WHY NEW YORKERS SMOKE is a new collection of stories from Nonstop Press, based in New York City, that attempts to present some of the terror in the hearts and minds of a few of the people who have chosen to live in New York despite all the warnings and I-told-you-so comments from outsiders since 9/11. Editor Luis Ortiz lived in the shadow of the towers and remembers that day vividly:

“People not there when it all went down seem to have forgotten that it was like a great furnace igniting in hell. It wasn’t until much later when I came to realize that I would like to do a book of stories about fear and New Yorkers. As editor I found that unless I wanted a collection of tabloid stories the only way to approach this theme was by embracing fantastika, that is fantasy, horror and science fiction. I was lucky in being able to get some of the top writers working in these genres, many of them New Yorkers themselves, to answer the question: ‘What is there to fear in New York City?’

“The city is a place where just about anything can happen at any moment, but it really takes a bit of imagination to present it as it is now and may be tomorrow. For example, one story is alternative history where Osama is still alive and well – living in NYC and getting heavily into speed-dating. In another tale New Yorkers hide from nebulous invaders in the 14th Street subway station; then there is the Latino taxi driver who becomes the Wandering Dutchman of Lower Manhattan after witnessing the towers fall. You will also meet a post-9/11 Golem, and see how a 100-year recession forces chilling changes to ‘social services’ at a ghetto church.

“Home-based fear has been in our bones since our ancestors first built a fire at the mouth of a cave and searched the darkness outside for glowing eyes. It is not going away any time soon. WHY NEW YORKERS SMOKE does not promote fear. It is not propaganda. It is not a chronicle of catastrophes. Fear can inflame ignorance, which is the opposite of my intent here. This book does show that the boogie man is a slippery character. He is not always who you would expect him to be. It would behoove us all to discriminate between real and imagined boogie men. I believe these stories are a start.”

WHY NEW YORKERS SMOKE (trade paperback; $13.95) is edited by Luis Ortiz, features stories by Barry Malzberg, Carol Emshwiller, Paul di Filippo, Scott Edelman, Don Webb and others, and will be available in print, eBook, and Kindle editions.