For my parents, Doris and Nathan Datlow, whom I love dearly and who infected me with their love for reading.

The term urban fantasy was originally applied to fantasy written in reaction to the works most popular up to the early 1980s—high-fantasy, imaginary worlds with medieval trappings. Instead, some writers began to inject magic into contemporary times and into urban areas, both real and invented. Mark Helprin set his charming novel Winter’s Tale in New York City, and John Crowley set his classic Little, Big at least partially in a recognizable New York. Many of Charles de Lint’s Newford stories and novels take place in a thinly disguised Toronto, while Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks is indelibly linked to Minneapolis. Terri Windling was influential in the subgenre’s “founding” by creating Borderland, a shared-universe original anthology series (the first two edited with Mark Arnold), set in an imaginary city in which humans and magical creatures could meet and interact.

Urban fantasy as we have come to know it today combines the often-dark edge of city living with enticing worlds of magic. Its subgenres include noir crime and paranormal romance. But the urban landscape is what’s crucial.

As one who lives in and loves New York City and enjoys traveling to other cities around the world, to me, urban centers seem to seethe with an energy, cultural diversity, and creativity that is more difficult to find in suburban or rural areas. You can lose yourself in a big city or you can find yourself.

In soliciting stories for this anthology I asked writers to consider all types of locations (as long as the story takes place in a city—existing or made up). I wanted the city to be as important as anything else in the story—in other words, where the story takes place should matter, in some way, to the story.