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Stories, Podcasts, Interviews, and Articles, 2025:
June 21, 2025
of
Silvatiicus’ Riddle poem
“Nightmare Eater”
I rise from a day’s waking-slumber to feast…
A Reprise Story
In Eldritch
May 30, 2025, in Eldritch
“Black Witch, Snow Leopard”
Eugen Bacon
The Black witch and the snow leopard
wind through memories
of nightmare, heartbeats, fire, and snow.
New Story
April 29, 2025, in Fantasy
The girl sat by the warm fire and ate quietly, tears falling into her soup.
“Do you know what today is?” asked the woman.
“N-no.”
“It’s the feast day of Saint Leonidas. Come, let’s pray, for your mother, for all who lose their way in difficult times, that they may find peace and safety. Later, we can make some flour, and bake piroshki for them.”
Maria Ivanovna woke to sunlight streaming into her small house.
She lit a candle, said a prayer, and checked the red-and-white paper calendar tacked to her bedroom wall. It was April 29th, the day of the Martyr Michael of Smyrna, and also the day of Holy Martyr Leonidas, who had been thrown into the sea, but the sea sent him safely back.
New Story
March 18, 2025, in Fantasy
Lugging his supplies back to St. Jerome’s, Wilfred the Wretched cursed the commute.
He’d told himself living in the cemetery would boost his wizardly power, but he knew it was for the cheap rent.
In his backyard of ominous headstones, Wilfred spent his nights grinding up ingredients, performing rituals, and chanting sacred words.
But in the end, after the smoke cleared…
A New Story
In Fantasy
February 26, 2025, Fantasy
“The Swamp Mama’s Taste in Books”
by Kim Zarins
Wending her way back to her bog, the Swamp Mama found a scrumptious young Danish shivering at the bog’s edge,
despite the large runestone scored with claw marks meaning Solicitors: Always a Welcome Menu Variation.
Her stomach rumbled in anticipation as she towered over him.
“Hold! I’m a monk!” he cried, and flung a page of parchment at her.
And that was a sure way to stop her in her tracks.
Stories, Podcasts, Interviews, and Articles, 2024:
New Story
December 30, 2024, in Fantasy
Hasdrubal’s fanged grin split his semi-feline face like a machete slash across a honeydew, and I filed that image away for my next book.
“Once again, Jane Armstrong,” he purred, tucking his light-brown wings into place along his tawny flanks, “it comes down to you and to me.” He tapped a claw on a stack of papers. “And my cease and desist order.”
New poem
December 21, 2024, in Fantasy
When dragons are in need of comfort,
there are places and times and memories
they can turn to
New Story
October 18, 2024, in Fantasy
“The Dream Stallion and the Night Cat”
E.E. King
They met at night and went out on their rounds.
Then one night, the Dream Stallion did not appear.
The night cat waited… and waited… and finally went out to search for his friend.
New Story
August 31, 2024, in Science Fiction
My dad did his best to never miss work, a Sunday at church, a wedding, or a funeral. Not even when he could have avoided all kinds of problems by just staying home. Not even when the president announced the world was going to end.
His example helped me get out the door that day. And all the weeks after.
Now, the last day, I walk out of my apartment carrying a plant I gifted my girlfriend during an online date. I keep it with me since I’ll never get to meet her in person. I put the plant in the basket of my mountain bike.
I have a while before my shift starts, so I pedal slowly and take a last look around the city.
New Story
July 24, 2024, in Fantasy
“Your most expensive beers! Line them up!” I examined each bottle closely, paying special attention to the caps. I chose the flashiest six and pushed away the rest.
I opened the first bottle, carefully setting the cap aside, and emptied it in three long draughts that soothed my parched throat.
“The name’s Cormyn. THE Cormyn, legendary hero, though times have been hard and heroing isn’t what it used it be. Heck, I didn’t even want to be a hero, I just wanted to visit exciting places.”
“So what’s with the bottle caps?”
“Ah, now that’s a story. I’ll tell it to you while I finish my beers…”
New Story
Kepler Award
2023 main category winner
June 27, 2024, in Science Fiction
Geoffrey Hart
The mussels dragged us upslope to one of the carved coral shapes with eight radiating branches that resembled octopods. We’d long since stopped struggling; the mussels vastly outnumbered us, and where could we flee? Even if our airsuit remained functional, we’d have to cross the barren land, hoping to arrive before the lash of Secundus’ killing sunlight.
One by one, the mussels drove spikes through our tentacles, leaving us splayed out on the rough coral, fire running up and down our tentacles.
Their work done, they left us to die.
New Story
May 27, 2024, in Fantasy
Robert Luke Wilkins
Muirenn stood atop the moonlit cliff, her raised hands bloody from the shell fragments she grasped.
She pulled back her arms, and the cold, salt air of the ocean surged over her. Then she swept her arms forward, and the island air rushed out.
Hear my plea. Speak to me!
Back and forth she drew the wind, as the ocean crashed against the shore. In the spray and the moonlight, three translucent figures formed.
New Story
“In Space No-One Can Hear You Play Alto Sax” is a winner in the short, short category for
The Kepler Award 2023
March28 28, 2024, in Science Fiction
“In Space No-One Can Hear You Play Alto Sax”
by Hesper Leveret
The departure lounge is vast, echoing in the sterilized air with the voices of thousands of people waiting for their assigned shuttle up to the ships.
Everyone is a stranger. We just all have the same dream of settling the new world we call Goldy – a Goldilocks planet in the Dorado constellation.
But we don’t have to wait until we’re 100 light years from Earth to start working together.
New Story
“Call of the Void” is a winner in the short category for
The Kepler Award 2023
February 28, 2024, in Science Fiction
“Call of the Void”
by Bridgette Dutta Portman
Jones’s suicide will be the last. Commander Hennepin will make sure of that.
He digs Jones’ grave as the mottled orb of Jupiter hangs overhead. It’s full today, as it is every eighty-five Earth hours.
Hennepin avoids looking at it. Not that he’s afraid. But both of the prior suicides happened when the planet was in its full phase, with the entirety of its swirling clouds lit up by the distant sun.
A New Story
In Eldritch
January 29, 2024, in Eldritch
“Under the Ghost Star”
by Erik VanBezooijen
A Vlakk witch’s 13th birthday is always momentous. For on that day, her mentor gifts her a special insignia and frees her to seek her own destiny.
But on Kuma’s 13th birthday, beneath the crossroads, beneath the Fivefold Catacomb, she faced the Death Spirit, who in a voice like grating coal blocks, told her “You shall remain here in the dark earth, be my most ardent worshiper, supplying my sacrifices, and the roots of this place shall feed on your soul and mind, your body and bones forever…”
And Kuma answered the Death Spirit…
∼ Main Terminal ∼
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