Welcome to issue forty-eight of Nightmare!

We have original fiction from Adam-Troy Castro (“Four Haunted Houses”) and Maria Dahvana Headley (“Little Widow”), along with reprints by Rachael K. Jones (“Who Binds and Looses the World with Her Hands”) and Usman T. Malik (“Laal Andhi”).

We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, and a panel discussion on witches in the horror genre.

Hugo Award Results

As I write this, I’m just back from MidAmeriCon II, the 74th annual World Science Fiction Convention (a/k/a, Worldcon). The Hugos were presented on Saturday, August 20.

Nightmare’s Alyssa Wong very narrowly lost the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to The Martian author Andy Weir, and the extended nominations tally revealed that her Nebula Award-winning story “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” came extremely close to being nominated for the Hugo as well (in Best Short Story). Because of this near-miss, Alyssa did receive an Alfie Award from George R.R. Martin, at his second annual Alfie Awards, which were presented at his “Loser’s Party” at the majestic Midland Theater, a few blocks away from the convention center. (If you’re not sure what the Alfie Awards are, or why GRRM started handing them out, check out this io9 post if you want to learn what prompted it: bit.ly/alfie_awards.)

Lightspeed’s two contenders—me, in Best Editor (Short Form), and Brooke Bolander, in novelette (for “And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead”)—also both lost, albeit to very deserving winners, and, in Brooke’s case, by only an incredibly small margin. The Best Novelette Hugo went to “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang (from Uncanny Magazine), and Best Editor (Short Form) went to Ellen Datlow. Uncanny also won Best Semiprozine, which Lightspeed won the last two years; we are no longer eligible in that category, but the voting results show that a good number of people still tried to nominate us anyway.

In any case, as they say, it’s always an honor to be nominated, and congratulations to all of the winners and the other nominees. If you’d like to see the full list of winners—and/or the extending nomination lists (so you can see what else nearly made the ballot)—visit thehugoawards.org.

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016

As you may recall, in addition to editing Nightmare and Lightspeed, I am also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, which launched last year. The first volume was guest edited by Joe Hill, and the 2016 volume (which comes out October 4) is guest edited by Karen Joy Fowler. The table of contents for the 2016 volume were recently announced over on io9, which includes two stories from Lightspeed (“Things You Can Buy for a Penny” by Will Kaufman and “Tea Time” by Rachel Swirsky), as well as many authors familiar to Nightmare readers. Visit johnjosephadams.com/basff to see the full table of contents and/or to pre-order!

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That’s all we have to report this month. I hope you enjoy the issue, and thanks for reading!