Unsettling Wonder Issue 5: Changelings

by John Patrick Pazdziora (Editor), Defne Çizakça (Editor), Phaedra Richter (Cover)

Anyone who’s cared for a child knows the sudden choke of fear, that sudden need to lean tense and breathless over the cradle to just listen—is the child still breathing? Is their small heart still beating? Is this fragile, feeble young thing still safe in the night? Or have they—somehow—been changed? The oldest, darkest stories give a name to that fear—the instinctive, protective fear that someone, something, some shadow stalks by night to steal away the Lamia. Nian. Red Mother. Changeling. This long-anticipated issue of Unsettling Wonder delves into the ancient folk motif of the changeling. Babies stolen from cradles, patients stolen from hospitals, objects stolen from kitchens, mothers stolen from families, and in their place something that looks the same but ever-so-slightly wrong. Has the familiar become strange, or has the strange become familiar? Twelve newly commissioned stories, interviews, and artworks from around the world draw from diverse languages and folk traditions to articulate that haunting, night-terror even the ones we love most might be changed.

108 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2016