Clicky

Christie Yant

Christie Yant writes and edits science fiction and fantasy in the American mid-west. She is a World Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist as co-editor of Fantasy Magazine; a consulting editor for Tordotcom’s acclaimed line of novellas; co-editor of four anthologies; editor of Women Destroy Science Fiction!, winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology; and the author of just enough published short stories that if you counted them up on your digits you’d probably have a toe left over. She has a website here: inkhaven.net. She presently attempts to balance her dayjob, writing life, and editing life with varying degrees of success.

Author Spotlight: Lowry Poletti

When writing characters like this, I like to question every assumption I’ve made about them. Conformity to social mores, normal behavior, and even emotional responses are all assumptions made based on how people act in the real world. These assumptions that don’t necessarily make sense for characters in a fantasy setting.

Editorial: February 2023

tkIn this issue’s short fiction, Lowry Poletti’s “The Dead Return in Strange Shapes” explores what binds us to the past, and Malda Marlys takes us east of the sun and west of the moon in “A Princess With a Nose Three Ells Long”; in flash fiction, Cynthia Gómez wants us to know that “The Books Would Like a Word,” and in “Secondhand” S.L. Harris revisits a different fairytale adventure from an unusual perspective; for poetry, we have “The Mermaids of Magonia” by Carina Bissett and “Food for Thought” by Lisbeth Coiman. Plus essay “The Societal Cost of Magic” by Moses Ose Utomi, author of The Lies of The Ajungo and “The Mirror Test”. Enjoy!

Author Spotlight: Erin Brown

I made the decision to keep the story science fantasy instead of science fiction. I was tempted to make it a bit more technical, with descriptions of the chemicals and processes of creating the organic metal, but those details would take away from the heart of the story, which was more about impossible dreams suddenly made possible than about immersive and specific worldbuilding.

Editorial: January 2023

In this issue’s short fiction, Erin Brown grows a little hope in “Skyscrapers That Twist to the Sun,” and “Broodmare” by Flossie Arend gives us a dark glimpse into the future; in flash fiction, Ruth Joffre turns the lens on us in “A Brief Catalog of Humans, as Observed by the Cryptids of Encante,” and “Monsters” by Liz Colter peels away some uncomfortable layers; for poetry, we have “As the Witch Burns” by Marisca Pichette and “I Should Have Been A Pair of Ragged Claws” by Alice Towey. Plus an interview with Infomocracy, And Other Disasters, and The Mimicking of Known Successes author Malka Older. Enjoy!

Editorial: December 2022

In this issue’s short fiction, Victor Forna takes us on a search for home in “Parebul of the Mother, Asked in Moonlight,” and something allures from beyond in Jennifer R. Donohue’s “Into the Dark”; in flash fiction, Jennifer Hudak gives a taste of preserved magic in “Sturgeon Moon Jam,” and Sam Kyung Yoo draws a daring, imaginative escape in “The End of a Painted World”; for poetry, we have “Luminous” by Timmi Sanni and “What Chimerae Read” by Mary Soon Lee. Plus essay “All the King’s Women: Annie Wilkes is the Mother Goddess of Cocaine” by Big Girl (PM Press) and Number One Fan (Mira) author Meg Elison. Enjoy!

Author Spotlight: Aimee Ogden

When I wrote the story, I didn’t want the insects to anchor too closely to any singular real-world equivalent; in fact I went back and forth a few times with how they worked, changing their logistics and building in some of the in-world fallout of having bees as a fundamental fact of life, in order to keep them from drifting closer to being one clear metaphor or another (because I found that drifting very easy to do!) Being a woman is a lot of things, personally and interpersonally, societally, and I wanted the bees to be a lot of things too.

Editorial: November 2022

In this issue’s short fiction, Z.K. Abraham’s protagonist finds a strange allure in the sounds coming from next door in “The Typewriter,” and Aimee Ogden’s “SOC 301: Apian Gender Studies (Cross-Listed with ZOL 301)” explores a different kind of dorm life. In flash fiction, Simo Srinivas takes us on an unusual quest in “Plum Century” while Kelsea Yu’s “Harvest of the Deep” takes us on a harrowing journey underwater. For poetry, we have “The Space Between Seconds” by Kelsey Hutton and “The Werewolf and the Fox Spirit Are Neighbors” by Amy Johnson. Plus an interview with A Phoenix First Must Burn and Eternally Yours editor Patrice Caldwell. Enjoy!

Editorial: October 2022

In this issue’s short fiction, Kelsey Hutton brings the curtain down on Giselle in “Queen of the Wilis” and Aigner Loren Wilson’s “The Black and White” takes us on a monstrous road trip with badass sisters; in flash fiction, Eurydice reconsiders this whole… Orpheus thing in Avi Burton’s “Quantum Eurydice,” and something’s fishy in Stephen M.A.’s “Short Swims From Great Heights”; for poetry, we have “The Road” by Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí and “Wolves Heaven” by Abu Bakr Sadiq. Plus essay “Reclaiming a Traditional African Genre: The AfroSurrealism of Ngano” by Drinking From Graveyard Wells author (and author of Fantasy poem “The Himba Destroyer”) Lisa Yvette Ndlovu. Enjoy!

Editorial: September 2022

In this issue’s short fiction, K.S. Walker takes us on a gorgeous, transformative journey in “How to Join a Colony of Sea-Folk; or, Other Ways of Knowing” and Jennifer Hudak’s “The Weight of it All” explores the substantial through the insubstantial; in flash fiction, Samantha Murray challenges traditional ideas of hauntings in “This Blue World” while Jen Brown’s “The Probability of One” teaches us to speak the language of particles; for poetry, we have “I Kissed a Dragon” by Sharang Biswas and “The Hole is the Beginning” by Angel Leal. Plus part two of our collective interview with Top Ten Finalists from the Locus Awards Best Fantasy Novel category, this round featuring (alphabetically): RykaAoki, FondaLee, NaomiNovik, and C.L.Polk. Enjoy!