Jan. 2026 (Issue 160)

Enjoy original short fiction from Kurt Fawver (“The Tailors”) and Sara S. Messenger (“Jennifer’s Daughter”). Our Horror Lab originals include a flash (“Dregs”) from R. Diego Martinez and a poem (“At the Sight of My Grave, I Stumble”) from April Elaine Carson. We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, and a feature interview with Johnny Compton.

Cover art by Lumitar / Adobe Stock

Jan. 2026 (Issue 160)

Editorial

Editorial: January 2026

by Wendy N. Wagner

In a time when most of us are surrounded by bland, corporate big box buildings and bombarded with thoughtless, empty “content,” our writers are surgically extracting their inner worlds and offering them to you, our readers, so you can have a genuine, powerful experience.

Publishes Online on 1/7

Fiction

The Tailors

by Kurt Fawver

The day before the blind missionaries first arrived in our village, we had been raided by one of Jurgen Blanco’s enforcement squads. Blanco’s people were all the same—gaunt, lupine-visaged mockeries of men and women with broken, half-formed grins that perpetually played about their mouths.

Publishes Online on 1/7

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Kurt Fawver

by Kevin Figueroa Quiñones

Sometimes we, as people, are hesitant to use tools of oppressors to eliminate said oppression. Often, we try to take an ethical or moral “high road” to distance ourselves from such oppressors. We don’t want to use extreme means to reach our ends, even if we truly believe those ends are noble or just.

Publishes Online on 1/7

Fiction

Dregs

by R. Diego Martinez

They fell just to splatter on the concrete, some of them small as ice cubes. It was a day without clouds and the man selling fruit from his stand on the corner was nearly concussed as they began to patter against the street with sound like the early drumming of hail.

Publishes Online on 1/14

Nonfiction

The H Word: The Merry Macabre of the Renaissance Faire

by Barbara Barnett

The Faire gates swing wide to the tune of a jester and fairy blowing bubbles the size of beach balls. People laugh. Music drifts from every direction. Kids wave foam swords as the tantalizing smell of turkey legs and garlic mushrooms wafts through the walkway. Laughter echoes from the mud pit; a juggler drops a flaming torch and the crowd cheers as if it were intentional

Publishes Online on 1/14

Fiction

Jennifer’s Daughter

by Sara S. Messenger

My mom was sixteen when a band of boys took her out to the woods and bound her to a tree and tortured her to death, like in Jennifer’s Body, so you see her womb was kinda already out of commish by the time she got around to wanting to have me. A year ago, after my thirteenth birthday, she made her first and only concerted effort at explaining it.

Publishes Online on 1/21

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Sara S. Messenger

by Clay Vermulm

I’m interested in stories that excavate disgust and shame. I’ve always found those emotions very fascinating, to read and feel, to elicit in others through my writing. I find to go there, to write about whatever abnormal, unpleasant, secret, shameful thing, feels vulnerable and risky. I’m often very impressed by writers who do it.

Publishes Online on 1/21

Poetry

At the Sight of My Grave, I Stumble

by April Elaine Carson

First,
There is the procession of the snakes.
A wave of speckled heads with their thrilling patterns,
the tangle of their bodies as they weave

Publishes Online on 1/28

Nonfiction

Interview: Johnny Compton

by Alex Puncekar

Johnny Compton is a Stoker Award nominated author whose short stories have appeared in Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, The No Sleep Podcast and several other publications. He is the author of The Spite House, Devils Kill Devils, and Dead First, as well as the short story collection Midnight Somewhere.

Publishes Online on 1/28