BLACK STATIC 59
New subscribers can get this issue free by using "BS59 FREE" as their Shopper Reference during checkout.
Cover:
The cover art is by Richard Wagner
Contents:
Fiction:
When We Are Open Wide by Kristi DeMeester
Momma tells me not to cry when my first period comes. There in the bathroom with my yellow duck shower curtain and my vanilla sugar body splash, she pulls my underwear to the floor and stares at the dark brown stain.
The Body is Concentrated Ground by Kirsten Kaschock
illustrated by Richard Wagner
When Hettie exploded, it was an experience.
The first time she blew up I was unprepared. She had been withdrawn all morning and the evening before. As her face changed through its colors – rust, then red, then a blood-bruise color we called more-low in a play on domestic wine and the sad sacks who drink it – I tended to her with looks.
The Dreaming by Rosalie Parker
Dusk is some way off and I stand at the bar, waiting to be served. I’ve been here often on my way home from work. It’s half-empty on early summer evenings, and the staff are efficient and not averse to passing the time in conversation. I like the cool pale green of its walls, the lack of music, the unmatched tables and chairs.
Here, Only Sorrow by Damien Angelica Walters
Four days after we buried Lucas, Aidan came to me, eyelids red and swollen. “Half of me is gone, Mama,” he said, pointing to his abdomen.
I saw nothing save his Paw Patrol shirt, but I understood. “I miss him, too.”
“Is part of you gone?”
“Yes,” I said, touching my chest. “Here. It feels like a great big hole inside me.”
“Does it hurt?”
“More than almost anything,” I said, holding out my arms.
Ghost Town by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
Long ago the town had a name, but like many of the town’s spectral inhabitants, that name had died. In a lopsided circle around the town hummed the trickle of the also-unnamed river. The townspeople didn’t question this namelessness; they wanted nothing to do with the naming of things that didn’t belong to them. Few townspeople dared ripple the river’s dark surface.
Endoskeletal by Sarah Read
The figures are drawn in yellow ochre, their limbs overlong, their faces drawn as skulls – white with crushed calcite, eyes carbon black with a spark of red ochre inside. Each figure holds an orb-like jar beneath its chin. Umber shadows trail behind them as they march the length of the chamber, deep into the small spaces at the back of the cave, where there is the monster. A mass all in soot bone black, large as the cave wall, covered in a hundred lidless eyes. The eyes are not drawn, but etched into the stone itself.
To Dance is Feline by YZ Chin
illustrated by Richard Wagner
My mother, who was the first cat, told me this: Never stay with humans for too long.
Have you ever been to a lake on a moonless, starless and windless night? When the water seems to be holding its breath, and you search, hard but in vain, for the line separating lake and sky?
Then a little breeze betrays it all, pimpling the lake’s skin, and a silvery thread slithers across the horizon, a long shiver.
That is how my mother left the humans, black against the night’s black.
Columns:
Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker
A PLACE BOTH WONDERFUL AND STRANGE: BACK TO LYNCHLAND
Unless you’ve been stranded somewhere extremely remote with no access to media outside of Black Static for the past couple of years, you’re probably aware that David Lynch has returned to the small screen with a new season of Twin Peaks. I haven’t really read any commentary on the new episodes so far or paid much attention to their reception because, well, I don’t actually really care. I’m enjoying this deep dive into the psyche of Lynch (and Mark Frost, lest we forget!) away from the low constant buzz of social media or critical nattering.
Into the Woods by Ralph Robert Moore
SIX WORDS
I had no trouble writing this first sentence.
Practice.
When Mary and I were getting ready to leave California, wander across America to find a new home, we decided to bring our white Mustang in to have it checked out. The last thing we wanted was for the car to break down a thousand miles from anyone we knew, some small town with mountains in the far distance, sprawling metropolis crowded with one way streets, angry car honks.
Reviews:
Case Notes: Book Reviews by Peter Tennant
WEIRD WANDERINGS: GWENDOLYN KISTE
And Her Smile Will Untether The Universe
plus author interview
KAIJU REVISITED
Marta Martinez Saves the World by Victorya Chase
Home Birth by Jessica McHugh
Ghost in the Machine by K.H. Koehler
The Thing in the Ice by E. Catherine Tobler
JOYCE CAROL OATES: 13 STORIES IN 2 BOOKS
The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror
Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense
GRAB ’EM WHILE THEY’RE YOUNG
Fir by Sharon Gosling
In the Dark, In the Woods by Eliza Wass
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS: TWO TO GO
Nights of Blood Wine by Freda Warrington
Singing With All My Skin and Bone by Sunny Moraine
SIX NOVELS
Evil Games by Angela Marsons
Rawblood by Catriona Ward
Thin Air by Michelle Paver
The River at Night by Erica Ferencik
The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
Aletheia by J.S. Breukelaar
Blood Spectrum: DVD/Blu-ray/VOD Reviews by Gary Couzens
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Phenomena, Brain Damage, Prevenge, Raw, XX, Demon Hunter, Underworld: Blood Wars, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Elle, The Great Wall, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Madhouse, Wolf Guy, Dead Awake, Don't Hang Up, Taboo
Where To Buy Black Static:
Black Static is available in good shops in the UK and many other countries, including the USA where it can be found in Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and elsewhere. If your local store (in any country) doesn't stock it they should easily be able to order it in for you so please don't hesitate to ask them. You can also buy the magazine from a variety of online retailers, or a version for e-readers from places like Weightless Books, Amazon, Apple, Smashwords, etc.
The best thing though is to follow any of the Shop/Buy Now/Subscribe links on this website and buy the new issue, or better still take out a subscription, direct with us. You'll receive issues much cheaper and much quicker, and the magazine will receive a much higher percentage of the revenue.
Potential subscribers outside the UK should note that six issues of 12-issue subscriptions have absolutely no postage added: you'll pay exactly the same as a UK subscriber.
SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers can get this issue free by using "BS59 FREE" as your Shopper Reference during checkout. The same offer applies to Interzone (use "IZ271 FREE") and a dual subscription to both magazines (use "BS59 + IZ271 FREE").
Please Spread the Word:
If you enjoy Black Static please blog about it, review it, or simply recommend it to your friends.
Coming Soon:
Black Static 60 is out in September. Magazines like this cannot survive without subscriptions, so thank you for your support.
Section items by date: