Essays

Writing (and reading) through the holiday chaos: finding focus when life gets loud

The holidays are supposed to be a time of joy and connection, but for many of us, they also bring a whirlwind of obligations: family gatherings, travel, shopping, cooking, and endless to-do lists. Amid the chaos, finding time to write, read, or simply pause can feel impossible. Yet even during the busiest season of the year, it’s possible to carve out moments for creativity and reflection—if you approach it with intention and compassion.

Amid the holiday bustle, it’s important to carve out a moment for yourself to write and reflect—even when life around you is loud.
  • Set smaller, achievable goals: When life is hectic, long writing sessions or ambitious reading lists can feel overwhelming. Break your projects into smaller, manageable chunks. Write for twenty minutes in the morning, read a chapter before bed, or jot down ideas in a notebook while sipping your coffee. Small, consistent efforts often add up more than you realize—and they keep your creative momentum alive.
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Call for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Mother Monster/Father Fiend

Elderfly Press is now accepting submissions for Mother Monster/Father Fiend, a new anthology exploring the shadowed edges of parenthood. We’re looking for short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and black-and-white artwork that reveal the monstrous, misunderstood, or mythic aspects of motherhood and fatherhood.

This anthology invites you to challenge the cultural scripts of what a “good” parent looks like. Sometimes the monster is real—a parent whose choices hurt, haunt, or unravel the lives of those in their care. Other times, the monster is only a mask placed by society:

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Call for Submissions

Submissions open for Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny

There’s beauty in the things that unnerve us. Beautiful and Terrifying is the next anthology from Elderfly Press—an exploration of the eerie, the intimate, and the in-between. Submissions are now open for short stories, poetry, and black-and-white art that linger in the shadows of the strange and the sublime.

There’s beauty in what haunts us.
Submit to Beautiful and Terrifying today!

This collection seeks work that blurs boundaries—between beauty and fear, humanity and monstrosity, love and decay. We’re drawn to dark, literary narratives and haunting imagery that leave readers with a sense of wonder and unease. Not every story needs to fit neatly into horror or realism; the best pieces often live in the uncanny space between.

What Elderfly Press is looking for:

This anthology invites a wide range of voices and forms with themes of transformation, obsession, decay, beauty, violence, or the supernatural:

  • Genre fiction: horror, speculative, gothic, dystopian, weird, sci-fi, supernatural—anything that chills, disturbs, or unsettles
  • Literary fiction: moody, shadowed, emotionally raw
  • Poetry: rooted in chaos, shadow, or change
  • Visual art: black-and-white art that captures the eerie, surreal, or dreamlike
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Find Your Next Read

Bad Moon on the Rise: An Anthology of the Unsettling is Here!

The wait is over! Bad Moon on the Rise: An Anthology of the Unsettling is officially released and ready to haunt your bookshelves. This collection brings together an extraordinary group of writers, artists, and creators who explore life under a dark sky—whether literal or metaphorical. From chilling short fiction to thought-provoking essays and striking black-and-white art, this anthology dives into the unsettling, the eerie, and the uncanny.

We are thrilled to showcase the work of our incredible contributors:

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Author Interview

Author interview with Melissa R. Collings

Melissa R. Collings is the award-winning author of the bittersweet love story, The False Flat. Before Melissa started writing, she worked as a surgical physician associate in Nashville, where one of her favorite procedures was reconstructing a lower-lumbar tattoo after a back surgery. Her stories, like her, are always a mix: light and dark, laughter and tears, outlandish and grounded, beautiful and ugly, glitter and charcoal smears. Her interests are way too varied; her imagination never fails to get her into trouble; and she lives by her life philosophy: nothing is impossible, and everything is better with glitter—except surgical wounds.

Q: When did you first catch the writing bug? What drove you to persist?
A: I’m originally a surgical Physician Associate (medical provider). I worked 50-60 hours per week doing spine surgery, rounding on hospital patients, and seeing patients in the clinic. I enjoyed my job, but when my husband and I were expecting our first child, I decided to take a long hiatus from medical work and stay home to raise our daughter. I’d worked since I was very young, so this was a steep adjustment for me. I needed something for myself, so I turned to a psychological suspense novel I’d started before college.

Back then, I’d been working as a receptionist and had a lot of down time. I had an idea for a book and started writing it to fill my time. I didn’t think anything would come of it. But when I was at home with a newborn, I picked that novel up again, and I discovered a whole new world.

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Author Interview

Author interview with cozy romance and mystery author, Iris Applewood

Iris Applewood is a cozy romance and mystery author crafting worlds of wonder from her home in Southern Indiana. She loves blending the boundaries between the mundane and the magical. In her free time, Iris enjoys experimenting in the kitchen, creating dishes and perfumes that feel like potions.

When she’s not mixing spices or spinning stories, she treasures her sleep, where she often dreams up her next big idea. Through her writing, Iris hopes to add a touch of enchantment to everyday life, inspiring readers to find magic in the most unexpected places—even in their own backyards.

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Author Interview

Author interview with poet Angela Chaidez Vincent

It takes a rich and diverse mind to excel at both math and writing poetry, and author Angela Chaidez Vincent has just that sort of mind. I was lucky enough to share a table with her at the Louisville Book Festival this year where I learned that she is also a really fun person to hang out with!

Arena Glow author Chaidez Vincent’s background is in mechanical engineering, mathematics, and instrumental music performance. Her work is infused with numerical winks and a collagist impulse that seeks to join vigorous dreaming with the subterranean and overlooked. She has an MFA in Poetry and keeps her tech side smiling by teaching precalculus and computer science. Angela resides in Fresno, California with her wife, Lisa.

Q: How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

A: There was such relief (and a fair amount of amazement) in knowing that I can actually see a major literary undertaking through to completion! I feel much more confident in my ability to do it again. 

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Author Interview

Author interview with Christina Wallace

Christina Wallace is an author of Middle-Grade, YA, & Romance novels. She has been a lifelong writer, but didn’t enter the world of publishing until 2023. Wallace grew up in a military family and has lived in many places. During her own time in the U.S. Navy, she was deployed to Afghanistan and the Philippines, where she met her husband, who was stationed with another unit. Even during her Navy career, she worked tirelessly on her writing.

The idea for Wallace’s novel, The Light Keeper, first appeared during NaNoWriMo 2017, and from there, it was developed into a novel and eventually grew into a series.

Now, Christina enjoys sharing her stories far and wide, while also inspiring children to explore their creative side and to follow their dreams. She lives in Florida with her husband, two children, a dog, and a cat.

Q: When did you first catch the writing bug? What drove you to persist?

A:  I began writing obsessively when I was in Middle School, about 22 years ago! I’d always had a very active imagination, my friends and I role-played our favorite shows all of the time. In the middle of 7th grade we moved and I didn’t make friends easily. So, I poured myself into writing. The characters I wrote all had tight friend groups, and it made me feel less lonely. The more I wrote, the more I knew sharing stories was what I was made to do.

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Author Interview

Author interview with Akil O. Smith

Akil O. Smith is a Florida-based writer of sci-fi, poetry, and drama. He is the author of ALAM Beginnings, an award-winning science fiction novel set in the mid-80s.

ALAM Beginnings is the story of a young boy who has already weathered unimaginable loss as he wrestles with the sudden return of his mother, previously believed dead but now alive under mysterious circumstances. It is set in the far reaches of the Andromeda galaxy where a relentless conflict rages between the ruthless Rigions and the courageous Zorians. Get your copy today!

Q: When did you first catch the writing bug? What drove you to persist?
A: I think the verdict is still out to say I’ve caught the writing bug. Mainly because I do have stories I feel will work better as film and all. However, all praise goes to my mom as I had dreams of the characters I am writing now. Tiyshio, Shawn, Nighcos were all people who showed up in my dreams and ever since I told her about those dreams, and her telling me to put it in a journal I have only continued to do such even so now. With any projects that come to mind.

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Events

Meet me at the Midwest Holiday Market to get signed book copies for the reader on your shopping list!

Join me this Friday and Saturday, November 1st and 2nd at the Village Square Mall in Effingham, Illinois for the Midwest Holiday Market! If you have book nerds on your holiday shopping list, then you HAVE to stop by my booth and check out my books and other bookish gift ideas.

The 2024 Midwest Market Holiday Show takes place this Friday and Saturday, November 1-2 at the Village Square Mall!
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