Can This Be Dystopia?

Parade

Can This Be Dystopia?
by Karen Heuler

Parades belong to dystopias.

Ha, you say. Prove it.

What is a parade but a display of solidarity with the norm, with the perceived perfection  of society? We love to celebrate, of course, and we love crowd emotions, which provoke a sense of unity and—here, I’ll say it—superiority.

If you’re not part of the parade, you’re part of the problem.

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Cosplay Meets Horror: Joshua Viola on the Making of “True Believers”

"True Believers" cover

For many writers and artists, spending time at conventions is a regular part of an annual routine. It’s not surprising, then, that some have opted to use genre and comic book conventions as the setting for stories, including one of Evan Dorkin’s Eltingville Club stories, Nick Mamatas’s novel I Am Providence, and Paul Cornell and Marika Cresta’s Con & OnNow, in the new series True Believers, writers Joshua Viola and Stephen Graham Jones teamed with artist Ben Matsuya for a tale of cosplay and horror set at the Colorado Festival of Horror.

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Sunday Stories: “Transcription”

Pencil

Transcription
by Regan Mies

My mother told me over the phone that my brother had become “selectively deaf.” He could still hear. He enjoyed instrumental music. He often took nature walks in the arboretum along the shore. When we were kids, he could identify birds by their calls. 

“He doesn’t want to listen to you?”

My mother scoffed. Her shopping cart clattered. The sound muffled as she swapped her phone from one ear to the other. “You know your brother. It’s his new thing.”

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