Writing
Sarah Jackson (she/they) writes gently unsettling speculative fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Translunar Travelers Lounge, Stonecoast Review, and elsewhere.
The Haunted Tea Set & Other Stories
In these darkly comic supernatural stories, horror and wonder bleed into everyday life. A forest witch haunts a golf course, while Annie defends her vegetable patch from dark forces. A would-be detective falls for a femme fatale in a seaside town, and a lonely Victorian girl makes a startling new friend. These twenty bittersweet, uncanny stories, explore love and loneliness, trauma and transformation, solidarity and greed.
"A wide-ranging, evocative, and stirring collection where no word is wasted," according to this lovely review.
Available as a paperback from Blackwells, Barnes & Noble, Wordery, and Amazon (sigh) and as an ebook from Smashwords, Kobo, and other retailers. Here it is on Storygraph and Goodreads.
Poetry
"Fragment of Black Glassy Material" will appear in 34 Orchard in April 2025. A meditation on death, inspired by an archaeological find.
"Cords" appeared in Stone Circle Review in January 2024. A poem about the people that live in your head even when they're no longer part of your life. (In a bad way.) CW themes of abuse and trauma.
"The Existence of Dragons" appeared in issue 47.1 of Star*Line magazine, journal of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) in January 2024. Another poem about climate grief, this time in space!
"The Time Bureau Came to Careers Day" appeared in Strange Horizons in July 2023, a SciFi poem about time travel and trauma.
"All The Bells Under The Sea" appeared in Crow & Cross Keys in February 2023, inspired by folklore and climate grief.
Short stories
"Coherence" appeared in Stonecoast Review issue 20 in January 2024. A sci-fi story about queer identity and quantum biology.
"Perfect Weather" appeared in Hearth Stories in December 2023. A cozy fantasy story about friendship, set on festival day in a small town that is not entirely unlike my hometown.
"Down In The Wreck Of The Promise" will be reprinted in All Worlds Wayfarer in May 2024. The story first appeared in Spirit Machine: Tales of Séance Fiction published by Air and Nothingness Press in April 2022. It's a science fantasy story about community, and what to do with your ghosts.
"The Haunted Tea Set" appeared in Bone Parade in June 2023. A ghost story about the possibility of healing.
"The Spinning Circle" was reprinted in MetaStellar in March 2023. A historical fantasy fable about love and violence. It first appeared in Noctivagant Issue 3 in December 2021.
"The Willingham Bay Witches" appeared in Electric Spec magazine in February 2023. A would-be detective falls for a femme fatale in a seaside town.
"Great Mother Broth" appeared in Translunar Travelers Lounge in February 2023. A fantasy story about family, featuring a selection of troll swear words.
"Angel of the Woods" appeared in Sage Cigarettes in February 2023. A queer folk horror story about coming home, set in Cornwall.
An audio version of "The Photographer's House" was recorded by Creepy Podcast in January 2023. A humorous haunted house story inspired by the grand homes of Great Men with dark secrets. "The Photographer's House" first appeared in Literally Stories in June 2022.
"The Adit" appeared in Rural Fiction Magazine in December 2022. A ghost story inspired by a childhood visit to a nearby abandoned mine.
£ "Channelsea" appeared in issue two of Archive of the Odd in September 2022. A 'found fiction' horror story using a variety of different documents - from a union newsletter to a WWII memorandum - to tell a story about exploitation through the history of a mysterious urban island.
"Tilly's Dolls" appeared in 96th of October in September 2022. A dark fantasy story set in a miniature gothic world inspired by children's classics like The Secret Garden and Five Children And It.
"The Sun and the Sweet, Black Earth" appeared in lavender bones issue two in July 2022. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice retold as a queer ghost story, a meditation on life and death, denial and acceptance.
£ "Canary Glass" appeared in Wyldblood Magazine issue nine in July 2022. A horror story about a radioactive fruit bowl.
Flash fiction
"Unspeakable" appeared in 7th-Circle Pyrite in March 2024. Occult-themed and rather bleak.
"The Ordinary Souls" appeared in BOMBFIRE in January 2023. A ghost story about our uncelebrated dead.
£ "Greenkeeper" appeared in Dream of Shadows anthology issue four in August 2022. In which a hedge fund manager meets a hedge witch and undergoes a terrible transformation, or perhaps receives a blessing, depending on how you look at it.
£ "Subsidence" appeared in The Dead Inside: An Anthology of Identity Horror published by Dark Dispatch in March 2022. Uses beauty and body horror to explore the devastation and liberation of confronting past trauma.
"Pearl" appeared in Tales From Between issue 1 in October 2021. Horror story about a kind neighbour.
"One Box of Earth" appeared in The Cabinet of Heed Issue 48 in July 2021. When an empty ship drifts into harbour, Annie must battle the forces of darkness to protect her vegetable patch.
Microfiction
"Self Conscious" and "Felis Catus" appeared in the Programmed Hearts anthology published by Shacklebound Books in April 2024.
"Your Poison" won first place in The Future Fire's #NoirFire tweet-length story competition in June 2022.
£ "Urban Wildlife" appeared in Wyrms: An Anthology of Dragon Drabbles, published by Shacklebound Books in July 2022.
£ "Real Human Skull, Medical Specimen, $450" appeared in Ellipsis Zine #10 in November 2021
"How Our Local Wine Bar Ended Up On The Ghost Tour" appeared in Fifty Word Stories in August 2021.
"Unfinished Business" appeared in The Drabble in July 2021.
£ "A Place for Everything and Everything In Its Place" appeared in Home: Hundred Word Horror anthology published by Ghost Orchid Press in February 2021.
Nonfiction
BOOKS
Voices From History: East London Suffragettes with Rosemary Taylor, published by The History Press in 2014.
SELECTED ARTICLES
Haunted objects in women's weird fiction, published by Horrified Magazine in July 2021.
‘Women quite unknown’: working-class women in the suffrage movement, published by the British Library in 2018.
Mary East (aka James How) and Mrs How of the White Horse, Poplar, published on the East End Women’s Museum blog in 2017.
Where are women in the history of art? originally published by Women’s History Month in 2011, updated in 2017.