Pulp Literature Autumn 2024: Issue 44

In this Issue

Ceren of the Surf, one of cover artist Bronwyn Schuster’s Knights of the Drowned Table, guards the watery portal to our autumn offerings. But more than water flows past the dead in feature author Kate Heartfield’s chilling tale of corporate cover-ups, ‘The Investigation Is Sealed’.

Ravens, monsters, and zombies steal the show — and a few souls — in ‘A Fair Exchange’ by Tom Jolly, ‘Liar’s Leap’ by Jonathan Sean Lyster, and ‘Bad Backup’ by Mikayla Fawcett and Gabriel Craven.

Meanwhile, artistic adventures in celluloid, paint, and spider’s silk await in ‘The Painting’ by Alan Sincic, ‘The Projectionist’ by Lisa Alo Seaman, and ‘A Weaver’s Web’ by Barry Charman.

The smell of goats and the secrets of ghosts haunt the pages of ‘The Shepherdess: Narbonne’ by JM Landels and ‘Take My Hand: Enter Night’ by Mel Anastasiou.

And poetry from our Magpie Award Winners Angela Rebrec, Cicely Grace, and Veronika Gorlova reminds us that even the darkest of nights ends in sunrise.

Kate Heartfield's novels include The Valkyrie, The Embroidered Book, and The Chatelaine. She has won the Aurora Award for Best Novel three times. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Locus, Sunburst, and Crawford awards, as well as the Ottawa Book Award, and her journalism has been shortlisted for a National Newspaper Award. Kate's story 'And in the Arcade, Ego' was our feature story for Issue 33, Winter 2022. 'The Investigation Is Sealed' is very loosely inspired by the Westray mine disaster of 1992 and the song about it by the Canadian band Weeping Tile. Kate grew up in Manitoba and now lives in Ottawa. Visit her at kateheartfield.com.

Mel Anastasiou writes the Fairmount Manor Mysteries, the Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries, and the Monument Studios Mysteries. Winner of a Literary Titan Gold award and longlisted for the Leacock Medal, Mel is also the author of two illustrated thirty-day workbooks on story structure: the steampunk-themed The Writer's Boon Companion and The Writer's Friend and Confidante. For news on published and upcoming new works, visit her website, melanastasiou.wordpress.com.

JM Landels is torn between travelling the world to teach writing and swordfighting, and never leaving her idyllic farm in Langley, BC. Her debut series, fantasy bestseller Allaigna's Song: Overture and the sequels, Aria and Chorale, are available from Pulp Literature Press and most booksellers. You can follow her adventures with pen and sword at jmlandels.stiffbunnies.com