First, before any wisecrackers comment that it’s already March 1st…technically, spring doesn’t begin until March 19th this year, so our Winter subtitle on this issue is still totally valid. Please don’t cyberbully us. We are too emotionally unstable right now.
But it’s true! Issue 2 of Ghoulish Tales is finally, at long last, available for readers everywhere. Physical copies just showed up at our office, which we will be mailing out to ghoulish readers today and tomorrow. If you haven’t already ordered a copy, consider doing so HERE. Or, if you’d rather subscribe, click HERE.
Here is what the issue looks like in the flesh:
As you can see, we have 100+ copies to package and mail out:
The second issue of Ghoulish Tales features stories & essays from Saswati Chatterjee, Jen Conley, Lor Gislason, Jess Hagemann, Justin Lutz, Lena Ng, Shannon Riley, E. F. Schraeder, Danger Slater, perfect kiss strickoll, Jennifer Elise Wang, and Stephanie M. Wytovich. Cover art by Betty Rocksteady.
Here is what the table of contents page looks like:
And, before I leave you, I thought I’d also share the introduction I wrote for Issue 2:
“CELEBRATING STIGMAS IN TIMES OF ATROCITY”
We live in a world of horror.
Some is good horror. A lot of it is bad horror. Most of it is bad horror.
We are suffocated by the atrocities of this universe on a daily basis. Sometimes it feels like there is no escape, and that is because there isn’t an escape.
We are trapped.
The only option we have is to momentarily flee into other horrors—the good horrors. Books, movies, television—these are the good horrors. These can be the fun horrors.
This magazine is meant to be a fun horror. Something that makes you excited about a genre so often criticized by the general population. A celebrated stigma. A reminder of why you love reading. Because I lied a moment ago, when I said there is no escape. Stories are an escape. This has been true since the beginning of time. When the sun goes down, and the darkness consumes us all, we will still have stories.
Stories are many things. They are distractions, yes, but they are also how we understand the world. Stories help us make sense of the unexplainable. They’re therapy sofas. They’re Rorschach tests. Every story is a puzzle, and the finished result is different every time you look at it. Stories are also entertainment, which is critical in times of vileness. Stories are medicine with multiple purposes and we must never take them for granted. When we have nothing else, we will still have stories, and I think that is the most beautiful truth in the world.
These things are easy to ignore. Spend enough time doomscrolling and you will forget how to experience joy. You will forget how to function.
I am not claiming Ghoulish Tales is anything special other than a good goddamn time. I would never want it to be anything more.
This is issue two of our little magazine. It’s several months behind schedule and frighteningly over budget, but that’s okay. It’s only a magazine. These are only stories. Stories I happen to have fallen in love with—and stories I hope you fall in love with, too.
Some of these writers I was already familiar with, but several of them I’d never heard of until coming upon their submissions in the slush pile. Discovering new writers and having the honor of publishing their very first stories, giving them that debut publication spot, it’s one of the primary joys I have left when it comes to working in publishing. It’s not an easy business. We will probably never make back what we spent on this issue, or any other issue, past or future. Each issue costs thousands of dollars that we have to frantically scrape together to pull off. This is not a brag, but a reality. So I just want to thank you, dear ghoul, for giving Ghoulish Tales a chance. For buying a copy and reading these wonderful authors. For—hopefully—telling your friends about the publication, and recommending it to every single human being you pass on the street going forward (or backward).
I hope, if anything, this issue introduces you to your next favorite writer.
And, if I could hope one more thing, it would be that these horror stories cure whatever ails you. They probably won’t—not completely, anyway—but I can still hope. And so can you.
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