Editor’s Page for Yellow Mama Issue #100 – Oct. 15, 2023

Happy Halloween, all!

Welcome to our 100^th issue! Are you excited? We are!

Sure, bad stuff is still going on, both in our lives and in the world itself. But we’re taking time out to celebrate Yellow Mama! Since 2007 we’ve been publishing gripping noir and horror stories and powerful poetry. Most have been illustrated by the best artists out there. All for the joy of reaching both local and international readers. Providing distraction from real-life horrors when they’re just too much to bear.

In honor of our centennial issue, we’re featuring a flash fiction extravaganza! Sixteen stories by flash gods and goddesses, such as Fred Zackel, Phil Temples, Ron Capshaw, Liz Zelvin, and Hillary Lyon. Is there anything more terrifying—or intriguing—than being touched by “The Charcoal Man”? Or being pursued by the feral “White Nothing”? Vampires plague in “Castle” and “Head.” Fond (Not!) memories of the Swinging Sixties may lead you to sample “An Assembly of Assassins.”

          Horror also rules in our traditional Halloween lineup. “Do You Know the Pizza Man?” Beverle Graves Myers asks, in her contemporary take on a well-known tale. In Jon Park’s “Sibling Rivalry in a Zombie Apocalypse,” a doting dad dares to play favorites. Too much freak goes on in Harris Coverley’s “Rooms.” And in Kenneth James Crist’s “The Causeway,” a slick, black mass (with eyes, yet!), envelops a terrified family’s car. Check out those, and other fearsome tales.

Our poetry lineup includes psychological horror by YM regulars Rob Plath, John Grey, John Tustin, and others. Also check out fine poems by Michael Keshigian, Joan Leotta, Charles Weld, and others.

Full-length and flash fiction stories (and some poems) are individually illustrated by our gifted artists: Sean O’Keefe, Keith Coates Walker, Lonni Lees, Bernice Holtzman, Joseph Richkus, Hillary Lyon, J. Elliott, John Sowder, Sophia Wiseman-Rose, Wayne F. Burke, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Steve Cartwright, Nancy Soriano, Michael D. Davis, Henry Stanton, John C. Mannone, W. Jack Savage, Cynthia Fawcett, and Ann Marie Rhiel.

And check out Mike Kerins’s chilling Halloween cover!

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 Archives I and II, to catch recent stories or poems by your favorite writers you might’ve missed.

 And thanks for reading!