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.
Wormhole Rider · Issue 03
Peter Alterman is a writer and editor who lives and works in the Metro Washington, DC area. Since 1974 he has published science fiction, literary fiction, commercial fiction, detective fiction, and literary criticism. His doctoral dissertation was a study of science fiction in modern English and American literature. He has been nominated for a Nebula and a Pushcart for short fiction.
And Then It’ll Be Time to Grab a Boilermaker at Rabbit’s · Issue 03
Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). He published his first poem in a non-vanity/non-school publication in November 1988, and it’s been all downhill since. Recent/upcoming appearances in Utriculi, Jagged Edge, and Monterey Poetry Review, among others.
Be Kind, Beepocalypse · Issue 02
R.J. Breathnach (he/him/sé/é) is an award-winning Irish writer, Wexford-born and Meath-based. His fiction has been published in Allegory Magazine, The Freak!, and The Honest Ulsterman, among others. His debut poetry chapbook, I Grew Tired of Being a Zombie, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2021.
The Neptune Kids · Issue 02
Glenn Dungan is currently based in Brooklyn, NYC. He exists within a Venn-diagram of urban design, sociology, and good stories. When not obsessing about one of those three, he can be found at a park drinking black coffee and listening to podcasts about murder.
The Weaver's Thicket · Issue 01
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.
patreon.com/cw/lucidillusions @lucidillusions.in on Instagram @lucidillusions.in on Bluesky
An Abyssal Metanoia: Five Speculative Poems, One World · Issue 02
Murray Eiland is a poet and archaeologist. Some of his poems have appeared in The Lyric, The Mayfly, and Star*Line. He particularly enjoys speculative fiction from the 1940s.
The Rule of Six · Issue 04
Kyle R. Garton is a writer, teacher, and scholar of speculative fiction. His stories have appeared in Book XI and Parabola; his nonfiction can be found in Strange Horizons, The Pittsburgh Review of Books, and elsewhere; and his scholarship has been published by Science Fiction Studies, Literature Interpretation Theory, The Ohio State University Press, and other academic venues. He lives with his family in the Hampton Roads region of Southeastern Virginia.
Beneficial Insects · Issue 01
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.
Issue 02: The Second Sublimation
Yassmin Hassan is a physician and biochemist. When she’s not practicing medicine, she’s lost in sketchbooks and canvases, drawn most often to nature and the surreal, where science meets dreamscape.
Stranded Concept · Issue 04
Frederick Hewett is a regular contributor of essays and commentaries for Cognoscenti and Commonwealth Beacon. Formerly a software engineer, he has a deep interest in the ethical and epistemological issues encountered in digital domains. “Stranded Concept” is his first published short story. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
The Folsom Culture on Mars · Issue 02
Floyd Largent is a former archeologist who never woke a sleeping god or unearthed an ancient evil (alas). In the past year or so, he has published, or had accepted for publication, six poems and 30+ short stories in venues including Altered Reality, Bewildering Stories, Beyond the Revolving Door II, Bullet Points, Chewers, CommuterLit, Corner Bar Magazine, Cryptic Frog Quarterly, Flash Phantoms, LatinosUSA, Masticadores International, Not One of Us, and more.
My Monster & Density · Issue 01 · Virus · Issue 02 · An Indirect Self-Impreg History… · Issue 03 (PB-0003-HEX)
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 Temptation of Laura, Lactose Intolerant · Issue 03
Elizabeth F.A. Meaney is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ireland living in Paris. She has published three novels: Bloodthirsty (Hachette), The Boy Recession (Hachette), and Bad Habits (Penguin Random House UK). She has an MFA in poetry from Hunter College, and eats too much comté for her own good.
The Vessel · Issue 01
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.
They Who Live in Cyberspace · Issue 04
Connor Molinaro is starting his final year at La Roche University as a Professional & Creative Writing student with a minor in both Literature and History. Additionally, he is also a member of La Roche University’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, an international honor society for students of English. When he’s not at school, he is either at work, playing games to (hopefully) fuel his mind, or further exploring the countless worlds and stories within them that linger in his head. All of which he hopes to share with the world in due time.
No Man Left Behind · Issue 02
Ellie (“E. A.”) Montemayor is a Boston-based writer and university student studying creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her eclectic forays into the writing world include student journalism, personal essays, and fiction. She loves to write about everything she sees, take photographs of the world around her, and continuously learn about the various oddities of the planet she calls home. Her debut novelette Faceless was published by Foofaraw Press.
Alchemic Adjustment · Issue 02
Based in Kolkata, India, Abhishek Mukherjee comes with a background in corporate cross-border relations, and now aspires to break into the literary landscape. Already a business graduate, his passion for the written word pushed him to acquire a Master’s in literature. With a penchant for gothic and tragic prose, his writings seek to explore, in Hawthorne’s words, the ‘neutral territory’ of the actual and the imaginary. Alchemic Adjustment marks his debut publication.
Day Shifter · Issue 03
Born to Dutch and Indian immigrants, Barend Nieuwstraten III grew up and lives in Sydney, Australia. Having worked in film, short film, television, music, and online comics, he primarily writes high fantasy, science fiction, and horror with over one hundred and thirty stories published in anthologies and a novel: A Man Called Boy.
Poyner’s Drabbles · Issue 04
Ken Poyner has eleven available collections of poetry, flash fiction and micro-fiction, the latest “The Lechery of Fish Tuners”, drabbles. He has suffered ten Pushcart nominations without a win, and has taught on an NEA Poets in the Schools grant. He spent 33 years herding computers. He is married to a world class female powerlifter, who is still setting raw world records. www.kpoyner.com
Kokoro · Issue 04
Norie Suzuki (she/her) was born and educated bilingually in Tokyo, Japan, where she writes and works as a simultaneous interpreter. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Her work has appeared in Baltimore Review, Cutleaf Journal, The Offing, Best Microfiction 2026, and elsewhere. She received third prize in the T. Paulo Urcanse Prize for Literary Excellence in 2024, and her work will be included in the Coppice Prize anthology and Profiles 2028. Her microfiction, “What We Do When We Don’t Talk About Grief,” has been nominated for the upcoming Best of the Net.
The Overgrowth Chronicles · Issue 01
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.
Open Arms · Issue 03
DJ Tantillo loves to study the complexity associated with his young children and with the mechanisms of chemical reactions. He does both in Northern California, where he is a professor of chemistry. He publishes flash fiction and poetry because he has many strange ideas, and peer-reviewed chemistry journals aren’t interested in all of them.
Jump Cut · Issue 01
"Jump Cut" originally appeared in the Journal of Unlikely Cryptography issue of Unlikely Story (2015).
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.
Apple Green, Pine Scented · Issue 04
Ann Thorrson is a disabled SSF/horror writer who lives in England. You can find her on Instagram and BlueSky at @AnnWritesBooks.
I Am Not An Asteroid · Issue 04 (PB-0004-HEX)
John Xavier is a writer living in the Pacific Northwest who’s in the process of gradually putting together a collection of (mostly) speculative short stories. His other published work includes literary fiction, criticism, and poetry. Places his fiction has been recently featured include ‘The Sports Scribe’ and issue eleven of ‘The Fantastic Other!’ Many of his books are available for free online.