Update and Women in Horror Month

NOMINATION

I am very happy to share that my prose-poem, “Soulbirds and Firefoxes,” has been nominated for a Rhysling Award. The same poem also received an honorable mention in the Marrow Halloween poetry contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart. The poem is still available to read at Marrow Magazine, and it is also in my latest collection, A Food Court in Hell.

PUBLICATION

My poems, "The Clock-Drawing Test" and "Things My Uncles Made in Prison," are included in Roadside Assistance: A Roadside Press Reader, an anthology edited by Dan Denton and Michele McDannold. 

APPEARANCE

I was a guest on the Plague Remedy Podcast - many thanks to host Stephen Sacco. Hope you find time to give it a listen!

WOMEN IN HORROR MONTH

March is Women in Horror Month! If you like horror, check out:

Screaming Intensifies - a collection of short horror stories

Our Miss Engel - a vampire novella

The Order of the Four Sons series - while technically fantasy, it is chock-full of monsters and cosmic horrors

Happy haunted reading!

Update Jan. 7, 2026

Happy 2026, friends! I hope your holiday season was joyful and your new year is off to a good start.

FINALIST

I am delighted to share that my poem, "Little Brown Changeling," is a finalist for the 2025 Stephen A. DiBiase Prize. The winners are announced in March. Thank you to the judges for this honor.

PUBLICATION

My poem, "Bird Bones," appears in Issue 2 of Ivo Review. Many thanks to the editors for including my work. 

APPEARANCE

Photo by Rick Christiansen

This previous Sunday, I was a featured reader at the Speakeasy at Swordfish Tom's in Kansas City. It was a terrific reading! Thank you to all who came out, and to Brandon and Jill for being such excellent hosts.

Best of all, I am sold out of my copies of A Food Court in Hell. I have more on order from the printer, so if you are interested in buying from me, I'll have copies available soon!

Update Dec. 10, 2025

NOMINATION

I am deeply honored to share that my poem, "Soulbirds and Firefoxes," has been nominated by Marrow Magazine for a Pushcart. Thank you so much to the editors and congrats to my fellow nominees.

PUBLICATION

I had five poems appear in Lothlorien Poetry Journal: "The Midnight Paintings of Dr. Seuss," "The Jumping-Off Place," "That Time My Car Became a Swamp," "Pompeii," and "Resurrection." Very grateful to Strider Marcus Jones for giving my work a home. 
Read ‘em here.

UPCOMING APPEARANCE

I will be one of the featured readers for The Speakeasy at Swordfish Tom's in Kansas City, Sunday, January 4, at 7 p.m. If you're in town, come enjoy a cocktail and some poetry! 

A Food Court in Hell is now available!

 

Cover art by Cory Kirby

A Food Court in Hell is here! Grab a copy on Amazon, or you can purchase copies directly from me, $15.99 + shipping (US domestic only). 

If we're friends on Facebook, please message me there, otherwise my email is laurenscharhag@gmail.com. 

I also still have copies of some of my other books - I will do two for $20 + shipping. (Other titles I still have copies of include West Side Girl & Other Poems, Requiem for a Robot Dog, Languages First and Last, as well as my short story collection, Screaming Intensifies.) 

One of the poem in this book, "Soulbirds and Firefoxes," just received an honorable mention in Marrow Magazine's 2025 Halloween contest, and "Little Brown Changeling" was the 2024 Rhysling Award winner in the long-form category. 

If anyone is interested in reviewing this book, please let me know - I am happy to provide digital copies to reviewers. 

SYNOPSIS

A Food Court in Hell contains poems for the slow-motion apocalypse. With the stars as not-so-silent witnesses, awareness and resignation vie with hope, rumination, and celebration. These poems are a letter to the universe, a reminder that this world is worth saving. Herein, mythology and fairy tales, art and artifacts, natural and manmade wonders, pop culture and mysticism all converge, on the teetering edge of the dying American empire.

SAMPLE POEM

Another poem about the moon

I watched A Trip to the Moon. They knew

firing a bullet-shaped rocket to the moon

wouldn’t get us there. They knew there probably

wasn’t snow on the moon. They knew

mushrooms probably didn’t grow

in the caverns on the moon.

They knew there were probably no moon people.

Now, more than half a century since the moon’s mysteries

have been dispelled, it sits, a particularly unscenic rock,

like a dingy Nixon-era tourist attraction somewhere

in Nebraska, covered in footprints and fading flags.

But we also know now that the moon is the result

of a collision between Earth and some other planet,

dust of our dust, shard of our shard, and from here,

the winter moon is still bright and silver, and the

summer moon is warm and golden,

and still, we photograph it, and we paint it,

and we conjure gods from it, and across 1,000 miles

you and I text each other to ask,

Have you seen the moon tonight?

And even when you say, No, it’s overcast here,

we can still, for a moment, walk together

with the Selenites

through lunar snowfall.

Update October 22, 2025

BOOK RELEASE UPDATE 

My latest collection, A Food Court in Hell, was scheduled to be released on Oct. 31. I will have to postpone-- I can't share details just yet, but it's good news. I will post when I have a new date. 

In the meantime, I had planned to share another sample poem.

Bird Bones

Inspired by “These 12,000-Year-Old Flutes Mimic the Sound of Prehistoric Birds,” Teresa Nowakowski, Smithsonian Magazine, June 15, 2023

Seven 12,000-year-old flutes
were found in the Hula Valley,
carved from the wing bones
of teal and coot, unearthed along
with hundreds of other bones,
an avian Golgotha, as if the
archaeologists had been assigned
an impossible task by a king or a god:

Among these bones, you must find
the seven that still sing.

Bones were a popular prehistoric
material. We have found fish hooks
and harpoons, pendants and
ornaments, but by far, the favorite
subject of Neolithic artisans was
animals. Of course it was—
in those early days of agriculture,
when we were still trying to wrestle
obedience from boar and aurochs,
when we still lived cheek-and-jowl
with the things we killed or could be
killed by, when your falcon returning
empty-clawed meant going to bed
hungry, we fashioned our bone
talismans, wore them on a string
around our necks.

The flutes still bear microscopic
evidence of having been used. Over
twelve millennia ago, humans put
these instruments to their lips and
blew, entire sagas still lingering in
teeth marks and phantom spit.

Now, scientists have replicated the
flutes. When played, they emit a high
screech. They may have been used
for music, but mainly, they were
thought to be early duck calls,
emulating kestrel and sparrowhawk—
bird bones to catch birds. That feels
mythic, too, and indeed, scientists
wonder if this wasn’t a way to try
and commune with those creatures of
the sky. Raptor totem, we sing,
ave, ave, ave.

Across the ages, we have distanced
ourselves from such bonds. Yet,
when migration season comes round
again, we plan to return to the valley
to test out our version of the aerophones,
to see if the old magic still holds,
to see if we can draw the birds to us,
to put bone to our lips and blow.

If the flute makers could see these
skies now, if they could see hear how
silent the forests and marshes have become—

Soon, there will be nothing but
decoys and recordings.

Soon, the echoes will have faded,
and there will be nothing left to us
but our pale imitations, a memory of song, a dream of flight.


PUBLICATIONS

“Ablaze,” appeared in the Woodside Review. 

"Gargoyle Lover,” appeared in Cajun Mutt Press. Many thanks to editor James Dennis Casey IV. 

My prose-poem, “The Turner Doomsday Video,” is in the 2025 Central Texas Writers Anthology: Beyond Gods and Religion. It's now available as an ebook or in paperback. 


APPEARANCES 

Earlier this month, I was a featured reader at the Saturday Literary Salon with Lesley Constable and Mimi German. Many thanks to host Dane Ince.

Update Sept. 18, 2025

PUBLICATIONS

My prose-poems, “Looking for Death in Northwest Florida” and Apocalypse House,” were published in This Exquisite Topology, an anthology now available from Angry Gable Press. Proud to be included in this beautifully curated collection – also, check out the gorgeous cover art!

APPEARANCES

I will be a featured reader along with Susanne West and Elisabeth Sennitt Clough at the Saturday Literary Salon, Saturday Oct. 4 at noon CT. Open mic to follow so if you tune in, please bring something to share!

Thank you to everyone who tuned in to hear me read on Time to Arrive in August. If you were unable to attend, here’s the link to the recording, passcode: 0&k+wb90.

Time to Arrive is on every Tuesday night at 6 pm PDT - great host, great crowd of poets who attended and read, I highly recommend checking them out! Many thanks to Dane Ince for having me on the show.

Update July 22, 2025

PUBLICATIONS

I had four poems appear in Bards of a Feather: Wings of Golden Syllables, Volume 2, including, "Imping," "Anting," "Plastic Flamingos," and "Blackbird Trapped."

"Imping" also appeared in The Woodside Review.

I had four poems appear in Five Fleas Itchy Poetry: "Segmentation," "Supernova," "Southside," and "Snapdragon." (The alliteration was not intentional!)

I also had an essay published. "Growing Pains" is about our experience with growing marijuana while my husband was in renal failure. It is in the latest issue of Home Planet News.

Update July 1, 2025

PUBLICATION

My poem, “Hades and Persephone’s Pillow Talk,” is in the latest issue of Gyroscope Review.


UPCOMING APPEARANCES

On July 22, 6 pm PDT, I will be the featured reader at the Time to Arrive Poetry Reading and Open Mic. Hope to see some of you there!

**Update 7/17/25 - A Facebook event has been created for this reading. 

I have recorded my segment on the Plague Remedy Podcast. I will share when the episode goes live! Thank you to Stephen Sacco for being such an excellent host. 

Update June 9, 2025

PUBLICATIONS

My poem, "The Sleep Study," appeared in Voices Unbound: An Anthology of International Poetry by Fresh Words Literary Magazine. Thank you to editor Som for including my work. 

Three poems appeared in the latest issue of the New Croton Review, "4:30 a.m. poem," "Ardor," and "Blackbird Trapped."  

Many thanks to the Lilomul Journal team for publishing three of my poems, "Semantics," "Expulusion," and "Ozark Mountain Christmas."

UPCOMING APPEARANCE

I recorded an interview last week with the lovely Stephen Sacco, host of the Plague Remedy podcast. We talked poetry, fiction, and Kansas City. I will share when the episode goes live!

 

May 1, 2025 Update

Hello, all. For the foreseeable future, I will no longer be doing monthly updates - I will just wait until I have some news to share. Due to health issues, I haven't been writing much these past two years. In the last month, I started seeing a new neurologist and have a new treatment plan, which seems to be giving me some relief. Let's hope I continue to see improvement. 

I am trying to get back in the habit of writing every day, which is has been proving harder than I expected. Fortunately, I am very stubborn. I have started on a new fantasy novel. I have been sending work out to magazines again and have a few publications lined up, as well as a spot on a podcast that will be recorded in June. 

Thank you, as always, to all my lovely, supportive readers and to all the kind folks who have sent donations to help me cover my medical bills and some living expenses. It is deeply appreciated. 

PUBLICATION

My poem, “And Pain and I Resume,” is in the inaugural issue of Life in Limbo. Thank you to editor Victoria Desmond for including my work.

Happy Mayday to all!

February News

AWARD

I received this earlier this month. Thank you to the SFPA for this honor. Here is the winning poem, "Little Brown Changeling."

PUBLICATIONS

My poem, “At Culver’s Drive-Thru,” is in the latest issue of Locust Shells Journal. Many thanks to the editors for including my work. 

“Father” is in the New Feathers 2024 Anthology (print). Thank you to editor Wade Fox.

IN THE KING’S POWER

In the King’s Power is now complete – books 1-6 are now available as ebooks on Amazon/Kindle Unlimited. Thank you to my readers for following this series. Ratings and reviews are welcome, and I am always happy to supply reviewer copies. 

January News

PUBLICATION

My poem, “Mono no Aware,” appeared in the Chilean magazine, Ultramarine Literary Review.

This is a special milestone for me, as it means I have now been published on all seven continents! Many, many thanks to editor Catalina Bonati.

IN THE KING'S POWER

Part 5 of In the King's Power was released on January 1 as an Amazon ebook. Read a bonus excerpt here.

Part 6, which is the final installment of the series, will go live on Saturday, February 1, also as an ebook, $3.99 to purchase, or free to read with Kindle Unlimited. Read an excerpt here. 

OTHER NEWS

In an effort to disentangle myself from the Metaverse, I have deleted my Instagram profiles. I will not delete Facebook at this time, as there are far too many people and communities there that I don't want to lose touch with, but I will not be spending much time on it, and I don't plan on posting any more writing-related announcements there-- I don't want to contribute to its engagement or Zuck's bottom line anymore than I have to. I am hoping to start separating my work from Amazon as well, as I am able. 

In the meantime, you can find me on BlueSky @laurenscharhag.bsky.social. And, if you are so inclined, I am still on LinkedIn, and can be reached by email. 

 

In the King's Power - Part 6 Cover Art and Excerpt

Part 6 is the final part of In the King's Power. It will be available February 1 on Amazon, free on Kindle Unlimited, $3.99 to purchase. Check out the rest of the series on Amazon here. Bonus excerpts are available here on my blog - access them from the series overview. 

SYNOPSIS 

Reunited with her foster father at last, Alyssa must choose the life she ultimately wants.

EXCERPT

THE coming weeks were every bit as hard as Clayton had imagined they’d be.

After he treated and bandaged the wound, Alyssa began to speak, haltingly at first. He’d picked up a few leatherbound journals in town, as well as some pen and inks, and now, he asked her permission to take notes as they talked. She granted it.

Their progress was interrupted the following day when she took the bandage off. The scalding metal had done nothing to mar the dessin itself—just the flesh around it. Clayton explained that, from what he’d learned from talking with Thia and her Red Garter friends, the dessin was created using alchemical inks, formulated with powerful enchantments. Occasionally, women who’d managed to escape their husbands and keepers found ways to black out the marks, but that was all. Even an alchemist or a healer could not erase it completely. They could remove the colors, but the woman would still be left with a ghostly outline.

Alyssa became quite hysterical at that. She howled, she screamed, she pounded the walls with her fists until she fractured her knuckles, and blood ran down her arms. If she were any other mental health patient, Clayton would recommend a sedative, anti-anxiety medication, but with Alyssa, that just wasn’t an option.

Outwardly, he kept his cool, holding her when she finally wore herself out, tending again to her injuries. But inwardly, he was heartbroken. No parent wanted to see their child go through this. He was also frightened. This was the most dangerous time. What if she hurt herself so badly, he wouldn’t be able to treat it with ointments and bandages? Or what if…?

But no. He refused to even think it. She’d come this far. She’d make it the rest of the way through this.

When he stepped outside to refill the water bucket, he found animals surrounding the house, looking somberly on. He left the door open and some of them followed him inside. Having a fox curled around her feet, a chipmunk on her shoulder, seemed to soothe her.

The priority was to make sure she didn’t hurt herself again. Clayton didn’t think she would. Both times, she’d injured only her hands, trying to destroy the dessin. But all the same, he asked her to stay close to the cabin for the foreseeable future. “Please, don’t go anywhere without me?” He put in only the tiniest hint of a question, to make it sound like a request and not a directive.

Understanding him perfectly well, she nodded. “I won’t.”

Alyssa resumed speaking. Days passed, and she continued to speak. Of course, the story did not come chronologically. She laid it out like a terrible Tarot spread for him to interpret. The cards shuffled and overlapped and reversed direction, but they stuck with it. The individual incidents even sounded like the trump cards of some strange new arcana: the Mute Queen, the Burning Girl, the Forty Slain Men, the Masquerade, the Kiss of Life, the Suicide Princess, the Sword and the Carving Knife.

December News and 2024 Roundup

Happy New Years, friends! This year was not my most productive year. If you weren't already aware, my ever-present health issues have become more debilitating. I am no longer able to work. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I spent a week in the hospital and am still slowly, slowly convalesceing. Right now, I pretty much spend all my time either sleeping or zoned out on the couch. I am trying to be patient with myself, and hope that I may do a bit more writing in 2025. 

I hate to rattle my little tin cup, but my hospital bills are starting to come in. So far, they are about $2,000. Please consider donating to help us pay them. Any little bit helps. 

DECEMBER NEWS

In December, I released Part 4 of my new dark fantasy romance series, In the King's Power. It's free to read on Kindle Unlimited, $1.99 to purchase. 

Part 5 will drop tomorrow, January 1. An excerpt is available to read here. It will be free to read on Kindle Unlimited as well, and $3.99 to purchase. 

2024 ROUNDUP

Honors

I had four poems nominated for a Rhysling Award: "Below the Bible Belt," "Little Brown Changeling," "The Two of Coins," and "When the Honeymoon is Over." "Little Brown Changeling," was awarded first place. 

My poetry collection, Moonlight and Monsters, was nominated for an Elgin Award.

And finally, my short story, "Feather and Scale," made the Top 50 in the Roadmap Writers Short Story Competition. 

Publications

I had 11 pieces published across six literary venues. I blurbed 500 Hidden Teeth, a new poetry collection by Scott Ferry. I did a book signing at the AWP Conference, which was in my hometown this year, and was a featured author on the Muse's Mic literary series. Additionally, I published three books:

• Ain't These Sorrows Sweet, Roadside Press, June 2024
• Screaming Intensifies, Whiskey City Press, September 2024
• In the King's Power series, self-published, to be released September 2024-February 2025

Thank you so much to my readers and supporters - wishing you all a safe and happy 2025!