Our April Issue Is Ready to Meet You (from a Safe Distance)

Welp, when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, we weren’t trying to smell them through DIY-bandana face masks while maintaining twelve-foot-diameter personal space bubbles. This shit got hella real and then proceeded to fling itself into our collective fan.

The poems and stories here in our one-hundred-and-eighth issue brought some sparkle to our gloomy days, and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Take a leap with Sarah Sexton’s statuesque protagonist and sing the sheep electric with AR Dugan’s replicant. Ride a Sisyphean ouroboros with P.K. Read, look down on Leatherface with Anne Gresham, and explore the final frontier with Deborah P Kolodji before trying on a new (out)look with Chris Stanton. Don’t leave without admiring the organic fusion cover art of Ajay Kumar (Jordan) Singh.

Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Send us some of your words. We’ll be back with another issue in July, because the more things change, the more we stay the weird.

When Lilacs Last in the Boneyard Bloomed . . .

It’s April, nerds, and you know what that means! Slippery amphibians! Fractured fairy tales! Poetic pond(ering)s! Sweet, melancholy 90s nostalgia! Terrifying land mermaids! Harlem Renaissance greats photographing the undead! Centaurs with sunflowers!

Oh.

Well, that’s what it means to us.

It might be the cruelest month in the Waste Land, but April’s the coolest month here in the Pine Barrens. Pull up a rotting log and join our circle for a spell. Or a charm. Or a full-body transfiguration; we dabble in all the Magicks . . .

Swish it online and flick the .pdf.

 

Guess what just dropped into your pumpkin hole?

Mr. Punkincheeks, Devourer of Souls (and Snickers)

Welcome to issue One Hundred Two. The pieces in these pages share a contemplative tone, reflecting on the past, evaluating the present, and speculating on what is yet to come. Gavin Broom returns with a lovely and subtle seaside story, and C. M. Donahue imagines a lunar adventurer’s final moments in free verse. Heather Santo‘s flash fiction explains how science and art collaborate in the realm of the beyond. Askold Skalsky‘s sonnet explores the distance between desire and reality, and Emily Williamson‘s blank verse poem turns a landfill into a time machine. And if it’s straight-up horror you’re looking for, Predra6 has you covered with this month’s cover art.

Unwrap it online or savor the .pdf.