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Nightmare Magazine, Issue 49 (Oct. 2016, People of Colo
NIGHTMARE was founded on the core idea that all horror is real horror. The whole point of this magazine is that horror fiction is vast. It is inclusive. Horror is about all people and for all people.
The People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! special issue exists to relieve a brokenness in the genre that’s been enabled time and time again by favoring certain voices and portrayals of particular characters. Here we bring together a team of POC writers and editors from around the globe to present horror that explores the nuances of culture, race, and history. This is horror for our present time, but also—most of all—for our future.
People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! is 100% written and edited by people of color, and is lead by guest editor Silvia Moreno-Garcia, with editorial contributions from Tananarive Due, Maurice Broaddus, Arley Sorg, and others. It features four original, never-before-published short stories, from Valerie Valdes, Nadia Bulkin, Gabriela Santiago, and Russell Nichols. Plus, there’s four classic reprints by Nisi Shawl, Priya Sharma, Terence Taylor, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz. On top of all that, we also have an array of nonfiction articles and interviews, from Alyssa Wong, Chesya Burke, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, and Chinelo Onwualu, as well as original illustrations by Kimberly Wengerd, SainaSix, Maggie Chiang, and Reiko Murakami.
Enjoy the destruction!
The People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! special issue exists to relieve a brokenness in the genre that’s been enabled time and time again by favoring certain voices and portrayals of particular characters. Here we bring together a team of POC writers and editors from around the globe to present horror that explores the nuances of culture, race, and history. This is horror for our present time, but also—most of all—for our future.
People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! is 100% written and edited by people of color, and is lead by guest editor Silvia Moreno-Garcia, with editorial contributions from Tananarive Due, Maurice Broaddus, Arley Sorg, and others. It features four original, never-before-published short stories, from Valerie Valdes, Nadia Bulkin, Gabriela Santiago, and Russell Nichols. Plus, there’s four classic reprints by Nisi Shawl, Priya Sharma, Terence Taylor, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz. On top of all that, we also have an array of nonfiction articles and interviews, from Alyssa Wong, Chesya Burke, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, and Chinelo Onwualu, as well as original illustrations by Kimberly Wengerd, SainaSix, Maggie Chiang, and Reiko Murakami.
Enjoy the destruction!
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First published October 1, 2016
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263 people want to read
About the author
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
160 books27.6k followersSilvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of several novels, including Mexican Gothic, Gods of Jade and Shadow and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. She has also edited a number of anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks in Shadows (a.k.a. Cthulhu's Daughters). Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 29, 2018
I found this special issue of Nightmare magazine as a bound anthology. It includes original fiction, reprint fiction, art, and nonfiction. The purpose of the anthology is challenging exclusionary conceptions of horror. Like all anthologies, the quality of the entries varies. Still, I enjoyed this work. I feel it successfully expanded my understanding of horror.
Original Short Fiction
“Wish You Were Here” – Nadia Bulkin
"Wish You Were Here" is a slow story about the horror of guilt. It follows an American tour group and guide in Bali. The afterlife hangs heavily over the story. I wish the characters had not been so unpleasant. 3/5
“None Of This Ever Happened” – Gabriela Santiago
"None Of This Ever Happened" is a tedious stream of consciousness. Santiago experiments with negation to create an ambiguous story. The subtlety of the ending paragraph redeems it somewhat. While I still do not enjoy the story, the interview later in the anthology makes me appreciate the experimentation. I am interested to read more by Gabriela Santiago. 2/5
“A Diet of Worms” – Valerie Valdes
"A Diet of Worms" is immediately one of my favorite short stories ever. It is an intense distillation of the fear of being stuck in a dead end job. For a fear that is so widespread and so intense, stories about it are usually depressing. Valerie Valdes manages to craft a horrifying story from this fear. 5/5
“The Taming of the Tongue” – Russel Nichols
"The Taming of the Tongue" is a slave story that illustrates that sometimes supernatural monsters are preferable to the everyday horrors suffered by people of color. That is a revelation to me, and I find it equally horrifying and embarrassing. I really liked the main character, and felt frustrated that her post-bellum life was so similar to antebellum slavery. 4/5
Reprint Fiction
“Cruel Sistah” – Nisi Shawl
“Cruel Sistah” is a standard ghost story. It is basic but well-executed. 3/5
“The Show” – Priya Sharma
"The Show" is a horror story about a ghost hunting show gone wrong. Unsurprisingly, this time the ghosts are real. Martha is adequately likable, and the progression is well-handled. The ending is a little confusing, as there is a not clearly identified supernatural entity and a twist that I found
to be inadequately set up. 3/5
“Wet Pain” – Terence Taylor
"Wet Pain" is an intensely uncomfortable story. The central fear is discovering an unknown dark side in someone you trusted, rendered in the particular form of a white friend turning out to be a racist. This is a common fear among PoC in the US. Watching Dean transform from a good friend to a brutally violent racist is chilling. The cause is uncertain. The tension builds well, and the payoff is good. 4/5
“Monstro” – Junot Diaz
I did not like this story. Diaz managed to ruin a great premise with pretentious and undisciplined execution.
The premise was fantastic. An ignored epidemic among poor Haitians turns on the rich and privileged of the world. That premise has great potential for horror. This premise hits a familiar shared experience with a visceral fear. It is grounded in the very real complacency toward issues of poverty. It demands the reader acknowledge the uncomfortable truth of injustice. It pricks the conscience of the reader, and promises punishment for all too common misdeeds. How could such a premise not produce a powerful work of horror?
Junot Diaz manages to render his own native slang as forced and pretentious. It feels like Diaz wanted to show off how authentic and cool he is by overusing slang. It is clearly artificial because the use of slang suddenly and completely stopped during the climax. That’s not natural. The interview confirms my suspicions, as Diaz admits he wanted to imitate the use of fake jargon in science fiction works.
The narrator is awful. I immediately hated him. He is obnoxious to the extreme. He is purely selfish. He starts with a racist joke, and continues being a generally awful person. The slang doesn’t do him any favors. He seems to be showing off and joking while people suffer from an epidemic. I did not want to keep reading.
More than a third of the length is devoted to the unrelated escapades of the narrator’s rich friends. I think Diaz was trying to contrast wealth and privilege with extreme poverty and disease. This might not have been so bad if it had not stalled the story for five straight pages. Instead, I would have alternated sections describing the development of the disease with what the narrator and his friends were doing. It certainly would have been less self-indulgent than writing pages about a crush on some hot Dominican chick.
Nonfiction
“Interview: Victor LaValle” – Maurice Broaddus
This is a short interview with LaValle about his views on horror and his writing. I was interested in his thoughts. I think I will pick up The Ballad of Black Tom because of this interview. 4/5
“The H Word: The Darkest, Truest Mirrors” – Alyssa Wong
I like Alyssa Wong. She is the only author in this collection that I have read before. This essay is about why she writes horror. I needed to read it several times to absorb her message. She seems to argue that the world is horrific, so horror is the most accurate and truthful way of representing it. I am not sure I can agree, but I am glad she writes. 3/5
“Terror, Hope, Fascination, And Fear in Filipino Horror” – Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
This essay provides a few nice insights into Filipino horror. The author lists some examples of horror in the Philippines, and speculates about the causes of the genre’s strength. I only wish there had been a little more depth. 3/5
“Horror, Inside Out” – Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
This is a good essay. Satyamurthy analyzes, compares, and contrasts several horror stories set in India. The central theme of the essay is criticism of stories that use the fear of the other in racist ways. I appreciated the comparison that gives examples of good and bad rendering of other cultures. 4/5
“The Thing We Have to Fear” – Chinelo Onwualu
This essay is more academic in tone than the others. Onwualu cites sources to support claims that Western horror is fixated on the fear of blackness. She provides a powerful challenge to what Western readers find scary. I am glad to have my conceptions of the genre expanded. 4/5
“Horror Is . . . Not What You Think or Probably Wish It Is” – Chesya Burke
I would describe this essay as a bitter tirade about white horror fans excluding people of color from the genre. Burke defines horror as any work that produces emotions of horror or terror. She says many works by people of color meet that definition, but are ignored or argued away by white horror fans. Burke ends by saying these white fans have no place in the genre. Honestly, I agree with her about including people of color (I did pay for this anthology) but I did not enjoy the angry and accusatory tone. 2/5
Artists Gallery
This section includes eight pieces of art. The art is supposedly horror related, but only one piece seems appropriately horrific to me. 1/5
Author Spotlights
This section includes an interview with each other included in the first two sections. These interviews are short (maybe too short) and focused on the stories included in the anthology. I appreciated the insight provided by these interviews. I recommend reading each interview immediately after the relevant story. 4/5
Original Short Fiction
“Wish You Were Here” – Nadia Bulkin
"Wish You Were Here" is a slow story about the horror of guilt. It follows an American tour group and guide in Bali. The afterlife hangs heavily over the story. I wish the characters had not been so unpleasant. 3/5
“None Of This Ever Happened” – Gabriela Santiago
"None Of This Ever Happened" is a tedious stream of consciousness. Santiago experiments with negation to create an ambiguous story. The subtlety of the ending paragraph redeems it somewhat. While I still do not enjoy the story, the interview later in the anthology makes me appreciate the experimentation. I am interested to read more by Gabriela Santiago. 2/5
“A Diet of Worms” – Valerie Valdes
"A Diet of Worms" is immediately one of my favorite short stories ever. It is an intense distillation of the fear of being stuck in a dead end job. For a fear that is so widespread and so intense, stories about it are usually depressing. Valerie Valdes manages to craft a horrifying story from this fear. 5/5
“The Taming of the Tongue” – Russel Nichols
"The Taming of the Tongue" is a slave story that illustrates that sometimes supernatural monsters are preferable to the everyday horrors suffered by people of color. That is a revelation to me, and I find it equally horrifying and embarrassing. I really liked the main character, and felt frustrated that her post-bellum life was so similar to antebellum slavery. 4/5
Reprint Fiction
“Cruel Sistah” – Nisi Shawl
“Cruel Sistah” is a standard ghost story. It is basic but well-executed. 3/5
“The Show” – Priya Sharma
"The Show" is a horror story about a ghost hunting show gone wrong. Unsurprisingly, this time the ghosts are real. Martha is adequately likable, and the progression is well-handled. The ending is a little confusing, as there is a not clearly identified supernatural entity and a twist that I found
to be inadequately set up. 3/5
“Wet Pain” – Terence Taylor
"Wet Pain" is an intensely uncomfortable story. The central fear is discovering an unknown dark side in someone you trusted, rendered in the particular form of a white friend turning out to be a racist. This is a common fear among PoC in the US. Watching Dean transform from a good friend to a brutally violent racist is chilling. The cause is uncertain. The tension builds well, and the payoff is good. 4/5
“Monstro” – Junot Diaz
I did not like this story. Diaz managed to ruin a great premise with pretentious and undisciplined execution.
The premise was fantastic. An ignored epidemic among poor Haitians turns on the rich and privileged of the world. That premise has great potential for horror. This premise hits a familiar shared experience with a visceral fear. It is grounded in the very real complacency toward issues of poverty. It demands the reader acknowledge the uncomfortable truth of injustice. It pricks the conscience of the reader, and promises punishment for all too common misdeeds. How could such a premise not produce a powerful work of horror?
Junot Diaz manages to render his own native slang as forced and pretentious. It feels like Diaz wanted to show off how authentic and cool he is by overusing slang. It is clearly artificial because the use of slang suddenly and completely stopped during the climax. That’s not natural. The interview confirms my suspicions, as Diaz admits he wanted to imitate the use of fake jargon in science fiction works.
The narrator is awful. I immediately hated him. He is obnoxious to the extreme. He is purely selfish. He starts with a racist joke, and continues being a generally awful person. The slang doesn’t do him any favors. He seems to be showing off and joking while people suffer from an epidemic. I did not want to keep reading.
More than a third of the length is devoted to the unrelated escapades of the narrator’s rich friends. I think Diaz was trying to contrast wealth and privilege with extreme poverty and disease. This might not have been so bad if it had not stalled the story for five straight pages. Instead, I would have alternated sections describing the development of the disease with what the narrator and his friends were doing. It certainly would have been less self-indulgent than writing pages about a crush on some hot Dominican chick.
Nonfiction
“Interview: Victor LaValle” – Maurice Broaddus
This is a short interview with LaValle about his views on horror and his writing. I was interested in his thoughts. I think I will pick up The Ballad of Black Tom because of this interview. 4/5
“The H Word: The Darkest, Truest Mirrors” – Alyssa Wong
I like Alyssa Wong. She is the only author in this collection that I have read before. This essay is about why she writes horror. I needed to read it several times to absorb her message. She seems to argue that the world is horrific, so horror is the most accurate and truthful way of representing it. I am not sure I can agree, but I am glad she writes. 3/5
“Terror, Hope, Fascination, And Fear in Filipino Horror” – Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
This essay provides a few nice insights into Filipino horror. The author lists some examples of horror in the Philippines, and speculates about the causes of the genre’s strength. I only wish there had been a little more depth. 3/5
“Horror, Inside Out” – Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
This is a good essay. Satyamurthy analyzes, compares, and contrasts several horror stories set in India. The central theme of the essay is criticism of stories that use the fear of the other in racist ways. I appreciated the comparison that gives examples of good and bad rendering of other cultures. 4/5
“The Thing We Have to Fear” – Chinelo Onwualu
This essay is more academic in tone than the others. Onwualu cites sources to support claims that Western horror is fixated on the fear of blackness. She provides a powerful challenge to what Western readers find scary. I am glad to have my conceptions of the genre expanded. 4/5
“Horror Is . . . Not What You Think or Probably Wish It Is” – Chesya Burke
I would describe this essay as a bitter tirade about white horror fans excluding people of color from the genre. Burke defines horror as any work that produces emotions of horror or terror. She says many works by people of color meet that definition, but are ignored or argued away by white horror fans. Burke ends by saying these white fans have no place in the genre. Honestly, I agree with her about including people of color (I did pay for this anthology) but I did not enjoy the angry and accusatory tone. 2/5
Artists Gallery
This section includes eight pieces of art. The art is supposedly horror related, but only one piece seems appropriately horrific to me. 1/5
Author Spotlights
This section includes an interview with each other included in the first two sections. These interviews are short (maybe too short) and focused on the stories included in the anthology. I appreciated the insight provided by these interviews. I recommend reading each interview immediately after the relevant story. 4/5
October 31, 2016
A short horror tale about a murderous sister that jumps perspectives and ends with a chilling musical scene. Perhaps closer to a 2.5. Even though it was a short story, I would have liked to hear more of the sister's motives in killing her kin.
Merged review:
A Diet of Worms is a frightening tale of a young man working his shift at a movie theater who gets stuck in a time fluctuation and lives out most of his life over the course of that shift. Why? Who knows! But the story of his aging and his sudden memories of things that could not have possibly happened in the time frame of a single shift was a spooky as hell read. The imagery of the gummy worms was oddly effective as a horror prop as well.
Merged review:
A Diet of Worms is a frightening tale of a young man working his shift at a movie theater who gets stuck in a time fluctuation and lives out most of his life over the course of that shift. Why? Who knows! But the story of his aging and his sudden memories of things that could not have possibly happened in the time frame of a single shift was a spooky as hell read. The imagery of the gummy worms was oddly effective as a horror prop as well.
Read
October 24, 2016Interesting stories. First time I had read Nightmare.
Highlights:
A Diet of Worms - in my opinion probably the best of the bunch this issue. Juicy horror.
"Wet Pain" and "Monstro" are both strong contenders - the characterisation and world building sets these apart. Definitely worth a read.
Lowlights:
"The Show". It felt a touch too generic for my tastes.
"Horror is..." article a frustrating read. Felt more like a rant than an article. Could have achieved more if fleshed out.
Highlights:
A Diet of Worms - in my opinion probably the best of the bunch this issue. Juicy horror.
"Wet Pain" and "Monstro" are both strong contenders - the characterisation and world building sets these apart. Definitely worth a read.
Lowlights:
"The Show". It felt a touch too generic for my tastes.
"Horror is..." article a frustrating read. Felt more like a rant than an article. Could have achieved more if fleshed out.
November 22, 2016
Not usually a horror fan, but this was part of the Kickstarter I backed. Really enjoyed the Victor LaValle interview and Alyssa Wong's essay. Nadia Bulkin's Wish You Were Here stayed with me a long time after I read it. I think you call that haunting. :) Diaz's Monstro was another fav. Will definitely seek out more from the authors I didn't know.
August 16, 2018
This is unsurprisingly one of the best issues of Nightmare Magazine--I loved several of the short stories in both the original and reprints section, and the interviews included were also very interesting to read.
November 5, 2016
My favourite story from the recent Nightmare Magazine special edition - People Of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! A great little roll of creepy dread that wouldn't be out of place in a Ligotti collection.
September 5, 2022
I got this to read together with my wife who lives horror I ended up really enjoying most of the stories.
Wish you were here - the history of a revolution and civil war overlaid on a ghost story with a set of entitled tourists. First story out of the gate meets The editor's mission perfectly.
None of this ever happened - An incredibly meta story with Lovecraftian overtones. Reading it felt like someone was talking in one non-stop run-on sentence. But the ending and payoff were pretty brilliant.
Diet of Worms: It was ok, but I didn't buy the logic in the story.
The taming of the tongue: This one was very unique with its setting and Lovecraftian monster. It really brought home how much the dynamic in the south didn't change much after the war.
Cruel Sistah - I was able to predict the inciting incident, but not where the story would go. An interesting variant on a ghost story.
The Show - Based on a ghost reality show. It started off predictable (to me anyway) and then went off the rails in an exciting and gruesome way.
Wet Pain - an interesting story that combines Hurricane Katrina and America's history of race.
Monstro - haunting to read post-COVID
Non -Fiction
Interview: Victor LaValle - continues a few issues, including whether POCs can about Loveseat and what responsibility POCs have to write ritious characters.
The H Word: The Darkest, truest mirrors - the essay is written in a similar form to many sort stories I've read over the years. It gives it a poignant intimacy as the author speaks about writing horror as a release from the horrors is the world.
Terror, Hope, Fascination, and Fear in Filipino horror - explains how the lived experiences of Filipinos and the rich culture that has not been completely subsumed by Western culture leads to a fascination with horror
Horror, Inside Out - a good essay to share when people complain that pop culture is becoming too woke. That is a very privileged point of view from someone that hasn't always been the other in pop culture.
The thing we have to fear and Horror Is… - I’m combining these together because they’re both making similar points. Essentially, most horror is written by European and European-descended folks. Therefore, often-times the Other is represented as a person from a colonized space. Both these essays focus on African and African-Americans. The second essays also adds complaints about gate-keeping in the horror genre that mirror some of the gate-keeping issues that John Scalzi has documented in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre.
Wish you were here - the history of a revolution and civil war overlaid on a ghost story with a set of entitled tourists. First story out of the gate meets The editor's mission perfectly.
None of this ever happened - An incredibly meta story with Lovecraftian overtones. Reading it felt like someone was talking in one non-stop run-on sentence. But the ending and payoff were pretty brilliant.
Diet of Worms: It was ok, but I didn't buy the logic in the story.
The taming of the tongue: This one was very unique with its setting and Lovecraftian monster. It really brought home how much the dynamic in the south didn't change much after the war.
Cruel Sistah - I was able to predict the inciting incident, but not where the story would go. An interesting variant on a ghost story.
The Show - Based on a ghost reality show. It started off predictable (to me anyway) and then went off the rails in an exciting and gruesome way.
Wet Pain - an interesting story that combines Hurricane Katrina and America's history of race.
Monstro - haunting to read post-COVID
Non -Fiction
Interview: Victor LaValle - continues a few issues, including whether POCs can about Loveseat and what responsibility POCs have to write ritious characters.
The H Word: The Darkest, truest mirrors - the essay is written in a similar form to many sort stories I've read over the years. It gives it a poignant intimacy as the author speaks about writing horror as a release from the horrors is the world.
Terror, Hope, Fascination, and Fear in Filipino horror - explains how the lived experiences of Filipinos and the rich culture that has not been completely subsumed by Western culture leads to a fascination with horror
Horror, Inside Out - a good essay to share when people complain that pop culture is becoming too woke. That is a very privileged point of view from someone that hasn't always been the other in pop culture.
The thing we have to fear and Horror Is… - I’m combining these together because they’re both making similar points. Essentially, most horror is written by European and European-descended folks. Therefore, often-times the Other is represented as a person from a colonized space. Both these essays focus on African and African-Americans. The second essays also adds complaints about gate-keeping in the horror genre that mirror some of the gate-keeping issues that John Scalzi has documented in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre.
September 7, 2022
Lightspeed destroy is an annual initiative focusing on the writings of traditionally underrepresented minorities. The People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! special issue exists to relieve a brokenness in the genre that's been enabled time and time again by favoring certain voices and portrayals of particular characters. It brings forth a very diverse set of talented authors, some very well-established, and other very new from around the globe to present fantasy that explores the nuances of culture, race, and history. People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror! is 100% written and edited by people of color. It features four original, never-before-published short stories, plus four classic reprints. It also includes an array of nonfiction articles, interviews, and personal essays from people of colo(u)r discussing their experiences as readers and writers of horror.
I particularly liked Monstro by Junot Diaz (I will definitely read more of his work soon) and Wet Pain by Terence Taylor.
I particularly liked Monstro by Junot Diaz (I will definitely read more of his work soon) and Wet Pain by Terence Taylor.
August 28, 2020
The Destroy! series is so wonderfully consistent in quality while also being diverse in perspectives and style. This collection introduced me to several writers whose work I will be seeking out ASAP, as well as some who I now know are not for me. The spotlight interviews are absolutely invaluable for a writer, too.
My favorite stories were
Wish You Were Here by Nadia Bulkin
A Diet of Worms by Valerie Valdes
Cruel Sistah by Nisi Shawl
Wet Pain by Terrence Taylor
My favorite stories were
Wish You Were Here by Nadia Bulkin
A Diet of Worms by Valerie Valdes
Cruel Sistah by Nisi Shawl
Wet Pain by Terrence Taylor
October 30, 2020
He leído la serie Destroy a lo largo de varios Barrifest del Terror y siempre me llevo una grata sorpresa.
Todas estas historias tienen algo muy diferente del horror "normal" pero que igualmente funcionan de maneras muy efectivas.
Aunque en general todas las historias (menos la de J. Díaz) me gustaron, A diet of worms me quedó en la mente y probablemente es la que más recordaré bde este número.
Todas estas historias tienen algo muy diferente del horror "normal" pero que igualmente funcionan de maneras muy efectivas.
Aunque en general todas las historias (menos la de J. Díaz) me gustaron, A diet of worms me quedó en la mente y probablemente es la que más recordaré bde este número.
June 24, 2019
Excellent collection w/ great choice of new fiction and reprints along with non-fiction essays and author profiles/interviews. Well worth a read
October 29, 2020
Excellent collection of stories!
January 26, 2023
A Diet of Worms and Wet Pain were two standouts in this anthology!
July 11, 2024
Read July 2024
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews