A brief explanation of my goals for Macabre Magazine

When I agreed to take on the job of Editor in Chief in March 2026, I hit the ground running. It seems fitting now to take a moment and catch our collective breath before the next series of sprints. 

Since my first issue at the helm in April of 2026, we have gotten a handle on the backlog, made sure that our archive is displayed correctly, developed a calendar everyone can live with, and made a lot of more minor updates to the website. I want to welcome everyone back and say a few words about myself, my philosophy as an editor, and my goals for Macabre Magazine.

What does horror mean to me?

I have been a prolific and insatiable reader since about the age of four. My parents had to bribe me to admit that I could. I was terrified that they would stop reading me bedtime stories, like they had for my brother. 

It later occurred to me that no one was paying attention to what I was reading by myself. Left unattended at the Book Fair, I smuggled home a copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I read all of the Addams Family comics incorrectly shelved in the children’s section of the library. The sure knowledge that I was not supposed to be reading horror was half the fun. 

My father has loved terrible black and white monster movies since his older sister took him to the Saturday matinee in the 1960s. Our ritual was to frantically finish all of our chores Saturday morning, then pile onto the couch with pizza and snacks. When I squealed and hid my face in his side, he would cry, “You can see the trash bag! They couldn’t even afford a monster suit!” If I lifted my little legs off the ground to curl into a ball, he would laugh, “They put jello over the lens! YEAH MONSTER VISION!” Or even, “That’s just a guy pushing a trellis! LOOK AT HIS SHOES!” He knew the orchestral scores by heart, and encouraged my brother and I to hum along as Godzilla leveled Tokyo.

In my time at Macabre, I hope to bring all of our readers back to that warm place in the dark of a summer night, laying awake past bedtime reading books we weren’t supposed to have by flashlight in the tent of our sheets. Or to the couch, firing up a treasure that we found in the five dollar bin only to watch it through our barely-parted fingers. 

We are all grown up now, so I also want to invite you to contemplate more sophisticated terrors. It is my goal to offer a curated selection of Scare-cuterie, if you will, along with more substantial Fiendish Feasts and the occasional palate cleansing analysis of why we all like this stuff so much.

If you so desire, I will ensure that a Banquet of Bêtes Noires, a Table of Terror, a Festival of Phobias arrives in your inbox. Thirteen new Forbidden Delights, on the thirteenth of every month. I hope you will subscribe, and stay up to savor them at midnight.

My Projects and Goals for Macabre

I have two primary goals as the Editor in Chief. The first is to make Macabre Magazine a more accessible place for everyone. The second is to get my staff paid. 

I’ll start with the latter. We are absolutely committed to keeping Macabre free to read forever, and free to submit to. Our tip jar has kept the lights on, but as our staff of volunteers expands and more authors share their worst nightmares with us, we want to find some other ways to pay artists for their art and staff for their skills. 

To that end, we have started a Patreon subscription. You can help us decide what project to expand to first! So many readers of horror also love to be read a bedtime story. We would love to record a podcast for you, starting with our older catalog and working towards releasing the latest issue in audio form. 

Some of the staff have also lamented that there really is not capacity for longer pieces in the monthly issues. Pieces over three to five thousand worlds take exponentially more effort to assess, edit, and post. We have been contemplating special quarterly themed issues, separate from the monthly issues, that give authors a prompt and a little more leeway to explore it. New Christmas Ghost Stories? Harvest Rituals we’ve never heard of? Back to School, Valentine’s Day, May Day—the possibilities are endless and exciting. We would love to hear about what scares you, and deliver collections to our subscribers.

Finally, as we contemplate the new website, a lot of good ideas for art, logos, t-shirts, and stickers have been pitched to us. We would love to sell you some merch, perhaps at a discount or early to our subscribers.

We’re still working on ideas. We would love to hear yours!

Returning to the first point, we want to make sure that everyone feels welcome and safe in our community. Horror reading and writing can be incredibly therapeutic and healing ways to deal with trauma. It takes us to dark places, but also drops down a ladder to help us climb out. I want to reiterate that we do not publish material that is excessively graphic; explicit scenes of rape or sexual assault; or direct descriptions of the sexual exploitation of children. As you might guess from my qualifiers, we have published pieces that skirt around these and other controversial topics. 

Not every piece we publish will be suitable for every person. Because we want people to feel comfortable, it is my project to include Spoiler Alerts and Content Warnings at the top of stories that need them. I want my (multiple) friends with severe zombie phobias to be able to enjoy other stories. I want my (multiple, sadly) friends who are victims of assault or abuse at the hands of their partners to have the option of preparing themselves to read a story. Some pieces use racial slurs or other objectionable language to make a larger point about society, and I want to make sure that our readers know that we support marginalized communities, not hate. 

To access the content warnings, readers will have to click the drop down button that reads “SPOILER ALERT! CONTENT WARNINGS!” at the top of each piece. If this does not affect you, then you won’t even have to risk an accidental spoiler. For those that need or want this from us, we see you. We hear you. You are welcome here. And if you ever encounter something that you feel should have a warning, you can always reach out. 

Conclusion

If you made it this far, thank you. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to bring a frisson of delicious fear to so many people. 

I always return to Horror to refill the well of my soul. My love spans Stephen King and Grady Hendrix; Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson; Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft; Tananarive Due, T. Kingfisher, and Caitlin Starling; Chuck Tingle and Stephen Graham Jones; and all the horrible nooks and crannies under the stairs that new authors jump out from. It helps me understand my own pain and imagine a better world. It appeals to my basest instincts that want to shriek in a dark theater at outrageous gore. It makes me laugh. It makes me cry. It makes me think. 

I hope to bring all of this and more to you as the Editor in Chief of Macabre Magazine.