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“You know about the uncanny valley?” he asks. It’s one of those questions where your answer doesn’t matter, he’s going to explain it to you anyway. He’s already mansplained a number of things to you tonight, including the end of Inception, which is the reddest of flags, as far as things men can mansplain go.…
(Originally published in Weird Tales #363.) 1 I’m going to start with the pregnant woman because she survived. 79 other Amtrak passengers weren’t so lucky. 243 people boarded the Lake Shore Limited at Penn Station; we left at 3:40 PM. I had an appointment in Syracuse; me and a couple of lawyers in a windowless…
(Originally published at the Ploughshares blog.) When the arms of the larkspur dial openit’s only natural to want to dissolve. In the glinting hazeyou have nothing to do but keep moving inward. Here’s your realm of green sepals, tallas knights. Your calyx sharpens over a dominion of seeds.When the arms of the larkspur dial open…
Estival
Until the day she died, George Forster’s wife wanted to live with him. Instead, she lived with her mother; George rented a room in a boarding house. Of their four children, one had died, one was a babe in arms, and two lived in a work house. You know the sort of place—Dickens would later…
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Date Night
Jan StinchcombNobody thinks of the mother, given the babysitter’s ordeal. The mother, still young, is counting on dinner and a movie with her husband. It is the best time of her life—the children aren’t babies anymore, but they still need her. They’re good at school. They have interesting things to say, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant. …Anne Gare’s Rare and Import Video Catalogue, October 2022
Jonathan Raab(Originally published in Hymns of Abomination: Secret Songs of Leeds) “Elephant Subjected to the Predations of a Mentalist” – Dir. B.S. Stockton, 1921 A harrowing 47 seconds of early black and white motion photography, this film appears, at first, to be a derivation of the popular 1903 silent film short Electrocuting an Elephant, but is…Eight Vases of Njideka
KasimmaI am tucked in like an ovary, en route to Kentucky, in the belly of the bird; my mind is a vase of Njideka. Maka mberede nyiri dike. Njideka is my mother’s name, but its meaning is what I say like prayer: what I have is more. And what do I have with me? Nothing.…Persistent
AGA WilmotYou smile when you tell them your name. Wide but not too wide—show your teeth without being creepy, without them thinking that you’d like to eat their eyelids. Can you spell that please? The woman—you’re not sure if she’s a receptionist or a nurse, if the uniform is the same or different—has a kind voice.…
Maria
Kiki Petrosino(Originally published in Witch Wife.) She’d appear in the break before sleep.Her face a glass zero. Her dark buzzing.I was twelve. I sweated & begged to live. Back then, I believed she couldspike me with faith, a silverweed stolon—she’d appear in the break before sleep pronouncing my name in her languageof radial burn. Name, name,…To a Puppet, From a Dummy
Jon Padgett(Originally published in Mannequin: Tales of Wood Made Flesh.) First I feared them. Then I pitied them. Then I envied them. Popular culture presents us with the “killer doll,” either as a supernatural hobgoblin or as a psychological delusion born from a ventriloquist’s psychotic split personality. As a child, fear of this demon—born of The…
You Must Cut It From You
(Originally published on Andrew’s Patreon.) 1. This is a city of ghosts. I have walked the streets when a crowd of ghost bikes rode by, their invisible tires throwing up asphalt from a dying road. I’ve stood on the Waugh Bridge and watched a Cooper’s Hawk dive bomb ghost bats and climb back into…
You Are Not Your Writing: Or, How To Interpret/Deal With Writerly Rejection
(Originally published on Angela’s website.) I’ve written before about rejections and how to handle the dent they make in your self-esteem, and I think it’s advice that bears revisiting from time to time. One thing any writer needs to develop (apart from mad writing skills and the ability to respect the deadline) is a thick…
What Is Lost, What Is Claimed, What Remains Unretrieved
“Clowns aren’t made,” you tell your therapist inside her cream pristine office. “They’re born.” She hums and taps her fancy fountain pen against the edges of her clipboard with your name at the top, where everything you’ve said, everything you are, has made it into ink-bleeding bullet points of flowery script. “Care to elaborate on…
The Amassing Man
I stalk the amassing man through hell, eager to harvest the spores growing in his belly. Soon, I’ll have enough money to leave the wasteland behind and begin a new life. Standing on a steep rock formation, I scan the horizon with a tarnished brass spyglass and smile with satisfaction when I spot my prey…The Horror of Isolation: Exploring Solitude and Madness in Horror Film and Fiction
Ever wondered why your cat starts acting weird after you’ve been gone for a weekend? Now imagine being stuck alone for months, years, or eternity. Welcome to the terrifying world of isolation in horror, where the mind becomes its own worst enemy and authors and filmmakers have turned “me time” into a psychological nightmare. It…
Pile
It started with a feeling of gentle discomfort, of suggested motion, a piece of string tied around her back molars that began pulling tight. Tighter. Painfully tight. This way, turn this way, the feeling seemed to say. Confused at first, and then, yes, the spike of anger she knew would come. Finally, resignation. Maybe a…
Momentary Brightness
The night is cold and clear as Ray Ellis moves his telescope gingerly across the sky, monitoring the Blaze Star for an overdue nova when it happens. A flash of white-gold light in the dark pierces the heavens, a needle slicing from infinity down to his eye. Ray recoils from the fat cylinder of the…Mastering the Metaphor
If you are like most writers, you love metaphors (for simplicity, I’m using the term metaphor in this article to refer to both metaphors and similes). Put simply, metaphors form a connection between two seemingly unrelated concepts. Examples include “all the world’s a stage,” “love is a battlefield,” and “life is like a box of…
In Pursuit of the Black Wagon
The Circle E. B. Ranch was a swollen blister of affluence on the desolate Pecos River valley. The aging proprietor strode from the porch of his immense home to greet The Hatchetman at the main gate as he tethered his horse. “Merrick String. The veritable Hatchetman of Apache Pass, as I live and breathe. Had…
Horror And Romance In Films: The Perfect Marriage
One of the best things about being a book editor is spending time talking to folks about what they love to read, watch, and listen to. After all, since I’m trying to acquire projects that will resonate with readers, it makes sense to know what people enjoy, right? While most of my work days revolve…
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