I got a letter the other day from a reader talking about how much they loved every story in the last issue. To be honest, that shocked me. So I wrote them back and asked, “Every story?”
They repeated, “Every story.”
As the editor, I love every story in every issue, but I work hard to make sure the stories are so different, sometimes cutting edge, sometimes certain types of straight genre, that readers will find lots of stories they love, but not love every single story.
Pulphouse Fiction Magazine is known for the reader not knowing what kind of story will be next in any issue.
And I smash genres together like a demolition derby with no thoughts of norms, or if wheels have fallen off. If the story is well written and a great story with something just slightly sideways or twisted, the story fits in these pages.
I do my best to also make sure that every story has an impact to the reader in one way or another. Sometimes subtle, sometimes emotional, sometimes just laugh-out-loud stupidly funny.
So with all of that, I really was shocked to find a reader who loved every story, besides me, that is.
Readers love the magazine, they love an issue, they love certain stories. That’s what I shoot for.
So in this issue I have found twenty-one different short stories by professional fiction writers. Some are seeing print here for the first time, others won’t be new to every reader. Not one of the stories is like or even similar to any other story in this issue.
Some are clear genre, some are so twisted you have to wonder what planet the author hails from.
And I love every one of them.
I hope, really hope, that you will enjoy and like most of them as well. But just remember, if there is a story you don’t like in these pages and skip past, another reader will find that same story their favorite in the issue.
Pulphouse Fiction Magazine has stories for everyone in every issue, no matter the taste.
Enjoy.
—Dean Wesley Smith
Las Vegas, Nevada