Editorial

Welcome to the Second issue of Baffling Magazine.

This new issue includes stories about necromancers and poets and monsters, experimental stories, tales that nod towards the Big Idea ethos of 70s science fiction and sweetly magical realist fiction. Body horror stories and sexy stories. In short, it spans the breadth of weird speculative fiction.  

We view Baffling as being in conversation with the #ownvoices queer speculative fiction is currently experiencing something of a renaissance. I recently finished reading The Blade Between by Sam J. Miller, a supernatural thriller about gentrification set in the former whale industry Rust Belt City of Hudson, NY. Only a queer author could come up and execute the mayhem caused by an entity that uses Grindr. The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke is another contemporary novel of the occult about a coven of teenage witches that features a queer protagonist front-and-center. And Andrea Hairston has just released an epic high fantasy rooted in African mythology called Master of Poisons with deep and thoughtful queer representation. 

The flash fiction (and stunning #ownvoices art by Sajan Rai) of Baffling is kith and kin to those longer works.

Enjoy!

Craig L. Gidney
Co-Editor, Baffling Magazine