Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Michael Cisco
My favorite Lovecraft stories change with time. I wouldn’t say any one feature attracts me significantly more than any other. This lurking idea was simply a propitious jumping off point for the story.
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Nonfiction
Nonfiction
The H Word: Nightmares in the Big City
There is safety in numbers, goes the popular adage. While that may be true when considering the likelihood of a car plowing into a group of cyclists, when it comes to life in the big city, living among the masses isn’t going to save you from the Bogeyman. In fact, the masses might have you running for your life.
Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Łukasz Orbitowski
In my early stories, I would try to shock my readers with ghosts and a lot of blood. Now I know that sometimes less means more. We have movies like the Saw series, and games like DEAD SPACE, and they will be more effective, much scarier in a traditional way, than books can be. So, I’m looking for something different.
Editorial
Editorial, June 2014
We have original fiction from Łukasz Orbitowski (“Don’t Go”) and H.L. Nelson (“Dirtman”), along with reprints Michael Cisco (“Machines of Concrete Light and Dark ”) and the aforementioned Seanan McGuire story, “Spores.” We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, a showcase on our cover artist, and a feature interview with Mark Morris.
Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Seanan McGuire
Q: You’ve written about viruses, parasites, and fungi—what is it about these pathogens that fascinates you? A:
Everything! I figure I have two choices, with as much as I know: I can either be extremely fascinated and excited and enthralled, or I can be terrified and never leave my home again.
Nonfiction
Interview: Nancy Holder
The 1980s and ’90s may have seen a horror explosion, but female voices often seemed to be drowned out in that sonic boom. One of the few exceptions was Nancy Holder. Although she wrote and published romance novels prior to her horror work, Holder soon established herself as an exciting new presence in the genre with a series of short story appearances in the influential Shadows anthologies, edited by Charles L. Grant. In 1991, she became the first female author to win the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction.
Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Chesya Burke
“I Make People Do Bad Things” is a historical story set in the late 1920s, early 30s. It’s based on the real historical figures of Madam Stephanie St. Clair and Bumpy Johnson. I enjoy blending genres, especially in historical or alternate history pieces, because it allows for re-imagining these eras through limitless realms.
Artist Showcase
Artist Showcase: Márcio Martins
Márcio Martins is a photographer and digital illustrator living on the south coast of Portugal. His work has been featured at juxtapoz.com and streetanatomy.com. Find him on Behance: www.behance.net/MarcioM.
Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Adam-Troy Castro
For years, I had been toying with the idea of a science fictional brothel that afforded human beings the opportunity to virtually experience the sex acts of creatures from other worlds. It didn’t work as space-faring science fiction, especially when my first few attempts centered on multiple dalliances culminating in total, irreversible surfeit … I then had the epiphany: what if there was only one transcendent experience, and anybody who sought it had to sacrifice everything, including his future?
Nonfiction
The H Word: That Oldest Fear
We’re faced with an eternal conflict. We don’t want to die, but deep down we know it’s inevitable. We also know our loved ones will die, but we don’t want them to come back after they do. Horror helps us come to terms with that, to finally accept it. Through horror we see that, as Lugosi told us in DRACULA, “There are far worse things awaiting man than death.”
