June 2025 (Issue 153)

We have original short fiction from Lindz McLeod (“Here I Go Again”) and Ben Peek (“Edgar Addison the Author of DÉVORER (1862 – 1933)”). Our Horror Lab originals include a poem (“Wet Dollars”) from Daniel Oluremi and a flash (“Eleven Songs for Another Lover”) from V.H. Chen. Michael Knost joins up for the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus we have author spotlights with our authors. We also have a review of the smash hit film SINNERS.

Cover art by Alex / Adobe Stock

June 2025 (Issue 153)

Editorial

Editorial: June 2025

by Wendy N. Wagner

Welcome to what might be our most meta issue ever. I’m no expert on postmodernism (seriously, I fell asleep every session of my 20^th Century Philosophy class), but I do love fiction that recognizes it’s working within a larger schema of texts all inescapably linked by culture.

Fiction

Here I Go Again

by Lindz McLeod

Author spotlight

This woman—walking alone, at night—is going to be killed. Here I go again. Watch my finger. See how the passive voice takes you by the hand? See how it leads you to understand the object and the verb? The trouble is, it leaves out the deliverer of the sentence.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Lindz McLeod

by Devin Marcus

In the original ABBA song, the singer dramatically bemoans her inability to stay away from her lover. “Here I go again” is a sigh of resignation for an outcome that the singer considers predetermined due to her inability to escape the cycle.

Fiction

Eleven Songs for Another Lover

by V.H. Chen

Every once in a while I am lucky enough to disgorge a story almost fully formed from the get go. This one was born from a stew of rising fury with ambient misogyny, irritation with discourse about the declining art of music playlist design.

Nonfiction

The H Word: Free Spirits

by Maria Alexander

Séances are as common in horror as the unwitting purchase of a haunted house. Fans and auteurs alike enjoy the frisson of a spirit speaking through a medium to nervous and skeptical séance attendees.

Fiction

Edgar Addison, the Author of Dévorer (1862-1933)

by Ben Peek

Author spotlight

For such an infamous book, the original edition Dévorer is decidedly ordinary. It is a small, clothbound book, written in French. It is one hundred and forty-seven pages long. It was privately printed by its author, Edgar Addison, in the final years of his life.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Ben Peek

by Devin Marcus

It seems to me if you can afford to abuse people, flout social rules, and treat people like garbage, you will. I wasn’t really trying to say anything about social hierarchy, just presenting it as is, as it takes place around us.

Poetry

Wet Dollars

by Daniel Oluremi

Money rituals are inhumane practices carried out by different traditional religions in Nigeria. They, unfortunately, contribute to and are influenced by the kidnapping problem in the country.