about how much I like a horror story with not exactly a happy ending, but a transcendent one. Where the pain & death & horror are real, but there is a shift or movement at the end, a difficult & impure type of salvation.
Guys, do you ever just stop for a minute and revel in the absolute wonder that you can write anything, anything at all, anything you want. It doesn’t have to be like anything you saw before. Fuckin magic in our hands, right here for the taking.
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Cherish that ephemeral moment when you step out of the shower and your hair is the best it will be all day. So soon it shall pass.
True Detective S1 has been maligned as misogynistic but how child-brained must one be to come to that conclusion? The entire plot ACCUSES the patriarchy. In microaggressions, in church/cult conspiracies, in domestic spheres, in the realm of politics; in every plot twist.
Signed book giveaway time! I have exactly one copy of each. Will choose 2 winners from anywhere. Yes, anywhere.
RT/QT
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Comment if there's a specific one you'd like, either CONVULSIVE or THE WINGSPAN OF SEVERED HANDS
That's it!
(Book info in links below)
Thanks to Ben at Apocalypse Party for working with me on this one, Matt Revert for an amazing cover, and all the editors who previously published the stories inside! Tremendous gratitude to all of you in the horror community who encourage me day after day.🖤🖤🖤
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CONVULSIVE by @horrorsong is out today!
Featuring 15 horror stories of religion, abuse, desire, and gender, CONVULSIVE is a masterfully crafted collection of nightmarish dreamscapes, where the language demands the reader to be transformed.
We can’t wait for you to read it!
Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy
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Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy twitter.com/simonm223/stat…
Today in "making demands" I dressed in a way that makes me comfortable, didn't shave, got called sir three times, and went home with my groceries.
No one was harmed.
I said thank you.
This is all I demand.
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Replying to @HaileyPiperSays
"see, if the trans didn't exist, we wouldn't have been forced beyond our control to hurt a 9-year-old" 
JAZZED to announce selected my story "Offerings" from CONVULSIVE to podcast in their series of best stories from collections this year! Many thanks to Evans at for first publishing and Ben at for making CONVULSIVE perfect in every way.
Today would be my wedding anniversary if I hadn't had the absolute gall to come out as trans. What an outrage. My partner was extremely handsome and smart, and very much a best friend for about a decade until he decided he wasn't.
Here's an announcement I never thought I'd make and a publisher I am dazzled to work with: my story "The Tumulus" will appear in the new Cemetery Dance anthology DREAD.
And omg the COVER💀💀💀
Darlings, you can always count on me to advance the plot with gratuitous sex scenes. I see you. You are my people. Humans have sex at the worst and best possible moments of their silly sensuous lives.
My controversial writing opinion is you have to do it.
QT with your top 3 sub-genres of horror:
Sam Neil has lost his mind.
Timefuck.
Layers and layers and layers of meaning. Then more layers. Layers all the way down. Maybe with dopplegangers.
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QT with your top 3 sub-genres of horror:
ghost stories. old secrets and sins. the trauma of loss. nothing ever really forgotten.
zombies. is your loved one a monster? can you trust them?
psychological. is any of this happening? can you trust anything at all? twitter.com/ctrlaltcassie/…
ghost stories. old secrets and sins. the trauma of loss. nothing ever really forgotten.
zombies. is your loved one a monster? can you trust them?
psychological. is any of this happening? can you trust anything at all? twitter.com/ctrlaltcassie/…Kill God with your words or don't waste my time.
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13 days left to submit a story to our black metal horror anthology: “IN THE SHADOW OF THE HORNS”.
Scrawl your name across the cosmos with the tip of a dagger.
Join us.
#horror #blackmetal
#OpenForSubmissions
#CallForSubmissions twitter.com/REALSONICDANGE…
I don't mean to make any of you mad scientists jealous but I woke up like this.
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I'm thrilled to announce my new author assistance tool Devilrite™️ !!
It's easy, and anyone can use it! Just go on down to the crossroads, make a cut to draw blood from your forearm, turn around counter-clockwise three times, and wait! For a small fee, you'll soon be an author!
My dear twitter twats, as much as I revere you and delight and revel in your You-ness, please allow me a brief disappearance. We live in difficult times. A day? A week? A month? I'm not deciding now. Time will be what it will be. Soon, darlings. Soon.
As a reader, do you like story notes in a collection or anthology? Do you think they add to the story or detract from the reading experience?
"Violence must serve a purpose" why yes, the purpose is to make you uncomfortable.
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Literally begging websites to hire people who like horror to write about horror
Faking your death is a really weak move when the rest of us are out here faking our life.
Going to the dentist nonbinary means exposing my face unmasked and up close with obvious facial hair, nonconforming bod, and ins in my fem name. I was worried.
Pleased to report every single person at the dental office did not give a flying shit, which is as it should be.
What's the most horribly traumatizing thing I could watch tonight on Netflix, tubi, shudder, or YouTube? I want to suffer.
I'd like to give a huge 🖤SHOUT OUT🖤 to a few awesome publishers I trust with my work:
@GrimscribePress
@SeizeThePress
@SlicedUpPress
Story acceptance for a very weird one! It won't show up for a long time but such a perfect fit that it's well worth the wait.
Here's hoping you also have some good news today, or at least a moment of peace communing with your tea or coffee before the chaos starts.
This is a great thesis. Horror is a genre that explores bodily autonomy head on from so many angles combining religion, philosophy, sex, torture, grief, aging, disability, survival...
God I love horror. It's a feast.
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The horror genre is pro-choice,
full stop, and if you think differently I’m sorry but you fundamentally misunderstand your favorite genre. the creatives, storytellers, performers, crew members, effects artists and others, writ large, support bodily autonomy.
Replying to
🎶Touching me, touching you...
Sweet rat o' mine
Ba ba ba🎶
Gustave Doré , The council held by the rats. 1868
I feel like if I say I've gotten 3 acceptances this week and it's only Wednesday people will think I'm an asshole. But it happened, and wow I'm grateful for the time to write and the editors giving homes to my ridiculous monsters.
Writing reminder that if you're working on something difficult that hurts to put on the page or something so joyful you're worried people will think you've lost your shit, that's the good stuff. That's right where you need to be.
You know that great feeling when you let a draft rest and pull it up after forgetting most of it and it's much better than you remembered?
I have just experienced the opposite.
Re: safety, transgression & marginalized voices: I often strive to make my work "unsafe" on the textual level through word choices that are difficult, disorienting, and defiant of cultural norms. It's a surrealist approach that garners criticism but I stand behind it fully.
A reminder that Kill List is a fantastic film and Michael Smiley is a fucking treasure.
Oh, we're doing this again? Cool. I'll play.
The writer // the writing
So pleased to announce my story "I Married a Dead Man" from anthology What One Wouldn't Do will be on a future episode of ! Excited to hear my once most-rejected story take on new life through narration. Never give up on a story you believe in.
Got a sweet little acceptance I can't talk about today! Woo-hoo!
Accosted by someone yelling, "Sir! Excuse me, sir!" and no double take occurred during the resulting interaction. It's a relief, the feeling of moving around in the world without being a target.
Then I came home to a poetry acceptance.🔥
What's my third good thing gonna be? 🌟
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we look closely, we find that it's the nature of things to be in motion. We don't need to impose a character arc or a false narrative of a heroes journey. It's not plot versus vibes. It's a question of what type of movement we're interested in exploring. 4/4
TFW you search an author online you admire to learn about their work and process and you read an interview where they...recommend your book?!?!
Hey I'm Joe Koch and #IAmNonbinary I write literary horror and surrealist trash.
The Wingspan of Severed Hands
The Couvade
Convulsive (forthcoming)
Stories in Liminal Spaces, Not All Monsters, Year's Best Hardcore Horror, etc.
Free online fiction at horrorsong.blog
STORIES OF THE EYE is out today!
We didn't set out to have a mostly queer TOC, but I couldn't be happier with this critical and creative journey through the bodies and minds of models in art. Link to purchase below.
WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU.
I'm delighted to announce Dilatando Mentes will translate my novella "The Wingspan of Severed Hands" into Spanish as a gorgeous illustrated hardcover edition. If you haven't seen their books, check them out. They're beautiful and I'm so very honored to have my work chosen.
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Nos hace muy felices comunicaros que @horrorsong pasa a formar parte de la editorial.
El próximo año publicaremos "The Wingspan of Severed Hands", obra de terror cósmico y primigenio que le da una vuelta de tuerca a "El rey de amarillo".
Más información: horrorsong.blog
Call me crazy I just think a writer needs something to say. Otherwise your time's better spent growing potatoes or climbing a tree.
Splurged the other day and ordered 6 dollar hair goop since the last time I bought any was 2019. It smells handsome. Got that goombah guinea greaseball wop vibe going now & it's okay.
Autumn is when we figure out how to monetize trauma.
So am I fucking up by not trying to get an agent? Or am I fucking up by saying things like fucking too much? Or am I saying too much and would be better off fucking?
As the news continues to be terrible, as grocery prices rise, as awards go out to so few of us because there's so few to go around, please listen to those who believe in you. Accept the love and help that's offered. It's hard with a scarcity mentality, but fuck that. Say yes.
Someone freaked out on me here yesterday and said I should be "ashamed" instead of "arrogant," and while I will not engage with them, I want to state for the record that in all things I choose arrogance.
I strongly identify with cockroach Gregor trying to go to work.
Cut my hair today. Feeling very gender about this whole situation.
I have signed two very exciting contracts this week. I'm really grateful to those of you who've been supportive as readers, reviewers, editors, and colleagues, because none of this could happen without you.
Write a Predictive Text Poem "I saw..."
I saw the face of God and he was sort of inadvertently abusive
I am not a lady but I am not a lady who is a good friend of mine and I am much more I can collapse
I am your friend and I am much more I can collapse the visible dark
Women been out there multitasking since the dawn of time. t.co/CwdqIVTMy1
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not everything or everyone grows and changes. Stagnation is a real thing and it can be very painful or very peaceful. But even stagnation involves an amount of resistance that can be quite active and forceful, a movement against all the natural motion of the world. So when 3/4
You can now add CONVULSIVE to Goodreads. If you check the page you'll see Laird Barron in his infinite generosity said nice things, and the astoundingly eloquent Eric Larocca wrote the introduction! I'm surrounded by greatness!
goodreads.com/book/show/5991
Oh, hey
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So excited to announce that we are publishing CONVULSIVE, an incredible and utterly terrifying collection by Joanna Koch (@horrorsong) in April 2022!
These stories explore religion, abuse, desire, and gender, all through Joe’s pristinely rendered prose. More details soon!
