Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scribblings from a Dark Place | 2008 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 2 | Ensicklopedia of Horror from Matt Shaw | 2014 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 3 | EnSICKlopedia 2 | 2015 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 4 | F*cked-Up Shorts: Volume One | 2015 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 5 | F*cked-Up Shorts: Volume Two | 2016 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 6 | Readers’ Minds | 2016 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 7 | 2016: A Year of Horror and Pain | 2016 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 8 | Horror’s Back Catalogue | 2017 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 9 | Deranged | 2017 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 10 | Sick. SickER. SickEST | 2017 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 11 | 2017: A Year of Horror and Pain, Part One | 2017 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 12 | Horror’s Back Catalogue: 2011-2012 | 2017 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 13 | Horror’s Back Catalogue: 2013 | 2017 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 14 | His Name Was Peter | 2017 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 15 | Sick Scribblings | 2018 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 16 | 2018: A Year Of Horror And Pain | 2018 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 17 | Under The Safe House And Other Stories | 2019 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 18 | These Whispered Stories | 2020 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 19 | Pandemic | 2020 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 20 | Our Demons Within | 2020 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 21 | Valentine’s Slay | 2021 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 22 | Obscenely Bizarre | 2021 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 23 | Sympathy For The Devil | 2022 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 24 | Halloween | 2022 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 25 | Almost Anything of Twisted, Short Horror Stories Based on Almost Anything | 2022 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 26 | 100 Words of Horror of Horror Drabbles | 2023 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 27 | Man’s Best Friend | 2023 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
| 28 | Day of the Woman | 2024 | Matt Shaw | Buy |
For readers who want to read a large amount of Matt Shaw’s short fiction without tracking down individual titles, the collections are the practical solution. Scribblings from a Dark Place (2008) is the earliest, predating his extreme horror period and offering a glimpse of where he started. The EnSICKlopedia series, beginning in 2014, was one of his first systematic attempts to gather his darker short work into one place, and the two volumes remain popular entry points for new readers.
The F*cked-Up Shorts volumes (2015 and 2016) and the Horror’s Back Catalogue series (2017) are particularly useful for readers working backward through his early catalogue. Horror’s Back Catalogue: 2011-2012 and Horror’s Back Catalogue: 2013 are both retrospective in nature and cover a period when Shaw was establishing the style he is now known for. His Name Was Peter (2017) is a themed collection that many readers consider among the better-curated volumes in his output.
The later collections reflect Shaw’s expanding readership and his willingness to work with seasonal and themed material. Valentine’s Slay (2021), Halloween (2022), and Here Comes Santa Claus (from the short stories listing) show him writing horror tied to specific occasions. Almost Anything of Twisted, Short Horror Stories Based on Almost Anything (2022) and 100 Words of Horror Drabbles (2023) both experiment with format, the latter constraining each story to exactly 100 words. Day of the Woman (2024) closes the current collection list with a female-led extreme horror anthology.