Luciano Marano’s short story “Burnt” was included in the recently published anthology “Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Vol. 3” (Red Room Press).

Marano is an Island-based journalist and author, and longtime Review staff writer/photographer,

The collection represents the “best extreme horror fiction of 2017,” according to editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax.

“It was a killer year for horror fiction of the harder kind,” they wrote. “Authors, editors and publishers presented readers with some startling works of horrific imagination, stories graphic in the extreme yet with subtleties suggesting larger meanings, tales that explore humanity by plumbing depths of soulless inhumanity and, in some cases, outright depravity.”

Marano’s story, originally published in “DOA III” (Blood Bound Books) in May 2017, stands in this new collection alongside works by Nathan Ballingrud, Brian Hodge, Bracken MacLeod and Scott Smith (author of “The Ruins”), among others.

Containing grisly and extremely graphic content not suitable for the squeamish, or the easily offended, “Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Vol. 3” is available now in paperback and e-book formats.

“It’s truly gratifying to be included in this project among so many great, talented writers whose works I enjoy,” Marano said. “I think genre fiction lets us deal with difficult and complicated issues in deceptively straightforward ways, in ways mainstream or supposedly more serious literature often does not allow.”

Marano’s short fiction has appeared in several print, digital and audio venues, including the podcasts “Radio Morgue,” “Horror Hill” and “Pseudopod,” as well as the YouTube series “Chilling Tales for Dark Nights.”

Visit www.luciano-marano.com to learn more.