New York Fantastic

Paula Guran is a two-time Bram Stoker Award winner. In addition to scores of novels and several single-author collections, she has edited more than forty published anthologies, including Blood Sisters: Vampire Stories By Women and Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold, both with Night Shade Books. She lives in Akron, Ohio.

New York Fantastic: Fantastic Stories from the City That Never Sleeps





Peter S. Beagle:


“The Rock in the Park”—Nice Jewish boys meet up with a family of lost centaurs in a Bronx park.






Elizabeth Bear:


“Cryptic Coloration”—A mage disguised as an English professor defends the city against a monster.


“The Horrid Glory of its Wings”—An ugly harpy with bronze wings lives in the dumpster behind Desiree’s building...






Holly Black:


“The Land of Heart’s Desire”—A café where you can meet members of the Sidhe—fairies—in Manhattan.






Richard Bowes:


“A Huntsman Passing By”—The bouncer at a downtown art event finds himself in the middle of a fairy tale come true.


“Blood Yesterday, Blood Tomorrow”—A decades-spanning story about NYC flea markets and the cost of success.


“Venues”—Struggling artists and writers in NY will do anything for a little publicity...






Karl Bunker:


“Caisson”—A young man helping build the Brooklyn Bridge in 1871 copes with a friend who’s too interested in the fossils they find on the riverbed.






Maria Dahvana Headley:


“The Tallest Doll in New York City”— A love affair between the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building told in Damon Runyonesque style.






Kat Howard:


“Painted Birds and Shivered Bones”—A reclusive painter seeks the anonymity of NYC, then she spies a man transforming into a bird near Ground Zero...






N. K. Jemisin:


“The City Born Great”—Like all great metropolises before it, when a city gets big and old enough, it must be born; but there are ancient enemies who cannot tolerate new life.

[Alternate: New York will live or die by the efforts of a reluctant midwife… and how well he can learn to sing the city’s mighty song.]






Caitlín R. Kiernan:


“La Peau Verte”—An absinthe fantasy of artist trapped between the viewing and the viewed.






Seanan McGuire:


“Red as Snow”—An “Incryptid” story. A shapeshifter loves her new life in the city, but then her family interferes...






George R. R. Martin:


“Shell Games”—An intriguing but insular man with telekinetic powers becomes New York City's greatest superhero.






Naomi Novik:


“Priced to Sell”— The real estate market in Manhattan is always an adventure, but being a broker for supernaturals is a real challenge.






Delia Sherman:


“How the Pooka Came to New York City”—A shapechanging Irish immigrant arrives in the new world.


“Grand Central Park”—A teenager wins the favor of Central Park’s fairy Green Queen.


“CATNYP”—With the help of the NY Pblic Library, a changeling tries to prove humans know more of love than fairy folk.






John Shirley:


“...And the Angel with Television Eyes”—An actor wakes in his midtown Manhattan apartment to find a living, breathing griffin perched on his bed...






Peter Straub:


“Pork Pie Hat”—A legendary saxophonist—thought long dead—is alive and playing in an East Village club; he has an extraordinary story to tell...