Nov. 2024 (Issue 146)

We have original short fiction from Raven Jakubowski (“She Sheds Her Skin”) and Caroline Hung (“Moon Rabbit Song”). Our Horror Lab originals include a poem (“Sumbisori”) from Jess Cho and a flash story (“A Guide for Your Journey to the Green Hills”) from R. K. Duncan. 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 Nino Cipri.

Cover art by White Raven / Shutterstock

Nov. 2024 (Issue 146)

Editorial

Editorial: November 2024

by Wendy N. Wagner

November is the month Nightmare goes all-out celebrating dark fantasy. That’s right, it’s our annual all-dark-fantasy issue, but don’t worry: just because it’s extra magical doesn’t mean it’s not horrifying.

Fiction

She Sheds Her Skin

by Raven Jakubowski

Author spotlight

Cora has left her skin lying out again. It’s the first thing I see when come in. Open the door, hang up my coat, kick off my heels, turn on the lamp, and there it is, slouched in the mid-century chair by the ratty sofa. Her empty skin, deflated, black sockets staring at me.

2024 Stoker Award Finalist Stoker Award Finalists

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Raven Jakubowski

by Alex Puncekar

Shape-changers exist in myth and legend all over the world, and, to me, there’s something inherently tragic about them. I think Ovid’s Metamorphoses in particular thinks about the idea of willing and unwilling shape change.

Poetry

Sumbisori

by Jess Cho

“Sumbisori” refers to the peculiar exhale of the haenyeo-women divers in the Jeju Province of South Korea. When they surface, they let their breath out as a whistling sound that has always struck me as both a little eerie and a little lonely.

Nonfiction

The H Word: The Horrors Persist But So Do We

by Sofia Ajram

Most people who are asking for recommendations for terrifying books are bound to be disappointed. Responses to these posts germinate an exhaustive discourse around the subjectivity of fear but—it’s intriguing—there are little gems that pop up sometimes.

Fiction

Moon Rabbit Song

by Caroline Hung

Author spotlight

The skies are a pitch-black void—cold, empty, unforgiving. Far from home, the rivers of heaven have run dry, the starlight scarce in this part of Father’s empire. Passing comets die out with a pathetic fizzle, and the migrating flocks of magpies care not to bridge the gap between star-crossed lovers.

2024 Shirley Jackson Award finalist Shirley Jackson Award finalist

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Caroline Hung

by David Rees-Thomas

I like princesses, but I love them even more in their depraved and murderous states. I just really wanted to write in the perspective of a gross princess character, and I wanted her to be unapologetically messy.

Fiction

A Guide for Your Journey to the Green Hills

by R. K. Duncan

It’s a little difficult for me to think about the initial process of this piece because I’ve continued to think about it quite a lot since initially writing it, to the point where it’s now the kernel of a someday novel project about occupation by a victorious fairyland.

Nonfiction

Interview: Nino Cipri

by Alex Puncekar

Nino Cipri is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and educator. A graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and University of Kansas’s MFA program, Nino’s fiction has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, Lambda, Nebula, and Hugo Awards.