Contributors

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809–1849)

The undisputed master of American Gothic. His tales of madness and guilt have haunted readers for nearly two centuries.

✦ THE BLACK CAT

A man’s drunken cruelty toward his beloved cat spirals into murder, madness, and a haunting secret buried within the walls of his own home.

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EDOGAWA RANPO (born Tarō Hirai) (1894–1965)

The father of Japanese mystery fiction and a central figure of the erotic-grotesque gothic movement. His pen name is a homage to Edgar Allan Poe, and his work explores distinctly Japanese themes of illusion, doppelgangers, and the uncanny.

✦ THE HUMAN CHAIR

A hideously ugly chair maker conceals himself inside a luxurious chair with dark intentions. His plan takes an unexpected turn as he becomes obsessed with the sensation of those who sit upon him. His confession to a young author blurs the line between reality and fiction.

Translated from the Japanese by Finlay Cameron

FINLAY CAMERON

Finlay is a Japanese-English translator specializing in technical, legal, and audiovisual translation. His work includes Tricksters in the Twilight: Fox and Tanuki Tales from Japan.

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JOHN McLEAN

John is an author and translator whose work explores the haunting legacies of war on the English landscape. He currently lives in Hiroshima where he is an associate professor.

✦ THE FOXES OF SPETCHLEY PARK

A traumatized survivor of the Great War returns to Worcestershire. A black fox leads him to Spetchley Park, where a promise that led two boys to the trenches demands to be kept.

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ADAM PORKOLAB

Adam is a Hungarian-born writer whose fiction is forthcoming in Chthonic Matter Quarterly, Zooscape, NonBinary Review, Quantum Quill, Third Flatiron, Agita Magazine, Bullet Points, Flash Phantoms, and elsewhere. His work explores the intersection of Central European folklore and the psychological weight of inherited traditions.

✦ ON THE BATISTE KERCHIEF OF PANKA HUGYECZ

For forty years, a Palóc keening woman has worn the same black batiste kerchief. Each death she has mourned has left its mark on the cloth, until it tightens around her skull.

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ATHINA PIA BARREDA

Athina is a writer living in Davao City, Philippines, where she is also an Entrepreneurship student. Her work reimagines myth through a gothic lens, weaving loss and longing into tales of the uncanny.

✦ DEAR ORPHEUS

A woman in a psychiatric ward confesses to the boy she once loved. She knows she is being watched. She knows the ward was built for her. The line between memory and delusion blurs with each peppermint pill she swallows.

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NATALIA DANJON

Natalia is a Russian French writer based in the UAE. She holds an MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes, and her work has appeared in Every Day Fiction and Molecule.

✦ THE PINE TREE

A woman lives alone in a cabin beside a pine tree and a lamppost. Each night, the lamppost crushes her in a fog between waking and sleep until she says no more.