Act Now! On This Bargain Offer

We found this ad in the back of an issue of Weird Tales: “Act Now! On This Bargain Offer.” Can’t remember what it was selling. Haven’t been able to find it again. So we did the only logical thing: ask two of our favorite Canadian horror writers to write new stories, each of which has to include that phrase. To our surprise, they said yes. In Charlene Elsby’s “Fashion,” chunky metals are in style, and a bargain offer gets grody in the weekend market smoking section. And Lor Gislason’s “One Last Stroke” cautions against shopping for sex toys in the clearance section.

Only 100 copies of this zine will be printed, but an ebook will be available down the road.

Charlene Elsby is a philosophy doctor and former professor whose books include Hexis, Affect, Psychros, Agyny, Musos, Letters to Jenny Just After She Died, Bedlam, The Devil Thinks I’m Pretty and Violent Faculties. Her essays have appeared in Bustle Books and the LA Review of Books.

Lor Gislason (they/he) is a non-binary homebody from Vancouver Island, Canada, the author of Inside Out and the editor of Bound in Flesh: An Anthology of Trans Body Horror. Their nonfiction work has appeared on numerous websites discussing our relationship with horror from a neurodivergent perspective.

Release date: September 2024