For the last month and a half I have had the pleasure of working on a Kickstarter project with the wonderful folks at Artemisia’s Axe and The Corpse’s Tongue Publishers. Jinx and Jonas of Artemisia’s Axe are an inspirationally creative partnership who have founded not only their own independent micro-press, but also an online store called The Haunted Bouncy Castle. You may know The Haunted Bouncy Castle from many of my Instagram stories where I share my favourite mug: ‘I Eat Transphobes For Breakfast’ (It’s HUGE and holds so much coffee!)

I worked with Artemisia’s Axe last year when they did a Twitter shout out during Pride month for queer creators to submit work to their anthology ‘Neon Horror: An Anthology of Terrors by Creators From the LGBTQIA+ Community’. I ended up submitting a new piece which I drew especially for the publication, ‘Death and Her Bride’ and was lucky enough to be included.

The first edition print run of ‘Neon Horror’ was successfully funded on Crowdfunder, with a large portion of these funds going to Mermaids, in the UK and The Tie Campaign. A large reason that they ran this campaign, however, was to offer more financial compensation to the artists and writers who had taken part in the project. Whilst they had already paid us an initial (and competitive with many larger press anthologies) sum for our work, they chose to run their crowd-funding not only as a way to showcase the creators included in the project, but also further pay them what they felt their time, effort and passion was worth. So when they came to me for help with their next crowd-funded campaign I did not want to say no.

Sadly, I had to. I had just lined up the Wild Mystic Oracle Deck for the new year, as well as a number of sketchcard sets which I was due to start as soon as my drawing arm was recovered from an injury. But when I eventually became free, as luck would have it, it was only a month to go until Pride month – the exact time that Artemisia’s Axe were hoping to launch their new Kickstarter project.

They got back in contact and I started to help them in whatever way I could based on my own experiences running my own Kickstarters in the past. In that time I saw excerpts and illustrations from their new book ‘Skulls and Spells: An Anthology of Horror by Creators From the LGBTQI2SA+ Community’ which got me very excited for the new project and also showed me how much the micro-press had improved over the last year.

The caliber of writers and artists involved in this book is of such a high quality, and the previews I have seen show a wide range of stories, themes and important topics which they have all covered expertly in their horrific creations. But most important is the passion of the creators behind this project. While I have been there to help craft schedules, make videos, spread tweets and add graphics to their project page – Jinx and Jonas are the heart and soul of this project and their excitement for it is contagious.

It is vitally important for marginalised voices to have a place in the horror community because so often we are the subject of real life horrors. Horror for us is a cathartic way to express our frustration with the world at large. It is a tool to foster conversation and inspire action for positive change, which our world needs. – Jinx Peregrine

As queer, neuro-divergent individuals, they know firsthand how difficult the publishing industry can be to navigate – and they are constantly striving to make a safe space for queer creators which lifts their voices, pays them fairly and includes them in the horror, literary and arts community.

‘Skulls and Spells: A Queer Horror Anthology’ will be running on Kickstarter until the 22nd July 2021 and I hope you will take a moment to visit the page and check out their story. The book is bound to be an un-missable anthology to add to your horror collection and one I am very much looking forward to reading cover to gory cover. You can find the project here.