Issue 01: The First Confluence, original painting modified with digital filters
Mona Ahmed was a software engineer and painter whose work explored the intersection of nature and technology. She believed that algorithms and art were two ways of understanding beauty, and she moved between code and canvas with equal curiosity.
The cover for Issue 01: The First Confluence is adapted from one of her landscape paintings. Mona passed away in April 2026 after a battle with cancer. She was a friend who left us a little too early. Her painting remains though, a light breaking through darkness, vibrant and alive.
The Vessel
Gabriele Micozzi is an Italian writer who teaches, inspires, and invents. For twenty-five years he has observed, from inside large organizations, the systems by which human beings become templates of themselves. At LUISS Business School and Università Politecnica delle Marche he creates laboratories on the word, places where language is taken apart and listened to. He is also a Reiki master, attentive to what moves invisibly between bodies. His English-language work has appeared in ONE ART, Cathexis Northwest Press, 3Elements Review, parABnormal Magazine, The Literary Hatchet, and on the Kaidankai podcast. His poetry collections include Erosferica (Transeuropa, 2026), Peccati, perversioni, preghiere (AttraVerso, 2025), and Appunti dalla Divina Tragedia (GFE, 2026). He lives between Ancona, Rome and Milan.
Beneficial Insects
In a previous life, VM Harrigan operated Manifold Records, an underground label of Experimental Ambient music, known for releasing work in handcrafted packaging and unusual materials. These days Harrigan writes Speculative Fiction and edits the Manifold House newsletter, an indie-minded snailmail-only magazine focusing on Horror+Scifi book reviews and bookish events. He is the author of the novels Four Doorways in or near New Orleans, The Aggregate People and the short-story collection The Isolationist and Others.
Jump Cut
Lauren C. Teffeau is a speculative fiction writer based in New Mexico. Her books include the eco-thriller Accelerated Growth Environment (Shiraki Press, 2026), the desertpunk environmental fantasy A Hunger with No Name (University of Tampa Press, 2024), which took third place in the third annual Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship, and the cyberpunk/solarpunk adventure Implanted (Angry Robot, 2018), shortlisted for the 2019 Compton Crook Award for best first SF/F/H novel. Over twenty of her short stories have appeared in venues including Sunday Morning Transport, DreamForge Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, and the Stoker Award-nominated Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women in Horror.
The Weaver's Thicket
Suvajeet Duttagupta, a nanotechnology PhD from IIT Bombay, embarked on an unexpected journey into the world of art. For years, writing was a private pursuit, but he's recently found the confidence to share his distinctive horror-adjacent stories. His work has appeared in various online magazines, including Tasavvur Magazine, The Berlin Literary Review, Brown Hound Press, Twisted Tongue Press and Effy, with several new pieces forthcoming in multiple anthologies scheduled for 2026.
A Handful of Dust
Writing in the third person always makes the author feel like he's writing his obituary, but here goes: a lover of alt-rock, Akira Kurosawa movies, and craft beer, Jon lives in Northern California with his wife and two children. His beautiful wife could definitely do better, but fortunately for him, she hasn't realized that yet. Rage Against the Machine, the Black Keys, and the Warlocks are in heavy rotation on Spotify for writing inspiration. His work has appeared in AntipodeanSF and Dark Harbor Magazine, among other venues.
My Monster & Density
Greg Lehman earned an MFA in creative writing from Lindenwood University and a BA in journalism from California State University at Fullerton. His poetry has appeared in Moon Tide Press' Poet of the Month feature series, Like the Wind Magazine, Dark Winter Lit, Book of Matches, aesterion, Turtle Island Poetry, The SportScribe, Wild Roof Journal, and SpecPoVerse, among others. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
The Overgrowth Chronicles
Charles Ta is a writer, illustrator, and educator based in Union City, NJ. He has had stories published in Sci-Phi Journal, 365 Tomorrows, Storm Dragon Publishing (in an anthology titled Dragon Dreams), and Flame Tree Press, as well as written freelance nonfiction pieces for clients on LinkedIn. When not immersed in a good book or traveling to strange, often alien worlds, Charles teaches special education students in West New York, NJ.