Pulp Literature

Under the exquisite cover Frost and Snow by Melissa Mary Duncan... • Our featured author, the esteemed Evelyn Lau, offers three poems riddled with grief and stolen moments. • Spencer Stevens takes a break from the front lines in the final Seven Swans instalment, 'The Mystery of the Forgotten Soldier', by Mel Anastasiou. • Echo wanes as Narcissus waxes in Joelle Kidd's modern retelling, 'Echo/Narcissus'; while a Pythia of Apollo unweaves 25 years' worth of lies in 'The Golden Feather' by Jenny Blackford. • Space isn't exactly lawless, but everyone bends the rules in Margot Spronk's 'Rules of Salvage'; and on the other end of the SF spectrum, Graham Darling's 'A Pleasant Walk, A Pleasant Talk' neatly turns a Lewis Carroll poem on its head. • A seemingly useless power feeds a young woman's resentment in Emily Lonie's 'A Seed in Every Womb', and Michael Bracken's 'The Fishmonger's Wife' explores the dangers of dry land for mermen. • Search for the perfect stone in 'Stonecold' from Leslie Wibberly, the 2018 Creative Ink Festival's flash fiction contest winner. • Explore new mythologies in Nicholas Christian's 'The Angler', winner of the 2018 Hummingbird Prize for Flash Fiction; and the runner-up by Robert Runté, 'Day Three', examines the little things we miss the most. • Allaigna falls in with a new crowd in the latest installment of Aria by JM Landels, and a carnival fortune-teller shares valuable tricks of the trade in 'Madame Sylvie's Three Rules for How to Speak for the Dead' by Susan Pieters. • And finally, find out what very old aristocrats do when they let get unlaced in Kris Sayer's sequential short 'Under Pale Flesh'

Featured author Kelly Robson shows us that wine making is a labor of love, and sometimes hate, in 'Good for Grapes'. Matthew Hughes's magnum opus, What the Wind Brings, debuts aboard the Spanish galleon La Virgen, with an epic struggle brewing on the horizon. Stella Ryman is ready for new adventures in Stella Ryman and the Locked Room Mystery by Mel Anastasiou, while Allaigna must make hasty goodbyes in the final chapter of Allaigna's Song: Aria by JM Landels. It's a dog-eat-dog world, or wolf-eat-dog world, in Christian Walter's 'Wolf, Dog, Sun', and Zoë Johnson reminds us to take stock of everyday miracles in 'Inherited Love of Unexplainable Things'. Take a draught of heady poetry from Casey Reiland, Raluca Balasa, and Alison Braid. Lena Mahmoud breathes new life into an old Arabian folk tale with 'The Thieving Pot', and Josephine Greenland dissects a Deborah L Davitt's protagonists hold out for as long as they can in 'On the Sixth Day'. Come and get the good stuff in Susan Pieters's 'Black Market', and see the dark(er) side of the financial district in Lola Street's 'Wall Street at Night' illustrated by Chaille Stovall. We have the two runners-up of the Surrey International Writers' Conference Storyteller Contest in this issue: 'Biophilia' shows us there's hope in Margot Spronk's post-apocalyptic world, but not necessarily for humans; while Deepthi Atukorala takes us down an emotional rabbit hole with 'White Rabbit'.

In this issue: • Experience the motley horrors of World War II, as featured author JJ Lee reunites us with his man of mystery and monsters in 'The Man in the Long Black Coat: Bekker', and Robin Malcolm unearths long-buried secrets in 'The Bumblebee's Daughter'. • The secrets continue in field and forest on Canada's west coast with Chuck Lim's 'The Red Tiger' and KT Wagner's 'Cabin Fever'. • Meanwhile, appearances intrigue and deceive in Adam Fout's 'Black Glass' and FJ Bergmann's 'Yellow Paint'. • Magpies are the only birds that can recognize themselves in a mirror. Fitting that our Magpie Award for Poetry winners - Susan Haldane, Jack Waldheim, and Roxanna Bennett - captivate us with their reflections on humanity. • A journey through the generations awaits vampires and travellers alike, as Tyner Gillies in 'The Lord of Lawn Ornaments' and Susan Pieters in 'The Map According to Me' show us that, indeed, wherever you go, there you are. • And intrepid adventurers seek their fortunes, whether by horseback to Paris in 'The Shepherdess' by JM Landels, or by Model A to California in The Extra: Frankie Ray Goes to Hollywood by Mel Anastasiou.

With the beautiful red pointe shoe of On Thin Ice, cover artist Ann-Marie Brown offers this issue's poignant opening act. Just as a dancer in pointe appears weightless, suspended in a moment of grace, so too do our authors, balancing the weight of beauty and sorrow. Blood and booze set the stage in 'Wrap Party' as featured author AM Dellamonica takes us behind the scenes of community theatre. It's turtles all the way down as Frances Rowat explores the itch and scratch of reckoning in 'The Smell of Antiseptic', and Graham Robert Scott and Wallace Cleaves consider the weight of legacy in 'A Parable of Things that Crawl and Fly'. Two very different genies awake when Susan Pieters casts off ill-fitting confines in 'Buddha in a Bottle', and Akem explores capture and deliverance in 'Shotguns and Jinn'. Elusive moments slip away as Rebecca Ruth Gould's 'Hands' and Allison Bannister's 'Ghost Room' remind us that love and memory are companion phantoms. Adult children ask what is owed by a daughter to her mother, and a son to his father, as our Hummingbird contest winners, Tatjana Mirkov-Popovicki and Chad V Broughman, explore loss and longing in 'Afterlife' and 'Featherweight'. Poets David Troupes, Matthew Walsh, and Nicholas Alti deftly guide us through landscape, dreamscape, and escape, each finding unique ache in the ties that bind. And finally, two fan favorites reappear: Mel Anastasiou's Frankie Ray arrives in Hollywood in part three of The Extra, and JM Landels gives us a prequel glimpse of Irdaign, her twin sister, and the caper gone wrong that sets the wheel of the Allaigna's Song trilogy in motion.

In this issue: • The stunning Queen of Swords by cover artist Tais Teng guards the gates to this issue's brave new worlds and words. • In 'The Bicolour Spiral' by Matthew Hughes, the ever-popular Erm Kaslo explores hostile planets, tracks treasure hunters, and seeks stolen fortune. Matt's futuristic Sam Spade leaves no bloodstained stone, unturned in this space opera of mystery and murder. • Life itself spirals with being and absence in 'Watershakers' by Christi Nogle and 'The Birthday Party' by Melisa Gregorio as children witness the ephemeral made real, and the real made memory. • And words themselves whirl and twirl, and crack open secrets, as poets Patti Pangborn and Sarah Summerson explore the hidden spaces of family life. • Mike Carson, runner-up for the SiWC Storyteller Award, continues the exploration of memory and family in 'Deep Water', considering the limits of responsibility in fragile relationships. • Meanwhile, Rina Piccolo, in 'Double Flush', reminds us that being human sometimes just means looking out for number one. • Abandon the humdrum and enter these realms of wonder and adventure if you dare...

Our journey begins under the gaze of The Faery Godmother by cover artist Ashley Rose Goentoro. We step into a ghost story 'Man with Golden Helmet' by feature author Renée Sarojini Saklikar. Dawn Lo in 'Little Snowflake Girls' and Weiwei Xu in 'Chimera' introduce us to young people exploring meaningful questions of identity and belonging. Like trailside inukshuks, memories pile up and tumble away in 'Moons of Saturn' by James Dorr, 'Practising the Art of Forgetting' by Soramimi Hanarejima, and 'Starry Nights' by David Milne. AJ Lee, in 'What Kind of Story', and Magpie winners Charlene Kwiatkowski, Maria Ford, and Cara Waterfall delight with their bewitching words. Solutions to two very different puzzles emerge with Susan Pieters in 'Hoax' and Cameron MacDonald in 'Mourgadze'. Whether by way of closet or carriage, keeping safe means keeping up appearances for Frankie Ray in 'The Sleuth with the Platinum Hair' by Mel Anastasiou and Toinette in 'The Shepherdess: Versailles' by JM Landels.

With A Foundations of Lies by cover artist Kris Sayer, we emerge from the dark woods with Tatterhood's loyal goat Bokki. Sword in hand (or mouth!), and fierce battle won, we are ready to take on the varied landscapes of this issue, no passport required. In 'The Library Giant' by feature author Shashi Bhat, the struggle with nature, human nature, rages deep within. Meanwhile, in British Columbia and Iceland, ghosts of grief wander with the living as KT Wagner, SL Leong, and Erin Wagner explore the rocky terrain of memory. And, whether in a culvert or factory, but most certainly within one's own mind, Mike Gillis and Brandon Crilly remind us how difficult it can be to navigate wreckage of the heart.

Join us as we step into the blossoming spring with Superbloom, by cover artist Weiwei Xu, and disappear into future past with feature author Robert Silverberg's 'Chip Runner' and Leo X Robertson's 'Bar Hopping for Astronauts'. Take a deep breath and let the aroma of the blossoms permeate your senses because taste and scents infuse Michelle Goddard's 'Bhut', 'The Shepherdess: Merveilles' by JM Landels, and 'The Smell of Screaming' by SiWC runner-up Adrienne Gruber. We witness the powerful and varied effects of death and mourning in 'Life Supports' by Claire Lawrence, and in Raven Contest winner 'Good Intentions' by Nancy Ludmerer. We cross the fourth wall in Erin MacNair's Raven Contest runner-up 'It Can Be Done with Words', we cross the desert in Paige Elizabeth Wajda's rhapsodic 'Heaven or Las Vegas', and we cross dimensions in PG Streeter's homage to Shakespeare in 'The Earth Has Bubbles'. Phoebe Mol washes away her troubles in the graphic version of Edna St Vincent Millay's 'O World' while Marietta puts out fire with gasoline in the next chapter of Mel Anastasiou's The Extra, 'Frankie Ray and the Blazing Anubis'.

In This Issue: It's summertime, and the water's fine ... or is it? 'Collector' by cover artist Akem beckons us beneath the surface and between the pages. But in 'A Collection of Secrets' by feature author Rhea Rose and 'The Island' by M Denise Beaton, we discover that some treasures are better left hidden. Back on shore, summer brings around friends both new and old in 'Audrey and the Crow' by Cadence Mandybura, 'The Two Oh Four Six' by Dustin Moon, 'Floaters' by Kevin Sandefur, and 'Whispers in Between My Shoulder Blades' by Christine Breede. Shapeshifers in 'Shadow Work' by Soramimi Hanarejima and 'Gwannyn's Song' by JM Landels show us the secret to sacrifice. And families come together, reshaped, in Kaile Shilling's SiWC honourable mention, 'Death and Laughter'. Allison Bannister in 'The Play's the Thing' and Mel Anastasiou in 'Pretty Lies: Hold On' draw inspiration from the classics. And poetry from Dawn Macdonald and Yuan Changming reminds us that love is classic too.

Under the wise gaze of 'The Butterfly Witch' by Melissa Mary Duncan, this issue promises at least two sides to every story. Siblings work through past hurts and begin new journeys in 'Old Gifts' by feature author James Sallis and 'Can-on-a-String' by Alex Kitt. Meanwhile, zombies do double duty in 'Ambience' by Jason P Burnham and 'Caught Dead' by Shawn L Bird. We navigate new lands with Pete Barnstrom in 'Oeufs Dangereux' and Cheryl Skory Suma in 'Adrift off the Shore of Alzheimer Island'. And Anna Zumbro in 'The Dump 'Em Dog' and Mikael Lopez and Enrico Orlandi in 'Forgive My Delay' remind us that, no matter the world in which we live, breaking up is hard to do. Next, triple your literary delight with historical fiction: 'The Shepherdess: Grandmère Paris' by JM Landels, 'Pretty Lies: I Can See for Miles' by Mel Anastasiou, and 'Once Upon a Time in Camelot' by GD Litke. Three's the charm for poetry too, with our Magpie Award winners Cara Waterfall's 'griefbody' and 'Harvest' and Kevin Spenst's 'BigGermanDialectWordClankinglyInsertedHere!'.

Feature author Renée Sarojini Saklikar treats us to a Bramah and the Beggar Boy side tale in prose and poetry. We welcome back Cadence Mandybura, and enjoy slipstream and superheroes from Patrick Barb and Tom Jolly. Mel Anastasiou offers more Pretty Lies and JM Landels shows us the other side of the mirror in 'Zara's Song'. Plus the winners of the Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize!

• Ups and Downs by cover artist M St James offers us a feathered familiar to guide our way through this issue, starting with 'The Caged Bird Sings in a Darkness of Its Own Creation' by feature author Richard Thomas. • Winged creatures fly to the rescue in 'Olympian' by FJ Bergmann, 'Andouille' by Mike Carson, and 'Dragon's Greed' by Sherilyn Moreton and Anat Rabkin. But human rescues miss the mark in 'All our Swains Commend Her' by Mitchell J Toews and 'The Least of Myself' by Sylvia Leong. • The winner and runner-up of the Raven Short Story Contest alight, carrying memories and regrets in 'Revolutions' by Catriona Sandilands and 'Foam' by Alison Stevenson, while 'Waffles and Strawberries' by Susan Alexander shows us a present that fails to live up to the past. • Finally, leave the known world behind and take charge of your adventure into the unknown with Melanie Martilla's 'Psychopomps Are Us', Mel Anastasiou's 'Stella Ryman vs the Board', and 'The Shepherdess: The Trail of Yellow Roses' by JM Landels.

In this issue Take a spacewalk into the unknown with American Space Force by cover artist Tais Teng and feature story 'Above it All' by Robert J Sawyer. Dare we look below? In the next Fairmount Manor mystery by Mel Anastasiou, Stella Ryman shows us how to receive the kindness of strangers, while in a new chapter of The Shepherdess by JM Landels, Toinette needs to accept the help of her foil. And in 'The Lady M' by Cat Girczyc, it's not always easy to tell friend from foe. Explore grief and healing with contest winners that include the Jack Whyte Storyteller Award-winning story by CZ Tacks and Magpie Award-winning poetry from Claire Lawrence, Catherine Lewis, and Mark Cameron. As courageously as possible, face two final frontiers in work by Graham J Darling and Jordan Bray, and then return to where it all began with 'Where the Angels Wait' and a bonus start to a new Jack Absolute novel by CC Humphreys.

In This Issue • Join us as we raise a glass to the New Year and a new decade with Cheers by cover artist Melissa Mary Duncan. • Ghosts rise from the depths of different pasts to haunt the pages of 'When Captain Picard Was My Dad' by feature author Finnian Burnett and 'The Haunted Ghost' by JJ Lee. • Family both anchors and unmoors the varied casts of 'Moon Eater' by EC Dorgan, 'Field's Nocturne No. 10 in E Major' by Matt Lumbard, and 'The Golden Bull' by JM Landels. • Time and space rattle and quake in 'Nobody Knows It but Me' by Franco Amati and 'Separate Worlds' by Chip Houser. And the shattering continues with new poetry from Aaron Poochigian, DS Maolalai, Purbasha Roy. • But journeys finally find peace in the destination with 'Get Home Safe' by Sierra Louie and 'Stella Ryman and the Labyrinthian Puzzle' by Mel Anastasiou.

In her search for the Answer to Everything, our intrepid Issue 42 cover heroine, Raygunne, finds dragons in the Rocky Mountains, ghosts in the 1990s, ninjas in suburbia, spies in Cathar castles, and zombie-killers for hire from Kelly Robson, Mel Anastasiou, Preston Lang, JM Landels, and Mikayla Fawcett and Gabriel Craven. Plus more moving stories and poetry from Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho, Nat Kishchuk, and the winners of the Kingfisher Poetry Prize, the Jack Whyte Storyteller Award, and the Raven Short Fiction Contest!

In this issue ... The glowing yellow moon by cover artist Joyce Harumi Kamikura shines on forests, fields, and gardens in fiction by Matthew Hughes, JM Landels, and KT Wagner, while birds, ghosts, time travellers, cyborgs, and footnotes lure us away with stories by Elizabeth Nash, Mel Anastasiou, Finnian Burnett, and Mark Budman. Plus, find notable stories and winning entries from the Jack Whyte Storyteller Award and the Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest

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.

• 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 'Ragnabeðtími'. • 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.

Summoned by cover artist Steve R Gagnon's raven, Finnian Burnett and Kate Segriff search for ways out of impossible situations. Fiction by Patrick Barb, EC Dorgan, Kiran K Basra, and Mark Gallacher look at the familiar through a different lens, and JM Landels offers up a continued story of family and magic. Plus a brand-new Monument Studios Mystery by Mel Anastasiou takes flight alongside the winners of the Raven Short Story Contest and the Kingfisher Poetry Prize.

Cover artist Jenn Ashton awakens summer spirits with Surfacing. But where serenity resides, so too does the risk of isolation, as seen in 'Killing Time' by feature author Leo X Robertson. Across time and space, the threat of silence looms in 'The Dark Mute' by Lee Nash and 'Frequency Eight' by Sophie Ganic. Meanwhile, magic and music flood the worlds of 'Waheela's Whistle' by Scotty Olsen and 'Their Grandfather's Chair, Part 3 by JM Landels. Welcome the end along with a new beginning with 'When We Die' by Tyner Gillies and 'Carl's Hope' by August van Stralen. Then join authors Angelique Fawns and MH Callway for two difficult journeys with very different destinations in 'The Trippy Trip to Triton' and 'The Lost Diner'. Revel in short forms with poetry by Brian Palmu and Jesse Keith Butler and flash fiction from Bumblebee winners Cadence Mandybura, Katherine Weeks, and Rosanna Elves. At last, round out this issue with 'Let Me Tell You a Story', a new novella from Mel Anastasiou, and Helena Pantsis's graphic short 'Sick Pay'

In this issue Follow cover artist Akem's Selfie into myth and mystery with 'The Tales of Fanon and Gavroche' by feature author Renée Sarojini Saklikar. Make connections over seemingly impossible gulfs with 'Downwelling' by D Marmara and 'M4R1NR' by Mike Carson, and discover what the nighttime holds in Mel Anastasiou's 'Moonlight Over Paradise Gardens' and Part 4 of 'Their Grandfather's Chair' by JM Landels. Fly away with a gorgeous mischief of three very different Magpies by Pattie Palmer-Baker, Angela Rebrec, and Elizabeth Cockle, and then come home to nest with Sierra Louie's elfin adventurer in 'If I Could Hide Away Anywhere'. Have a stiff drink with Melissa Ren at 'The Midnight Diyu', or pick a potion with Lena Ng in 'The Curse of the Chattering Skull', while you mingle uncomfortably with strangers in Mitchell Toews's 'The Light Pool' and William Kitcher's 'I Can't Tell You That'.

Beneath the dark sky of Jeff Sturgeon's Jupiter Rising Over Europa, ponder what exists beyond our world with 'You See But You Do Not Observe' by feature author Robert J Sawyer. Through magic and loss, discover how family histories inform the future in 'Her Mother's Smile' by JM Landels, 'Maybe We Once Were Birds' by Benny Lawrence, and 'The Pilfer Imp' by Cadence Mandybura. Join Russell Hugh McConnell and Lauren Stein for some truly unusual work days in their stories 'Salty Dave and the Voice of the Brazen Head' and 'Return to Office'. Then take a trip back to the past with 'Smile' by DP Snyder and 'Sunrise at Paradise Gardens' by Mel Anastasiou. Gain a new perspective through 'Christmas Trappings' by Emily Drake and 'Nightwalks' by Jordan Bray. And return to the stars at last with a constellation of shining work from Kingfisher winners Atma Frans, Sarina Sullivan, and Maryam Imogen Ghouth and Hummingbird winners Kirsty Campbell and JA Logwood.