I’ve been listening to the band The Unthanks a lot this fall. Over and over, songs like Guard Your Man Well and Queen of Hearts have popped up on playlists; one of the talents The Unthanks has is making songs uniquely theirs, while remaining true to the history and pedigree of the music, and the performers who played those songs before them.

Fantasy and horror, in the hands of talented authors, artists and editors, has that same quality. Ancient archetypes, old poems and new visions mesh together in unexpected and resonant ways, much like the work of the contributors in this issue.

Create

In honor of our double issue, we have art from two talented female artists. Octi-Pack is a charming example of the fantastical art of Holland-born artist Lois van Baarle, and is joined by Marico Fayre’s surreal photography through her piece In a Piscean World.

In Space to Be, Stephanie Crist speaks to having a room of her own to write from, in a life full of both motherhood and the written word. Will Hindmarch’s brief, achingly poetic Bang on the Blank Page is a stark, bright statement about his writing; you’ll know him by the blood upon the lintel and the door.

Ryan Macklin explores Horror & Hope in both cinema and role-playing games; the structure of their relationship should be of significance to horror and fantasy writers alike.

Trisha Wooldridge takes writers on an engaging and practical romp in her how-to guide, Design Your Fantasy Creature… with Science!

Sell

Morgan Dempsey, a talented writer and a slush reader at Scape, gives an intelligent answer to What Makes YA?

Editor and publicist Jaym Gates gives a candid take on surviving the world of horror in her declaration, I Don’t Have 10 Rules.

In her Confessions of a Horror Micro-Publisher, Silvia Moreno-Garcia gives a cozy window into her life and work in micro-publishing, inhabited by horrors ranging from the Lovecraftian to the familiar.

Amanda Valentine gives The Long Answer to the question about what she does, working as an editor in one of the most unique frontiers of speculative fiction—role-playing games.

Read

Paula R. Stiles gives a dryly humorous and adroit look at the origins of today’s fantasy heroines in the sorceresses and warriors of the past in Tales from the Brass Bikini: Feminist Sword and Sorcery.

Jennifer Brozek’s Of Blood and Honey: Review and Interview with Stina Leicht provides a nuanced look at the intermingled fantasy and Irish history in the novel Of Blood and Honey; Brozek’s interview with Leicht explores the story’s unflinching roots in the Troubles.

Tribute: Leonora Carrington

April Grey introduces a fresh, touching look at the life and career of surrealist painter and novelist Leonora Carrington, who died earlier this year.

Our final issue of the year was bittersweet for us; in this special double issue we discussed our beloved fields, aimed to educate and entertain, and paid a word of tribute to one of the women who blazed a trail for all of us. We hope you’ll find this issue a companion in the long, dark winter ahead.

We’ll see you in the spring.

Till then,

Lillian Cohen-Moore

Editor-in-Chief

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