Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing: EP 474 - Horror and Speculative Fiction and Poetry with Colleen Anderson

EP 474 - Horror and Speculative Fiction and Poetry with Colleen Anderson

May 14, 2026

In this episode Mark interviews Canadian writer Colleen Anderson about writing horror and speculative fiction and poetry as well as non-fiction articles.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episode, a personal update, and a word from this episode's sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by Author Nation, being held in Las Vegas Nov 13 through 14, 2026

Author Nation Home Page 2026

Learn more about Author Nation and register at AuthorNation.live.

In the interview, Mark and Colleen talk about:

How they've known each other mostly online
Colleen's editing of the Tesseracts Seventeen anthology which Mark had a story in
The Canadian horror anthology that Mark and Colleen Anderson are going to be which is coming in December 2026
Colleen's forthcoming poetry collection (TO THE LAST ION) and the poetry collection she published last year
How Colleen uses such things as an instance of alien abduction and body horror in one of her poems to illustrate societal observations about things like the way we do body modifications or live within a world of stereotypes
The prevalence of body horror lately and how it's often about a loss of control
A look at universal monsters in a recent article Colleen wrote
A definition of what body horror is, and a discussion of the Bram Stoker Award winning novel Queen of Teeth
The days of paper manuscript submissions and the logistics involved in that
The open mic workshop that takes place at places like StokerCon for speculative and horror poetry
How Colleen decides what format an idea is going to take
Putting in her "poet brain" instead of her "fiction writer brain" in some instances
The methods Colleen uses to find markets to submit her writing to and how some of them work
Finding and applying for various grants for writers/artists/creatives
Advice Colleen would offer to writers wanting to submit their writing to various markets
Colleen's first experience doing a live reading
Some of the conferences Colleen is going to be attending in the next little while
Where people can find Colleen online

After the interview Mark reflects on the value of writing and submitting short pieces and the potential earning. He also talks about CanCon and the way different music/sounds can stir up emotions and deep memories and even things like Canadian pride.

Links of Interest:

Colleen Anderson has been widely published across eight countries, with works appearing in publications such as Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, Amazing, and Shadow Atlas. Rhysling Award winner for “Machine (r)Evolution” and a two-time winner of the SFPA’s dwarf poetry contest, she has been nominated for Pushcart, Elgin, Rhysling, and Dwarf Stars Awards. She is a Canada Council, BC Arts Council and Ladies of Horror Fiction grant recipient. Her poetry collections include The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams, I Dreamed a World, Weird Worlds, and Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins as well as two fiction collections A Body of Work and Embers Amongst the Fallen. Colleen freelances as an editor, and has served on the SFPA executive, as well as British Fantasy Award and Stoker juries. She lives in Vancouver, BC where she searches for mermaids.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0