Nightmare Magazine

Nightmare is a digital magazine focused on horror and dark fantasy, curated by John Joseph Adams. Every month, a new issue is released as an e-book on the first day of the month, priced at $2.99, and subscriptions can be purchased as well. For readers who prefer not to pay or don’t own e-readers, we offer our content for free throughout the month, with a new story available each Wednesday at nightmare-magazine.com.

English

Magazine, Online/Digital

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Articles

Author Spotlight: Ana Hurtado

1 month ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Alex Puncekar

“Pezcara” is a fascinating tale. Where did you get the initial idea(s)? What was your writing process like, and was it different from how you usually write? “Pezcara” is the last story I wrote during my Clarion West workshop back in 2022. It’s my culminating story from that six-week workshop experience, the story that feels the most me.
The H Word: I Don’t Relate to You

1 month ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Zoe Kerr

In late 2023, I noticed a new subgenre on the horizon, emerging from the intersection of celebrity culture and horror. I call it “Stage Fright”—save the groans, it’s a working title. With the release of Trap, Smile 2, and MaXXXine, this new wave reflects a zeitgeist increasingly disillusioned with the glittering facades of billionaires and icons, and eagerly tuning in when these stars find themselves ensnared in tragic circumstances.
Editorial: March 2025

1 month ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner

Welcome to Issue #150 of Nightmare Magazine!It takes time to assemble a magazine issue, which means that while you’re reading this editorial in March, I’m writing it in January. Where you sit, David Lynch has been dead for a month and a half. For me, it’s a recent occurrence. There are few creators who have had a bigger impact on my thoughts about creativity or about the power and importance of horror like David Lynch.
The Tugwort - Nightmare Magazine

1 month ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Lincoln Michel

CW: none. They went to the island not to save the marriage—for the marriage hadn’t yet occurred—but to save the possibility of the marriage. It’d been a rough year, Carla knew. The details were banal. Stress at work and stress at home. The economy collapsing. The political system collapsing. The planet burning. Despite all this, when her fiancé, Anton, proposed a vacation, she balked. “That’s the last thing we can afford,” Carla said. “We can’t afford not to. Destressing is important.
Plumbing the Depths: Survival and Adventure Horror

1 month ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Neil McRobert

The tagline to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre asks: “Who will survive and what will be left of them?” Like so many things about that movie, it skewers the wriggling crux of horror. Because all horror stories are about survival, aren’t they? It’s the shadow cast at the heart of the genre. The thing in the dark, in the closet, under our beds; the thing with the knife, the teeth . . . or the roaring chainsaw—they are all just different costumes draped upon the same bony shoulders.
In Our Skin - Nightmare Magazine

2 months ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Kelsea Yu

CW: dead children, body modification. Mother’s blade slides into the soft skin at the nape of my neck, sharp and eager. She doesn’t falter the way she does when it’s Maddy’s turn. No cooing or crying. No reassurances as she slices through the spot where—no matter how brief a time Mother lets me stay Awake—my skin fuses to our underbody. She growls in frustration, a familiar sound from back before. A sound I heard when I’d come home with my dress muddied and torn.
The H Word: We Don’t Bury People Alive Anymore

2 months ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Priya Chand

Anyone who’s read Edgar Allan Poe knows that he was fascinated—alongside many others of his era—by the prospect of premature burial. It’s not hard to imagine why: Prior to modern imaging equipment, and particularly in Western traditions where corpses were buried intact, a person could, at the hand of their own well-meaning family, end up interred and helpless to do anything but slowly run out of sustenance and air. No malice required, just ignorance.
Editorial: February 2025

2 months ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner

Welcome to Issue #149 of Nightmare Magazine!Here in Oregon, February is a totally unpredictable month. Every year a local bike group hosts an event called the “Worst Day of the Year Ride,” because statistically that week of the year features the very worst weather. But since February likes to keep us on our toes, for the first thirteen years of the event, it didn’t even rain. Some years we get snow in February; some years we get sun.
Interview: Toby Poser

2 months ago | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Lisa Morton

There are no other filmmakers in the world of indie horror who are even remotely like the Adams Family. Based out of rural New York, these DIY wizards have produced four of the most interesting horror features of the last five years. Comprised of dad John Adams, mom Toby Poser, and daughters Lulu and Zelda, the family members do everything themselves; when shooting, for example, they might be handling the camera for one scene and then acting in the next.
They Bought a House

Jan 15, 2025 | nightmare-magazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Osahon Ize-Iyamu

CW: none. There once existed a couple who dreamed so desperately of buying a house. They lived in the heart of Benin City, and their names were Esie and Paul. Esie was a laid-off Chemistry teacher who became an event decorator and contractor, and Paul was a resident heart doctor. Esie and Paul got married in the summer, in an event hall that smelled heavily of bleach. They both had no family. The cake tasted like greying Styrofoam.