In this Issue ...
Solstice Ritual by cover artist Herman Lau challenges us in a winter landscape where myth and folklore lurk.
Adopt a revolutionary spirit with feature author George McWhirter’s ‘Grillo, the Story of a Cricket’, and defy the oligarchs in ‘Baba Yaga and the Bear’ by Gregg Chamberlain.
Poet Dan MacIsaac takes us back to ancient Crete with ‘Pholoe’, while DA Cooper brings blessed sleep to Valhalla in ‘Ragnabeđtími’.
In ‘Their Grandfather’s Chair’ by JM Landels, Allaigna’s sisters are forced out of their comfort zone and onto separate paths, while returning to childhood memories is prickly and uncomfortable in ‘The Past as Foundation for the Family Home’ by Shelley Lavigne and ‘Say Cheese, Jesus, Please’ by Rina Piccolo.
The writing muse strikes at inopportune times in ‘How to Write a Novel in Ten Days During the Zombie Apocalypse’ by Jakob Drud and ‘Take My Hand: Enter Night’ by Mel Anastasiou.
And flash fiction from Hummingbird Prize winners Cheryl Skory Suma, Adam Fout, and Soramimi Hanarejima offers a look at difficult relationships in their many incarnations.
George McWhirter's most recent fiction has been featured in The Fiddlehead and is scheduled to appear in an upcoming SubTerrain. He has been anthologized in Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change (Exile Editions, 2017), and Exile's CVC: Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology Series, Book Three and Book Four. Exile Editions also published a book of his short stories and a novella, The Gift of Women, in 2015. He writes and publishes poetry as well as translating the contemporary Mexican poets Homero Aridjis, José Emilio Pacheco, and Gabriel Zaid. His translation of Homero Aridjis' Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence (New Directions, 2023) was awarded the 2024 Griffin Prize for Poetry. George McWhirter was the judge of our inaugural Magpie Award for Poetry in 2014, and you can find 'Stalk', his sci-fi take on Jack and the Beanstalk, in Pulp Literature Issue 9, Winter 2016.
JM Landels is the author of the bestselling Allaigna's Song trilogy as well as the spy novel The Shepherdess, currently serialized in even-numbered issues of this magazine. 'Their Grandfather's Chair', featuring Allaigna's sisters Branwen and Irdina, takes place during the events of Allaigna's Song: Chorale. When she's not writing, editing, or drawing, you can find Jen teaching people to swing swords and ride horses at Academie Cavallo in Langley, BC. You can find @jmlandels on most social media platforms, and at jmlandels.stiffbunnies.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 shortlisted 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 works, visit her website, melanastasiou.wordpress.com
