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How Spicy are You?

Published on October 26, 2025October 28, 2025 by rdfauthorLeave a comment

By R. David Fulcher, Old Scratch Press Founding Member

I love all things pumpkin, including pumpkin spice. However, I understand even fans of this seasonal gourd have their limits on just how much pumpkin spice is too much pumpkin spice.

Readers are the same way.

Even fans of scary stories have their own personal limits in terms of exactly how scary, how gory, or how unsettling a story they can bear.

Therefore, I’ve taken three of my pumpkin-related stories and rated them in spiciness, from the most mild to the most extreme.

Mild Spice: “Pumpkin Night at the Pinkstons”

In “Pumpkin Night at the Pinkstons”, from my book The Movies that Make You Scream!, a teenager discovers the secret behind his homecoming date. Full of gooey teenage love, this is the mildest of my pumpkin-themed stories, something like one of the Goosebumps tales by R.L. Stine.

I’ll call this the Pumpkin Spice Latte Level of story.

Here is an excerpt from “Pumpkin Night at the Pinkstons”:

I don’t know exactly how much time passed before realizing that something was very, very wrong. The texture of her kisses changed, becoming clumsy and pulpy in taste. Her smooth gums became loose and stringy, and when I tried to pull away, I realized she was attached to me like a barnacle adhered to the side of a boat’s hull. Long, pointed fingers now clenched my nose shut and I began to get dizzy as that sickening, fruity-vegetable stench began to overwhelm me.

But more horrible were the physical changes taking place to the body I embraced, a grotesque squishyness of the torso and organs like the skin of a rotting tomato.

Medium Spice: “Pumpkin Seed Spit”

In “Pumpkin Seed Spit”, from the Devil’s Party Press anthology Halloween Party 2019, three friends go trick-or-treating and make a horrible deal with an ancient spirit to ensure their survival. Although the protagonists are also teenagers in this story, the stakes are higher, and the final implications for humanity much darker.

I’ll call this the Pumpkin Muffin Level of story.

Here is an excerpt from “Pumpkin Seed Spit”:

Upon reaching the first house near a dead end, they knocked and said in unison, “Trick-or-Treat!” As fifty-year-old Henry Armitage opened the front door, Brian unearthed his bag. The middle-aged man frowned at the kids before starting to mutter something about the lateness of the hour. Armitage gazed into Brian’s bag of seeds and was immediately mesmerized. An orange energy tendril spiraled upward, carrying a single seed into Armitage’s mouth.

Brian, Matt, and Ria wanted to scream, but found it impossible. While their souls were wrenched into knots by the horror they witnessed, outwardly they stood emotionless, even tranquil, as layers of skin and flesh melted away until all that remained of Henry Armitage was a living skeleton.

When the transformation was complete, they advanced to the next house. Ria shared the seeds, and Asenath Waite, a young mother of two, was hideously transformed into a witch with boils, green teeth, and a trail of lesions across her forehead.

Matt was next to present The Pumpkin Tree’s offering to the world. Three seeds were received by a couple and their young baby. Within moments they became a trio of giant pale, eyeless larvae that oozed and squiggled out of their clothes.

Extra Spicy: “The Pumpkin King”

In “The Pumpkin King”, from my book The Pumpkin King and Other Tales of Terror, a man ignores the rules of Halloween to his own detriment. The protagonist is an adult, and this tale has the most shock value of the three.

I’ll call this the Pumpkin Imperial Pale Ale Level of story

Here is an excerpt from “The Pumpkin King”:

I spun around and made for the door, half convinced I was hallucinating if not dreaming. I unlatched the deadbolt, but it clicked back into place as soon as I started to turn the latch. I turned back to the jack-o’-lantern.

“An easy trick, but effective,” the jack-o’-lantern said, its orange light flashing in time to the latch on the deadbolt as it clicked back and forth at will.

“What do you want?” I begged.

“I want you to think on this. There is but one expectation of you this time of year. One simple obligation: To carve pumpkins. To pay homage to the king.”

“What king?”

“Samhain, the King of the Dead.” Its demeanor began to change. Its voice deepened and the reddish-orange glow rose like an enraged fire.

“This is ridiculous!” Now I was beginning to lose my fear and was feeling pissed. This thing, whatever it was, was in my house. I turned to climb the stairs and grab a baseball bat so that I could smash the talkative piece of vegetation into a hundred juicy bits. I was an educated man, and I knew of the myth of Samhain, the Lord of the Dead who arrived every fall to put nature in balance with the deadly strokes of his sickle. I also knew it was pure bunk.

I had only reached the first step when I heard a sound far worse than the maddening click-clacking of the door latch: the metallic whisper of a kitchen knife being drawn from the butcher block.

I turned back to the pumpkin. “Okay. You’ve got my attention. What do you want?”

“I want to carve you,” it replied simply.

So whatever your personal threshold is for pumpkin spice, pay homage to the spirits of All Hallows Eve, and savor the spice before it’s gone!

Happy Writing!

R.David Fulcher, Founding Member of Old Scratch Press

Oldscratchpress.com

Rdavidfulcher.com

What Genre Scares You The Most?

Published on August 20, 2025 by rdfauthorLeave a comment

By R. David Fulcher, Old Scratch Press Founding Member

While most authors have a preferred genre, many authors have dabbled in others. For example, while I am primarily a speculative fiction writer (horror, fantasy, and science fiction), I have also written historical fiction, drama, romance, and poetry.

However, I’ve always found one genre intimidating: Westerns.

I realize that author Louis L’Amour made a fine career out of writing Westerns, what he called “frontier stories,” but I haven’t been able to catch that particular spark. Perhaps it is simply that I’ve never invested the time to understand the difference between the gravy train or the chuck wagon, or when to precisely call in the calvary.

While I’ve enjoyed a few Western films such as Tombstone and True Grit, and appreciated the genre-blending Westerns such as Blazing Saddles, Cowboys & Aliens, and Firefly, I’d be lying if I said I were a true fan of Westerns.

Since every psychologist recommends facing your fears, I think I’ll give it a try.

So, without further ado, here is my flash fiction Western, “Down Goes the Rodeo Clown.”

Down Goes the Rodeo Clown

Roger Roy tightened his grip on the bridle. His horse, Mustang Sally, had a wild streak, and he didn’t intend to lose control while calf roping.

Suddenly the gate opened, and the crowd in the stands roared as a gate on the opposite side of the arena opened and a young black and white calf stumbled out.

Roger steered Sally towards the calf and reached for the lasso at his side to confirm it was there. Staring ahead, Roger didn’t notice that one of the loops of the lasso had caught the trigger of his six gun.

Something seemed off with the calf, too; it stumbled around like it was drunk.

Roger had a job to do, drunk calf or not, and approached the poor creature.

He tugged on the lasso to remove it, and it seemed stuck on something. Roger tugged harder the second time and felt his pistol shift and the hammer cock.

A single shot reverberated through the air: bang!

The calf awkwardly fell to the dirt with a gut-wrenching cry of anguish. A red blossom of blood stained the black and white coat.

Roger leaped off his horse to help the poor creature, only to see a pair of cowboy boots sticking out from under the coat.

He threw back the coat, only to see the body of the rodeo clown shoot right through the heart. His painted face was twisted in pain and his orange hair fluttered in the light breeze.

The crowd began to point and scream.

Roger Roy tipped his hat in their direction and said, “I guess that’s his last joke. This one was on him.”

And with a jangle of spurs Roger swung into the saddle and trotted away.

So there it is – corny, unbelievable even, but my first Western nonetheless, and you, dear reader, were there to witness it.

The moral of this story is to confront your fears, try that genre that has always scared you the most, and you might strike pay dirt.

Or as an old miner forty-niner might say, “There’s gold in them thar’ hills!”

Happy Writing!

R.David Fulcher, Founding Member of Old Scratch Press

Oldscratchpress.com

Rdavidfulcher.com

Creative Valentine’s Day Collage Poems

Published on February 1, 2025February 1, 2025 by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Nadja Maril, a Founding Member of the Old Scratch Short Form and Poetry Collective

February is Valentine’s Day month. Instead of trying to send everyone Christmas and New Year’s cards, I like to surprise friends with Valentine’s Day cards. My handmade cards feature words as well as images. So why call them cards at all? They are actually Visual Poems. And because they are made from bits and pieces of collected words, colored paper and illustrations glued onto paper, they are also Collage Poems.

Try it. Once you created a few, you may become hooked. Many artists gravitate towards working in more than one medium. Visual art and poetry work well together. If you desire to be published, a market exists for creative work which combines the two mediums of visual art and words. I will providea list of publications at the end of this article. But first, let’s get started with a little inspiration.

Assembling the materials is part of the fun.

Valentine’s Day Origins

The name Valentine comes from Saint Valentine, and there are three men who are recognized as Saints by the Catholic Church. The most popular Valentine story, according to my research, is the one about the priest who performed secret marriages in opposition to Emperor Claudius II who ordered that all his soldiers remain single. Who the actual St. Valentine was is open to debate. Maybe February 14^th is the approximate date of one of the martyred St. Valentines’ funerals, but it is remarkably close to the Roman fertility festival Lupercalia, once celebrated on the Ides of February ( February 15^th). In some Roman villages it is said that young men and women were matched up as lovers for a year in an effort to produce more children. A day that honored love and passion, in England and France February 14^thwas the start of the birds’ mating season.

The tradition of exchanging cards and love tokens is thought to begin in the middle of the 18^th century. By the 19^th century, the mass production of printed cards made Valentines’ cards even more popular. Gloves and handkerchiefs were two personal items lovers often gave to one another during the Victorian era. Flowers—pressed or fresh, as well as lines of verse given to our Valentine follow the romantic tradition of conveying ardor for those we adore.

Collage

The word collage comes from the French verb coller, meaning to paste or glue. In visual art, a collage is comprised of pieces of paper, cloth or other gathered materials arranged and permanently attached to a surface. Old photos, advertising flyers, ticket stubs, magazine illustrations; are some typical collage materials. As a teenager I’d collect shells, dried seaweed, bits of sea glass to glue on to a flat piece of weathered wood; another type of collage. Whether you use buttons, lace, tissue paper, bits of colored plastic, feathers or fur- the possibilities really are infinite.

Now, think of a collage of words. Instead of collecting physical items collect words, phrases, entire articles that resonate with you. While modernist artists in the early 20^th century were creating collages of shapes and colors, Avant-garde groups that included Surrealists and Dadaists took the form to another level by including language. Tristan Tzara famously advocated a “cut-up” method of composition, involving cutting out words from a newspaper and pulling them out of a hat to create a poem. Whether you take excerpts from a political speech, a nursery rhyme or a popular song, by incorporating a medley of sources you are creating a collage poem.

Take another step to combine a visual collage with a literary collage and you have a hybrid, a poem that provides a visual and verbal experience. Whether you want to call it a collage poem, a merging of two art forms or an awesome Valentine’s Day Card—that’s up to you.

Publications that Publish Work that Combine Images and Words

These are just a few to get you started.

A Velvet Giant

https://www.avelvetgiant.com/

ctrl +v

https://www.ctrlvjournal.com/

Diagram

https://thediagram.com/

Dream Pop Journal

https://www.dreampoppress.net/

Ghost Proposal

https://ghostproposal.com/

Instant Noodles Literary Review

Submission Guidelines

The Offing

https://theoffingmag.com/

Timber

https://timberjournal.org/

If you need a different sort of Valentine’s Day gift, not the typical candy or flowers, considering purchasing a poetry chapbook and sending it to a friend. At Old Scratch Press we have published five chapbooks thus far, all under $9, with more to come. Take some time out of your day for some quiet reflection and share the love. Whoever started the idea of a day celebrating our connection to one another, let’s try and keep it going.

Nadja Maril is the author of Recipes from my Garden, Old Scratch Press, September 2024. Nadja Maril’s short stories, poems and essays have been published in dozens of small online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM. A former newspaper columnist and magazine editor, she writes a weekly blog and you can visit her website at www.Nadjamaril.com.

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Introducing White Noir by Robert Fleming: A Darkly Captivating Visual Poetry Journal

Published on December 22, 2023 by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

You can get a copy of white noir on Amazon !

WELCOME TO OLD SCRATCH PRESS

Published on March 11, 2023March 18, 2023 by diannePLeave a comment

Hi~
Dianne from Devil’s Party Press (DPP) here.
Did you know I studied the writing of poetry when I was in college?
I love poetry, and there is a growing interest in it, but still not enough places to share it.
I reached out to some of the poets we’ve published at DPP, and asked them if they would like to do some volunteering to get a poetry imprint going, and, luckily, many of them said, “Yes!”
Poets are, by nature, generous people.
Together, I hope that we can publish good poetry. I hope that, over time, the poets will run the kitchen, cooking up new books, anthologies, opportunities, awards, who knows what all for poets!
My goal for this year is to put out a single author collection of poetry for three of the poets who are volunteering to create and run the press.
Our “poets” decided, to begin with, that poetry is as unique as the poets who create it. So they decided to make poetry include what we might consider to be a traditional poem, as well as more short-form works, mini memoirs, bits of story, and to include art, as it please the members to do so.
I think it’s going to be creative and exciting, and I cannot wait to see what they dream up.
Look for posts from the members here as we get underway on this project. I’m starting us off, but I hope they’ll soon eclipse me as they create something wonderful to which DPP becomes the helping hand.
The members of the group are:
Alan Bern
Anthony Doyle
Ellis Elliot
Gabby Gilliam
Janet Holmes Uchendu
Morgan Golladay
Nadja Maril
R. David Fulcher
Robert Fleming
Virginia Watts

And the first book from the group, A Break in the Field, by Ellis Elliot, is forthcoming from Old Scratch Press (OSP) this summer!

I wish all these wonderful authors a lot of luck with the OSP project!

And thanks to you for loving poetry, following this group, and maybe even buying a book!