Last September, looking for something new, I bought a copy of Popshot Quarterly. It is a nicely illustrated magazine with short stories, flash fictions (I still doesn’t quite grasp the difference with short stories) and poetry.
Some quick words about The Haunting issue, Autumn 2022. At first I thought it would be scary. It had everything inside: clown, ghost, Death, old people, baby. Then this magazine made me realize that haunting can take many forms. A song can haunt. A memory can live with you in your mind, all the time. Decisions too. I was looking for a scare, I found something else.
Various authors relate their haunting stories, inviting to think or rethink your own. You know, the things you can’t forget, those words, the beauty and the sadness. A landscape. Animals. Forms and lengths of the texts vary, some words stick and other less.
Every story is colorfully illustrated, something I really enjoy, in the era of the boring big characters book covers. I don’t know if the illustrators and writers know each other, but their work combine pretty elegantly. I got particularly touched by the stories with the bees (Abigail Williams – the Bees are coming) which was for me the most haunting.
No wait. There was something more haunting with this publication. And also scary. The price I paid for it.
The real price of the magazine is kind of fair, in theory, only 6 pounds, which would be 7 euros at the time of writing. But due to inflation and a haunting gentrification, it is sold in Lisbon for 11.25 euros.
But Popshot is a nice read, a pretty object, so, once in a while…
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