Not Deer Magazine

22/11/2021

Here are the Top 3 winners of our "Create-a-Cryptid" contest! Congratulations to Tom Coombe, Jae Kent, and David Busboom:

notdeermaga day ago4 minAlways More, Jae Kent2nd Place Winner Of The "Create-a-Cryptid" Contest Breath. Quiet, damp, steady. Close. When the Grazzle comes for her, she should have...

01/10/2021

We’re not on Facebook often, but we use Twitter religiously. If you’d like to stay up-to-date on our content and all the fun stuff we’ve got going on, give us a follow !

01/10/2021

Some of our new designs! Find them and many more on our Redbubble page!

01/10/2021

Happy Halloween 1st! We've added some new sticker designs to Redbubble. If you like pastels or vintage Halloween decorations, these might be for you 😏:

NotDeerMag is an independent artist creating amazing designs for great products such as t-shirts, stickers, posters, and phone cases.

16/09/2021

Contributor Jack Bedell made Nightfire Books Best Horror Short Fiction and Poetry for August 2021 with his poem “Swamp Lesson”, which was also the first place winner of our “In the Woods Somewhere” contest!

Let us guide you through the dark corridors of the best short horror fiction and poetry the internet has to offer in this new monthly series.

15/09/2021

It's been a while since we posted to Facebook, but we're still publishing content on our website! One of our recent works of poetry, Rick Hollon's "Honey-eater" is delicious and nauseating:

CW: bodily injury including broken bones, scarring Honey-eater marked my sunburn shins split and granite battered scratches on broken wrist and ulna carried me teeth to sternum, pierced a bundle of snapping twigs I sprouted in fireweed, snowmelt ran staircase down thighbone scar my tongue in butterf...

15/07/2021

The Not Deer editors were lucky enough to get the chance to answer some questions with our friends Katherine Silva! Check out the interview on her website:

Hello my avid dark fiction lovers! I have the wonderful distinction of getting to interview NOT DEER MAGAZINE today. You may have heard their buzz on Twitter as they post short but brilliant sparks…

15/07/2021

So happy to announce our collaboration with Katherine Silva, a dark fiction writer from Maine. Information on Katherine's upcoming novel, "The Wild Dark", can be found on the Promotions tab on our site! Check it out and be sure to keep an eye out for the preorder drop:

Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Raleigh has lost everything: her job as a police detective, her partner, her fiancé, and her peace of mind. After a month of solitude at a cabin in the woods, she finally feels as though she’s ready to move on.

12/05/2021

We're on hiatus until May 17th, but we're still putting out content! Read the latest pieces from our contributors here:

01/05/2021

"Full Moon Motel" by Claudia Lundahl is an eerie piece of flash fiction:

CW: implied su***de At the intersection of three dirt roads there is a gas station. Inside the gas station the walls are paneled in oak and there is a full bar complete with some top shelf liquor. You’ve never seen a gas station quite like this. The attendant is dressed in royal blue coveralls spe...

01/05/2021

"Ningyo" by Tashi Saheb-Ettaba is a personal take on the Japanese yōkai of the same name:

CW: mild blood I just want to be left alone. To roam wherever I please as I sing my song. But men like you keep coming after me. You assume I’m some exotic animal that’s easy to dominate because of my soft voice and delicate scales. If I don’t give into your orders, you tear me apart and eat m...

01/05/2021

Read "Equinox" by Callan Latham here:

My god answers me in a fit of teeth. It’s almost midnight, past the yellowing of the horizon. Grass not yet bare enough to collect dew, neighbors turning off lights. Dreams clatter, filling my empty spaces like small porcelain dishes. She asks me if there are opals in my ears. I draw the curtains ...

28/04/2021

Who lives upstairs? You hear them, but have you ever seen them? Coldly unsettling, "Upstairs" by Nathan Breakenridge is an excellent piece of psychological horror:

The rain had started sometime in the afternoon. Michael sat in his car and stared across the road at the tenement door, waiting for the rain to stop. It didn’t, so he pulled his jacket tight around him and set off jogging. The wind harried him as he went, shouted after him as he shut the door at h...

27/04/2021

Ever wondered what a semi-cannibalistic child living in a post-apocalyptic Australia would get up to? Wonder no longer because Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin put it into words for you:

CW: blood, human remains I get to know the world long after it has ended. The lunar cycle is the first thing I learn, waiting for Selene to bloom full-bodied in her bough, so that I can see the way. It isn't safe to go out in daylight, the way the people did before. Selene is what Ma called the moon...

26/04/2021

"Rural Patricide" by K. Blair draws on classic elements of folk horror. Read their poem here:

CW: religious horror, threats of violence, threat of human sacrifice He takes me to the corn field where the sky is so vast it could swallow you and the corn so high I feel like a child again escorted by my father to a makeshift altar I’ve always hated my lower back being touched perfect place to ...

26/04/2021

"Catamenia" by Louise Mather sinks its hands into blood and ritual. Read it here:

At night, the deer at the window of the cottage. Her eyes share death with you; the child back in the woods, fetching water and blood. You bathe in mud, logs sequenced to burn - for summer may be too far. What can you lay out for her to feed on but mahogany, miry figs, catamenia? Rituals, anarchism,...

26/04/2021

"Inside Your Mind" by Helena Pantsis is a piece of psychological surrealism that you should check out if you're in the mood to be unsettled:

CW: gore, death, violence Abbey pulled the sheets tight around the mattress. Not a crease marred the sleek flat plains of the freshly made bed. It was white, dry, folded deliberately so each corner tucked itself, smooth, over every rounded edge of bed. She drew back the curtains; light fell in beams...

23/04/2021

There's nothing quite like a(n) (un)dead deer story. Much love to Arah McManamna for gifting us with "Cervidae":

You don’t know it yet, but early in the morning, the dead deer will lift their broken bodies from where they’ve fallen. It won’t matter if they’ve been bounced off a car or littered with arrows. Their vast eyes, if they have any left, will blink, and they will rise. Tomorrow, if you pay any ...