Apex Book Company is delighted to announce the launch of a new imprint, Violet Lichen Books, to be headed by Editor-in-Chief Marissa van Uden. Violet Lichen Books aims to publish unique novella-length horror, and dark fiction, focusing especially on New Weird, Weird, folk horror, eco-horror, and eco-science-fiction.
Inspired by the mysterious beauty of lichens growing in shadowy woods and the surreal drama of violet shades in nature, Violet Lichen fully embraces the weird, strange, and uncanny. It aims to leave readers feeling a little changed and disquieted, as if they have just emerged from under a strange spell.
Violet Lichen’s goal is to work closely with authors in an ethical and caring way, and to get more brilliant, weird fiction into more readers’ hands. We hope to have our launch title in mid-2025.
Violet Lichen will be distributed via Diamond Books Distributors through Apex Publications.
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About the Editor: Marissa van Uden is a New Zealander who is now living her best bog-witch life in rural Vermont, in a little cabin in the woods. She’s a professional manuscript editor with more than 15 years experience, a staff interviewer at ApexMagazine, and an anthologist (Apex Magazine’s Strange Microfiction series and The Off-Season: An Anthology of Coastal New Weird – forthcoming). Her stories have appeared in Vastarian, Dark Matter Magazine, and others. She loves weird and disquieting fiction, all the creatures, and eerie forests filled with strange fungi.
We are excited to reveal the cover and announce the shortlist for ECO25: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction! The cover art is by Marcela Bolívar, with cover design by Mikio Murakami at SilentQDesign. Our panel of judges read hundreds of ecofiction stories published in 2025 across more than 170 magazines, journals, and anthologies around the… Read more: ECO25 Shortlist & Cover Reveal!
Violet Lichen Books is excited to announce the acquisition of THEY CALL THE PLACE WILD by Rae Mariz. Pitched as Richard Powers’ THE OVERSTORY meets the Brothers Grimm and Slavic folklore, this novella is a lush dark fantasy about the stories we’re told and the stories we make for ourselves.
Violet Lichen Books is so excited to add a brilliant new book to its catalog today. Happy Book Release Day to THE CELLAR BELOW THE CELLAR by Ivy Grimes!
This gorgeous novella is a magical blend of the supernatural and the mundane, the beautiful and the weird. Ivy’s prose has a way of drawing you into her truly memorable characters, and the story constantly surprises, shifting seamlessly between weird and creepy to funny and surreal.
ECO: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction is an annual showcase of some of the most compelling ecofiction published every year. If you published speculative ecofiction in 2025, you can now nominate your stories for consideration in ECO25!
Violet Lichen Books 
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