Tag: Long Fiction

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Dark Folklore Collection Acquisition

I’m excited to announce my collection of dark folklore short stories, novelettes, flash fiction and microfiction Three Curses and Other Dark Tales has been acquired by IFWG Publishing Australia.

You can read more about this exciting announcement below

IFWG is very pleased to announce the acquisition of a collection of short fiction by Leanbh Pearson titled Three Curses and Other Dark Tales. “We have had a long standing admiration of Pearson’s work, both as a writer and an active member of the speculative fiction scene in Australia,” said Gerry Huntman, Managing Director of IFWG, “and it was a delight to have received her manuscript, and discover a fine collection knitted so well together with common themes. We know readers of dark fiction will be delighted with this.”

This title will be released world-wide in the second quarter of 2024.

Three Curses and Other Dark Tales is a world tour of dark folklore with uncanny beings reimagined into new tales, where wits, heroism and truth meet trickery, bargains and curses.”

– Gerry Huntman, Managing Director of IFWG
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A Dystopian History

One of my works-in-progress has been a dystopian novella. While many dystopian stories and novels explore the future, I was interested in combining a dark fiction genre with alternate history, to ask what if our present never happened?

In developing my own tale, I was inspired by those classic dystopian tropes we are already familiar, with and have been imagined, classic novels like 1984 by George Orwell and The Stand by Stephen King which were my first introduction to dystopian literature and dark fiction. In considering modern history, I focused on scenarios that most-closely mirrored those classic dystopian futures which are already familiar to most readerships.

The events of the First World War were a turning point in modern history, where wars were fought on a global scale for the first time, the speed of development from the Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the natural landscape and the capacity for mechanised warfare, casualties were high, chemical warfare was employed, and the occurrence of the 1918 Flu pandemic also incorrectly called the “Spanish Flu”.

The horrors of the First World War were catastrophic for those who survived and as a historical legacy. In modern history, it is often considered a turning point. After the First World War, the course of humanity was forever altered, a reality that affects our present, and likely, our future.