Chris Stenson, founder of the Moorhead Friends Writing Group, holds a copy of his latest book, “Sins of the Mothers.” (Photo/Anna Stenson.)

The Moorhead Friends Writing Group has published five anthologies of writing set in the fictional Effham Falls. The newest is “Where Monsters Hide: Tales of the Unknown.”

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

“Since childhood, we have told ourselves the bumps in the night are nothing more than a branch on the window or the weary bones of an old home. However, not all creaks and chitters are born of innocence. Sometimes, there is a tenable reason to fear. In the case of this book, 19 reasons ….”
That’s the warning on the back of the latest anthology published by the Moorhead Friends Writing Group. The band of wordsmiths – begun by local writers eight years ago, but now including far-flung members scattered across the country – has released its fifth anthology since 2022.
“Where Monsters Hide: Tales of the Uncanny” includes 19 diverse horror tales. “There are quite a few horror writers in our group – horror and fantasy,” says Chris Stenson, who launched the group at the Moorhead Public Library in 2017. “Horror sells really well in this region.” He speculates its appeal like in providing a way to face things that scare you “in a way that’s not really real.”
Stenson is a horror aficionado himself. His novel “Sins of the Mother,” was released in July 2024. Like the anthologies and other freestanding title, is published and sold by Moorhead Friends Writing Group. To date, the group’s imprint has shown up on 52 published books. The books are available from some local booksellers, including Words To Live By in downtown Moorhead, and most online booksellers, including Amazon, Ingram and Barnes & Noble.
“Where Monsters Hide” follows a quartet of books with a broader range of genres, though horror does run between them. The group’s first, “Tales of the Frozen North,” featured a variety of short stories, poems, and a record blizzard. Next came “Welcome to Effham Falls,” introducing the fictional community in Minnesota’s Arrowhead region. Along with book 4, “Return to Effham Falls: Tales of Lost Souls,” issued last November, it explores the places and people of a typical small town where residents know one another by name, but they also have secrets to keep.
Writers have worked together to build their imaginary town and create its characters, coming up with recurring characters and Effham Falls landmarks from each others’ works. All active members of the writing group can submit to its anthologies.
By day, Stenson is a senior cost analyst at Sanford Health Care. But writing has been in his blood since writing short stories as a young teen. Polished by a minor in creative writing at Minnesota State University Moorhead, his taste for fiction inspired part of a novel that he laid aside when he married.
“I set writing aside when our daughter was born,” the author notes. Years later, it was she who rekindled his passion for words. “Tia was in eighth grade when she found the manuscript of the novel I’d never finished,” he says. “She convinced me to start writing again.” It became the first chapters of “Sins of the Mother.”
“I fell in love with horror when I found Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’ in the fifth grade,” he remembers. “I wanted to borrow it, but the librarian wouldn’t let me – I was too young. I snuck it out anyway.” He adds, “And I did bring it back.”
He explains his taste for horror: “I enjoy exploring the darkness inside every one of us. We all have light. We all have darkness. The difference between someone who’s good and someone who’s bad is they control those dark thoughts.”
The Friends Writing Group began in person with just five participants. By now, it includes about 25 Fargo-Moorhead area writers, along with 15 or so who attend its meetings online via Zoom. Streaming the meetings offers more access to the published writers who are featured in the second of two meetings each month. Kathleen Grissom, author of the New York Times best-selling “Crow Mary,” speaks at the next on Tuesday, March 25.
For more information on Moorhead Friends Writing Group’s meetings and publishing opportunities, check out www.MoorheadFriendsWritingGroup.com.