Granite Grimoire

This new collection of short stories makes the state’s familiar haunts seem just a bit more haunted.

As the literary world prepares to be devoured by giant celebrity-based publishers and while digital zombie hoardes of Androids, iPads and other shambling mobile devices gather in the streets outside chanting “braaains, braaaains!” an underground resistance is forming. Small publishers and booksellers are joining forces to create safe zones where people meet local authors, books can be held and pages touched at the readers’ pleasure.

That’s the idea behind a new series of anthologies that invite writers, both famous and unknown, to compose stories in a pulp fiction vein and set them in the familiar streets, towns, forests and mountains of New Hampshire.

The first edition of the New Hampshire Pulp Fiction Series digs into the horror genre. Appropriately titled “Live Free or Undead,” its 20 stories (chosen from 160 submissions!) include tales by Hugo Award winner James Patrick Kelly and other notable New Hampshire authors, alongside a number of first-timers, all intent upon providing Halloween-worthy thrills and chills.

Readings are scheduled for RiverRun Bookstore on Oct. 20, the Concord Literary Festival on Oct. 22, Double Midnight Comics in Manchester on Oct. 27 and Kimball-Jenkins Estate in Concord on Oct. 29. The book will be available at all New Hampshire book stores or from nhbooksellers.com. Visit www.LiveFreeorUndead.com.