Fantasy Magazine, Issue 79 (May 2022): Fantasy Magazine, #79

By Arley Sorg and Christie Yant

FANTASY MAGAZINE is a digital magazine focusing exclusively on the fantasy genre. In its pages, you will find all types of fantasy-dark fantasy, contemporary urban tales, surrealism, magical realism, science fantasy, high fantasy, folktales_and anything and everything in between. FANTASY is entertainment for the intelligent genre reader-we publish stories of the fantastic that make us think, and tell us what it is to be human.

 

Welcome to issue 79 of FANTASY MAGAZINE! In this issue's short fiction, Dominique Dickey explores the many pasts we cling to in "Drowned Best Friend", and K. J. Chien's "One Day the Cave Will Be Empty" takes a different kind of look at parenthood; in flash fiction, Katherine Ley provides some very important safety tips in "How to Make Love to a Ciguapa", and contemplation changes everything in "Mirage-Stories" by Ernesto Fuentes; for poetry, we have "Evolve" by Soonest Nathaniel and "Methuselah Performs a Magic Trick" by Alyza Taguilaso. Plus there's an interview with co-editors of anthology TROUBLE THE WATERS, Sheree Renee Thomas, Troy L. Wiggins & Pan Morigan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adamant Press
• Release date: May 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201112387

Book preview

Fantasy MagazineFantasy Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 79, May 2022

FROM THE EDITORS

Editorial: May 2022

Christie Yant and Arley Sorg

FICTION

How to Make Love to a Ciguapa

K. Garcia Ley

Drowned Best Friend

Dominique Dickey

Mirage-Stories

Ernesto Fuentes

One Day the Cave Will Be Empty

K. J. Chien

POETRY

EVOLVE (for the Dewdrop Duchess)

Soonest Nathaniel

Methuselah Performs A Magic Trick

Alyza Taguilaso

BOOK EXCERPTS

EXCERPT: The Stone Road (Erewhon Books)

Trent Jamieson

NONFICTION

Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue - Interview with Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morigan, and Troy L. Wiggins

Arley Sorg

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Author Spotlight: Dominique Dickey

Author Spotlight: K. J. Chien

MISCELLANY

Coming Attractions, June 2022

Support Us on Patreon, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

Subscriptions and Ebooks

Stay Connected

About the Fantasy Team

© 2022 Fantasy Magazine

Cover by warmtail/Adobe Stock Image

www.fantasy-magazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

From the Editors

Editorial: May 2022

Christie Yant and Arley Sorg | 608 words

AS: Christie, I have always loved short fiction. I remember being very young at a library somewhere in England, finding a massive, annotated tome of Robin Hood stories, and just digging in right there, sitting on the floor and falling in love with every page, every word. I had to be about eight or so. From there, I got into books about myths—the stories more than the explanations, at that age; and then comic books, especially The Avengers, Justice League, and of course, X-Men. Somewhere along the way, I became a teenager with lots of anthologies and collections in my room, including Stephen King’s Night Shift and Datlow’s anthologies, plus basically any horror antho I could find. What about you?

CY: My grandmother worked for the public school system, and she would get the books that the school libraries discarded and then pass them on to me. There was a multi-volume set of folk tales from around the world that I particularly loved. That was definitely the beginning. I was also extremely lucky to have a fourth-grade teacher who loved science fiction, and she would read Ray Bradbury stories to us; I distinctly remember sobbing over The Fog Horn. So I learned very early how much impact a short story could have. From there it was Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew and MZB’s anthology series Sword and Sorceress, among others.

AS: I love the way short fiction can be so many things, can go to so many places. I love that you can see so many amazing perspectives on an idea. I love the power a great piece of short fiction can exert in such a relatively brief span of time. Being a magazine editor is a ton of work, so much more than people realize; it takes up a lot of time and energy. But it’s also really wonderful to get to see so much fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. I’m grateful to get to publish pieces that do something special. I made a collage of the covers from our 2021 issues, and seeing them all together, I felt really proud of what we’ve accomplished with Fantasy. I felt so happy about all those fantastic words, and the seriously talented and hard-working authors we’ve been able to work with.

CY: I’ve seen that multitude of perspectives in every themed anthology call—you never get the same story twice, and it’s fascinating to see how different authors interpret the same brief.

It’s hard to believe we’ve put out seventeen issues already. The reason I wanted to become a writer and editor myself was to hopefully create something that had the same impact on someone else as so many stories have had on me over the years. We’ve published some memorable work here, and I look forward to discovering so much more!

• • • •

In this issue’s short fiction, Dominique Dickey explores the many pasts we cling to in Drowned Best Friend, and K. J. Chien’s One Day the Cave Will Be Empty takes a different kind of look at parenthood; in flash fiction, Katherine Ley provides some very important safety tips in How to Make Love to a Ciguapa, and contemplation changes everything in Mirage-Stories by Ernesto Fuentes; for poetry, we have Evolve by Soonest Nathaniel and Methuselah Performs a Magic Trick by Alyza Taguilaso. Plus there’s an interview with co-editors of anthology Trouble the Waters, Sheree Renée Thomas, Troy L. Wiggins & Pan Morigan. Enjoy!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Arley Sorg is a 2021 World Fantasy Award finalist as co-editor of Fantasy Magazine. He works as a senior editor at Locus Magazine, where he’s been on staff since 2014. He joined the Lightspeed family in 2014 to work on the Queers Destroy Science Fiction! special issue, starting as a slush reader. He eventually worked his way up to associate editor at both Lightspeed and Nightmare. Arley is also a columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He takes on multiple roles, including slush reader, movie reviewer, and book reviewer, as well as conducts interviews for multiple venues, including Clarkesworld Magazine and his own site: arleysorg.com. Arley grew up in England, Hawaii, and Colorado, and studied Asian Religions at Pitzer College. He lives in Oakland and, in non-pandemic times, usually writes in local coffee shops. He is a 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate.

Christie Yant writes and edits science fiction and fantasy in the American midwest. She is a World Fantasy Award nominee as co-editor of Fantasy Magazine; a consulting editor for Tordotcom’s acclaimed line of novellas; co-editor of four anthologies; editor of Women Destroy Science Fiction!, winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology; and the author of just enough published short stories that you’d probably have a toe left over if you counted them up. She is absolutely done with social media, but has a website here: inkhaven.net. She presently attempts to balance her dayjob, writing life, and editing life with varying degrees of success.

Fiction

How to Make Love to a Ciguapa

K. Garcia Ley | 843 words

Wake at dawn.

La ciguapa finds you, but you must first pay her homage. Lore dictates she is tucked in the lush mountains of the Dominican Republic. Try the countryside of Constanza, away from the business of the valley below. Follow the crushed line of cliffs set against the horizon. Your best bet is near the water but not the massiveness of a marsh, or anywhere near the Caribbean Sea (that’s too scary, too beyond for her). Camp near something smaller: Think high tide river stream or a nearby mangrove. A waterfall is desirable. If you’re lucky, you might catch la ciguapa sedentary on a rock, splashing for small fish, fingering a wreath of pinky bones on her neck, or oiling her scars.

Empty your mind. Meditate upon the land that was once ours: from the twitch of the grass blades, the green reflective moths feathering lazily with their silky wings, down to the fertile dirt.

The stillness is your first clue she is close. The trees that were once swaying and the cicadas that were once braying will mum. This is how you know she has found you.

Whatever you do, keep your eyes on her face. Palms will part in the breezeless brush and give way to the sanguine curve of her eyes, black hair dark set, as if night melted unto her scalp. Supple breasts contour her naked body down to the navel, leading to your desired territory—

Look up.

Whatever you do, do not stare at her feet.

Our oral patois say she has backwards feet, but their tomes twisted truths. The sign of the devil. The siren of the mountains. The eater of misbehaved children. We disagree. There’s nothing more beautiful, more ravenous than the mysterious ciguapa, where the feet point to where we once came.

The limoncillo and the mero are her favorite foods. Reach in your pack for the limoncillo first. Bite onto the hard skin until it pops, revealing the peach-colored meat inside. Place it in your palm and deliver it to her. Kneel. Show reverence to the mermaid of the land. Slice the mero next, rip out the gills, and shave off the scales so it is ready to eat.

She will walk to you when she is ready. This could take seconds or