In an interview, the iconic drag queen Sasha Colby said something like---drag for her was a tool to empower people who had been disempowered. And that sparked the essence of Courtney’s character and her journey.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
The bedbug bite is unlike any insect bite I’ve experienced before. You’re covered in these welts, and the cumulative effect of their itching is the inability to concentrate on anything other than that sensation. If horror is about extremity, then this story is about extremity of sensation.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
I think this is a story about thinking too much. Stop thinking and you become less human, more like an animal; that involves scars, and predators, and living outdoors, and for certain animals it sometimes involves eating garbage.| Nightmare Magazine
I wrote the bulk of the first draft while I was on a cruise ship and experiencing the deep ennui that comes from being on a cruise ship. So that’s intrinsically buried deep in the DNA of this narrative in many mysterious and arcane ways. The second piece of inspiration is that a couple of years ago, on social media, I had seen an image of a mermaid in a bathtub with a bunch of tally marks written on the wall, and that painting really struck me. It’s always fun to take things seriously, an...| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
I wrote “The Girlfriend Experience” while attending Clarion West last year. I masochistically put my hand up for Monday critiques, so it was one of the stories in our very first day of workshops. In retrospect, it might’ve been a subconscious litmus test to find out which of my classmates were prudes. (As it turns out, none of them; Clarion West Class of 2024 is wall-to-wall perverts, and I could not be happier.)| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
In this interview, author SenLinYu discusses writing about moral greyness in war in their debut fantasy novel, Alchemised. The post SenLinYu: Don’t Try To Be for Everyone appeared first on Writer's Digest.| Writer's Digest
In this interview, author Karen Walrond discusses the joy at the center of hew new book, In Defense of Dabbling.| Writer's Digest
Inherent in saving face, there’s a backdrop of protectionism. A fear of losing your community, in losing everything. There’s pressure to be fastidious and appear too powerful to mess with. Many families, mine included, have a history of keeping their heads on a swivel to survive war.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
The thing that got me excited to write this story is the jaded and familiar voice of Bangkok taxi drivers. They’re my biggest driver, literally. Taxis decorated for spiritual protection aren’t such an uncommon sight either. This voice became irresistible when I was playing Cyberpunk 2077.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
When I sat down to write “Apeiron” I had a decent sense of what I wanted it to be. A lot of the thinking about the story happened off the page, over years. I knew I wanted it to feel like a fable, but with more modern elements. I knew I wanted to expand on creation myths and delve into the psychology of gods. I knew I wanted it to be dreamy. What form all of that would take was the part I was least sure about. I figured I would work that out as I went.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
We’re supposed to take care of one another, empower and uplift one another, hold one another accountable, show interest in one another’s histories, present experiences and dreams for the future, keep the home we share safe and clean for all of us who live here now and will live here in the future.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
People really don’t like confronting the unknown and they really don’t like conflict. So much of this brief window into this couple’s relationship is about avoidance, distance, observation from far away but with no real knowledge gained. And they both know it’s wrong; the Magic 8 Ball didn’t appear for no reason.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
Zan being biracial, nonbinary, and working to get by paycheck to paycheck is, frankly, a relatable existence that’s also an infuriating one. I wrote this back in 2024, prior to the election in the U.S. and other events related to CEOs that transpired, so this story feels eerily relevant in a way I never intended.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
I knew wanted to write a series character, so I took inspiration from the many, many characters in fantasy which appear over multiple pieces in general, and I guess a little bit from C.L. Moore’s great swordswoman, Jirel of Joiry.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
In this interview, author Daphne Fama discusses writing a love letter to Filipino history with her debut horror novel, House of Monstrous Women.| Writer's Digest
What strikes me about Hannah is she’s not afraid of the bunny-ear kids, by all appearances the most fearsome thing at Colden Hills Music Camp. Instead, her anxieties are laser-focused on walking around in her swimsuit, and having to be social at the ice cream social, and not getting picked up at week’s end.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
I’m always thinking about real-life stereotypes and tropes, and how I can subvert them in the space of fiction. I wanted to write a story where the dad didn’t disappear but perhaps was neglectful of his family in other ways. He gets the milk, but is that the point?| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
Author Catherine Dang discusses the shocking true story that helped inspire her new coming-of-age horror novel, What Hunger.| Writer's Digest
The biggest influence was my own encounters with unhoused children on the streets of Karachi. Either on the way to school myself or coming to and from places in the city. There is no childhood for them, and no organised resource or infrastructure to resort to.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
The first version of the story I wrote for a friendly contest in a writing group. I used a pair of prompts---a set of words to use---from which I picked joint, monolith, stole, Jeep, and perhaps one more; and the idea of something that has lost its symmetry. A flat tire on a Jeep in the desert came to me almost right away.| Lightspeed Magazine
I think fantasy and science fiction have always been opposed to oppression. There’s always an evil man standing in a tower somewhere, a great all-seeing eye peering out at his domain, and there’s always band of men (or hobbits) rising up to meet him.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
We all have a role in this world, but largely our role is not to be the hero. Tomas is a guy who grew up on some little hick planet, dreamed of getting off, and did in fact succeed in escaping.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
In the Yoruba translation of the Holy Bible, the devil is sometimes called Satani which is just an adjustment of the English word Satan. However, where the English version uses the word “devil” then the Yoruba translation is Éshu.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
We’re so used to thinking of exploring other planets as a dream or even a privilege. But if all these wild dreams come true, going into space will become someone’s job. What is our dream for those jobs?| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
I feel like one of the mistakes we see a lot of historically is “oh, there’s plenty of that, you don’t need to worry about that.” On a space station there isn’t plenty of anything. You have to worry about all of it. But on a planet . . . we make the mistake of thinking that we’re basically different from a space station.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
The title came to me first, and I built the story around that concept of asking for it. How I might subvert it. Because that phrase, to me, has always been how someone’s wants are placed on another person. The justification they hunt for to allay any guilt or anxiety or sense of culpability.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
It seems to me if you can afford to abuse people, flout social rules, and treat people like garbage, you will. I wasn’t really trying to say anything about social hierarchy, just presenting it as is, as it takes place around us.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
In the original ABBA song, the singer dramatically bemoans her inability to stay away from her lover. “Here I go again” is a sigh of resignation for an outcome that the singer considers predetermined due to her inability to escape the cycle.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
“Glory Hole” is a horrific, although incredibly intimate, look into the ways in which we punish ourselves in ways we think we deserve. What was your inspiration for this story? What was the writing process like, and was it any different from the ways you’ve written other stories? I wrote “Glory Hole” shortly after suffering […]| Nightmare Magazine
