November 2025

We haven't made as much progress as we had hoped on reading Mysterion submissions, but still expect to be finished before the end of this month (if we stretch it out to "before we go to bed on November 30th"). As of writing this update, we had 110 unread stories, 20 that Donald has read but Kristin hasn't, and 3 that have advanced to our short list.

Our priority last month was sending out contributor copies of the new Mysterion 3 anthology, and making sure that our readers all know that it exists and would make the perfect Christmas gift for at least one person on their list!

We plan to accept 5 stories from the July submission window. It was going to be 6, but then our Patreon funding dropped below $150/month (currently $148/month). If it's back above $150 before we select the stories we'll be publishing, we'll be able to accept 6 again. Please consider signing up for a paid subscription if you can!

This year, we'll be publishing Christmas stories in December and November! First up is a reprint from Clarkesworld, by D.A. Xiaolin Spires. In "Marshmallows", an interruption in the augmented reality subscription that keeps Chunfei from seeing any unpleasantness on her way to work leads to a surprising (and Christmas-themed!) encounter.

Then, for December, we have "Stray", a very dark Christmas horror story from Canadian author Wes Berger. This one starts with another unexpected encounter during the holiday season, as a divorced father's reluctant decision to invite an apparently homeless woman into his apartment during a winter storm threatens to derail celebrating Christmas with his son. Although this is Wes's first published short story, he already has an established track record as a playwright and stage director (and appeared in The Incredible Hulk).

Speaking of Christmas, we typically only consider Christmas stories submitted in January. So if you're hoping we'll publish your Christmas story next year, the January window would be the right time to submit it. (We're open to submissions each year in January and July.) People often think July would be the best time, but we don't make our selections from the July submission period until the very end of November. Which means we'll be publishing those stories between January and July of the following year.

And, speaking of holidays in general, Kristin might have purchased too much Halloween candy this year:

Especially since we had exactly zero trick-or-treaters. (And this is only what would fit in the bowl, about half of Kristin's haul.) It's possible that Kristin was just using this as an excuse to buy a lot of candy. We have a very long driveway and don't bother to do much in the way of decoration. Also, the decorative shrubs around the front of the house are a bit out of control, giving us a bit of a creepy vibe at night. Which you'd think would work for Halloween! But people probably look at our long driveway, and our one sad little Jack o'Lantern that you can hardly see past the bushes, and decide it isn't worth walking all that way if they aren't 100% certain we have candy. Maybe if we decorated the shrubs with fake spiderwebs and giant fake spiders...

Kristin did attend a costume party the Saturday before Halloween. She went as a witch:

Donald was out of town at the time, and it took Kristin multiple tries to tie the tie, as this is not part of her usual sartorial arsenal.

HOME IMPROVEMENT NEWS

Some of you might remember the hole in our downstairs bathroom ceiling from the last monthly update:

The plumber had to cut into the ceiling to replace a leaking section of pipe. Kristin finally got around to covering up the hole:

And pasting down the edges and covering the screws:

It still needs a second layer of joint compound and a good sanding before we can paint over it, but at least we no longer need to worry about mice falling down from the ceiling (the cats will have you know that they welcome falling mice!).

It's all been very tedious, and Kristin has been regretting her decision not to try to find a handyman to do this instead (the lengths to which introverts will go to avoid having to talk to people on the phone...). But she's in too deep now (though she does not expect to be able to moonlight as a handyperson anytime soon).

Speaking of cats, here's a picture of the two of them sharing the top perch of a cat tree without fighting (they probably got into a fight after the picture was taken, or else Maxwell just shoved Marie off):

Thanks for reading, and we hope you'll stop by again on November 24th for some early Christmas content!

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