It’s been said that the fear of the unknown is an irrational response to the excesses of the imagination, but our fear of the everyday, of the lurking stranger and the sound of foot-falls on the stairs, the fear of violent death and the primitive impulse to survive, are as frightening as any X-File. As real as the acceptance that it could happen to you.
- Fox Mulder

This is our twenty-third issue and it is packed full of those things, poems and essays and stories about, like, life, big and small and scary and funny and weird and mysterious.

Also cryptids! Like many things Barrelhouse, the amazing special cryptids section in this issue started as a joke and quickly grew into a real idea and now it is a Big Beautiful Weird Thing in the World, a section of amazing writing about cryptids and, more importantly, the people who are obsessed with them.

Featuring:

Mya Matteo Alexice
Nic Anstett
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Lorelei Bacht
Daniel R. Ball
Renée Branum
Stephanie Burt
Morris Collins
Killian Czuba
Amanda Gaines
Sarah Gouda
Kira Homsher
Romana Iorga
Jamie Danielle Logan
Ron MacLean
Lucas Mann
Luisa Muradyan
Nadia Staikos
Cameron Steele
James Winter