“D0G” by Tania Fordwalker – 4.0
Clarkesworld, April 2026 In a post-apocalyptic near future, a woman known as Billie survives alone on a small island in a river near Moosehead Lake, Maine, somewhere upstream from a…
“What We Mean When We Talk About the Hole in the Bathroom” by Angela Liu – 4.0
Uncanny, March/April 2026 A woman and her husband discover a two-foot circular hole in their bathroom wall, emanating cold wind that smells of wet soil and river water. Their argument…
“The Woman Who Stole Flowers” by Theodora Goss – 4.0
Uncanny, March/April 2026 The story is narrated by an American academic on sabbatical in Budapest, researching changes in the Hungarian educational system in the post-Soviet era. One spring morning, she…
“Permanent Press” by Sunwoo Jeong – 4.6
Uncanny, March/April 2026 At the heart of the story is a neighborhood laundry-mat run by the stingy Mr. Lee, whose flickering neon sign alternates between two spellings—LA NDRY and L…
“The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead” by E.M. Linden – 4.0
PodCastle, Episode 879, February 2025 The dead of Tawlish Island watch from the shore as the last thirty-seven living inhabitants evacuate their remote, failing community. The freshwater has gone brackish,…
“Chimera” by Anjali Sachdeva – 4.3
Uncanny, March/April 2026 Savita, a sixty-five-year-old Indian-American woman, has long dreaded Thanksgiving — not merely for its excess, but for the grief that has shadowed every November since her youngest…
“Lotus Dew for the Emperor’s Tea” by Vanessa Fogg – 4.4
Lightspeed, March 2026 In a mythic First Age, the First Emperor rules an immortal paradise where no winter falls, orchards bloom endlessly, and death is banished from the court. Each…
“The Soundtrack of My Afterlife” by P. A. Cornell – 4.6
Adventitious, February 2026 This quietly moving novelette is narrated by Red, a 1972 Mustang who is, in fact, a reincarnated human soul. Red has no clear memory of his previous…
“Bloom Where You Are Planted” by Melanie Mulrooney – 4.1
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, February 2026 In a speculative society where women grow literal flowers on their bodies — a phenomenon overseen by a bureaucratic “Scent Authority” — social status is…
“The Garden of Living Flowers” by Tunvey Mou – 4.8
Translunar Travelers Lounge, Issue 14, February 2026 Shaili is an apprentice apothecary without green-magic — a rare and shameful lack in a family of celebrated green-mages — working under her…