Fiction

Primordium

I have a longstanding fascination with fungi—their interconnectedness, their otherness, their ability to emerge from seemingly nothing. I also have a longstanding fascination with serial killers and the dehumanization they inflict. When I began writing “Primordium” it was only a vignette about mushrooms and their drifting spores, but it grew unexpectedly to incorporate both interests.

In Nov. 2025 (Issue 158)

Fiction

Make of Your Chest a Place for Birds

by James L. Sutter

Author spotlight

The surgery is an aortic something-or-other—you don’t really bother to listen. You don’t need some surgeon barely out of pull-ups to tell you your heart hasn’t worked right since Sam died. They put you under for it, and isn’t that a wonder: to sleep without dreaming. Or if you do, the propofol makes you forget, and that’s almost as good.

In Nov. 2025 (Issue 158)

Fiction

The Versions of Yourself That You’re Better Off Without

by Aimee Ogden

Story background: I’m probably not the only person dealing with intrusive thoughts about everything I’ve ever said or done, or not said or not done, that I wish I could change. Sometimes I’ve wished I could shout at the past versions of myself.

In Oct. 2025 (Issue 157)

Fiction

Body? Glass

by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

Author spotlight

My head. Let’s start with my hair, more specifically, follicle by follicle. Brown in color to match my eyes; curly like traps—I’m Black—see it now. My hair lies fluffy on my head, like a good wig for the wrong owner. Like something too precious for me to have.

In Oct. 2025 (Issue 157)

Fiction

Courtney Lovecraft’s Book of the Dead

by Sam J. Miller

Author spotlight

Honey, the spirits are here with us tonight and they are deeply disappointed. [audience laughter] Momma, do you not own a mirror? Did you think you looked cute when you walked out of your house tonight? My brother, I’m so sorry for your loss. Losses.

In Oct. 2025 (Issue 157)

Fiction

Safe Face

by Ash Huang

To save face, turn away from the sun. Turn away from the spatter of cold rain against the cheek, away from the hard light of the moon at its roundest, away from the snow-flecked wind, away from the barky scratch at the fork of an oak.

In Sept. 2025 (Issue 156)

Fiction

Finishing Touches

by Adam-Troy Castro

When I proposed to Caroline, I told her that as long as we lived I would deny her nothing, but I had one request for myself: that we fulfill my own lifelong dream and build a haunted mansion for us. Caroline was amenable to this.

In Sept. 2025 (Issue 156)

Fiction

Autogas Ferryman

by Champ Wongsatayanont

Author spotlight

Krungthep means “The City of Gods.” A much more charming name than the bawdy Bangkok that foreigners joke about. But to Somsak, it is the city of ghosts. He drives his taxi slowly along through the glittering blocks of shopping malls, the neon signs of Yaowarat restaurants.

In Sept. 2025 (Issue 156)

Fiction

Eight Ball

by Martin Cahill

Author spotlight

There’s an eye in the back of my husband’s head. It opens only after he’s fallen asleep, lid splitting silent as a dream in the night. My husband’s eyes are amber, no brighter than a penny in the sun. The eye on the back of his head is different. It looks out at me through his dark hair, pupil white and glowing.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 155)

Fiction

Swallow Test

by Angela Liu

Most of us speak and eat/swallow without thinking about how complicated these processes actually are, how a single malfunction in the system can completely alter how we live or interact with others. A few years back, I accompanied an elderly family member to their first swallow test.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 155)