Journals, Newsletters,
Magazines, and Webzines
It’s important to recognize the work of the talented artists working in the field of fantastic fiction, both dark and light. The following artists created art that I thought especially noteworthy during 2010: David Gentry, Ben Baldwin, Jim Burns, Arthur Wang, Hanna Glöd, Inna Hansen, Russell Dickerson, Keith Minnion, Steven C. Gilberts, Ming Doyle, Lizard, Chris Nurse, Robert Dunn, Dave Senecal, Mark Pexton, Howard Watts, Paul Sizer, Timothy Truman, Aaron Paquette, Stephen J. Clark, Pierre Smit, Vincent Sammy, Alan Beck, Ric Rawling, Matt Bissett-Johnson, Andrew Saltmarsh, Stacy Drumm, Alex McVey, Glenn Chadbourne, Jill Bauman, Vincent Castiglia, George Cotronis, Garret Dechellis, Daniele Serra, Joachim Luetke, Alberto Seveso, David G. Barnett, Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk, David Schembri, Shawn Kavanaugh, James Owen, Vincent Chong, Andrew J. McKiernan, Russell Morgan, John Banitsiotis, and Mara Sternberg.
Because of the annual turnover in small-press magazines—most rarely last more than a year or two—it’s difficult to recommend buying a subscription to those that haven’t proven their longevity. But I urge readers to at least buy single issues of those that sound interesting. Most magazines have web sites with subscription information, eliminating the need to include it here.
Some of the most important magazines/webzines are those specializing in news of the field, market reports, and reviews. The Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets, edited by Kathryn Ptacek and emailed to subscribers on a regular basis, is an excellent fount of information for markets in and outside the horror field. Market Maven, edited by Cynthia Ward, is a monthly email newsletter specializing in professional and semi-professional speculative fiction market news. Ralan.com and Duotrope.com are the web sites for up-to-date market information. Locus, edited by Liza Groen Trombi and Amelia Beamer, and Locus Online, edited by Mark Kelly, specialize in news about the science fiction and fantasy fields, but include horror coverage as well.
The only major venues specializing in reviewing short genre fiction are Tangent Online, Locus Magazine, and Locus Online, but none of them specialize in horror.
Of the three nonfiction magazines I read that specialize in movies, my favorite is Video Watchdog, a bi-monthly edited by Tim Lucas. It specializes—some would say obsesses—over minute details of all kinds of movies, and is erudite yet entertaining. In addition to reviews of movies, it has a regular audio column by Douglas E. Winter, a book review column, and a regular column by Ramsey Campbell. Fangoria, edited by Chris Alexander, is the daddy of the existing magazines that cover horror movies of all types, and, overall, it’s superficial but entertaining, covering big budget and independent horror productions, the grislier the better. The magazine also features regular columns on news, DVD releases, video games, horror music, comics, and books. And lots of gore. In 2010 there was a good two-part piece by Stephen King on “What’s Scary?” analyzing some of his favorite movies (including a description of The Blair Witch Project that makes me want to watch it again). Rue Morgue, edited by Jovanka Vuckovic, is another monthly media magazine covering horror in all its bloody glory (with the still photos to prove it) but unlike Fangoria, in between the gore there are often thoughtful articles and columns. The 13th anniversary Halloween issue focused on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (happy 50th birthday!), with a panel convened about the movie’s influence, plus articles about the movie’s score, its development from novel to screenplay, and its sequels. One of the best things about Rue Morgue is its regular “Classic Cut” column on the last page of the magazine, which covers excellent, often obscure horror sources such as John Webster’s seventeenth century play The Duchess of Malfi.
Dead Reckonings: A Review of Horror Literature, edited by S. T. Joshi and Tony Fonseca and published twice yearly by Hippocampus Press, is a fine review journal focusing on contemporary work while also considering the classics. Ramsey Campbell’s entertaining columns, “Ramsey Campbell, Probably,” are reprinted.
Machenalia: The Newsletter of the Friends of Arthur Machen is free to members, along with the twice-yearly journal Faunus. The organization’s main purpose is to encourage a wider recognition of, and foster familiarity with, Machen’s work, and to provide a focus for critical debate. For more information: www. machensoc.demon.co.uk
New Horizons edited by Andrew Hook for members of the British Fantasy Society is tuned more toward fantasy than horror but its sister publication, Dark Horizons, edited by Stephen Theaker, takes care of that. There were good horror stories by Mike Chinn, Ian Hunter, Philip Meckley, Neill Boyce, and Ralph Robert Moore. Both magazines also contain interviews, profiles, and nonfiction articles.
Weird Fiction Review edited by S. T. Joshi is a new, hefty annual journal with fiction and nonfiction. The first issue, published in fall 2010, is quite promising with six original stories, five poems, eight essays, and a color gallery of artist David Ho’s work. The fiction is very strong, with standouts by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. and Jason C. Eckhardt.
Cemetery Dance edited by Richard Chizmar came out with its Halloween issue in May. There were interviews with Al Sarrantonio and Ronald Kelly, book reviews, columns on Stephen King and on the horror world in general, and eight pieces of fiction. The second 2010 issue came out in the fall, with a tribute to Bentley Little featuring two new stories, an interview, a capsule description of each of his books, and a review of his most recent novel. The issue also had a roundtable discussion with some of the contributors, and snippets of several stories from Christopher Golden’s zombie anthology The New Dead. Every issue also has book reviews and several regular columns.
Black Static, edited by Andy Cox, is always a joy to read, not the least because it looks good, inside and out. During 2010, the bi-monthly featured interviews, book and movie reviews, publishing and media news, and commentary in addition to fiction. During the year there was notable fiction by Lynda E. Rucker, Mike O’Driscoll, Tim Casson, James Cooper, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Ray Cluley, Nate Southard, Norman Prentiss, M. G. Preston, Sarah Singleton, Daniel Kaysen, and Allison J. Littlewood. The Cluley story is reprinted herein.
Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer focused on steampunk in its spring issue. There was very little horror but the best of it was by Kater Cheek. The summer issue's (published in November) theme was “Uncanny Beauty: A Celebration of the Eerily Sensual” and had an eclectic mix of nonfiction and fiction, with the standouts in horror by Lauren Beukes, Catherynne M. Valente, and Mike Aronowitz.
Supernatural Tales edited by David Longhorn is a handsome and consistently entertaining, long-running gothic horror magazine. There were two issues published in 2010 with several reviews and a total of fourteen stories. The stories I liked best were by Ian Rogers, Martin Hayes, Peter Bell, Sam Dawson, Mark Patrick Lynch, Gemma Farrow, Michael Kelly, and Michael Keyton.
Midnight Echo, the Magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association, brought out its fourth issue in June and there were notable stories and poetry by Patty Jenson, Daniel Braum, Graham Fielding, Holly Day, and a collaboration by Geoffrey Maloney and Andrew Bakery. It was edited by Lee Battersby.
Shadows & Tall Trees edited by Michael Kelly debuted in the autumn with a simply elegant digest-sized format and consistently good supernatural, ghost, and weird fiction. The first issue’s topnotch stories were by Joel Lane, Sandra Kasturi, Simon Strantzas, and a novella by Geordie Williams Flantz. Also included were book and movie reviews by Kelly. This looks to be the perfect magazine for aficionados of low-key horror. Bravo.
Dark Discoveries edited by James R. Beach published two issues in 2010, both containing a generous mixture of fiction and nonfiction, with multiple interviews per issue plus essays, profiles, tributes and reviews. There were notable stories by John Shirley and Ronald Malfi.
Chizine edited by Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi is a long-running webzine dedicated to dark fiction and poetry. It’s always a reliable source of good fiction. Those I found the most interesting in 2010 were by Nadia Bulkin, Brenta Blevins, Dave Chua, Arlene Ang, Carrie Laben, and Heath Lowrance.