This issue is long overdue.

For a while, we weren’t sure. Weren’t sure if we could keep this beast running, weren’t sure if Basement Stories would become another one of those magazines that flops after a couple of issues. Well, we’re here, somehow. We’re alive.

This issue brings us fiction by Tim Pratt, Cat Rambo, and S. Houston Blount; as well as poetry by returning Basement Stories contributors Eliza Victoria and WC Roberts, and newcomers Siobhan Carroll and Michael J. DeLuca. We’ve also got an article by George Potter about speculative fiction writer R.A. Lafferty. We also have some amazing cover art by Jael Segura, “Strings Attached.”

In honor of our narrow escape from the icy clutches of death, this issue is the Resurrection issue. Cat Rambo takes us to a world where historical figures are brought to the present. S. Houston Blount offers us a more metaphorical resurrection in “Sugarplum Karma,” as a woman struggles to deal with her responsibilities, and her past. And T.A. Pratt brings us a story where death isn’t the problem; it’s the next step that’s difficult.

Poetry for this issue includes our first truly epic-length poem, a tale by Michael J. DeLuca that clashes together characters from Shakespeare and Homer. Eliza Victoria provides a haunting image of a community torn apart by a natural disaster, Siobhan Carroll reminds us that what we create can sometimes be terrifying, and WC Roberts paints a less than peaceful picture of that daily resurrection, dawn.

Thanks to all of you, readers and writers alike, for sticking with us so far. Thanks also go out to Nichole Di Dio and Maria Perales for helping out with fiction submissions. If you have the means and the inclination, please consider donating to Basement Stories via the paypal link on this site. Nine thousand word stories are expensive!

We hope you enjoy this issue, we hope it brings you joy or makes you laugh or stays with you for days.

 

All the best,

James Dent and Carol Kirkman