Ayida Shonibar

Short Fiction

In Their Nature

Surreal illustration of a person whose hair becomes a sea with fish, into which another person with three heads is wading. The background has contrasting day vs. night and a fish containing a moon vs. a sun.

Issue cover art by Samriddha Roy

An ecological, diasporic retelling of the frog and scorpion fable.

Publication: Tasavvur (Issue 16)

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Genre: fabulism

Word count: ~ 1,500

Content warnings: displacement, references to settler colonialism, violence, death

Publication date: 1 July 2026

Degrees Removed: In Validation of the Intellectual

Cover with illustration of a desolate landscape with someone peering into a puddle reflecting buildings that aren't there.

Issue cover art by Luke Oram

Different lenses of analysis interpret an ancient practice of exchanging body parts.

Publication: Baffling Magazine (Issue 23)

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Genre: fantasy

Word count: ~ 1,000

Content warnings: references to illness and to blood, colonialism, racism, mild body horror

Publisher: Neon Hemlock

Publication date: 15 April 2026

Related media ⤵

Charles Payseur — Some Queer Short SFF - April 2026

We Decay in the Dark

Illustrated magazine cover for Adventitious: Issue Two featuring a skeletal horse head adorned with ornate golden tack and marigold flowers. Colorful flowing ribbons and floral patterns swirl around the horse against a warm golden background, creating a vibrant, folkloric Day-of-the-Dead–inspired design. The title Adventitious appears in bright green at the top with a small astronaut icon.

Issue cover art by Mx. Morgan G Robles

An assassin sent to eliminate external threats against her community's deteriorating food source discovers the real rot is closer to home.

Publication: Adventitious (Issue 2)

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Genre: science fantasy

Word count: ~ 7,500

Content warnings: food scarcity, ethnic conflict, exploitation, ableism, violence, murder, death (including parental)

Publication date: 1 April 2026

Related media ⤵

SFRevu — Adventitious #2

Charles Payseur — Some Queer Short SFF - April 2026

The Homeowner’s Bride

Otherside issue cover with illustration of amphitheatre ruins with a planet floating in outer space at the centre.

Issue cover art by Theo Marcial

The protagonist is a haunted house that's DTF.

Publication: Otherside (Issue 1)

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Genre: horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 4,000

Content warnings: sexism, homophobia, references to misgendering, domestic violence, murder, death

Publication date: 1 March 2026

Tasavvur — Dimensional Diaries: A Quarterly Spring Roundup of South Asian Speculative Fiction

V. Astor Solomon — Two Fic Tuesday for April 7th

Charles Payseur — Some Queer Short SFF - March 2026

Heritage, or This Body of Folklore

Apex Magazine issue cover art with illustration of a utility post that has a humanly skeletal appearance.

Issue cover art by Trevor Henderson

The stories you tell make you who you are—literally, figuratively, physiologically.

Publication: Apex Magazine (Issue 152)

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Genre: horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 1,000

Content warnings: social supremacy, references to colonialism, mild body horror

Publisher: Apex Book Company

Publication date: 3 February 2026

V. Astor Solomon — Two Fic Tuesday for April 7th

Charles Payseur — Some Queer Short SFF - February 2026

Am I a Woman, Am I a Bird of Prey

Cover with illustration of a semi-bionic person cradling their transparent pregnancy bump.

Issue cover art by Drew Shields

An imperial tailor faces the challenge of his life in dressing the court's newest concubine.

Publication: Baffling Magazine (Issue 22)

✦‎ ‎ Read here

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Genre: fantasy

Word count: ~ 1,000

Content warnings: violence, death, gore, sexism, references to imperial conquest, references to misgendering

Publisher: Neon Hemlock

Publication date: 31 December 2025

Related media ⤵

Infrequent SF Microreviews

Charles Payseur — Some Queer Short SFF - December 2025

The Depth Where Light Fades

A stone cave opening with the ocean beyond.

Photo by Josh Hild (Unsplash)

When the ocean calls to his wife, a "respectable" husband believes he must save her from it.

Publication: Gavagai Editor Pick

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Genre: horror / science fantasy

Word count: ~ 2,000

Content warnings: misogyny, cultural supremacism, violent killing of a marine animal

Publication date: 20 November 2025

The Third Space Between

Fragmented and collaged image of a boy's head and shoulders. Paper Lanterns: the Teen and Young Adult Literary Journal. Issue 16, Autumn 2025. Art, poetry, reviews, photography, flash fiction, short stories, interview with Gráinne O’Brien.

Issue cover art by Patrick Delaney

Reimagining a third-culture childhood in outer space.

Publication: Paper Lanterns (Issue 16)

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Genre: young adult science fiction

Word count: ~ 800

Publication date: 11 October 2025

Ingredients Instead

Grey snakes tearing through a multicoloured flower-patterned background. Title in white text over a red background. Coven of the East. Reimagining Asian Women's Magical Histories. Edited by Angela Yuriko Smith & Pauline Chow.

Anthology cover by Pauline Chow

Food as connection through time, place, and inter-generational illness.

Anthology: Coven of the East

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Genre: fantasy

Word count: ~ 800

Content warnings: references to colonialism, to famine, and to chronic illness

Publisher: Authortunities Press & Ghastly Goings-On Press

Publication date: 21 September 2025

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Foreword Magazine — 2025 INDIES Finalist

BookTrib — Get Ready for a Tarot Map of Trauma, Power and Reclaimed Lineage

The Slayer's Descent

April 2025 issue cover of Worlds of Possibility, edited by Julia Rios, with art of a Fairy Ladder featuring a lavender fairy climbing a lily of the valley.

Issue cover art by Andrea

Bures

Worlds of Possibility - Volume 2. Edited by Julia Rios. Cover illustration of a person with long black hair wearing a blue top and golden jewellery. Translucent apparitions of a dragon, a cat, and a space rocket float overhead.

Issue cover art by Julia Kim

A lady knight must avenge her true love.

Publication: Worlds of Possibility

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✦‎ ‎ Buy the Worlds of Possibility — Volume 2 anthology here

Details ⤵

Genre: fantasy

Word count: 100

Content warnings: reference to death

Publication date: 12 May 2025

An Unholy Terroir

Cover of Silk and Sinew anthology, edited by Kristy Park Kulski. Tag Iine: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora. lllustration of a woman intertwined with spiralling branches. Background contains details of the title in different languages.

Anthology cover by Eileen Kai Hing Kwan and Todd Keisling

The making of monsters through the eye of the beholder—and the embracing of monstrosity to survive the beholder.

Anthology: Silk & Sinew

Bram Stoker Award winner for Superior Achievement in an Anthology

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Details ⤵

Genre: horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 5,000

Content warnings: racism, colonialism, violence, illness, body horror, sexism, references to child abuse

Publisher: Bad Hand Books

Publication date: 6 May 2025

Reactor — Here Are the Winners of the 2025 Bram Stoker Awards

The Shirley Jackson Awards — Nominees Announced for the 2025 Shirley Jackson Awards

The British Fantasy Society — The British Fantasy Awards 2026 Shortlists

Bram Stoker Awards — The 2025 Preliminary Ballot Announced

Los Angeles Review of Books — What Comes First, the House or the Haunting?

New York Public Library — Best New Horror for Adults

Jump Scares — 2025’s New Horror Books

Delicious Horror — Silk & Sinew Edition

Floaties for Krakens — Lighthouses for Folk Monsters

The Lineup — Fear Her: 7 New Horror Books by Women That Will Keep You Up at Night

Project Renewable, Sourced Organically

Abstract image of an orange arced form against a teal background

Photo by Oliver Hae (Unsplash)

A sales script for a new technology that harvests energy from an organic source.

Publication: Book XI (Issue XVII)

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Genre: horror / science fiction

Word count: ~ 1,500

Content warnings: ableism, industrialised exploitation, references to a climate crisis

Publication date: 14 March 2025

Levels of the Food Chain

Issue cover with grinning skull of a unicorn with a red iris inside the eye socket against a black background. Red title text vertically stylised along the bone of the horn: If There's Anyone Left.

Volume cover art by Sierra Barnes / sierra bravo art

Expressions of love and solidarity through food in a climate dystopia.

Publication: If There’s Anyone Left (Volume 4)

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Genre: horror / science fiction

Word count: ~ 800

Content warnings: food scarcity, xenophobia, body horror, cannibalism

Publication date: 23 January 2024

An Inordinate Amount of Interest

Book cover of Wilted Pages anthology edited by Ai Jiang and Christi Nogle. Tag line: An Anthology of Dark Academia. Illustration of a dark-haired student holding an electronic tablet with a mechanical hand, framed by dark flowers and with a background of baroque patterning and a dark building with tall windows.

Anthology cover by George Cotronis and Alan Lastufka

A Faustian interpretation of student loans.

Anthology: Wilted Pages

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Genre: horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 3,500

Content warnings: exploitation, violence, reference to misgendering

Publisher: Shortwave Publishing

Publication date: 19 September 2023

Related media ⤵

Horror Writers Association — The Seers' Table

Reprint

Issue cover art by Mx. Morgan G Robles

Publication: The Skull & Laurel (Issue 3)

✦‎ ‎ Buy print or e-book

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Genre: horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 3,500

Content warnings: exploitation, violence, reference to misgendering

Publisher: Tenebrous Press

Publication date: 15 April 2025

Save Me from Myself

Book cover of Night of the Living Queers anthology edited by Shelly Page and Alex Brown. Five illustrated teens gathered on ornate steps in front of an ominous-looking arched metal gate. Through the gate, light spills from a full moon in a night sky onto an eerie building set on a grassy hill, framed by dark tree branches.

Anthology cover by Colin Verdi and Olga Grlic

A teenager’s intrusive thoughts manifest into reality during a confluence of Kali Pujo, Halloween, and queer angst.

Anthology: Night of the Living Queers

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Details ⤵

Genre: young adult horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 6,500

Content warnings: suicidal ideation, death

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Publication date: 29 August 2023

Related media ⤵

Ignyte Awards — 2024 Finalists

Publishers Weekly — starred review

Kirkus — review

Reactor — New Young Adult SFF

Shelf Awareness — YA Review: Night of the Living Queers

Goodreads — Horror Experts Recommend Terrifying Tales

Goodreads — Eerie Reading! New Books for the Recent Rise in YA Horror

Pink News — 11 LGBTQ+ fiction books sparking queer joy this autumn

LGBTQ Reads — Pride Month Spotlight: Short Story Collections

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LGBTQ Reads — Inside an Anthology: Night of the Living Queers

Culturess — Review: Night of the Living Queers is all you’ll need this Halloween

Boston Public Library — 13 Days of Halloween for Teens

Macmillan Library — Genre Friday: YA Horror

I Am My Art

Book cover of Luminescent Machinations anthology edited by Rhiannon Rasmussen and dave ring. Tag line: Queer Tales of Monumental Invention. Illustration of a giant purple mecha with green eyes and exuding green energy holding a person in their taloned hand.

Anthology cover by Sloane Leong

On crafting the statues of colonisers and toppling them.

Anthology: Luminescent Machinations

✦‎ ‎ Buy book or e-book

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Genre: fantasy

Word count: ~ 1,000

Content warnings: colonialism, violence

Publisher: Neon Hemlock

Publication date: 25 July 2023

Locus — 2023 Recommended Reading List

Reprint

RESIST. Edited by Jeanna Cammarano. Cover image of a gardener urging books to sprout from vines, reaching up toward a barbed wire fence.

Issue cover designed by Andy Cotnam

Publication: Flash Fiction Online — RESIST anthology

✦‎ ‎ Read here

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Genre: fantasy

Word count: ~ 1,000

Content warnings: colonialism, violence

Publication date: 15 June 2026

Light Years

Digital illustration of glass lenses and discs arranged around each other in orbiting formation.

Story art by Jacey

Long distance and heartbreak in space.

Publication: Nature Futures

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Genre: science fiction

Word count: ~ 1,000

Content warnings: reference to death

Publication date: 5 July 2023

In a Name

Book cover of Transmogrify!: 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic anthology edited by g. haron davis. Tag line: magic is for everyone. Three illustrated teens with a book, small dragon, and mirror surrounded by trees on a pink background.

Anthology cover by Amy Matsushita-Beal and Jenna Stempel-Lobell

A magic school story that interrogates the binary categorisation of gender and biology through a permutational analogy of the seven chakras.

Anthology: Transmogrify!

✦‎ ‎ Buy here

Details ⤵

Genre: young adult fantasy

Word count: ~ 6,000

Content warnings: transphobia, violence

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publication date: 16 May 2023

Related media ⤵

Kirkus — starred review

Publishers Weekly — review

Strange Horizons — review

Reactor — New Young Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy

School Library Journal — 14 Fantasy YA Novels to Read During Pride Month

School Library Journal — 6 YA Short Story Collections with Wide Teen Appeal

Star Tribune — Looking for a great summer read?

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Epic Reads — LGBTQ+ Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023

Book Riot — 10 Great New YA Books to Read in May

Old Prints and Fresh Snow

Illustrated artwork with a dreamy, fantastical style. Dark purple gently cup a bright purple butterfly in the centre. Orange flowers with green and purple stems to either side. Multicoloured stars, moon, sun, and clouds in the pink and yellow sky above. Blue and purple river flowing through yellow earth and brown hill below.

Issue cover art by Fatimah Nadeem

Unspoken conversations between seemingly estranged siblings.

Publication: Tasavvur (Issue 4)

✦‎ ‎ Read here

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Genre: young adult fantasy

Word count: ~ 1,000

Content warnings: reference to suicide

Publication date: 12 November 2022

Stories Our Parents Told Us

Book cover of Gothic Fantasy: Asian Ghost Short Stories anthology with blue foil on a black background and a small white mask underneath the title.

A sapphic reimagining of a Bengali folktale about a spirit who possesses her victims to relive the passion of her married days.

Anthology: Gothic Fantasy — Asian Ghost Short Stories

✦‎ ‎ Buy here

Details ⤵

Genre: horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 4,000

Content warnings: death, violence

Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing

Publication date: 28 June 2022

Related media ⤵

Flame Tree Fiction — story inspirations & favourite stories from the genre

Reprint

Cover of Bad Romance anthology edited by Marie Vibbert. Illustration of a possum and a raccoon facing each other in front of a garbage dumpster on fire.

Issue cover art by Gracie Vibbert

Anthology: Triangulation — Bad Romance

✦‎ ‎ Buy here

Details ⤵

Genre: horror / fantasy

Word count: ~ 4,000

Content warnings: death, violence

Publisher: Parsec Ink

Publication date: 25 July 2026

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