Hi there 🙂

I’m Jessa Forest, poet and dark fantasy author.

My stories blend contemporary fantasy with alternate realities and all things arcane and grimdark.

My current work in progress is book one of my monster hunter series, The Slaughter Chronicles.

Side projects include:

• Hollow Ruins: a post-apocalyptic science fantasy with dragons
• The Heart of the Forest Cycle: a post-apocalyptic epic fantasy about faeries
• Echo: a corporate science fiction novella

If you’re a fan of authors like Poppy Z. Brite, Kathe Koja, Brian Lumley, Chuck Wendig, Maureen F. McHugh, Anne Bishop, and poets like Joy Harjo and Wislawa Szymborska, you might like my work too.

The things you’ll find here are:

• writing process notes
• worldbuilding artifacts
• character interviews
• deleted and alternate scenes
• sample chapters
• blog exclusive flash fiction and poetry
• publication updates

Long term goals for this website:

• blog exclusive Slaughter Chronicles flash fiction
• Slaughter Chronicles webcomics featuring the supporting characters

At the moment, my blog is on hiatus because I’m trying to finish a novel and go to school at the same time. My free End of the Month Newsletter is still very much active and goes out at the end of every month. If you’re interested in receiving news and updates from me about said novel and my writing process, please subscribe.

OUT NOW! free on kindle unlimited

Jessa Forest‘s The Slaughter Chronicles kicks off with Pulling Teeth and Other Stories, an anthology that reads like a novel. Follow Regina Slaughter through her young life as a werewolf who wants nothing more than to shift into wolf form and run under the moon—except she’s imprisoned by monster hunters who want to experiment on her. But this isn’t her first brush with danger. And it won’t be her last. At times visceral and at times light-hearted, Pulling Teeth and Other Stories is an exciting journey into a new paranormal world you’ll love!

Proof Positive

Reviewers are also calling it fantastical and visceral. My two favorite words!

ALSO OUT NOW:

Trampoline poetry issue #6

My poem “Lab: Medusa’s Head” is in issue 6 of Trampoline Poetry. Check it out here.

Blood and Bourbon issue #7

The amazing folks over at Blood and Bourbon have published not one but two of my poems in their issue Begin Again.

Bonus: free poetry

for the girls who can see

for the girls who cannot

for the girls turned into salt

for girls who wanted love

for the girls with no hope

for the girls with sharp edges

for the girls who stood up and fought

for the girls we will remember

for the girls who love stories

when it gets too dark to read

when your light has gone out

when the hunting constellations crack the winter sky

when you wanted that feeling (of not feeling) and

when all I could do was enjoy the freeze in my fingers

the blind cold against my cheeks like heavy hands