The Coffin Hop online author event was created in 2011 by then-indie horror author Axel Howerton and quickly grew from a small online gathering of 10-15 like minded indie horror authors, to sometimes hundreds of authors, artists and fiends.
COFFIN HOP PRESS, named after the event, was initially founded to facilitate the publishing of DEATH BY DRIVE-IN, a charity anthology benefiting LITWORLD.ORG, a worldwide children’s literacy charity, and featuring some of the regular contributors to the online event. The book features more than twenty Coffin Hop regulars delivering bite-sized tales of Drive-In movie madness and Pop Culture thrills.
In 2015, CHP brought together a bevy of wild western outlaws and uppity greenhorns for TALL TALES OF THE WEIRD WEST, an anthology of weird western tales featuring stories by Scott S. Phillips, Jackson Lowry (aka Robert E. Vardeman), C. Courtney Joyner, and the mysterious El Cuchillo.
Also in 2015, CHP released the very Canadian crime collection, AB NEGATIVE. Featuring fourteen Alberta-based crime writers and their best Alberta-based crime stories, which ran the gamut from Sherlockian pastiche (Kevin Thornton’s The Mystery of the Missing Heir) to hardboiled detectives (Randy McCharles’ Murder on the Mall; Al Onia’s The Coelecanth Samba) and from Elmore Leonard-style criminal hijinx (Jayne Barnard’s Sudden Death) to S.G. Wong’s Arthur Ellis Award-nominated alternate history whodunit (Movable Type: Best Short Story Finalist 2015)
In 2016, CHP had planned a collection of Science Fiction Noir stories, tentatively titled “Black Hole Noir”. When that project fell apart, Coffin Hop Press underwent a minor restructuring, and re-emerged with a new mandate, and a new long-ranging slate of projects. New Crime. New Weird. New Pulp. That’s our motto.
2017 saw the release of Robert Bose’s FISHING WITH THE DEVIL: and other fiendish tales, a tremendous debut collection of fantastic stories with genre roots and a hellfire kick. CHP also began its ongoing line of dark crime novellas, NOIRVELLAS, beginning with Axel Howerton’s CON MORTE and followed by MANCHESTER VICE by Jack Strange. November 2017 brought the release of IT’S A WEIRD WINTER WONDERLAND featuring stories from a wide-range of incredible talents, including Steve Brewer, Scott S. Phillips, Will “The Thrill” Viharo, David James Keaton, and Jessica McHugh.
2018 promises to be another great year, with CHP celebrating the “Year of Publishing Women”, starting in April with INFRACTUS by Sarah L. Johnson, and the new Noirvella MURDERING MR. EDWARDS by Shawn L. Bird. Also appearing in April is Timothy Friend’s incredible two-fisted pulp throwback ROCKET RYDER & LITTLE PUTT-PUTT GO DOWN SWINGING.
Summer 2018 will see the projected release of THE DAME WAS TROUBLE, a collection of stories from some of the best female Canadian crime writers around; as well as a short story collection from two-time Arthur Ellis Award nominee and Bony Pete Award winner Therese Greenwood; and the launch of the CHP Graphic Novel division with FUTILITY: ORANGE PLANET HORROR.
Winter 2018 brings dark crime to the holidays with BABY, ITS COLD OUTSIDE featuring all-new stories from the likes of Rob Brunet, S.A. Cosby, Sam Wiebe, and E.C. Bell; and a proposed “Knucklehead Noir” anthology of darkly comedic crime stories featuring bumbling ni**od criminals and fools-gone-wrong.
Future plans include additional volumes in the WEIRD WEST and WEIRD WINTER WONDERLAND series, an anthology of supernatural crime stories, as well as new Noirvellas and a hell of a lot more!
