INTO THE FOREST Edited by Lindy Ryan November 8, 2022 | Black Spot Books & Blackstone Audio
A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by the Baba Yaga. Featuring Gwendolyn Kiste, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Mercedes M. Yardley, Monique Snyman, Donna Lynch, Lisa Quigley, and R. J. Joseph, with a foreword by Christina Henry.
Deep in the dark forest, in a cottage that spins on birds’ legs behind a fence topped with human skulls, lives the Baba Yaga. A guardian of the water of life, she lives with her sisters and takes to the skies in a giant mortar and pestle, creating tempests as she goes. Those who come across the Baba Yaga may find help, or hinderance, or horror. She is wild, she is woman, she is witch—and these are her tales.
Edited by Lindy Ryan, this collection brings together some of today’s leading voices of women-in-horror as they pay tribute to the Baba Yaga, and go Into the Forest.
"Perfect for horror fans who can't get enough of folklore and fairy-tale retellings that veer in unexpected directions." –Booklist, STARRED Review
"Fans of folklore retellings will find plenty to enjoy." –Publishers Weekly
"Interpretations vary with delicious wildness... But what links the stories is a folkloric power located on the outer edge of our consciousness, yet which seems to burrow right into the centre of our souls." –Daily Mail UK
"Lindy Ryan’s preface sets the tone for the anthology, situating it as a contribution to the recent flowering of collections featuring women writing horror, while Christina Henry’s foreword provides historical and scholastic context for Baba Yaga folktales. The book’s tone shifts past these introductions. Throughout, the prose is lyrical and brutal; each story unfolds hidden truths and twists about the all-devouring witch. The stories in Into the Forest collect the guts and bones of some of the world’s oldest witch tales and refashion them into something new, beautiful, and gruesome." –Foreword Reviews
“A powerful literary reflection… Outstanding in its diversity and interpretations, Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga is very highly recommended not just for horror collections, but for libraries strong in women’s literature, as well as for reader’s book groups who would study the legend and realities of the Baba Yaga folktale as it journeys into the heart and soul of women’s experiences and psychology.” –Midwest Book Review
"Edited by Lindy Ryan, a champion of women's voices in horror, this is a sharply imaginative, diverse anthology of dark fantasy and horror stories.... Readers who love to tread the dark and treacherous paths of the human heart will happily lose themselves here." –Shelf Awareness
"A magical production for fans of fairy tales and folklore." –Audiofile Magazine
"A great [anthology] to, erm, peck at while you dream of running wild deep in the forest." –Horror Tree
MORE PRAISE FOR Into the Forest
“A lovely, thorned, haunted gathering of tales of what it means to occupy a woman’s body. Baba Yaga serves a reminder of the wildness sleeping within all of us. This collection brings her roaring to life.” —Kristi DeMeester, author of SUCH A PRETTY SMILE
“I have loved Baba Yaga since I was a girl. Her wild disregard for the "rules of man" inspired me. She isn't bound by hearth and home, rather it is bound to her. Baba creates her world, remakes it in her image, and the world—the wild world—loves her for it. All else trembles. Here are 23 stories that pay proper tribute to Baba Yaga's wild nature in all its facets. From Yi Izzy Yu's horrifically charming “The Story of a House” to the sensual tale of revolution and magic in “Water Like Broken Glass” by Carina Bissett, each story explores what it means to be untamed. These aren't just tales of a child eating witch, though there is plenty of that. These are stories about what it means to be a woman fluent in darkness. Each of these authors speaks Baba Yaga's language. It's the language of starlight, shadow, bone, and blood. They have borrowed the witch's spirit, blended it with their own and created a grimoire from which all of us can draw upon.” —Angela Yuriko Smith, multiple Bram Stoker Award®-winning and Elgin Award-nominated author
“INTO THE FOREST explores the folklore of Baba Yaga through new tales, filled with transformation and retribution, from a masterful group of authors. We travel back and forth in time, from Europe to the American South as violence and madness drive the used, abused, and betrayed into dense stretches of trees. There we find a path to strength and power, to unearthing or becoming the otherworldly Maiden, Mother, Crone.” —Linda D. Addison, award-winning author, HWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and SFPA Grand Master