apex magazine

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Telling Stories of Ghosts

I spent three or four years giving every dead creature I found in our yard or along our narrow country road a proper burial. Instead of joining Girl Scouts or 4H, I devoured books about ghosts and the undead. Instead of becoming horse crazed, as so many second- and third-grade girls do, I developed a passion for war, weapons, and Romantic poetry. I eschewed pink for a palette of all-black.
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Jimi Hendrix Sang It

Until only recently, the World Fantasy Award, both the winner’s trophy and the nomination pins, were a bust of the author H.P. Lovecraft. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, someone who clearly had zero compunctions against being the worst he could be under the most specious of excuses, is well-known for pointedly toxic, virulent racism.
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If Those Ragged Feet Won’t Run

Everything aches. Her back is tight and knotted at the bottom of her spine, because Keena is in a phase where she wants to be able to look up at her as she’s held. With that thought, Bethesda glances down, peeking under the wrap to see if she’s asleep. Keena dozes, lips parted, cheek smushed against Bethesda’s chest, eyes hooded. Good. Good enough.
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A Love That Burns Hot Enough to Last: Deleted Scenes from a Documentary

You know the story. You’ve seen the news clips and the Behind the Music episodes and the biopics: the poor kid from the Chicago projects, her church-obsessed single mom, how Ti spent every spare moment of her childhood there, singing her little heart out. How that safe and stunting space celebrated her, and how it maimed her. How she got on television; how she captured the heart of America from the first moment and didn’t let it go until she died.
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