This issue came together around concerns of the personal and the domestic, from the found family and magic of the truth in "The Calligrapher's Granddaughter" by Stewart C Baker to the physical toll of grief and loss in pieces like Elise Stephens's "Focal Point" and Jelena Dunato's "Heart of My Heart, Soul of My Soul." For something more capital-W Weird/body horror-y, we also have "Axolotol" by Atreyee Gupta, about body doubles and never feeling like you're enough, and Rebecca Angelo's "Resistant," in which Clark has a very bad day at the hands of the mind-source.
For poetry, you might consider the bleak wonder of Nnadi Samuel's "A Wreckful Planting of Small Pockets of Thirst" and Julie Allyn Johnson's "Behemoth," stare at the lights through your first floor apartment in Melissa Ridley Elmes's "Every Light a Threshold," or sink into the roots of pieces like "Tall Tales" by F. J. Bergmann and "Unearthen" by Carly Racklin and cover yourself over with soil.
Half of the issue is available to read for free now, and the other half will become available on June 7. But if you just can't wait, please consider snagging a copy of the May/June issue at our ko-fi shop or subscribing through our patreon or our Ko-fi!
Savanna Judd is an illustrator who loves drawing gooey shapes. They blend art with code, paint and paper with digital tools, and illustration with motion. In painting scenes, they seek to bend light, build atmosphere, and capture the liminal quality of a place alive in the absence of people. These places represent a threshold where humans pass and leave imprints or relics. They evoke the feeling of looking into a portal before entering.
Heart of My Heart, Soul of My Soul by Jelena Dunato
The Calligrapher's Granddaughter by Stewart C Baker
Behemoth by Julie Allyn Johnson
Every Light a Threshold by Melissa Ridley Elmes
A Wreckful Planting of Small Pockets of Thirst by Nnadi Samuel
Short Fiction Review — June 2022 (online only) by TJ Price
Short Fiction Review — May 2022 (online only) by TJ Price