Nonfiction

Interview: SL Huang

One thing I do know, though, is that I don’t really believe in the idea of “breaking in.” Everything’s small steps, the way I see it—some, like a novel publication, larger than others, but everything sort of accumulates, and eventually there’s something other people look at and say, hey, that’s a career-shaped thing. But it’s never felt like that from the inside, for me. I did a bunch of small, individual things, separately, and they’ve sort of lumped together over time.

In Nov. 2020 (Issue 61)

Nonfiction

Editorial, November 2020

by Arley Sorg and Christie Yant

Fantasy Magazine is back! Nearly four years since its last issue, we’re resuming with Issue #61, co-edited by Christie Yant and Arley Sorg.

In Nov. 2020 (Issue 61)

Nonfiction

Still We Write

by Erin Roberts

For me, writing is not an easy thing. Of course, there are days when everything flows perfectly, when the words dance out of me like they were always meant to exist and all I have to do is let them flow. But those days are far outnumbered by the ones when the blank page mocks […]

In Dec. 2016 (Issue 60)

Nonfiction

Give Us Back Our Fucking Gods

by Ibi Zoboi

Creation myths are the stuff of old, intuitive science. They are the stories that attempt to explain the source of the universe and the very beginnings of life. Creation myths are not synonymous with folktales, animal stories, or playful allegories that instill morals and values. They are, ultimately, our embellished truths—complete with fucking gods, incest, […]

In Dec. 2016 (Issue 60)

Nonfiction

Learning to Dream in Color

by Justina Ireland

I didn’t grow up dreaming in color. I dreamed in white. Not my literal dreams, the thoughts that flickered within my mind’s eye while I dozed. In those dreams I was a frizzy-haired black girl with unkempt hair and an overbite, same as I was in my daily life. Those nightly dreams were cast in […]

In Dec. 2016 (Issue 60)

Nonfiction

People of Colo(u)r Editorial Roundtable

by POC Destroy Fantasy! Editors

I wanted to start with the idea of the origin story. Every writer has one, and it’s always interesting to hear how writers of color navigated the choppy waters of reading fantasy early on and then deciding to write it. I remember searching for myself, in that languageless sort of way we do when we’re young and don’t know the larger meaning of our search.

In Dec. 2016 (Issue 60)

Nonfiction

Interview: Hal Duncan

by Matthew Cheney

Hal Duncan is the author of many novels, stories, poems, blog posts, and other works, including the Book of All Hours diptych, Vellum and Ink, as well as the novella Escape from Hell! (Monkeybrain Books), the chapbook An A to Z of the Fantastic City (Small Beer Press), the libretto Sodom! the Musical, the essay Rhapsody: Notes on Strange Fiction (Lethe Press), and the story collection Scruffians! (Lethe Press). Vellum was nominated for the Crawford, Locus, BFS, and World Fantasy awards, and won the Spectrum, Kurd Lasswitz and Tähtivaeltaja awards; both Rhapsody and Scruffians! are, as I write this, nominated for the BFS award.

In Dec. 2015 (Issue 59)

Nonfiction

The Sleepover Manifesto

by merritt kopas

We know that queers need fantasies. We believe that queers specifically need fantasies of the future to sustain us moving forward. We need utopian dreams of worlds that could be, because, as Jose Muñoz argued, without fantasies we cede the not-yet-here to the imperatives of reproductive futurism. We argue that we need fantasies not just of the future, but of the past.

In Dec. 2015 (Issue 59)

Nonfiction

Notes from the Editors

by Queers Destroy Fantasy! Editors

Here’s what we’ve got lined up for you in this special issue: Original fantasy—edited by Christopher Barzak—by Catherynne M. Valente, Kai Ashante Wilson, Carlea Holl-Jensen, and Richard Bowes; Reprints—selected by Liz Gorinsky—by Caitlin R. Kiernan, Austin Bunn, Shweta Narayan, and Nicola Griffith; Nonfiction articles—edited by Matthew Cheney—by merritt kopas, Matthew Cheney, Keguro Macharia, Ekaterina Sedia, Mary Anne Mohanrag, and Ellen Kushner; plus an original cover illustration by Priscilla Kim and original interior illustrations by Goñi Montes, Odera Igbokwe, Sam Schechter, Elizabeth Leggett, and Vlada Monakhova.

In Dec. 2015 (Issue 59)

Nonfiction

Women Destroy Urban Fantasy: An Interview with Carrie Vaughn and Kelley Armstrong

by Sandra Wickham

It’s so ironic that you’ll hear people talk in one breath about how women are better at writing fantasy and men are better at science fiction, and in the next breath talk about how of course men write better epic fantasy, and women really only write that “girly” fantasy. There are some folks who’d squeeze us out entirely if they could.