Table of Contents, August 2026

It's a new month: 2026 is speeding right along. That means a new crop of short fiction across the SF/F world.

You can check out last month's (newly updated!) installment here, and the prior installments here.

Here are the short stories coming out this month:

Adventitious (August 2026, #4)

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Fiction

• “A Game of Go” by P.A. Cornell
• “No Iron Can Resist” by Aimee Ogden
• “Mother’s Mother’s Daughter” by Audrey Zhou
• “Life Imitates” by Rio Lombana & Kaitlin Schmidt
• “Bath Bomb” by Liam Hogan
• “A Hole in My Heart the Shape of the Multiverse” by Ruth Joffre
• “The Spacefarer’s Guide to Connecting with Your Daughter’s Descendants” by Stewart C. Baker
• “The Fruit Is Very Acceptable Here” by Kari Maaren
• “Heartwood” by Moira Richardson
• “HELLO” by Jeanna Cammarano
• “All Aboard” by Hannya Kay
• “The Unnamed City, As Seen at Three Points” by Adrian Ward
• “How to Lose to Death” by Priya Sridhar
• “The Grammar of Jespersen-b” by Holly Schofield
• “Saul & Noah’s Hot Bouleutophagy Summer” by Elijah J. Mears

Amazing Stories (August 2026)

Fiction

• "Life During Wartime" by David Mann
• "The Marriage of True Minds" by Peter M. Floyd
• "Inflection Point" by Dave Creek
• "The Summoning" by Daniel Kason
• "Designated Android Bro (D. A. B.)" by Jennifer Canaveral

Apex Magazine (Summer 2026, Issue 154)

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Fiction

• "Cervidae, New and Sharp" by Anj Baker
• "When I Heard Calypso" by Rob Cameron
• "Dispatch From My Ex-Girlfriend's Lower Intestine" by A.M. Maris
• "Parts and Halves" by Alia Ai-Ming Shahzad
• "It Starts With Teeth" by Stefan Alcalá Slater
• "The Light Below" by C.M. Sullivan
• "Boys of the Fellwood" by David R. Hoffman
• "In the Blue Hour" by RJ Aurand
• "We Were Once Twelve" by S.C. Pires
• "The Once-girl Made of Mycellium" by Shingai Njeri Kagunda
• "N-raptured" by Justin C. Key

Nonfiction

• "Musings from Maryland" by Lesley Conner
• "Learning From the Nerds: Game Writing Techniques That Apply To Fiction" by Richard Dansky
• "Reality, Exhaustion, and AI" by Lesley Conner
• "Words for Thought" by A.C. Wise
• Interview with Author Anj Baker by Marissa van Uden
• Interview with Author Alia Ai-Ming Shahzad by Marissa van Uden
• Interview with Artist Jeleynai by Bradley Powers

Aurealis (August 2026, Issue #192)

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Fiction

• "The Square" by E.L. Edwards
• "Sons & Fathers" by Ben Peek
• "Tethered" by John Mavin

Nonfiction

• From the Cloud
• What Science Fiction Gets Wrong about Colonising Mars by Daniel Thompson
• Potatoes Don’t Go There: Medieval Cuisine and its Portrayal in ‘Medieval European’ Fantasy by Annie Mills
• Kpop Demon Hunters (2025): The Politics of Murdering Demons by Ani White

Beneath Ceaseless Skies (August 2026, Issue 463 and 464)

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Fiction

• "My Blue Silk Fan" by Richard Parks
• "The Heart of the Fox Spirit" by Chezza Lee
• "Bind the Herbs to Bring the Shift" by R.Z. Held
• "The God Thieves" by Derek Künsken
• "The Fall of Father Anatolio" by Lars Wehman Dabney
• "Precogs in the Machine" by Nat Katz

Clarkesworld Magazine (August 2026, Issue 239)

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Fiction

• "As the Tide Loves the Diver, As the Diver Loves the Tide" by Ravn J. Silver
• "All the Ruined Doorways of the Moon" by Eilis O'Neal
• "Passenger Pigeons, Dodos, Neanderthals" by Jordan Alexander
• "Piece de Resistance" by D.A. Xiaolin Spires
• "Feed Them on Your Dreams" by E.N. Auslender
• "The Universal Human Happiness Program" by Y.M. Pang
• "When You Give a Dokkaebi Taco Tuesday" by H.H. Pak

Nonfiction

• Destination: Saturn by Andrew Liptak
• The Minds and Bodies of Robots: A Conversation with James Patrick Kelly by Arley Sorg
• What We Want to Leave Behind: A Conversation with Carolyn Ives Gilman by Arley Sorg
• Editor's Desk: A European Adventure and More by Neil Clarke

Cosmic Horror Monthly (August 2026)

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Fiction

• "Toothbrush" by Michael A. Destro
• "Party Line" by Christi Nogle
• "Ignition" by Margo Pecha
• "From the Crypt: The Finale" by WM. MERRIT

The Dark (August 2026, Issue #135)

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Fiction

• "Baby Blue" by Seán Padraic Birnie
• "Jackrabbit Crunch" by EC Dorgan
• "The Long March of the Bones" by Malena Salazar Maciá
• "Portrait of a Woman in a Red Qipao" by Tina S. Zhu

Diabolical Plots (August 2026)

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Fiction

• “Njiran Folk Beliefs, Volume II” by Claire Jia-Wen
• “We Burst Across the Theoretical Gore” by Sara S. Messenger and Simo Srinivas

Fiyah: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction (Summer 2026, #39)

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Fiction

• "What The Lotus Said To The Water Lily" by Jahid Wilson Jr.
• "The Great Proxima Agricultural Fair" by K.W. Onley
• "The House" by Ann Michelle Harris
• Pixels" by T’asia Driggs

Poetry

• "various —cides" by Clifton Gachagua
• "Dispatch from Watchmakers" by Abu Bakr Sadiq
• "Kwan" by Natasha McDonnell-Tanoh

Flash Fiction Online (August 2026)

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Fiction

• "Milk" by Caitlin Devlin
• "The Alien You Love" by Jonathan Huston
• "iron & garlic & salt & blood" by Nico Martinez Nocito
• "Eyeballs of My Eyes" by Abigail Guerrero
• "Meatball" by S.L. Harris
• "Pomegranates" by G.M. Mitchell

Nonfiction

• Editorial: Meatsac Fiction by Rebecca Halsey

Flash Point SF (August 2026, Issue 4)

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Fiction

• "Memoirs of the Spontaneous Combustion Marching Band" by Jamie Lackey
• "No Harm Done" by AP Ritchey
• "Phineas Gage Went to Work With A Hole In His Head" by Avi Burton
• "The Saint of the Baking Aisle" by Andrew Knighton

Forever Magazine (August 2026, Issue 139)

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Fiction

• “Glitch” by Alex Irvine
• “Cost of Doing Business” by Nancy Kress
• “Webs” by Mary Anne Mohanraj 

Future Tense Fiction (August 2026)

Fiction

• "Where the Wild Things Grow" by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

Nonfiction

• "How Can We Sustain Sustainable Housing? by Muhammad Gambo

GigaNotoSaurus (August 2026)

Fiction

• "Four Sparrows" by Angela Hsieh

Interzone (Issue 305)

Fiction

• "Scelerat" by E.G. Condé
• "Cops and Robbers #2: Negative Space" BY Rachael Cupp
• "A  Perfectly Good Train: A Supermamadou Story" by Mame Bougouma Diene
• "The Spider at the Heart of It" by Josh Pearce
• "Unhomely" by Ben Tufnell
• " Nowhere Town" by Corey Jae White
• "Philoctetes" by Rebecca Zahabi

Nonfiction by

• Alexander Glass
• Una McCormack
• Val Nolan
• Aliya Whiteley
• Kelly Jennings
• Paul Kincaid
• Nick Mamatas
• Paul McAuley
• Val Nolan
• Nick Lowe 

Lightspeed Magazine (August 2026, Issue #195)

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Fiction

• "Legs" by A.M. Maris (8/6)
• "Infinite Wishes" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (8/6)
• "Fragments of the Whole" by Brooke Bolander (8/13)
• "The Age of Cancer" by Vajra Chandrasekera (8/13)
• "What Do You Mean the Nanobots Formed a Union??" by Joel W. D. Buxton (8/20)
• "Of All Who Dream" by Adelehin Ijasan (8/20)
• "Ladd’s Robot Repair" by David Anaxagoras (8/27)
• "The Goddess of Not Enough" by Susan Palwick (8/27)

Nonfiction

• Editorial: August 2026 by John Joseph Adams (8/6)
• Announcement: We’re Launching a New Kickstarter Soon. Sign up to be notified when it launches! by John Joseph Adams
• Author Spotlight: A.M. Maris by Robin Jeffrey (8/6)
• Author Spotlight: Brooke Bolander by A. Humphrey Lanham (8/13)
• Book Review: The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass by Leslye Penelope by Melissa A Watkins (8/13)
• Author Spotlight: Joel W. D. Buxton by Phoebe Barton (8/20)
• Author Spotlight: Adelehin Ijasan by Delia Cullity (8/20)
• Book Review: Forged in FIYAH by DaVaun Sanders, ed. by Arley Sorg (8/20)
• Book Review: All We Have Is Time by Amy Tordoff by Chris Kluwe (8/27)

MIT Technology Review (August 2026)

Fiction

• "Mother tongue" by Jenny Williams

Nature Futures (August 2026)

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Fiction

• "The recovered notes of Professor Alborough" by Gemma Church
• "System lag" by Toshiya Kamei
• "Delisted" by Ximing Zhang
• "Like coffee and ice cream: an interview with Sam and Eli Morten" by C.L. Holland

Neon Dystopia (August 2026)

Fiction

• "Paper Winter" by Ashley Mangtani
• "Tower Fall" by Mark Derks

Nightmare Magazine (August 2026, Issue #167)

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Fiction

• "The Dark Follows Me" by Quincy Lee (8/5)
• "My Parts, Collected" by Melissa A Watkins (8/12)
• "Room 602 at the Hotel In-Between" by Georgina Kamsika (8/19)
• "Shapeshifting Recovery Staff" by Bogi Takács (8/26)

Nonfiction

• Editorial: August 2026 by Wendy N. Wagner (8/5)
• Author Spotlight: Quincy Lee by Alex Puncekar (8/5)
• The H Word: The Revolution Will Be Horrorized by Kurt Fawver (8/12)
• Author Spotlight: Georgina Kamsika by Alex Puncekar (8/19)
• Plumbing the Depths: Beasts in the City—Horror Meets the Gangster by Matthew Sorrento (8/26)

Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine (August 2026, Issue vol x issue 2)

Fiction

• "Asleep in the Graveyard, Asleep by the Sea" by Lyra Meurer
• "Reality" by Deborah Davitt
• "Moon Lodge" by Alyce Lomax
• "Better Monster" by Beth Cato
• "Product Warnings" by Jennifer Crow
• "Low Spirits" by Gordon Sun
• "As Sweet" by Jess Gofton
• "Villain Origin Story" by Hibah Shabkhez
• "One Who Helps" by Cecil Fenn
• "The Game's Afoot" by Stephanie Johnson
• "Sirens" by Reema Rajbanshi
• "Departures" by Anthony Panegyres
• "Said the Banshee to the Bogeyman" by James Edward O'Brien
• "Ambrose" by Gabriel Shestack
• "Blank" by Abby Nicole Yee
• "Immortals" by Nathan Chu
• "Eidolon" by Marge Simon

Reactor (August 2026)

Fiction

• "Not Like Other Girls" by A.L. Goldfuss
• "The Fastest Martian Mile" by Thoraiya Dyer
• "Turned All To Silver Screens" by Madeline Ashby

Small Wonders Magazine (August 2026, Issue 38)

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Fiction

• "Ragescarf: A Knitting Pattern for a World Unraveling" by Amanda Saville
• "dopamine vortex" by Julia Ember
• “Silence, in the Doorway, With the Gun” by Nadia Radovich
• "Tendons" by Matt Bliss
• "Does Bublé Dream of Electric Sheep?" by John Paul Davies
• "The Mortification and Ecstasy of Sally Colt, Deserter and Outlaw" by Rio Lombana
• "When Yard Becomes Garden" by Ian Li
• "White Roses" by Thehara S. U.
• "The Wallflowers" by Lora Gray

Strange Horizons (August 2026)

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Fiction

• "Scarcely Gone" by Marissa Lingen
• "Every Child a Changeling" by Samantha Pellegrino
• "A Tiny™ Concert for the No-Name King" by Crowe Powell

Poetry

• "Diary of a Figurehead - Part II" by Valerie Wardh
• "The Deicide" by Deborah L. Davitt
• "Indigo" by Heera Kumar
• "death to the phoenix metaphor" by Kiki Em
• "Sock Drawer Astronomy" by Yanqing Yang
• "To the Reader" by Mary Soon Lee
• "Let This Vessel Be My Offering" by Joy Donnell, Art by Romie Stott
• "You’re the Only One Who Knows" by Adam Coday

Nonfiction

• Move Fast and Don’t Ask Permission: Techno-Optimism in R.U.R. and Arcane by Claire Jia-Wen

Review

• Monday: What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed by Cat Fitzpatrick
• Wednesday: The Vampire Lestat by AJ Odasso
• Friday: The Sovereign by C. L. Clark by Tadeo Ward
• Monday: Earthly Playing Field by Radhika Singh by aegor ray
• Wednesday: The Midnight Muse by Jo Kaplan by Andy Sawyer
• Friday: Moon Over Brendle by Jeff Noon by Nileena Sunil
• Monday: As If by Isabel Waidner by E. C. Barrett
• Wednesday: The Icarus Coda by Timothy Zahn by Electra Pritchett
• Friday: Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho Yeeun, translated by Sung Ryu by Shannon Fay
• Monday: The Hugo Award for Best Novel Shortlist 2026: Part One by Nick Hubble
• Wednesday: The Hugo Award for Best Novel Shortlist 2026: Part Two by Nick Hubble
• Friday: Of the Emperor’s Kindness by Chaz Brenchley by Kate Macdonald

The Sunday Morning Transport (August 2026)

Fiction

• "Two Days in May" by Rick Wilber
• "Chorus for Solo Voice" by Marie Brennan
• "And the Award Goes To…" by Curtis C. Chen
• "The Lure" by Chris Campbell

Uncanny Magazine (July/August 2026, Issue #71)

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Fiction

• "A Hundred Ways the Story Ends" by Tara Sim (8/4)
• "The Cinema of Babel" by Sam J. Miller (8/4)
• "Judar of the Island: A Story Told in Four Feasts" by Rida Altaf (8/4)
• "enough johnnie blue" by E. A. Bourland (8/4)
• "I called the swan down" by Laura Cranehill (8/4)

Nonfiction

• Interview: Rida Altaf by Caroline M. Yoachim (8/4)
• Middle-Aged Love: Rereading in Your Forties and Beyond by Marissa Lingen (8/4)
• This Is Not About AI by Hana Lee (8/4)

As always, check back towards the end of the month for an updated list as new stories come out.