Table of Contents, April 2026

I've often thought of short fiction being the engine that drives speculative fiction. So many authors cut their teeth with shorter works, and it's a phenomenal way to meet new storytellers and creators – as well as new publications.

Since I've launched this column, I've been adding new publications as I come across them, and if you turn back to March's installment, you'll find a whole bunch of newer publications that have arrived on the scene. Give them a try and see what they're bringing to readers.

Okay, here are the short stories coming out this month:

Adventitious (April 2026, Issue 2)

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Fiction

• “All Under Heaven” by Marie Brennan
• “Madam Strzyga’s Pagan Pest Control” by Katharine Tyndall
• “Fernie” by Angela Liu
• “Passing Through” by Laurie Doyle
• “We Decay In The Dark” by Ayida Shonibar
• “Of Sight, Of Mind, Of Heart” by Samantha Murray
• “Penance” by Jennifer Hudak
• “Fractal House” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
• “Raze My Brain, Open My Eyes” by Faith Allington
• “Spirit Alembic Keeper” by Emma Burnett
• “The Place of Oblation” by Deborah L. Davitt
• “Last Edit to THE ALL BANGERS LIST Made By Your Sex Robot at 11:39 A.M.” by Natalie Zutter
• “Fire and Brimstone” by S. I. Fapohunda
• “Biter” by Michelle Knudsen

Amazing Stories (April 2026)

Fiction

• "Junie and Kamal in the Machine" by Jessy Randall
• "Rock and Roll" by Norman Cowie
• "Make Space Great Again" by Mike Strickland

Apex Magazine (Issue 152)

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Fiction

• Excerpt of The Cellar Below the Cellar by Ivy Grimes (4/6)
• "One Last Light to Guide Me Home" by Avery Parks (4/28)

Nonfiction

• "Intellectual Colonialism and the Erasure of South and Eastern European Writing Voices: Another Tikka-Masala" by Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos (4/14)
• "Words for Thought: Short Fiction Review" by A.C. Wise (4/21)

Aurealis (Issue #189)

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Fiction

• "From the Cloud" by Stephen Higgins
• "Out of Time" by Carolyn Galbraith
• "Little Drid Makes a Call" by Andrew Renganathan Roberts
• "Epimetheus" by Luke Weavell

Nonfiction

• William Walker, His Fiction and Now-Solved Mystery by Gillian Polack
• Fallout as Critical Retrofuturism by Ani White
• Building Empires and Stories: A Conversation with Nicola Zhang by Natalia Soriano

Beneath Ceaseless Skies (April 2026, Issues 445 and 456)

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Fiction

• "The Sparrow Tree" by Alma Alexander
• "Song, Skin, Sea" by Tamara Vardomskaya
• "Concerto for Winds and Resistance" by Cara Masten DiGirolamo
• "In The Blood" by Alex Irvine
• "The Long Weeping Arms of the Parasitic Horde" by Bee Hyland
• "On the Origin of Song" by Naim Kabir

Clarkesworld Magazine ()

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Fiction

• "Macaroni Art in the Age of Filtration" by Ryan Cole
• "D0G" by Tania Fordwalker
• "The Trajectory of Memory is Forward" by Rajeev Prasad
• "Eternity in Their Hearts" by K. J. Khan
• "Shelter" by Nadia W. Aldsen
• "The Forgetting Code" by Malena Salazar Maciá
• "Human Studies 401" by Abby Nicole Yee

Nonfiction

• Sleeping to the Stars: The Science and Fiction of Cryosleep by Jason Collins
• Feynman Lectures Riff: A Conversation with John Chu by Arley Sorg
• Hope and Friendship Will Carry Us Through: A Conversation with Suzanne Palmer by Arley Sorg

The Dark (April 2026, Issue 131)

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Fiction

• "Windows" by Ibrahim Ojedokun
• "The Tale’s in the Telling" by Angela Slatter
• "Dromedary Mary" by Phoenix Alexander
• "Wendigo" by Michael Kelly

Dark Horses Magazine (April 2026, Issue 51)

Fiction

• "A Past Life" by George Larson
• "Grampa’s Shed" by K.b. Olszewski
• "Just Birds" by Beau Maibaum
• "The Ank Williams Story" by Wayne Kyle Spitzer
• "The Melting Pot Of Us" by Khaled T. Aly
• "The Slow Apocalypse Of The Clockwork Saints" by Lucien R. Starchild
• "The Thing About Ashridge" by Bri Eberhart
• "The Simoom" by Rex A. Paar
• "We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program" by James Rumpel
• "Grasshoppers" by Theodora Sterling

The Deadlands (Spring 2026)

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Fiction

• "No Mother to Replace" by Nosawema O.
• "In This Corner of the World" by A. E. Weisgerber
• "The Dog" by Phoenix Mendoza
• "After Messiaen: A Quartet for the End of Time" by R.B. Lemberg

Diabolical Plots (April 2026)

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Fiction

• “The House Knows” by Meghan Arcuri
• “Davy Jones, Lobsterman” by Daire McNally

Fiyah: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction (Spring 2026, Issue 38)

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Fiction

• "Minority Museum" by T.T. Gibran
• "On The Autonomy Of Whales" by Amanda Helms
• "Copula" by Briana N Cox
• "The Canines Never Lie" by Virgo Kevonté
• "Midnight In The Devil’s Punchbowl" by Lisa Bennett Bolekaja
• "What We Do" by Darise Jeanbaptiste

Poetry

• "This Time, Next Time" by Akua Lezli Hope
• "Someday" by Christopher Leigh Silverberg
• "Root Code" by Argelia Salmon

Flash Fiction Online (April 2026, Issue 151)

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Fiction

• "Ten and Out" by Myna Chang
• "For Solomon Fishkowski Who Carved Chess Sets in Siberia" by KD Casey
• "Remembering Dodem Ansibar" by Sam E. Sutin
• "The Last Eleven Seconds" David Farrow

Nonfiction

• Editorial: By the Numbers by Rebecca Halsey

Flash Point SF (April 2026, Issue 2)

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Fiction

• "I Crave My Meat a Little Rare" by Rajiv Moté
• "Driving On" by J. Y. Zhang
• "Grandfather’s Pond" by Aeryn Rudel
• "Raja" by Moh Afdhaal

GigaNotoSaurus (April 2026)

Fiction

• "House of Honeyed Soil" by Natalie Wollenweber

Lightspeed Magazine (April 2026, Issue 191)

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Fiction

• "Saint Zero of the Hollows and the Eagle Knight" by V.M. Ayala (4/9)
• "Hell Is Empty" by J.R. Dawson (4/9)
• "Dad Died on Discord" by Andrew Dana Hudson (4/16)
• "Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley [Part 1]" by Ashok K. Banker (4/16)
• "Update on Rules for the Spatiotemporal Use of Campus Spaces" by Andrea Kriz (4/23)
• "Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley [Part 2]" by Ashok K. Banker (4/23)
• "Empathetic Psychosis" by Justin C. Key (4/30)
• "Time Management" by P.A. Cornell (4/30)

Nonfiction

• Editorial: April 2026 by John Joseph Adams (4/9)
• Author Spotlight: V.M. Ayala by Leighanna DeRouen (4/9)
• Author Spotlight: J.R. Dawson by Phoebe Barton (4/9)
• Author Spotlight: Ashok K. Banker by Erik Grove (4/16)
• Book Review: Sauúti Terrors by Eugen Bacon, Stephen Embleton, and Cheryl S. Ntumy, eds. by Arley Sorg (4/16)
• Book Review: The Witch by Marie N’Diaye, translated by Jordan Stump by Melissa A Watkins (4/23)
• Author Spotlight: Justin C. Key by Delia Cullity (4/30)
• Book Review: Aicha by Soraya Bouazzaoui by Chris Kluwe (4/30)

Mythmaxis (Spring 2026, Issue 45)

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Fiction

• "The Agentic Necklace" by Frank Baird Hughes
• "On Miracles" by P. W. Lewis
• "The Perfect Mother" by Jude Clee
• "The Negotiation" by Vanessa Fabiano
• "Search History" by Jon Clendaniel
• "Pultu's Lesson" by Sean Myers

Nonfiction

• Reintroduction by Andrew Leon Hudson
• The Spear Cuts Through Water, by Simon Jimenez by Mattia Ravasi
• Short Reviews – October 2025 to January 2026 by Andrew Leon Hudson

Nature Futures (April 2026)

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Fiction

• "False Hope" by Hall Jameson
• "Homelessness of the heart" by Tomias Keno
• "Ozymandias undead" by Bryce Saputo
• "New year, old me" by Robert Blasiak
• "Waiting for them" by Marissa Lingen
• "The memory dealer of Old Jeddah" by Addidi Youness
• "In the flesh" by Jasmin Kirkbride
• "Immolation" by Lucy Zhang

Nightmare Magazine (April 2026, Issue 163)

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Fiction

• "The Final Girl Trap" by A.C. Wise (4/8)
• "The Spiders You Swallow in Your Sleep" by Wendy Nikel (4/15)
• "We Are All in the Same Boat" by Avi Burton (4/22)
• "graveyard of butterflies" by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe (4/29)

Nonfiction

• Editorial: April 2026 by Wendy N. Wagner (4/8)
• Author Spotlight: A.C. Wise by Clay Vermulm (4/8)
• The H Word: Why Do We Like the Weird? by RSL (4/15)
• Author Spotlight: Avi Burton by Devin Marcus (4/22)
• Interview: Dan Coxon by Alex Puncekar (4/29)

Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine (April 2026, Vol 9, Issue 6)

Fiction

• "You Must Be This Tall" by Laura DeHaan
• "Formative Years" by Jacqueline West
• "Bones for Safe Keeping" by Charlie Winter
• "Body Count" by Sage Early
• "Carrion" by Jordan Hirsch
• "The House with White Walls" by Dana Beehr
• "Charts of the Sorcerer 1: Duel" by Phil Emery
• "The Archaeology of Yarn" by A J Dalton
• "Return to Foreverland" by Virgo Kevonté 
• "A Bargain's a Bargain" by Gerri Leen
• "So That We May Remember" by Rina Song
• "Unabashed Appetite" by Lynne Sargent
• "Alakhani" by Ananya Kashyap
• "My God, What Has Happened?" by SJ Townend
• "In the wake of this decay" by Mahaila Smith
• "The New Air" by Neil James Hudson
• "The Wedding Speech You Weren't Asked to Give, for the Couple Who Didn't Invite You" by S.R. Kriger

Reactor (April 2026)

Fiction

• "Let’s Go to the Zoo" by Louis Evans
• "The Day-Blind Stars" by Christopher Rowe
• "I Spin Records Into Gold" by Daria Lavelle

Small Wonders Magazine (April 2026, Issue 34)

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Fiction

• "My Favorite Human" by Corrie Haldane
• "Sacrifice Homecoming" by Manuela Amiouny
• "The Stars Play Tug-of-War Sometimes" by Jeannie Marschall
• "The Numbers" by Susan Taitel
• "Sea Witch" by Faith Allington
• "A Noose is a Knot" by M. R. Edgeworth
• "Our House" by Eleanor Lennox
• "The Vampire Contemplates Skin Care" by Lynne Sargent
• The Things You’ll Wish You’d Known" by Kristen Koopman

Solarpunk Magazine (March/April 2026, Issue 26)

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Fiction

• “The Mycelium Daughter” by Bella Chacha
• “Hangnail” by Emmett Amphibia
• “The Baobab Data Tree” by Irene W. Collins

Poetry

• “The Soft Reboot of the World” by Aspen Greenwood
• “The Ships of Terabythia” by Kray Van Kirk

Essay

• “Humans Aren’t the Only Victims of War” by Aya Al-Hattab

Strange Horizons (April 2026)

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Fiction

• "The Houses of the Stars in Heaven" by Ferdison Cayetano
• "Underneath the Underneath" by Audrey Zhou
• "The Tiger in the Room | 방안의호랑이" by Moon Young Park, translated by Paige Aniyah Morris
• "Heavens Fall | 杞忧" by Lu Qiucha, translated by Hal Y. Zhang

Poetry

• "Many of you have been asking what happens when an angel dies" by Seoung Kim
• "Code Blue" by Victoria Ojo
• "laurels" by Crystal Sidell
• "Dead City Dreaming" by Joshua Ginsberg
• "Skiinfolk" by Jamie McGhee
• "Refuse" by Megan Branning
• "The Shut-in on the 55th Floor" by Abby Nicole Yee
• "The Approach of the Dead | نهج الموتى " by Ali Wajeeh, translated by Muntather Alsawad and Jeffrey Clapp

Reviews

• Monday: Dispelling Fantasies: Authors of Color Reimagine a Genre by Joy Sanchez-Taylor by Nick Hubble
• Wednesday: When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-Yi Lee by Kyle R. Garton
• Friday: The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older by Safia H. Senhaji
• Monday: The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey by Bill Capossere
• Wednesday: Book of Potions by Lauren K. Watel by Danielle Hanson
• Friday: Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures edited by Joey Eschrich and Ed Finn by Seamus Sullivan
• Monday: Krackle’s Last Movie by Chelsea Sutton by Hana Carolina
• Wednesday: Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters edited by Randy Brown by Thomas E. Simmons
• Friday: Isaac by Allee Mead by Alex Kingsley

The Sunday Morning Transport (April 2026)

Fiction

• "Strawberries" by D.A. Xiaolin Spires
• "Corpse Pose" by Rich Larson
• "Northern Lights and Southern Robots" by Brenda Cooper

Uncanny Magazine (March/April 2026, Issue 69)

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Fiction

• "Welcome to Heroism" by John Wiswell (4/7)
• "The Woman Who Stole Flowers" by Theodora Goss (4/7)
• "Permanent Press" by Sunwoo Jeong (4/7)

Poetry

• "Nuclear Deterrence Doll" by Thomas Mixon (4/7)
• "The Truth About Wolves" by Marissa Lingen (4/7)

Nonfiction

• What Does It Mean to Be Immortal? by Ai Jiang (4/7)
• What Prose Writers Can Learn from Script Writers (and What Not to Learn) by Jane Espenson (4/7)
• Interview: Sunwoo Jeong by Caroline M. Yoachim (4/7)

Thanks for reading, and check back at the end of the month: I'll update the links for stories as they come out.

I'll have the first book list for April coming next week.