Picture yourself as an awkward child (because even if you seemed perfect and poised on the outside, you were already a halftone off the rest of the choir, non?) and recall that beautiful and terrible moment when you first were pulled in four directions by fear, fascination, disgust and longing. Perhaps you were peeking between your fingers because you knew Frankenstein's monster had to be lurking somewhere in the smoking ruins of that burned windmill. Perhaps you were in a bookstore gobsmacked by your first copy of Eerie. Perhaps you were unexpectedly split into two children, one sitting in a sunny classroom and the other locked in the midnight chamber with that "ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore." Whether the spark was a volume of Poe, Tales from the Crypt, or that freaky Soundgarden video on your dad's iPod, whether it was in 1931 or yesterday, that moment whetted your appetite. And, very, very sure your parents wouldn't approve, you wanted more. You were made for KISMET, the new anthology from Danse Macabre ~ An Online Literary Magazine® and Hammer & Anvil Books. Drawn from a treasure chest of lost DM issues, KISMET features a bespoke translation of acclaimed expat Iranian poet Ali Abdolrezaei; poetry from Stephanie Bryant Anderson (In the Company of Women), Peter Marra (Peep-O-Rama) and Peter Weltner (Unbecoming Time); fiction from UK film critic Martyn Conterio and Tom Sheehan (Beside the Broken Trail), not to mention more than a few bookish surprises of the sort readers worldwide have delighted to in DM for over a decade.

KISMET celebrates this shared joy in the unusual and the fantastic with this ample collection. Savor the delicious shivers traveling up and down the circuitry of your spine. Pierce the ominous mist and grab KISMET by the throat. Here, you will discover every entry in this anthology is a tidbit of classical uneasiness to be savored, like fine Amontillado, with dark enchantment.