Welcome to November and issue #170 of Nightmare Magazine—our fifth annual all-dark fantasy issue.

Here at Nightmare, we publish a lot of fiction with speculative elements that defy our scientific explanations for reality . . . which is pretty much how I define fantasy. By that definition, vampires, zombies, witches, ghosts, and werewolves—all classic horror tropes—fit happily under the umbrella of fantasy. In fact, during the paranormal fantasy boom of the early aughts, we saw tons of fantasy novels about all of those creatures. None of those books felt like horror novels; they usually blended mystery and romance elements with action, steering away from horror’s traditional mix of dread and suspense. The reverse can also be true: Joe Hill’s NOS4A2 and Chuck Wendig’s The Book of Accidents are suspenseful and often gruesome reads utilizing portals to secondary worlds, long a staple of the fantasy genre. So should they be shelved with horror or dark fantasy?

I believe dark fantasy provides a wonderful arena for magic, myth, and the darker side of the human experience to meld into each other. Every now and then we get a story at Nightmare that feels particularly magical or mythical, and those are the stories I like to highlight in our November issue. There’s something about November that seems like the perfect time to focus on these pieces. Our all-dark fantasy issue usually feels a little more lush than a regular issue, and this one is no exception to that.

We start the month with a new novelette from Lyndsie Manusos: “Horse Girls,” the story of a friendship gone wrong and a gruesome mystery in the stalls of the local racetrack. If you sobbed your way through repeat viewings of The Neverending Story (Artax 4EVR!!!), then you are this story’s target audience. Shiwei Zhou brings us the very touching “The Warehouse of Exiled Things,” which is the story of love, acceptance, and a strangely unsettling duo. Laura Garrison’s flash story “Pricks” plays with a familiar fairy tale, and Rukman Ragas’s poem “What Wears the Flesh” is a haunting tale of loss. Our nonfiction include a New Weird reading guide from Zachary Gillan, and horror film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas joins us with an H Word essay. And our author spotlight team sat down with our writers to find out what makes them tick.

No matter how you feel about the definition of dark fantasy, you deserve a little magic in your November. We’re delighted to share it with you!