Janu-weary but doing our best

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person standing in the glow of a streetlamp at night with falling snow

This can be a tough time of year for many of us; the icy winds slap our chapped faces while the trees dance their sad skeleton dances in the thin winter sun. And that’s not even getting
into the particular problems of our current era, which are distressing and multitudinous.

But against this bleak backdrop, the story and poems of issue 127 gleam like a handful of polished stones, each distinct in shape and color yet creating a pleasing effect together. From the imaginations of Laura Daniels, Corbin Hirschhorn, Jessica Fordham Kidd, Tony Kitt, and Kenton K. Yee, visions of beauty, danger, and magic pulse and swirl in soothing currents, offering a plethora of small treasures to cache in the mind’s secret drawers. Plus quietly lovely cover art from Natalia Lavrinenko.

Prepare to engage all your senses, because the imagery power is set to stun. Shovel it on the website or defrost the .pdf.

Issue 126 comes swirling across the moors

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cover of issue 126: sketch of clenched fist squeezing a red rose hard enough to draw blood, which drips into a puddle at the bottom against a dark background

Autumn has always been our season, our world, our whole fuckin’ vibe. Fifteen years ago, in October of 2009, Eirik and Monica released the first issue of Jersey Devil Press to rampage its way through readers’ imaginations. Since then we have expanded to include poetry as well as speculative fiction, changed captains a few times, published work from hundreds of talented writers, and experienced a devastating loss that I discussed in the note for the previous issue and am still grappling with as I type this one. Still—more than ever, maybe—art matters, and we are tail-thumpingly glad to have a new batch of stories and poems to share in this anniversary issue. 

Short form fans will dig Randy Brooks’ haiku and Sydney Wagner’s “Autopsy of a Relationship,” while Nikki Allen’s “Catch” and Simon MacCulloch’s “Death of Light” serve up some fresh rhymes. If you’re of a narrative disposition, slink through “Dillon’s Door” with Charlie Kieft and live the “Cheese Life” with Cass Noah. Admire the beauty and blood of the cover art by Bianca Blauth, “Hand Rose.”

Scrump it all on the website or pilfer the .pdf.

Carry on, fellow creatures. The moon hasn’t answered yet, but that won’t stop us from howling. 

Issue 125 has our hearts in its leaves

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This is the one-hundred-twenty-fifth issue of the magazine Eirik Gumeny and Monica Rodriguez founded in 2009, and their coffee rings and home-fry fingerprints linger on every page like indelible diner marginalia. Jersey Devil Press was created as a haunted hotel for misfit stories and castaway poop jokes, and as successive caretakers (our production editor Sam Snoek-Brown, my predecessor Mike Sweeney, and me) have moved into the gloriously strange edifice they built, we’ve done our best to keep it that way. 

starry sky with a hint of a familiar force ghost

As some of you may already know, Eirik died on July 8 from complications related to cystic fibrosis. And even that didn’t stop him from being awesome—as a recipient of upcycled lungs himself, he chose to be an organ donor with a full understanding of what a difference it would make to a handful of people he would never meet. So at least some material parts of him are still out there knocking around in the world. And we have his words, which are immortal. Eirik’s stories and essays showcase his exceptional talent for both broad and subtle comedy, but they also have a tendency to deal roundhouse kicks straight to the feelings when you least expect it. If you haven’t read his stuff, you have been missing out and should treat yourself as soon as possible. 

As a way of channeling a little of the grief of losing my friend into something meaningful, here are some specific things I believe Eirik would have enjoyed about this issue:

Sam’s cover art, which combines his own night sky photograph with a nod to Eirik as he might appear in a galaxy far, far away . . .

The humorously painful possibilities of the second line in Azzam Alkadhi’s “Grace.”

The irreverently casual voice of Betsy Streeter’s “Genesis 1 Chapter 1 H1C1.”

The resonance of the sound and movement in John Repp’s haiku.

The wonderfully absurd (yet profound) premise of Merri Andrew’s “On the Job at IBIS.”

The generous use of expressive adverbs in Toni Artuso’s “Along the Banks of the Charles River.”

The presence of Godzilla and Michael Crichton in Rob Tyler’s “Retroscopy,” as well as the way it evokes wistful longing without lapsing into sentimentality.

I miss you, Eirik. Wherever you are now, I hope you have a great view of the cosmos.