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DarkWinter Press
Where Can You Find Our Books?
All of the books published by DarkWinter Press are available on Amazon worldwide in both paperback and e-version for Kindle, as well as through Ingram Spark. For bulk purchases/discounts, please contact DarkWinter directly at darkwinterlit@gmail.com
New Release! Consumed by Karolina Bednarek!
CONSUMED invites readers to explore what we take in—and what takes hold of us. Through four progressive sections: Nature, Nurture, Distractions, and Peace, Karolina reflects on the intersections of observation, emotion, and curiosity. Each poem is paired with an original photograph, offering an additional lens to interpret the everyday. Guided by experimentation and a spirit of wonder, this collection encourages quiet reflection on life’s tenderness.
New Release! Leaning in the same direction by Bill Garvey!
Leaning in the same direction is a poetic portrait of the people and places that make Canada a proud nation. From Toronto's subways to Nova Scotia's coast, it is a collection of poetry focused on the Canadian experience intended to unite people as much as poetry can. Leaning in the same direction looks at Canada and Canadians from a poet's point of view during difficult times.
New Release! Hopper, a poetry collection, by Steve Denehan!
A collection of poems based on the endlessly evocative paintings of Edward Hopper.
On the Giller Craving CanLit list! The Book of Maggie by Stephanie Wyeld
The Book of Maggie is an unapologetic implication of the damaging patriarchy within the fundamentalist Christian church, told through the voice of Maggie, a girl finding herself in the middle of it all. She tries to be perfect, as perfect as her sister, as perfect as her father tells her to be, but failure seems to follow her all her life. With a nod to the deletion of the Mary Magdalene recently found by scholars in the oldest existing biblical text, The Book of Maggie tells a story of the coming-of-age of one woman, living in recent times, who does her best to be what the men in her fundamentalist Christian family want her to be. Can she escape or will they disappear her, too?
New Release! Conflict: Mars by Gordon K. Jones!
In the mid 2100s, a new mineral, Expelerite, is discovered on Mars, capable of producing an abundance of clean energy. Soon, Mars is settled. The European Federation and United North America, are the first to arrive. The Zhong arrive years later, taking over an expanse of territory on the opposite side of the planet, but soon discover it lacks the abundance of Expelerite that the other factions possess. Their response? Attack and conquer the UNA.
Squadron Commanders Neco Cooper and Martian-born Zully Candor are part of the UNA’s military space force. When the Zhong attack, they and the rest of UNA’s squadrons are tasked with defending Mars Station, the UNA military installation above the planet, as well as the Artemis City below.
The two commanders, when not fighting the enemy from space, are busy back on the station trying to start an exciting new life together. First though, they must protect the station and the planet, and defeat the enemy.
Squadron Commanders Neco Cooper and Martian-born Zully Candor are part of the UNA’s military space force. When the Zhong attack, they and the rest of UNA’s squadrons are tasked with defending Mars Station, the UNA military installation above the planet, as well as the Artemis City below.
The two commanders, when not fighting the enemy from space, are busy back on the station trying to start an exciting new life together. First though, they must protect the station and the planet, and defeat the enemy.
On the Giller Craving CanLit list! Dark Thoughts & Other Stories by Hope Thompson
Dark Thoughts & Other Stories is a collection of eleven stories linked by a noir aesthetic; characters are cornered, caught and facing their own demise. An advice columnist receives a letter from a murderer and discovers she is the next intended victim. A drifter obsessed with the exploits of a serial killer falls in love, and into a trap. A painter contemplates her final brush stroke—with death. Set on city streets from the 1930s and 50s, to the present day and beyond, these stories bristle with the grit of noir. While some are lighter, and others darker, all are about people forced by circumstance to escape their situation—or die trying.
The Wreckhouse by Christopher Butt
What awaits you as you travel along a dark stretch of highway on the southwest coast of Newfoundland? Horror, strangeness and dark humour. This legendary road shares the same aura of uneasiness as the macabre tales in this collection. So, on a dark winter’s night, are you prepared to travel through the Wreckhouse?
Harold Koenig by Christopher Klassen
Harold Koenig lives in a small rooming house. Financially secure, his purpose in life consists solely in observing his surroundings and trying to discern and record philosophical truths. He is a genius and an outcast and sometimes a challenge to tolerate. And while Harold is mostly a kind man, he’s not always what he seems. Occasionally his insecurities cause him to react erratically when he feels he or others have been wronged. The deeper he retreats into his own head, the more he starts to question. "Is philosophy, are my efforts, nothing but an intellectual pastime?" he asks in his journal. "Perhaps I'm only filling blank paper and using up my days." As his doubts about life and truth grow, his grasp on reality seems to fade. Ultimately, what he thinks he experiences may be nothing but his own delusions.
The Ballad of Omega Brown by Tom Vaine
A mercenary and fighter adrift in the galaxy, Omega takes life as it comes. No job too far flung, no problem that can't be solved. Omega moves from planet to planet, completing contracts, fighting monsters, and making a fair paycheque along the way. From the jungles of Krildar, where he meets his towering new bodyguard Hoonra, to the junk-fields of Telleria, there's little of the galaxy Omega hasn't explored.
That is, until Omega and Hoonra take a job working for The Galactic Syndicate, and stumble across an ancient and eldritch curse. Suddenly, even the most remote corners of the galaxy are no longer safe. As Omega and Hoonra are drawn deeper and deeper into a battle they have no way to avoid, both will have to choose who, and what, they will become. The fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance.
That is, until Omega and Hoonra take a job working for The Galactic Syndicate, and stumble across an ancient and eldritch curse. Suddenly, even the most remote corners of the galaxy are no longer safe. As Omega and Hoonra are drawn deeper and deeper into a battle they have no way to avoid, both will have to choose who, and what, they will become. The fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance.
little town blues by Paul Robert Mullen
little town blues documents Paul Robert Mullen walking the crumbling streets of post-everything Britain with his eyes wide open. This poetry is rooted in places most people overlook: towns running on fumes, where shop shutters speak louder than slogans and silence says everything.
Beyond Hover by Janet Frances Lopes
After escaping a shadow invasion that swept them from their parents’ arms and took them from their home in the Orfa Dimension, Ben fights his own tormenting shadows in his new home on Earth. Travels to the Myrra Dimension trap him in a retro-return that locks him in a replay of the same event over and over. Time wasted prevents Ben from finding his lost twin, Lacey, who's gone missing.
Grace Before the Fall by Geri Lipschultz
Grace Before the Fall is a reminder that every girl has a little Joan of Arc in her wheelhouse. It is the time of the hostage crisis in Iran, and in New York City, it is long before the fall of the towers, just before AIDS has found itself a name, although young men are mysteriously dying, and Grace Rosinbloom is inheriting their furniture. In Geri Lipschultz’s virtual love letter to the metropolis, Grace—a former actor, a former grad student, currently a civil servant by default—becomes a lover with a mission, an accidental activist whose search for love and meaning opens up doors to her dreamworld. Here is a picaresque novel that veers into magic realism as it enters the mind of a woman called upon to take a stand. Although set in pre-9/11 NYC, the novel's concerns still hold: environmental corruption, the threat of nuclear war, the rise of whistle blowing, and cyber hacking.
A Thousand Miles of Road by Joseph Kraus
A Thousand Miles of Road is a collection of eight stories, including three novelettes, which take us through the lives of everyday people whose journey is upended by the existence of another.
Melanie escapes her ruthless husband the only definitive way possible, and from behind the counter of a jewelry store years later, she helps a man take the same dark path out of his own prison.
Maggie has a disease growing inside her and is forced to search through the abuse of her childhood to find her own escape from what is killing her.
When Mary comes to, a hundred miles from where she was the night before she must find her way back to where she started, if that place even exists anymore.
In these and other stories, Joseph Kraus explores the duress of being alive through characters whose struggles feel like a thousand miles of hard road.
Melanie escapes her ruthless husband the only definitive way possible, and from behind the counter of a jewelry store years later, she helps a man take the same dark path out of his own prison.
Maggie has a disease growing inside her and is forced to search through the abuse of her childhood to find her own escape from what is killing her.
When Mary comes to, a hundred miles from where she was the night before she must find her way back to where she started, if that place even exists anymore.
In these and other stories, Joseph Kraus explores the duress of being alive through characters whose struggles feel like a thousand miles of hard road.
Quantum by Irina Moga
Quantum is a collection of poems meant to anchor readers in light-heartedness and serenity. In Quantum, the author moves us through layers of sensorial cues and a discourse whose ultimate goal is healing - an everyday catharsis for life’s tough moments, held in balance by the power of words.
Sweet Creatures: A Trilogy of Terror by Frank Paul Beghin
‘Sweet Creature’
It’s been a year since Katherine’s death, and the hole in Sam’s heart is bigger than ever. Sam’s true love is gone, and not even the thing in the attic can bring her back.
‘Light Years from Home’
Driving home from work late one night during a thick fog, Charlie Templeton encounters a strange light that whisks him to an alien world.
‘Charlene’
Alex blames himself for Charlene’s death, but now he’s prepared to face Heaven and Hell to bring his girlfriend back.
It’s been a year since Katherine’s death, and the hole in Sam’s heart is bigger than ever. Sam’s true love is gone, and not even the thing in the attic can bring her back.
‘Light Years from Home’
Driving home from work late one night during a thick fog, Charlie Templeton encounters a strange light that whisks him to an alien world.
‘Charlene’
Alex blames himself for Charlene’s death, but now he’s prepared to face Heaven and Hell to bring his girlfriend back.
The Professional Mourner by Neil Randall
When Milica Stankovic is born, she won’t stop crying. The neighbours complain, her father is demoted at work, and the family is treated like pariahs. Regardless, her parents see something special in their daughter, how she seems possessed of a rare gift: to feel other people’s pain and suffering as if it’s her own.
When her father becomes friendly with a wily confidence trickster, they dream up a plot to hire out Milica’s services as a professional mourner. At the many funerals she attends, Milica expresses such raw emotion that it reduces the other mourners to fits of sobs, enabling them to finally release all their bottled-up grief, even for those who might not deserve it.
When word of Milica’s abilities reaches a high-ranking government official, Dušan Srna, he desperately wants to obtain her services. Their ailing leader is not only gravely ill, but his popularity has never been lower. If the Party can organise an emotionally-charged state funeral, Srna might just be able to uplift the nation’s spirits---but are his motives honorable?
When her father becomes friendly with a wily confidence trickster, they dream up a plot to hire out Milica’s services as a professional mourner. At the many funerals she attends, Milica expresses such raw emotion that it reduces the other mourners to fits of sobs, enabling them to finally release all their bottled-up grief, even for those who might not deserve it.
When word of Milica’s abilities reaches a high-ranking government official, Dušan Srna, he desperately wants to obtain her services. Their ailing leader is not only gravely ill, but his popularity has never been lower. If the Party can organise an emotionally-charged state funeral, Srna might just be able to uplift the nation’s spirits---but are his motives honorable?
Peeling Apples by Alan Parry
Martyn is ten years old, navigating a world of routines and quiet mysteries. His days unfold between school, his Nana Mavis’s small, familiar house, and the blurred presence of his overworked parents. But it’s the house next door that draws his attention, the one with the overgrown garden, the untidy porch, and Mrs. Joyce, a woman who seems set apart from everything and everyone. Peeling Apples is a meditation on childhood, loss, and the quiet imprints people leave on each other’s lives. Lyrical and intimate, it captures the bittersweet moment when a boy begins to understand the weight and inevitability of love.
Smatterings of Cerulean by Susan Richardson
Smatterings of Cerulean is a collection of short poems by Susan Richardson, accompanied by the photographs of Ken Whytock. It is a collection, essentially, about love. In these poems, Richardson explores the trajectory of the human experience, and how in all its shapes, textures and colours, love is at the root of the myriads of internal landscapes people travel. There is darkness and loss in these pages, yes, but there is also strength, fierce feeling, and ultimately, hope. These poems are the fullness of life crafted into small spaces, a blending of intense emotion and compelling images that tell a story of what it means to love.
Ghost Bride of Gum San by JF Garrard
In 1869, Pearl Ming Ju Wong and her sister, skilled yokai demon hunters, are sold to tong gangs in San Francisco by their gambling-addicted father. During their journey to America, they are thrown overboard as ghost brides for dead miners. Pearl is rescued by the Asgard alliance who task her with retrieving a piece of the legendary Crystal Armour from an all-girls convent in exchange for
her freedom.
However, she secretly plans to use this mission to gain information about her lost sister through a deal with an octopus yokai. This sets Pearl on a path where she must choose between saving her sister or protecting the people of Gum San from destruction. This thrilling xuanhuan adventure is a fascinating blend of Eastern and Western concepts rooted in Chinese Taoism and European Christianity.
her freedom.
However, she secretly plans to use this mission to gain information about her lost sister through a deal with an octopus yokai. This sets Pearl on a path where she must choose between saving her sister or protecting the people of Gum San from destruction. This thrilling xuanhuan adventure is a fascinating blend of Eastern and Western concepts rooted in Chinese Taoism and European Christianity.
Dantalion Is A Quiet Place by Mathew Gostelow
This dark, twisting novella introduces a cast of bizarre characters beset by bleak and mysterious events, weirded, warped, and deformed by trauma. Through letters, diaries, court transcripts, and other artefacts assembled by a wayward academic, Dantalion is a Quiet Place tells the uncanny story of a town lost in time.
Vigils of the Night Office by Paul Edward Costa
The title Vigils of the Night Office comes from The Rule of St. Benedict, a book which outlines the duties for Benedictine monks. Documents describe the vigils of the Night Office as such: “The Office at night, right before dawn is a very ancient monastic prayer time…with the goal of breaking up the night and sanctifying those hours.” This collection evokes the idea of poems as private prayers speaking to both individual experiences as well as more general cultural themes. These vigils reflect on a variety of subjects using accessible, narrative forms which emphasise speech’s musicality while investigating large, powerful, and nefarious structures in our society.
Welcome To This Side Of Midnight by Jonathan R. Nightshade
Do you remember a time when vampires were the bad guys?
In the spirit of Stephen King’s seminal works such as Nightmares and Dreamscapes and Night Shift, this debut collection from Jonathan R. Nightshade is a trip into a world seen through the eyes of the vampire, where the undead walk among us, hunting the living, their only concerns being the need to feed and to hide from daylight—and they rather enjoy being exactly what they are, thank you very much.
In the spirit of Stephen King’s seminal works such as Nightmares and Dreamscapes and Night Shift, this debut collection from Jonathan R. Nightshade is a trip into a world seen through the eyes of the vampire, where the undead walk among us, hunting the living, their only concerns being the need to feed and to hide from daylight—and they rather enjoy being exactly what they are, thank you very much.
Fringes of Grey by Lene McLeod
Fringes of Grey is a collection of dark stories that explores themes of aging, death, grief, the supernatural, and spaces of liminality present on the fringes of the everyday. These stories will make you question things as ordinary as frost patterns on windows, pedestrian tunnels, craft beads, and bathroom stalls. There is no escape—there are fringes of grey everywhere and this collection reveals some of their strange tales.
Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through by Brian Michael Barbeito
Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through is a collection of prose poems and photography by Canadian poet Brian Michael Barbeito. The writings combine the themes of the natural world and metaphysics in a braided and interwoven journey seen through the phantasmagoric lens of a world that is both physical and spiritual. They are accompanied by vivid photographs taken by the author.
Knives All Blade by Bojana Stojcic
Knives All Blade is a full-length collection of flash fiction and short stories which, although covering different topics—from motherhood, gender roles and peer pressure to relationship to death, religion and PTSD—are similar in the recurring theme of family ties, and loss and fears the protagonists face, as well as the overwhelming “feel(ing) like he could disappear, and no one would ever know.” Blurring the line between reality and fantasy, with most stories written in a first-person narrative, these character-driven journeys are universal stories that investigate the complexities of human action and relationships, and (almost) inevitable falls.
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