Start Here
Welcome, stranger.
Penny Dreadful’s Journal is a home for folklore, strange history, uncanny fiction, and the unsettling little stories that gather around old places.
You will find no neat boundary here between the everyday and the otherworldly. A road remembered too well. A chapel no one speaks of plainly. A rhyme that arrives ten years too late. A ghost that walks because love taught him the route.
The Journal is drawn to the half forgotten, the locally whispered, the oddly beautiful, and the quietly dreadful.
What You Will Find Here
Stories
Odd corners of the past, grim practices, curious objects, and the human stories that cling to them.
A Penny for Your Dread Thoughts
A regular writing prompt for readers who wish to answer back. Some prompts may ask for a memory, some for a tale, some for something stranger.
Where to Begin
Begin with the Stories page if you want fiction.
Begin with A Penny for Your Dread Thoughts if you want to write something of your own.
Begin anywhere, really. Old tales rarely wait in the proper room.
The Tone of the Journal
This is not a place for horror alone.
It is a place for atmosphere, memory, folklore, unease, humour in the dark, and the odd comfort of things that should have vanished but did not.
Some pieces are fictional. Some are inspired by history or folklore. Some sit somewhere in between. Where needed, notes will make that clear.
Join the journal
You can subscribe to receive new stories, prompts, and curious findings when they appear.
No clamour. No daily pestering. Just the occasional notice when something worth opening has arrived.
Step closer. The lamp is still lit.