Books ….. Editing ….. Stories ….. Essays
Books
O Monstrous World!
Stories by Josh Woods
Press 53 (2019)
The Black Palace
A Novel by Josh Woods
Amazon (2018)
Editing
The Writing Textbook: A Free and Open College Textbook for English Composition, Rhetoric, Grammar, and Format
Josh Woods, Editor
An Open Education Resource (OER) via Pressbooks (2020)
CC BY-NC-SA
Prime Number Magazine
Issue 163 (Oct. – Dec. 2019)
Josh Woods, Guest Editor of Short Fiction
Press 53 (2019)
Surreal South ’13
Josh Woods, Editor
Press 53 (2013)
ISBN 978-1-935708-96-4
The Book of Villains
Josh Woods, Editor
Main Street Rag (2011)
ISBN 978-1-59948-314-6
The Versus Anthology
Josh Woods, Editor
Press 53 (2009)
ISBN 978-0982441-61-9
Surreal South ’09
Laura Benedict & Pinckney Benedict, Editors
Josh Woods, Associate Editor
Press 53 (2009)
ISBN 978-0982576-01-4
Crab Orchard Review
Josh Woods, Assistant Editor
• Volume 14, Number 2, Special Issue: Color Wheel ~ Cultural Heritages in the Twenty-First Century (2009)
• Volume 14, Number 1 (2008)
Josh Woods, Editorial Intern
• Volume 13, Number 2 (2008)
Stories
“He Who Fights with Monsters” (originally published in Surreal South ’11)
Prime Number Magazine
Issue 151, April-June 2019
Read here
“The Alchemist’s Bench”
Poor Yorick: A Journal of Rediscovered Objects
2018
Read here
“In Which Pinckney Benedict, Kermit Moore, and I Go A-Hunting for the Big Muddy Monster”
Prime Number Magazine
Issue 131, April-June 2018
Read here
“A Theory of Game, A Theory of Horror”
Masque & Spectacle: An Arts & Literary Journal
December Issue, 2017
Read here
“Jalopy”
Germ Magazine
February Issue, 2017
Read here
“There Are More Things”
Surreal South ’13
Press 53, 2013
“Metaphor as Fuel”
HeART: A Quarterly Arts Magazine from the Heart of Illinois
Summer/Fall Issue, 2013
“New Days of the Wolf” (originally published in Black and Grey Magazine)
The Nevada Review
Vol. 5, Spring, No. 1, 2013
“The Lawgiver”
Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days
Upper Rubber Boot Books, 2012
“New Days of the Wolf”
Black and Grey Magazine
August, 2012
“He Who Fights with Monsters”
Surreal South ’11
Press 53, 2011
“Blackbeard Visits Seven Weeks”
The Book of Villains
Main Street Rag, 2011
“Excerpt from All Hell”
Surreal South ’09
Press 53, 2009
“Small Dead Monkey”
XX Eccentric Women: Stories About the Eccentricities of Women
Main Street Rag, 2009
“Jesus VS. Thor”
The Versus Anthology
Press 53, 2009
“The Exorcise Machine”
Press 53 Open Awards Anthology
Press 53, 2008
Essays
“Ring-wraiths and Dracula,” Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Paper
Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review
Volume 17, 2020
West Virginia University Press
Available Online through Project MUSE
Read here
“Merry CrimesMas: Josh Woods on The Godfather,” Film Criticism Essay
Hardboiled Wonderland: Noir Literature, Film, and Culture
Dec. 2019
Read here
“Think Like a Horror Writer,” Craft Essay
Prime Number Magazine
Issue 73, 2015
Read here
“A Technique for Writing the Impossible and the Unreal,” Craft Essay
Prime Number Magazine
Issue 23, 2012
Read here
Book Review of Quinn Dalton’s Stories from the Afterlife
Crab Orchard Review
Volume 13, Number 2, 2008
“The Luck of the Draw,” Feature Article
UE Magazine
Fall, Volume 99, Issue 1, 2003
“Marion,” Creative Non-Fiction
The Susquehanna Review
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2003
Read here
About O Monstrous World!
O Monstrous World! (Press 53, 2019): a book of stories by Josh Woods. Winner of the 2019 International Book Awards for Fiction: Short Story. Also available through the following:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Target
“An engrossing, fanciful collection of stories, written with insight, wisdom, and humor, O Monstrous World! is full of cinematic plot twists and literary miracles. These are stories about lawmakers, karate teachers, antique dealers, monster hunters, and even professors told with authority and humor. Josh Woods skillfully melds fantasy with reality, putting his characters to the test, determined to find their moral compass. In the end, he finds their hearts. There are monsters among us, but, more often, there are unlikely heroes. A joy to read from start to finish.”
—Margaret McMullan, author of Where The Angels Lived: One Family’s Story of Loss, Exile, and Return
“Josh Woods builds his horror stories at the molecular level, so you won’t find any cookie-cutter scares in this collection—expect to be surprised, shocked, and in awe of this collection of terrors and nightmares that can wriggle into the psyche of even the most ardent horror fan.”
—Fred Venturini, author of The Heart Does Not Grow Back
“The stories in this wonderful debut collection are, first and foremost, a big old hoot. They’re funny (both funny-strange and funny-haha) and entertaining, and they read like lightning. Those surface virtues, which are nothing to sneeze at, are just the tip of the iceberg, though: these tales are frequently shockingly deep, drawn from ancient sources and from inky wells of human understanding. And the message is this: there are monsters all around us, and the worst of them might just be you. Enjoy, and beware.”
—Pinckney Benedict, author of Miracle Boy and Other Stories
“Josh Woods’ O Monstrous World! was a real joy of a discovery. Woods’ tales are unconventionally told and the author certainly has a voice. He just might be that quadruple-major liberal arts guy—his website and podcast confirm his love of myth, folklore, and the like—but he’s also a monster-hunter, legend aficionado, and weapons expert. I picture him hanging out with the Squatch hunters, citing Campbell and Nietzsche as they trek through the dark forest. As soon as the team happens upon an unsuspecting bigfoot, he’d push his way to the front, pull out his ion-powered crossbow, and stare it down with all kinds of enchanted arrows and moral quandaries. That’s kind of like what it feels like to read his book. What fun.”
—from the Story366 review by Michael Czyzniejewski
About The Black Palace
The Black Palace (Amazon E-book & Paperback, 2018): a novel by Josh Woods. A supernatural thriller in an epic storyworld of gothic horror action-adventure. Also available at other booksellers, such as Barnes & Noble.
“If the little girl at the center of Robert Eggers’s The Witch grew up to be a total badass, she might find her true home in The Black Palace. This utterly original novel expertly blends profound supernatural terror, swashbuckling action, honest human emotion, brutal violence, and blunt good humor. The smartest, scariest, and most surprising book I’ve read in ages.”
—Pinckney Benedict, author of Miracle Boy and Other Stories
The Black Palace—some have called it a hidden fortress, others a labyrinth of myth, a trackless mystery. And even the witches, who built it and keep it shut, fear that through the ages it has come alive. But tonight, a field agent in the Witchfinders Union leads her supernatural SWAT team on a raid inside to find one of their own. Yet once across that uncanny threshold, they must confront another world of grand secrets, where strange destinies are woven with theirs, where other desires are at work. They soon learn that you don’t get into the Black Palace unless it wants you in, and the same goes for getting out.