Editor’s Page for Yellow Mama Issue #86 – June 15, 2021

Summer is here . . . almost! We’ve had some hot weather, but at times it felt like winter was creeping back.

Slowly, the pandemic is going away. It’s great to work out—and eat out—without wearing a mask. See people’s faces! To smile and be smiled back at. Hang out with my family again (See pic above!). I’m dying to torch a whole pile of masks. Actually, tossing them for good will be enough. We hope all of you out there get safely through this nightmare.

And, at Yellow Mama we’re still giving readers the best of noir/crime fiction/psychological horror. Sometimes supernatural horror (like our parent ‘zine Black Petals), sometimes mainstream fiction. And an occasional surprise!

Antihero Crank constructs a superior bomb in Kenneth James Crist’s “George’s Personal Big Bang.” In Craig Fishbane’s “If the World Never Knows Our Names,” revolutionaries plot a mass murder at a polling site. A mentally challenged man witnesses Roy Dorman’s “The Stanton Harbor Grocery Store Massacre.” Bruce Costello’s “Marmalade and Mayhem” will teach you new “assertive-training” skills. And Dave Kunz’s tale features a scrumptious gold-coin heist . . . in “The Pie Room”!

Other awesome stories include Serena Jayne’s epistolary “Best Friend Forever,” about two unlikely frenemies, Alyson Tait’s Poe-esque “When the Omen Follows You Home,” and Lamont A. Turner’s “A Bad Place to Be,” where a witch sics an avenging zombie on the guy who crossed her.

Our poetry lineup includes a new Bizarro County piece by Dr. Mel Waldman and touching poems by Meg Baird and R. Gerry Fabian. Also check out  powerful poems by Ann Marie Rhiel, John Sweet, Daniel G. Snethen, and others.  

Full-length and flash fiction stories (and some poems) are individually illustrated by our gifted artists: Kevin Duncan, Hillary Lyon, Steve Cartwright, Ann Marie Rhiel, Michael D. Davis, Keith Coates Walker, Darren Blanch, Sean O’Keefe, Cynthia Fawcett, KJ Hannah Greenberg, W. Jack Savage, Mike Knowles, Kenneth James Crist, and Lonni Lees.

And check out our enchanting summer cover by Keith Coates Walker!

If you want to submit full-length fiction, flash fiction, or poetry, check out our guidelines page.

Also, please sign our guestbook! If you have comments about Yellow Mama or any stories or poems we publish, you may leave comments there.

And check out our revised Archives, to catch recent stories or poems by your favorite writers you might’ve missed.