Nonfiction
Interview with Joe R. Lansdale
By Maggie Slater How do you summarize the forty–year career of a man who’s done everything? Joe R. Lansdale is not merely a writer; he’s one of the most preeminent storytellers of our time. He has written dozens of novels and a hoard of short stories spanning the horror, mystery, and science fiction genres, among many others, for which he’s garnered eight Bram Stoker Awards, the British Fantasy Award, the Edgar Award, and his novels Mucho Mojo (of the Hap Collins and Leonard Pine mystery series) andThe Bottoms were each selected as the New York TimesNotable Book of the Year. In 2007, he was given the Grand Master Award by the World Horror Convention, and in...
Read MoreKicking Ass, Taking Names, Bubblegum Optional
By Sigrid Ellis I find strength, agency, endurance and anger in the most unlikely works of fiction. I would not dream of telling someone that they are wrong to value a story. A work of art is empowering when the audience finds power in it. Amid the current barrage of science fiction, superhero, fantasy, and horror films there is a quiet, steady stream of movies that star women. Tough women. Women of action. Women who are the star of the film or franchise, without whom the story would not exist. This is good. However, the women are largely young, thin, white, conventionally very attractive, and dressed in a manner that presents their bodies in a constant sexual...
Read MoreWords from the Publisher
Over the weekend of April 5th – April 7th, I was the publisher guest of honor at the annual Conglomeration media convention held in Louisville, Kentucky. I had a great time, of course. Who wouldn’t enjoy being toted around on a sedan chair by a group of like-minded geeks? My senior editor, Janet Harriett, accompanied me, and the con staff treated her like a bonus guest of honor. I wasn’t about to share my sedan chair, however. Sorry, Janet. I had a third member of the Apex family with me at Conglomeration — Rachel Khosrowshahi. This was Rachel’s first convention. She’s long been a fan of science fiction literature (she’s more a fan of any good writing and...
Read MoreBlood on Vellum: Notes from the Editor-in-Chief
Welcome to issue 48 of Apex Magazine. Emily Jiang’s “The Binding of Ming–tian” sketches the tension of between art and family expectations. E. Lily Yu’s “Ilse, Who Saw Clearly” takes us on a journey of perception, love, and struggle. Shira Lipkin’s epic poem “The Busker, Broke and Busted,” is, in her words, a “Gilbert–and–Sullivanesque patter song for an obsolete robot.” Our classic revisited this month is a post–nuclear apocalyptic tale from Joe R. Lansdale, “Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back,” originally published in Nukes (Maclay & Associates, 1986). We also have a bonus story about memory and loss by Douglas F....
Read MoreScience Fiction Poetry: Worlds of Potential
By Amal El-Mohtar People who know me as the editor of Goblin Fruit, a poetry quarterly dedicated to fantastical poetry, might find it odd to see me writing a defense of science fiction poetry. Fantasy and Science Fiction have such a long and storied history of being on opposite sides of a gendered binary, after all. As it happens, I dislike the term “science fiction poetry,” and have in the past participated in vigorous debates over whether or not the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) should change its name to something like the Speculative Poetry Association, or have the “F” in its acronym do double duty like the one in SFWA does, the...
Read MoreAn Interview with Daniel Abraham
Conducted by Maggie Slater What do authors M.L.N. Hanover, James S.A. Corey, and Daniel Abraham have in common? Well…actually, they all share–at least in part–the writing chops and creative mind of Daniel Abraham. Over the past ten years, Daniel Abraham has published over a dozen novels, spanning epic fantasy (as himself) to urban fantasy (as M.L.N. Hanover) to far-future science fiction (as James S.A. Corey with Ty Franck). His short fiction has appeared in venues such as Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, among many others. His novel Leviathan Wakes with Ty Franck was a finalist...
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