We Go Deeper Into the Dark.
ABOUT OF INK AND SHADOWS
A Literary Magazine of Horror, Dark Fantasy & Thriller-Mystery
We Go Deeper Into the Dark.
Of Ink and Shadows is a writer-first literary magazine dedicated to horror, dark fantasy, and thriller-mystery fiction. We publish short fiction — flash fiction, short stories, and novelettes — from emerging and first-time writers alongside established voices in dark fiction.
We exist because great dark stories deserve a home. Not just the stories from writers with long publication histories and prestigious credits — the stories from writers at the very beginning of their journey into the dark. The ones who have never submitted anywhere before. The ones who have been writing in private, not sure if their work is good enough.
It is. Send it to us.
What We Publish
We publish three categories of dark fiction:
Horror — speculative, atmospheric, literary. The kind that builds slowly and stays with you. We are not interested in gore for its own sake. We are interested in dread — the horror that felt true.
Dark Fantasy — secondary worlds, mythic retellings, fairy tales with teeth. The darker the better. If the magic costs something real, we want it.
Thriller-Mystery — psychological suspense, noir, crime with shadows. The locked room, the unreliable narrator, the truth that’s worse than the lie.
We accept flash fiction (100–1,000 words), short stories (1,001–7,500 words), and novelettes (7,501–17,500 words). Submissions are free. We accept simultaneous submissions.
Who We Publish
Of Ink and Shadows was built specifically for emerging and first-time writers. If this is your first submission anywhere, you are exactly who we built this for.
We do not weight publication history. We weight the story. A debut writer with a stunning piece of dark fiction will always beat an established name with a mediocre one. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and it is the promise we make to every writer who submits to us.
How We Publish
Selected fiction is published online at ofinkandshadows.com on a weekly Tuesday schedule. The best stories from each submission window are selected for our quarterly print anthology, available for purchase through Amazon.
Accepted writers retain copyright. All rights revert automatically after a six-month exclusivity window. We never own your work — we simply have the privilege of being the first to share it with the world.
About the Founder
Of Ink and Shadows was founded in May 2026 by Bunny Cates, a business operations and marketing professional based in western Kentucky with a lifelong passion for dark fiction.
Bunny spent nearly a decade doing editorial and virtual assistant work for authors, and has been quietly reconnecting with creative writing alongside building her consulting firm, BrownSmith Consulting. Of Ink and Shadows is the intersection of both worlds — operational instincts and a love of dark fiction coming together to build something real.
The magazine was conceived on May 7, 2026, the same day Bunny submitted her first-ever flash fiction piece — a 100-word drabble called “Free Me” — to her first literary magazine. The experience of being a first-time writer navigating submission guidelines and genre requirements sparked the idea: what if there was a publication specifically designed to welcome writers at that exact moment?
Of Ink and Shadows is that publication.
Key Dates
- Founded: May 2026
- Inaugural Submission Window: October 31 – November 27, 2026
- First Stories Publish: January 1, 2027
- Submission Windows: Approximately every two to three months
- Response Time: Within 90 days of window close
Of Ink and Shadows is a publication of BrownSmith Company, LLC.
Go deeper into the dark.