ERIN KEATING
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Short Fiction

Forthcoming

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  • ​Violent Delights and Midsummer Dreams (Quill & Crow Publishing House): "Follow Darkness Like a Dream"
  • ​Kaleidotrope: "Time Between Her Teeth"​
  • Cosmic Horror Monthly: "Want Like Raw Silk"

Piece by Piece

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Aseptic & Faintly Sadistic: An Anthology of Hysteria Fiction
Ed. Jolie Toomajan | Cosmic Horror Monthly
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"In Lodestone, there were two things to fear: the dark and Desmond White."


Proceeds will benefit the Chicago Abortion Fund
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Cover art by Mary Esther Munoz

As Mother Said

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Tales to Terrify
Changing Seasons Flash Fiction Contest | 
Winner
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The townsfolk didn’t suffer talk of ghosts, but few dared pass Mother’s house after dark."
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The Word Hoarder

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Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things
March 2023
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"The English language has five thousand words. A long time ago, before I and the Third Generation were born, there were half a million words in the English language. ... I am a word hoarder, tasked with preserving the words the world has forgotten."

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Cover art by Choong Yoon

Deserving of Warmth

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Bleak Midwinter Vol. II: Solstice Light
Ed. Damon Barret Roe & Cassandra L. Thompson | 
Quill & Crow Publishing House
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Up in the mountains, the cold will lick your bones clean. No matter how heavy your coat or how warm your hearth, a stray wind will creep like a breath over the back of your neck. And each year, when the nights are at their darkest and the snow is at its deepest, when it seems spring may never come, our tales turn to monsters."
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Bitter Girl, Hunger

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Tales to Terrify
Episode 572
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"The ground has teeth and greedy hands. It rumbles with a hollow, hungry ache for the plump peach flesh and corn silk hair of girls." 


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Everyone's Got a Little Devil in Them

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It Was All a Dream: An Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right
Ed. Brandon Applegate | Hungry Shadow Press
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"In the winter, the Devil’s cloven hooves bore deep tracks in the crusted-over snow. In the spring, the Devil’s claws slashed gouges into saplings. In the summer, the Devil’s winged silhouette rose from the mist in the cranberry bog. And I’d keep my head down and my mouth shut, so much like a mouse that I could never be mistaken for a devil. Almost never.

Except for those gray nights in late October, when the moon hung low and ripe, and the whole world seemed to crackle—those were the most dangerous times. Because those nights, people did more than tell stories about the Devil. 
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They tried to catch it. "
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Cover art by Evangeline Gallagher

Dance the Sky Bright

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Medusa Tales
Issue 2 | July/August 2022​
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"When the star had descended two days ago, it had pulled the night sky down with it. A veil had been cast over the mountainside—the sun did not rise, the wind did not blow, and anyone who tried to leave through the narrow rocky pass was lost to the shadows. The star would return to its seat in the sky—bringing back the sun and wind and light—only when the townsfolk offered it a young woman for a dance. And the star had chosen Esther as its dance partner." 
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Discounts for the End of Days

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The Vanishing Point
Issue 4 | Summer 2022​
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"It’s hard to tell, those first few days, that the apocalypse is coming. If Tony had known, he would have raised the price of toilet paper sooner."
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Cover art by Julian Aguilar Faylona

Chrysanthemum

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Haven Speculative
Issue 3: The Dry Issue | March 2022​
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"Mama didn’t weep when the world Dried Up. When the smoke choked the sun. When the sky turned orange. When the birds died mid-flight. Mama didn’t weep when the world Dried Up.

But she’s weeping now."
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Cover art by Saleha Chowdhury 

The Future in a Wash Basin

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Metaphorosis Magazine
March 2022 Issue

​"This was the land where her mother and her gran had practiced their craft. This was the land where her own daughters would learn their arts. Even though the town seemed to be growing smaller each day, she couldn’t bear to leave Schull Harbor and the bones of the women who came before her. This land was her inheritance.​"​​
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"The Future in a Wash Basin" also appears in Metaphorosis Books's Reading 5X5 x3: Changes anthology, ed. B. Morris Allen.
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Cover art by Carol Wellart

Sleeping Giants

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Luna Station Quarterly 
Issue 49 | March 2022​
Originally published in The Gateway Review
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"Annie Warren spoke in tongues – every time she opened her mouth garbled sound flooded out. The only people on God’s green Earth who knew were her ma and pa. They told her never to speak in front of strangers, and the girl listened." 
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Cover art by Caroline Jamhour
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