MagBog #7: MOONROT
MOONROT is a special case; this magazine hasn't yet debuted. This MagBog hopes to get you excited for their gory, soily birth in the bracken -- a delicious, tender pain.
Unleash the ROT.
—MOONROT.
This MagBog is different. There aren’t any bodies of work to discuss in MOONROT quite yet, only the flicker of what will be in time — and, hopefully, that lets you know how excited I am to see it.
MOONROT is the swarthy little sister of the more well-known Cosmic Daffodil Journal. Cosmic Daffodil concerns itself with birth and renewal, things most jejune. It is flowery, honey-colored, all pollen — a chrysalis surviving a storm. While Cosmic Daffodil Journal is comparatively quite sunny and golden, MOONROT is not.
MOONROT is the storm. It is set to be the black sheep, a theurgist, the Odile to Cosmic Daffodil’s Odette — maybe both at once. MOONROT is a cocoon, a nocturnal not-quite-creature — the mess and curd of metamorphosis, the rotting of its silk, instead of its acceptably beautiful end.
MOONROT is afterbirth and labor pains. It is all corners of suffering, the ugly things we do to survive — the beauty in the bleed. Pain made mythic, horror made sacred. Grotesque made beautiful.
If Cosmic Daffodil Journal is the bloom reaching for the sun, MOONROT is what grows in the dark soil beneath it.
These magazines are siblings—not opposites, but complements. One speaks of becoming. The other speaks of surviving what becoming costs.
MOONROT does not promise comfort.
It promises truth, teeth, and transformation.
—MOONROT’s relationship to Cosmic Daffodil Journal.
If Cosmic Daffodil is the Alkonost hailing dawn and fortune, MOONROT is the Sirin in all her sidereal vengeance. It is Hadean, unflinching. MOONROT’s after horror, witch lit, and trauma text. It’s The Handmaid’s Tale, “labour” by Paris Paloma. It’s every phase of the moon, hemlock tea, and vomiting out your organs. It’s cannibalism as the ultimate act of love.
Selfishly, above all else, what I’m hoping MOONROT will be, is absolutely mad. Just as a treat. The magazine promises to be a succulent, violent read — that coveted feminine rage we love so dearly — but MOONROT is very clear in their distaste for mindless pulp. Any pain must be purposeful. There must, as always, be method to the madness. Your flesh should be raw, but it had better be wagyu.
As we know, I love niche magazines, and I love magazines with a very specific vision. MOONROT wants your gothic poetry, scariest myths, and folk horrors — this reflected all over its site imagery, from its ravens to its wilted flowers and the pulsing, browned clouds over a full moon. Honestly, this MagBog doesn’t need to exist; MOONROT has absolutely no issue explaining itself, what it wants, and what imagery it’s looking for (even detailing what it doesn’t want).
Note to the masthead: stop taking my job! It was hard to create my own imagery for this MagBog, you laid it out too clearly 😅 I had to leave some stuff out so I still had something to write about…
We all know, as well, that I am a student of the grotesque. As a horror writer, so much of my work concerns abomination, the odd comfort in horror, the freedom in a monstrous nature. I have a novel-length thesis I wrote for a senior undergraduate project on my own conversation with the grotesque — what it means to me, how it has become me. As MOONROT declares, “If your work feels too dark, too strange, too angry, or too alive for a “pretty” space—MOONROT wants it” — this was naturally a publication that I was going to jive with.
And to anyone who reads my Substack posts, I am positive MOONROT will jive with you as well. I so, so look forward to seeing what this magazine becomes.
MOONROT is slated to premiere October 1st. Keep an eye out!
Design: All the soily shades of brown and deep twilit hues. As a liquid, MOONROT would be strong English tea and dark red wine. MOONROT is a Squarespace publication, largely a soft, milky beige — classy, serif, loyal to the appearance of printed books, it adheres to the aged-paper aesthetic it asks for. The current art and design direction of the website is gothic, a little dark-cottagecore. Almost reminds me of black-figure pottery, in some far-removed way. Dripping with paint. Dark academia, goblincore, and mori kei girls will absolutely love this collective.
Vibe: Again, MOONROT does a pretty good job at explaining itself without me. It’s “A Disputacioun Betwyx þe Body and Wormes.” It’s a cereus and the second it wilts. Hel. Morana. A fawn’s skull left out in the wald — her mother’s despairing call. Gangrene. Owl talons. Bruising beneath the skin that spreads like poison. Blood that is too old, blood that has begun to clump together. Persephone. Wrath, and the deep hunger of its waning. A knowing saprophyte. Wedding gowns sunken in Loch Ness — the bodies inside. A quiet case of scurvy. Fox screams. Ghost pipe. Algal blooms and what they’ll kill. Broken witch elms. All illness, all madness. Every neuron of a half-eaten hare. Cygnets picking at corpses. What gods fear, and what makes them hurt. That you were born against your will.
Types of Work: Poetry, prose, and art.
Editors: Madisen D’Ascenzo & Kelly Brocious (joint EIC).
Submission Fee: $1!
Cost to Read: TBD.
Three MOONROT Themed Songs From My Playlist
“My Mother Was the Moon” - King Dude
“Follow Me Down” - Tracey Thorn
“Strangers” - Ethel Cain
