Welcome to issue #156 of Nightmare Magazine—and welcome to fall. Between teaching, book touring, and being a guest at a couple of conventions, I’ve had a packed summer, and I’m incredibly grateful for all that busyness. I’ve gotten to travel from Bremerton, Washington, all the way to Tampa Bay, Florida (that’s almost as far apart as you can get within the continental US, isn’t it?), with stops across the Midwest and two trips to Philadelphia, and I’ve meet so many amazing people! Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve had incredible conversations about the power of horror fiction and the importance of connecting with other humans. All of that was so restorative during a summer of devastating weather events and horrendous human rights violations.
If there’s one thing I learned this summer, it’s that we need each other more than ever. There are so many terrible things happening, and there’s no way we can survive all of them without a helping hand. We must invest our time and our energy into our relationships with our neighbors and our extended communities, even though it’s not easy or straightforward work, and our society has made it tougher than ever to connect with people.
The works in this issue are about how complicated and difficult it can be to form connections with people, whether they’re neighbors or family members. We kick off the month with “Autogas Ferryman” by Champ Wongsatayanont, the story of a haunted taxi driver who is placed in a position where he can change his community. Ash Huang captures a very difficult mother-daughter relationship in her story “Safe Face.” Adam-Troy Castro brings us the story of a strange marriage in his flash piece “Finishing Touches,” and L.M. Harris has a heartbreaking, Biblically inspired poem about broken families: “Blood-Orange.”
Adam-Troy Castro also brings us one of his quarterly book columns, where he recommends a new movie and an unexpected reprint series. Dan Chaon joins us at “The H Word” with a discussion of the influence of Tod Browning in our genre. We also have author spotlight interviews with our fabulous writers.
I’m so grateful to each and every person who reads this magazine, and I’m so happy and proud to be a member of the wonderful community of horror lovers. I never forget that while the world is a dark place, we horror fans have never shied away from looking at dark things—and that gives me a great deal of hope.
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