magazine – elou carroll

An Ouroboros of a Sort in Cosmic Horror Monthly #53

For the next few posts, we will be doing a spot of time-travelling. Interspersed with any new-news, we will be chatting about the old-news that I missed during my Time Away^™. In this post, we’re travelling back to chilly November.

Back in chilly November, one of my strangest pieces of fiction was published between the eldritch pages of Cosmic Horror Monthly. Cosmic Horror Monthly is a strange publication filled with all sorts of odd and interesting things, and I am proud to have my own brand of weird in their catalogue.

And the cover art—the cover art. Ahem…

“An Ouroboros of a Sort” is a story about the perils of making connections—reaching out is easy, but letting go? That’s another matter entirely.

As is customary, to whet your appetite…

The woman at the window is impossible.

It is not that she is a woman nor that she stares so that her brow is fixed permanently downwards; nor is it that her hair is too black, too sleek, too shiny, but rather that she cannot be at the window in the first place. Sage lives on the thirteenth floor, and the window is much too high.

—ELOU CARROLL,
“AN OUROBOROS OF A SORT”,
COSMIC HORROR MONTHLY #53

If you’d like to read more, you can purchase Issue #53 here!

July 4, 2025

Cosmic Horror Monthly, magazine, news, Publication, updates
Clack Clack Clack published in Maudlin House

I’m not sure I quite understand how we’re already nearly in the fifth month of 2024. I don’t know where this year has gone thus far, but I do know that I have done a lot of writing, which is lovely. This includes finishing the Final Rewrite^™ of the final, really, really final draft of the novel. I have a number of comments and inline notes to address, and then that’s it. It’s done.

This is a terrifying prospect.

It has been mine and only mine since I first started writing it in 2019. One day soon, that might change. I say it again: terrifying.

In less terrifying news, I have a new publication to share!

My flash fiction “Clack Clack Clack” was released yesterday by the wonderful Maudlin House.

In this story, you will find: strained mother–daughter relationships, a completely normal typewriter, and a haunting. Maybe.

As is customary, a snippet…

In Etta’s wardrobe there is a typewriter. She can hear the clack clack clack ping! while she tries to sleep. In her dreams, its ribbons coil her up and smudge her skin midnight blue with ink—Mother always had preferred that colour.

If you’d like to read more, you can do so by clicking here!

April 26, 2024

magazine, news, Publication, updates
Black Tea, Cream Tea, Chocolate Tea, Blood published in Kaleidotrope

I had been holding on to this acceptance for such a long time, and then I went and missed updating my site when it came out. Terrible behaviour. Bad job, me. This story was accepted by the excellent Fred Coppersmith of Kaleidotrope all the way back in 2021! It’s one of my oldest short stories, and one of my favourites.

“Black Tea, Cream Tea, Chocolate Tea, Blood” began its life in March 2017 as a response to a prompt during a prompt challenge with my best friend and often-creative partner in crime, wherein we wrote a paragraph or two in response to a prompt and swapped at the end of the day. We came up with the prompts ourselves, and this one later became the title. It was a much shorter, and quite a different beast back then. It makes me want to go back and look at the rest, see if there’s anything else worth mining.

After considerable rewrites and a couple o’ thousand more words, this story grew, and I love it a lot.

You can expect:

☕️tea
☕️a good wife
☕️yearning
☕️retribution, or good, old-fashioned matricide

If that sounds like your cup of tea—I’m just going to let that linger for a moment… Just a little longer. Okay. Good—give it a read in the Autumn 2023 issue of Kaleidotrope!

December 8, 2023

Kaleidotrope, magazine, news, Publication, updates
Doewife now available to read on Corvid Queen

So it turns out, I could have written three blog entries this week. If you follow me on the big blue bird app, you will have seen a small flurry of news over the last few days. I’m going to savour it, though, and post about another exciting thing next week. Lovely. Now, onto our (ir)regularly scheduled update: I have some new writing out today!

This is a special one. I know I say that about all of them (and I believe it too), but Corvid Queen holds a special place in my heart. Ever since I started sending my work out into the world like tiny little ducklings with tinier, pleading eyes, I’ve been reading Corvid Queen. I love Corvid Queen. As soon as I discovered them, I knew I wanted to write something specifically for them.

“Doewife” is that story, and I really hope you love it as much as I do.

Read it now on Corvid Queen.

May 26, 2023

Corvid Queen, magazine, news, Publication, updates
You Row and You Burn now available in The Deadlands

Funny story—when I received this acceptance, I panicked. I panicked so much that I threw my phone across the room in shock. It is my favourite reaction to any acceptance that I have ever had. The acceptance was unexpected, and so too was the reaction. Fitting, really. Why did I react so violently? Well, The Deadlands is a dream publication. From the moment they opened their skeletal hands, I wanted to give them a hug.

This is my hug.

“You Row and You Burn” is a little story that features a gondola chase. Yep, you read that right. A gondola chase. You should read it, and you can do so here.

The Ferrymen are hunting you now. You have broken the rules.

Rule one: Everything dies, no exceptions.

Rule two: Pay the Ferryman.

Rule three: When you cross the Ocean Between, keep your extremities in the boat at all times. Do not—repeat, do not—leave the gondola.

Rule four: No one goes back.

— ELOU CARROLL, “YOU ROW AND YOU BURN”, THE DEADLANDS, ISSUE 22

March 9, 2023

magazine, news, Publication, The Deadlands, updates
Pre-order CloisterFox Zine Issue Two, featuring In Which Our Lovers Surely Drown

This is one of my favourite forthcoming publications for several reasons. Firstly, CloisterFox is a British publication. It always feels really special when my work is picked up in the UK—and my parents, wonderful and supportive as they are, like to purchase copies of my work, so it’s nice to save them a bit on shipping.

Secondly, CloisterFox is gorgeous. I was lucky enough to snag a copy of issue one, and it’s one of the single most stunning publications I’ve seen. I cannot wait to see what the interior of issue two looks like. If the cover is anything to go by, I am going to fall deeply in love.

Finally, this short story has one of my favourite titles. I love a good title, and this one has been haunting me for a while before its story emerged. “In Which Our Lovers Surely Drown” was slow to reveal itself, but once it did it became a story that I just couldn’t stop writing. I really hope you enjoy it.

You can expect:

an abandoned yacht
a journalism student
mysterious wet footprints
an uneaten banquet
poor mobile phone signal

If you want a beautifully designed selection of spooky, watery tales, you can pre-order a copy here.

Priya casts a glance at the darkening sky. There are no clouds and, with the sun now hidden away beneath the horizon, there is no colour either. Just a flat sheet of grey. The emptiness is oppressive. Somewhere along the coast, the beam of a lighthouse rounds into being, but Priya, Masud and the broken boats are too far away for the lighthouse keeper to see them.

We’re going to be out here all night.

—ELOU CARROLL, “IN WHICH OUR LOVERS SURELY DROWN”, CLOISTERFOX ZINE ISSUE TWO

October 15, 2022

CloisterFox, magazine, news, Publication, updates
You Hope, Through Shivers and Sweat now live in Haven Speculative issue five!

Nothing like a publication day to make feeling like death a little bit more bearable. As I’m feeling like death, this will only be a little update. It is apt then, I suppose, that today’s new story is a ghost story. Sort of. “You Hope, Through Shivers and Sweat” is a second-person, eerie sideshow of a story and I hope you love it as much as I do. I also love Haven Speculative, and I am so glad this story found a home there. The entire issue is excellent and just look at that cover. Stunning.

You follow dumbly. You want to rip your fingers away from his, experience be damned. You would apologise to your mother later, or pretend you stayed, pretend you witnessed wonderful things. But you can’t, you can’t even try, such is his power—his voice may be a door, but his grasp is the lock, and it is rusted shut. When you think to pull away, your hand only tightens around his, unbidden.

He pulls you to the next curtain and you hope, through shivers and sweat, that this one will be different.

— ELOU CARROLL, “YOU HOPE, THROUGH SHIVERS AND SWEAT”, HAVEN SPECULATIVE, ISSUE FIVE

July 13, 2022

Haven Speculative, magazine, news, Publication, updates
Holy Water Makes My Wicked Throat Smooth published in The Crow’s Quill

It’s the first day of a new month and I have a new story out in the wild! This story would not exist without this magazine, this theme and Damon Barrett Roe, one of the CQ editors, who tweeted about it at exactly the right time. I was supposed to be writing something else, but this strange little story sank its stone teeth into my skull and wouldn’t let me continue writing the other story until I’d given it words to eat.

“Holy Water Makes My Wicked Throat Smooth” is now live in The Crow’s Quill issue 12. In this story, terrible people who make terrible decisions are met with terrible consequences. It begins thus,

I am terrible, and because I am terrible, I have become stone.

If you like that and would like to read more, click here!

July 1, 2022

magazine, news, Publication, Quill & Crow Publishing House, The Crow's Quill, updates
A haunting in Parentheses, issue 13

I love it when a publication date sneaks up on me, and this one did just that. I knew Parentheses issue 13 was due out but I wasn’t sure when. Well, it turns out when is actually another word for today.

I don’t often submit poetry so it always feels a little bit miraculous when one gets accepted for publication. This particular poem, “A haunting”, had been haunting (see what I did there?) my poetry folder for a while, and I wasn’t sure I would even submit it anywhere.

I am so glad that I did.

You can read “A haunting” by clicking here, or, if you feel so inclined, you can purchase a print copy and see that gorgeous cover artwork in the flesh—or, rather, the page?

Either way, I hope you enjoy it!

June 6, 2022

magazine, news, Parentheses, Poetry, Publication, updates
Tatterdemalion appears in Luna Station Quarterly’s 50th issue

Hello, hello, hello. I am so pleased to be writing this post. When I first started seriously submitting my stories, I found Luna Station Quarterly and I fell in love. I watched them talk on some online panels and decided I wanted to see if I could sneak a little story through their door. I didn’t realise when I submitted that, if successful, I would end up in such a special issue!

“Tatterdemalion” is a story that started its life as a round one NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge entry and I was unsure it would ever find a home, though I love it dearly. Luckily, Jen and the team at LSQ loved it too!

I have included a little tiny snippet below for your enjoyment. If you like it, you can read the rest here for free! Alternatively, LSQ is available in print and ebook.

I can’t wait to dig into the rest of the issue.

Not so long ago, a cruel wind swept through the little village, up the little hill and in through the door of the farmhouse—which had always been swinging to and fro with villagers and their children, farm cats and their kittens, and the odd strange little visitor from the woods nearby. It brought with it a fever and, before it went, scooped her husband up and carried him far away.
She buried him beneath the apple tree.

— ELOU CARROLL, “TATTERDEMALION, OR OF APPLE BOUGH AND STRAW”
LUNA STATION QUARTERLY, ISSUE 050

In other news, Drabbledark Volume II is now available for purchase! If you like tiny stories, Drabbledark has 100 all-new 100-word stories for your enjoyment.

Happy reading!

June 1, 2022

Drabbledark II, Luna Station Quarterly, magazine, news, Publication, updates