Letter from the Editor

by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Seventeen, September 2024

Dear Reader,

The summer is ended, and we are not saved.

Okay, that sounds a little dramatic. Let's try that again.

Dear Reader,

The summer is ended, and we can now drink tea and wear our autumn jackets.

It lacks a certain gravitas, sure, but that's why no one has ever asked me to found a new religion. It'd be more pumpkin spice and less eternal damnation, and then where would we be?

One more time:

Dear Reader,

Summer is ended, but science fiction and fantasy go on.

There,... Continue →

Short Fiction Review — July 2024

by Danai Christopoulou in Issue Sixteen, July 2024

"A Pilgrimage to the God of High Places" by Marissa Lingen (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #406)

"The gods were most loved where their traits were least apparent—where their pilgrimages required the most of their followers." A disabled archivist agrees to join her mother on a "healing" pilgrimage to the deepest canyon, where the god of high places resides. When they arrive, they become enmeshed in a godly conflict that requires unusual skills to solve… Brimming... Continue →

Letter from the Editor

by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Sixteen, July 2024

I once read that people facing parole hearings have a much better chance of release if their hearing is early in the morning. This is because, by the afternoon, the parole board has decision fatigue—the parts of their brains responsible for hearing testimony and weighing evidence are literally exhausted, and so they just start saying no to everyone. This is, in fact, a terrible reality that incarcerated people face in this country, and it's only one of the very many aspects of the carceral system that has to fundamentally change.

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of... Continue →

Short Fiction Review — May 2024

by Danai Christopoulou in Issue Fifteen, May 2024

"An Incomplete Body Has No Answers" by Angela Liu (Lightspeed #166)

"You've been raised to believe that something without a name does not really exist even when all its parts are swinging at you." Angela Liu's horror-tinged sci-fi flash takes place in a future where the narrator has to undergo the month-long journey to Mars twice, to bring home their partner's body. With an intriguing mix of seemingly utopian technological developments and a dystopian emotional... Continue →

Letter from the Editor

by LP Kindred in Issue Fifteen, May 2024

I It’s 4am on 5/27/2024.

II It’s been an interesting few months. I got fired in November. Ran a gofundme to support me in December. Also, got admitted to Chicago’s Art Institute as a student. Started fighting with Unemployment in January. Drained my measly 401k in February. Finally got my money from Unemployment. Received a read from a cherished friend, because of which I’m moving to Chicago in July.

III These poems and fictions, like my life at the moment, are about change. Resisting it. Surrendering to it. Massaging it and its outcomes.

IV One is about getting... Continue →

Short Fiction Review — March 2024

by Danai Christopoulou in Issue Fourteen, March 2024

"There Are Only Two Chairs, and the Skin Is Draped Over the Other" by Alexia Antoniou (Bourbon Penn #31)

Two young girls play in the polluted stream that runs behind the backyard of one of their houses, using its waters and the unexpected gifts it brings them as a prop in their make-belief tales. Until one day, the stream carries something that changes the nature of their games for good… With imagery that is as arresting as... Continue →

Letter from the Editor, Ya Herd?

by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Thirteen, January 2024

Dear Reader,

Haven Spec Magazine is now a pro-paying market! We’re grateful to everyone who supported our Kickstarter, and we are so glad to be able to give our wonderful authors the rates that they deserve. We have big plans for 2024, including interviews with some amazing editors, stories from across the width and breadth of the human experience, and short fiction reviews from your very own Haven Spec staff (okay, mostly Danai). I very much want Haven Spec to be a part of the wider SFF community, and that means paying people what they deserve, shouting out the stories and... Continue →

Short Fiction Review — January 2024

by Danai Christopoulou in Issue Thirteen, January 2024

"For as Long as You Want It" by Kanishk Tantia (Apex 142)

Atha, a dying Oldie, part of a near obsolete generation who doesn't believe in downloading their consciousness to "the collective," makes his Promisor, a Modern called Ryegrass, take care of his garden after he dies. The Modern is content to let the garden dry out, until he spots a new sprout and feels called to water it. In this short but poignant piece of flash fiction that conceals more than it reveals, Kanishk Tantia... Continue →

Short Fiction Review — June 2022 (online only)

by TJ Price in Issue Four, May 2022

"The Gull Heart" by Constance Fay (Crow & Cross Keys)

Delicate and rugged all at once, Fay breathes new life into old golems with this story. Devastatingly vivid imagery coupled with brisk pacing lifts this out of the realm of simply retold folktales and into something much more complex and lyrical. At its core, this is a cautionary tale, a "be-careful-what-you-wish-for" whispered as a charm against Eros itself—beware of wanting and, as always, beware the inconstant, fickle... Continue →

Short Fiction Review — May 2022 (online only)

by TJ Price in Issue Four, May 2022

Thanks for checking out our column, the Short Fiction Review, here at Haven Spec! For me, there's always a shifting set of criteria when it comes to what constitutes a really great story. It could be that the characters are distinctly well-drawn and that I find the emotional stakes moving. It could be that the world-building is top-notch and integrated seamlessly into the text of the story, providing a rich and vibrant setting for a piece. It could be that the writing itself, on a sentence level, is so stunning that it makes my jaw drop. It could be a combination or something entirely... Continue →