"Turn and face the strange." — David Bowie "It may be my own imagining, or perhaps the cumulative effect of reading the entire book over a couple of evenings, but the contents appeared to grow darker as the pages turned." – from the Foreword by John Connolly Uncertainties is an anthology of new writing—featuring contributions from Irish, British, and American authors—each exploring the idea of increasingly fragmented senses of reality. These types of short stories were termed "strange tales" by Robert Aickman, called "tales of the unexpected" by Roald Dahl, and known to Shakespeare’s ill-fated Prince Mamillius as ‘winter’s tales’. But these are no mere ghost stories. These tales of the uncanny grapple with existential epiphanies of the modern day, and when otherwise familiar landscapes become sinister and something decidedly less than certain . . . Contents "Foreword" John Connolly "The Faerie Ring" John Reppion "From the Archives of the Westmeath Examiner" Derek John "Wellaway" Martin Hayes "Last Love" John Kenny "On a Clear Day" Robert Neilson "A Letter from McHenry" Reggie Chamberlain-King "The Light at the Centre" Maura McHugh "Fran’s Nan’s Story" Sarah LeFanu "Flyblown" Timothy J. Jarvis "To the Eternal One" Mark Valentine "The Seance" Lynda E. Rucker "Biographical Notes" "Acknowledgements" Brian J. Showers has written short stories, articles, interviews, and reviews for magazines such as Rue Morgue, Supernatural Tales, Ghosts & Scholars, and Wormwood. His collection The Bleeding Horse won the Children of the Night Award in 2008. He is also the author of Literary Walking Tours of Gothic Dublin; and, with Gary W. Crawford and Jim Rockhill, he co-edited the Stoker Award-nominated Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The anthology Dreams of Shadow and Smoke, co-edited with Jim Rockhill, won the Ghost Story Award for best book in 2014. Showers also edits The Green Book, a journal devoted to Irish writers of the fantastic; and runs the Swan River Press, Ireland’s only publishing house dedicated to literature of the gothic, strange, and supernatural.

"Omnia exeunt in mysterium." — Arthur Machen "We think we know the world we live in, but we don’t—we very much don’t—and stories of the supernatural and strange, of the weird and the uncanny serve as a reminder of that." – from the Foreword by Brian J. Showers Uncertainties is an anthology of new writing—featuring contributions from Irish, British, and American authors—each exploring the idea of increasingly fragmented senses of reality. These types of short stories were termed "strange tales" by Robert Aickman, called "tales of the unexpected" by Roald Dahl, and known to Shakespeare’s ill-fated Prince Mamillius as ‘winter’s tales’. But these are no mere ghost stories. These tales of the uncanny grapple with existential epiphanies of the modern day, and when otherwise familiar landscapes become sinister and something decidedly less than certain . . . Contents "Foreword" Brian J. Showers "The Swing" Peter Bell "The Mighty Mr Godbolt" R.B. Russell "Then and Now" John Howard "The Ice Beneath Us" Steve Duffy "Closing Time" Emma Darwin "Homecraft" Rosalie Parker "Half-Light" Steve Rasnic Tem "Imago" Mat Joiner "The Edge of the World" Helen Grant "The Court of Midnight" Mark Samuels "What’s Out There?" Gary McMahon "Ruby" Adam Golaski "The Murky" V.H. Leslie "Love at Second Sight" Reggie Oliver "Biographical Notes" "Acknowledgments" Brian J. Showers has written short stories, articles, interviews, and reviews for magazines such as Rue Morgue, Supernatural Tales, Ghosts & Scholars, and Wormwood. His collection The Bleeding Horse won the Children of the Night Award in 2008. He is also the author of Literary Walking Tours of Gothic Dublin; and, with Gary W. Crawford and Jim Rockhill, he co-edited the Stoker Award-nominated Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The anthology Dreams of Shadow and Smoke, co-edited with Jim Rockhill, won the Ghost Story Award for best book in 2014. Showers also edits The Green Book, a journal devoted to Irish writers of the fantastic; and runs the Swan River Press, Ireland’s only publishing house dedicated to literature of the gothic, strange, and supernatural.

"A stone’s throw out on either hand / From that well-ordered road we tread" — Rudyard Kipling “What is happening all around us that is beyond the perception of our senses—and what happens when that perception changes?” – from the Introduction by Lynda E. Rucker Uncertainties is an anthology of new writing—featuring contributions from Irish, British, and American authors—each exploring the idea of increasingly fragmented senses of reality. These types of short stories were termed "strange tales" by Robert Aickman, called "tales of the unexpected" by Roald Dahl, and known to Shakespeare’s ill-fated Prince Mamillius as 'winter's tales'. But these are no mere ghost stories. These tales of the uncanny grapple with existential epiphanies of the modern day, and when otherwise familiar landscapes become sinister and something decidedly less than certain . . . Contents "Introduction" Lynda E. Rucker "Monica in the Hall of Moths" Matthew M. Bartlett "Warner’s Errand" S. P. Miskowski "Wyrd" Adam L. G. Nevill "Wanting" Joyce Carol Oates "Bobbo" Robert Shearman "Before I Walked Away" R. S. Knightley "Voices in the Night" Lisa Tuttle "It Could Be Cancer" Ralph Robert Moore "The Woman in the Moon" Tracy Fahey "TallDarkAnd" Julia Rust & David Surface "Ashes to Ashes" Scott West "The Golden Hour" Rosanne Rabinowitz "Biographical Notes" "Acknowledgments" Lynda E. Rucker has sold more than three dozen short stories to various magazines and anthologies, won the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Short Story, and is a regular columnist for UK horror magazine Black Static. Her first collection, The Moon Will Look Strange, was released in 2013 from Karoshi Books; and her second, You’ll Know When You Get There, was published by Swan River Press in 2016.

"We live in Gothic times." — Angela Carter The Gothic tale, disreputable as it is, can, more readily than the realist short story, provoke unease and jolt us from complacency. Uncertainties is an anthology series—featuring authors from Britain, America, Canada, Australia, and the Philippines—each exploring the concept of increasingly fragmented senses of reality. These types of short stories were termed “strange tales” by Robert Aickman, called “tales of the unexpected” by Roald Dahl, and known to Shakespeare’s ill-fated Prince Mamillius as “winter’s tales”. But these are no mere ghost stories. These tales of the uncanny grapple with existential epiphanies of the modern day, when otherwise familiar landscapes become sinister and something decidedly less than certain . . . Contents "Foreword" Timothy J. Jarvis "I Seen Her" Rebecca Lloyd "The Birds of Nagasaki" Lucie McKnight Hardy "Myling Kommer" Brian Evenson "The Pit" Kristine Ong Muslim "We Pass Under" Gary Budden "Hand Out" Anna Tambour "I Serve the Lambdon Worm" John Darnielle "A Novel (or Poem) About Fan, Aged 11 Years" or "The Zoo" Camilla Grudova "At the Museum" Marian Womack "These Words, Rising from Stone" Charles Wilkinson "Some Girls Wander by Mistake" Nadia Bulkin "Reflection, Refraction, Dispersion" Aliya Whiteley "Primal" D. P. Watt "Feeding the Peat" Claire Dean "Biographical Notes" "Acknowledgments" Timothy J. Jarvis is a writer and scholar with an interest in the antic, the weird, the strange. His first novel, The Wanderer, was published by Perfect Edge Books in 2014. His short fiction has appeared in The Flower Book, The Shadow Booth Volume 1, The Scarlet Soul, Murder Ballads, and Uncertainties I, among other places. He also writes criticism and reviews, and is co-editor of Faunus, the journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen.

"Surely all this is not without meaning." — Herman Melville “Ghost stories,” as Elizabeth Bowen observed, “are not easy to write—least easy now, for they involve more than they did.” But these twelve writers take up the challenge, each in their own way, with expert awareness of the genre’s limitless possibilities. Uncertainties is an anthology series—featuring authors from the island of Ireland, Canada, America, and the United Kingdom—each exploring the concept of increasingly fragmented senses of reality. These types of short stories were termed “strange tales” by Robert Aickman, called “tales of the unexpected” by Roald Dahl, and known to Shakespeare’s ill-fated Prince Mamillius as “winter’s tales”. But these are no mere ghost stories. These tales of the uncanny grapple with existential epiphanies of the modern day, when otherwise familiar landscapes become sinister and something decidedly less than certain . . . Contents "Foreword" Brian J. Showers "Three Sisters Bog" Eoin Murphy "First a Bird" Ramsey Campbell "To See the Sea" Sean Hogan "Everything We Say and All the Things We Do" Jason E. Rolfe "Not Even Legend" Alan Moore "Skeleton Day" Aislinn Clarke "Malady of Laughter" Inna Effress "Little Lives" Deirdre Sullivan "So Much Potential" Simon Strantzas "Away" Nina Antonia "Washed in the Blood of the Sun" John Langan "Trap" Carly Holmes "Contributor Notes" "Acknowledgments" Limited to 400 copies of which 100 were embossed and hand numbered; xiii + 209 pages; lithographically printed on 100 gsm paper; dust jacketed; illustrated Wibalin boards; sewn binding; head- and tail-bands