In honor of ‘Queer Horror’ month at DSM, we’re giving three lucky readers an opportunity to each win a signed copy of Lee Thomas’ new short story collection, In the Closet, Under the Bed. That’s right, we’ve got three autographed copies of this Bram Stoker Award nominated collection to give away to our loyal readers in this exclusive contest you won’t find anywhere else!

From the award-winning author of The Dust of Wonderland and Stained, as well as a writer hailed by Bentley Little as being "a worthy successor to Clive Barker", comes this new collection of literary dark fiction guaranteed to having you checking in the closet and under the bed before retiring for the night! Fifteen stories, nine original to this collection, and six previously published tales,  including “The Apiary of the White Bees” from the multi-award winning anthology Inferno (edited by Ellen Datlow) and “I’m You’re Violence” from the Bram Stoker Award-winning LGBT/horror anthology Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder).

Sarah Langan, award-winning author of Audrey’s Door and The Missing, says:

“From lyrical to poignant to funny to beautifully grotesque and back again, this smart, gleefully original collection showcases Lee Thomas’ Herculean talent. What I love most though, is that Thomas gets the purpose of horror: to cast light on the darkness, so that we readers recognize what is good, what is obscene, and what our society has confused between the two.”

To enter, send an email to DarkScribePress(at)aol(dot) com containing your name and contact information with “Lee Thomas Contest” in the subject line. Three lucky winners will be chosen at random from the entries received. Only one entry per email address will be accepted.

This contest has now ended.

Winner: Congratulations to Courtney Hunt of Ashburn, Virginia, who was chosen at random as our winning entry! Thank you to all who entered.

In celebration of DSM’s second anniversary, we’ve teamed up with the talented Alexandra Sokoloff to bring you this once-in-a-lifetime contest. Here’s a rare opportunity to win not one, not two, but THREE autographed books by this gifted dark scribe. That’s right: DSM is giving away signed hardcover copies of Sokoloff's entire catalog – The Harrowing, The Price, and The Unseen – to one very lucky reader!

About the books…

The Harrowing (St. Martin’s Press, 2007), Sokoloff's debut ghost story, was nominated for both a Bram Stoker award (horror) and an Anthony award (mystery), for Best First Novel. The book is based on real experiences from her high school and college years. The psychological undercurrents of the story are drawn from her experience teaching emotionally disturbed and incarcerated teenagers in the Los Angeles County prison system.

Her second novel of dark suspense, The Price (St. Martin’s Press, 2008), explores troubling questions of what people will do for love, or personal survival, in the eerie setting of a labyrinthine Boston hospital.

Her latest supernatural thriller, The Unseen (St. Martin’s Press, 2009), centers on a team of psychology researchers who decide to replicate a long-buried poltergeist investigation, and is based on the real-life ESP experiments and poltergeist studies conducted in the Rhine parapsychology department at Duke University.

For more about Alexandra Sokoloff and her work, visit her official author website.

To enter, simply send an email to DarkScribePress(at)AOL(dot)com with 2ND ANNIVERSARY CONTEST in the subject line. One lucky entry will be chosen at random. Only one entry per email address will be accepted.

This contest has now ended.

Winner: Congratulations to Robert Brouhard of Salem, Oregon, who was chosen at random as our winning entry! Thank you to all who entered.

Here’s an exclusive opportunity for one lucky DSM reader to win two signed books from dark scribe Gary Frank. With praise for his work from the likes of the legendary Jack Ketchum and Stoker Award-winner Jonathan Maberry, Frank is one of the newest talents ushering in a whole new generation of horror.

In this new contest, one lucky reader will win signed copies of both Forever You Will Suffer and Institutional Memory, which Frank personally signed for DSM during this year’s BookExpo America.

In Forever You Will Suffer, unsuspecting Rick Summers goes to the cemetery to visit the graves of his mother and sister, killed in a car accident years earlier. He has the cabbie wait for him. But when he gets back into the taxi, he doesn’t have the same driver. His new chauffeur is a re-animated corpse. And he’s about to take a drive into hell. The doors to hell open in the house of his ex-lover, Katarina, where he is delivered by his not-so-sweet-smelling driver. Rick learns that Katarina is missing and has been recently plagued by a stalker. That's just the beginning of the bad news. When the house changes right before their unbelieving eyes, taking them somewhere else, a horrifying mystery begins to unfold. At its heart is unrequited love. And Rick Summers. It seems that several lifetimes ago, Rick, then Thomas, spurned a woman named Abigail. Not a good idea. Because Abigail's great at holding a grudge, some of her best friends are demons, and she's dedicated to keeping a promise she made to Rick long, long ago. "Forever will I remember; forever will you suffer . . ."

Institutional Memory is a cautionary tale of the horrors of corporate life. Standing five-stories tall in a relatively small city, the Howard Phillips building is like any other building: it is secretly inhabited by an entity from another plane of existence that feeds off the energy of the people who work within its walls. Unfortunately, the life form inhabiting this particular building has been infected by a sort of virus of hate; as companies move out and its inhabitants dwindle this alien intelligence has chosen to use fear as a means of obtaining sustenance. It is up to Jon, Marcy, and Bettie to stop this haunting presence before it’s too late.

To enter, simply send an email to DarkScribePress(at)AOL(dot)com with GARY FRANK CONTEST in the subject line. One lucky entry will be chosen at random. Only one entry per email address will be accepted.

This contest has now ended.

For more information on Gary Frank, visit his official author website.

Winner: Congratulations to Tim Hatch of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who was chosen at random as our winning entry! Thank you to all who entered.

NYT bestselling thriller writerDavid Morrell heats up the summerwith his latest page-turner, The Shimmer!

When a high-speed chase goes terribly wrong, Santa Fe police officer Dan Page watches in horror as a car and gas tanker explode into flames. Torn with guilt that he may be responsible, Page returns home to discover that his wife, Tori, has disappeared.

Frantic, Page follows her trail to Rostov, a remote town in Texas famous for a massive astronomical observatory, a long-abandoned military base, and unexplained nighttime phenomena that drew onlookers from every corner of the globe. Many of these gawkers - Tori among them - are compelled to visit this tiny community to witness the mysterious Rostov Lights.

Without warning, a gunman begins firing on the lights, screaming 'Go back to hell where you came from,' the turns his rifle on the bystanders. A bloodbath ensues, and events quickly spiral out of control, setting the stage for even greater violence and death.

Page must solve the mystery of the Rostov Lights to save his wife. In the process, he learns that the decaying military base may not be abandoned at all, and that the government may have known about the lights for decades. Could these phenomena be more dangerous than anyone could have possibly imagined?

Dark Scribe Magazine, in association with Horror World, will be giving away an autographed copy of David Morrell's The Shimmer! To enter, simply send an email to DarkScribePress(at)AOL(dot)com with your name and contact email. Please put "SHIMMER CONTEST" in the subject line of your email. One lucky entry will be chosen at random. Please note that only one entry per email address will be entered.

This contest has now ended.

Winner: Congratulations to M. Ashwell of Houston, Texas, who was chosen at random as our winning entry! Thank you to all who entered.

Amongst the hustle and bustle of glittery Fremont Street, in the modern day city of Las Vegas, exists an 18th century vampire's den. But this is no ordinary vampire den; it houses vampires who are able to walk, undetected, amongst humans in the light of day. They accomplish this by absorbing human DNA when consuming their flesh; something that took centuries to perfect. Why would they go through the excruciating ordeal of mutating their bodies? Could walking in the daylight be that important? Not really, but getting the approval and admiration of the great Count Dracula is. The leader of the den is the bastard son of Count Dracula who is obsessed with his need to stand out as special in Dracula's eyes. What better way than to master the ability to be immune to the rays of the sun?

In order to provide a continuous supply of only the purest source of flesh, while keeping a low profile, the vampires breed their own humans. They get their supply of breeders by participating in a slave and prostitution trafficking business; abducting immigrants who are smuggling themselves into the country and whose absences are not as likely to be reported to the authorities and keeping the most desirable of these captives as breeders for food. But when they capture the childhood friend and bride-to-be of a martial arts master, it just may be the beginning of their end!

Filled with martial arts action, Vampires in Vegas by R. A. Lura puts a new twist on that age-old creature of lore, the vampire. One of the first titles by new publisher Raular Publishing, Vampires in Vegas promises to entertain both vampire fans and martial arts fans alike.

DSM is giving away an autographed copy of Vampires in Vegas, courtesy of Raular Publishing. To enter, simply send an email to DarkScribePress(at)AOL(dot)com with VAMPIRES IN VEGAS in the subject line. One lucky entry will be chosen at random.

This contest has now ended.