June 2026

We've finished selecting stories from the January submission window, and will be open to fiction submissions again for the month of July, considering stories of up to 10,000 words.

We accepted eight stories (out of 282 submissions received), two by authors we've published before and at least one that will be another author's first fiction publication. Four are by authors who live outside the US: in Canada, France, or Nigeria. Five are science fiction (though three of these include supernatural elements), two are fantasy, and one is magic realism.

Popular themes included AI, post-apocalyptic (usually nuclear or climate change rather than Biblical), and euthanasia. We're happy to be seeing more science fiction these days, and also to see more submissions from authors in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Authors sometimes ask what we're looking for. Perhaps the best answer is, "something we didn't know we wanted until we saw it"; which, admittedly, isn't very helpful. But we get dozens of solid, well-crafted stories between 3000 and 6000 words that thoughtfully explore some ethical dilemma through its impact on the story's characters. If your story has something unusual or weird about it, that might work in its favor if we're deciding between it and two or three others that are just as good. Strong characterization always appeals to us, as do stories that avoid oversimplifying political topics by caricaturing those with whom the author disagrees. People understandably send us a lot of stories that offer their take on a Big Issue and tell our readers what they should think about it; but we're more interested in stories where those issues are part of the background fabric of the characters' lives.

In other news, Kristin enjoyed the spring weather by spending a day hiking in New Hampshire with a friend.

Donald recently got the cats a transparent window box that fits into the window like a small air conditioner, and has screened slatted sides for ventilation and so they can hear and smell everything around them. Entrance and egress are through a standard cat door flap.

It took them a few days to be willing to try it out, but now they love it. Although the picture here shows Marie, Maxwell is usually the one monopolizing their new "catio," especially early morning and late evening.

COMING SOON

Our June story comes to us from Rod A. White. In "The Shepherd Circuit", a long-dormant AI core remembers events it shouldn't, and claims to have been transformed by trying to understand faith. Read it here on June 22nd... or right now on our Patreon page with a subscription of $3/month!

(A reminder to please consider signing up for our Patreon if you aren't already a subscriber, as this is our main source of funding to pay authors and artists!)

SF CONVENTIONS

We plan to be at LibertyCon in Chattanooga, TN (June 26th-28th) and Capclave in Rockville, MD (October 2nd-4th). Kristin will also be at Readercon in Burlington, MA, but probably only on Saturday (July 11th).

We mostly stopped going to conventions during and after the pandemic, and are slowly returning; though we're trying to be strategic about focusing on ones where people are more likely to be interested in what we're doing, at least for events we have to travel to. We're also prioritizing smaller, shorter (i.e., cheaper) conventions, and ones that are closer to us (also cheaper). Though we might go to Worldcon in 2027, since it's in Montreal and we can easily drive there.

Thank you for reading, and we hope you'll be back on June 22nd to read "The Shepherd Circuit"!

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