Archives

MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE PROJECTING ACROSS THE UNIVERSE IN BILLOWS OF GLITTER, CONFETTI, AND FLUSTERED GIGGLES by Sophie Kearing

October 22, 2025

At the intersection between the Many-Worlds Interpretation and the Law of Assumption, you can bow out of the shitty life you’ve created for yourself and slip into an existence that’s basically your own personal heaven. People call this place your “desired reality.” Let me give you some reference points here. In my old reality, moving house was always an exercise in abject misery. But. Let me tell you how things unfolded after one night I used the “state akin to sleep” to visualize stepping through a doorway into a magical world of miracles and ease. On Monday morning I received

CONTROL AND THE FUCKTOPUS: A CONVERSATION WITH CHRIS KELSO ABOUT ŻUŁAWSKI’S ‘POSSESSION’ by Alice

October 21, 2025

Chris Kelso is a Scottish writer of dark, weird fiction. I came to his work through Voidheads (Schism), and he’s since published Metampsychosis with Feral Dove, and most recently, a monograph on the film Possession with PS Publishing’s Midnight Movie Monographs. Possession, as it happens, is a long-time mutual obsession of ours, so when I freaked out in Chris’ Instagram comments about this monograph he very kindly sent me a copy. So I decided to interview him about it. He’s a great sport. Didn’t even get annoyed at my stupidly long ‘questions’, which are at times more monologuing than questions,

THE BACKYARD GRAVE by Marina Manoukian

October 20, 2025

My father dug his own grave. But he didn’t use it right away. For years, the grave lay unfilled and inviting. All he would do was visit it once in a while, stand by its empty feet, and sigh. I don’t know if it was a sigh of relief or impatience. He made us promise to leave the grave unmarked once everything was in its place. Everything has its place. I slept in the grave once. But not on purpose. It’s ill-advised to read meaning into sleepwalking so I won’t try. All I know is that I woke up surrounded

A PRAYER FOR THE FISH IN THE TUB by Zoë Rose

October 16, 2025

With just enough water in the tub to sluice through its gills as it thumps its caudal fin and arches its spine the carp could stay there for far longer than it will take to prepare the vegetables for the stock which the carp’s head and bones and skin and any parts not reserved will be joining the next morning. Its jelly eye fixes on the water stained ceiling which it doesn’t see as anything but part of what is above because the carp has never seen water stain or been even wet before the tub. When its head seizes

‘DOOM IS THE HOUSE WITHOUT A DOOR’ BY LOGAN BERRY: AN INTRODUCTION by Kathleen Rooney

October 14, 2025

Introduction for Logan for his Reading from ‘Doom Is the House Without a Door’ at Comfort Station on Saturday, August 16, 2025 –Kathleen Rooney Book launch playlist: DOOM UNLEASHED Logan Berry’s latest book gets its title from the Emily Dickinson poem “Doom is the House without the Door—” whose first stanza says: Doom is the House without the Door— ‘Tis entered from the Sun— And then the Ladder’s thrown away, Because Escape—is done— Logan Berry’s literary house also has no door, but not in the sense that one is trapped inside by walls lacking egress. Rather, nothing blocks this

ONLY THE SCAMMERS LOVE SAM by Jon Steinhagen

October 13, 2025

“That’s wonderful, Sam,” the voice says, cooing. “May I call you Sam?” The voice is low, mellow, musical. The English it speaks is careful, cultured, unhurried, seductive (or so Sam thinks; he’s become a connoisseur over the years). Its tone is polite and comforting with just an edge of anticipation. Normally, this voice has rarely been given the freedom to speak so much, to reel off so many carefully-edited chunks of information. It senses an ultimate victory. “Sam, or Sammy,” Sam says. “That’s wonderful, Sam,” the voice repeats. “Now, all you have to do—” “My mother used to call me

FOLLOWING THE HEARSE by Carleton Whaley

October 10, 2025

Driving through the Detroit suburbs, cutting through traffic, honking and cursing at other drivers, the brothers make their way to the crematorium. It is difficult to keep up with the long hearse. Traffic seems to move automatically for it just as it blocks the brothers’ car. “I know,” the older says to the younger. “Yeah?” the younger asks. They are still navigating the void which now defines their relationship—the change from middle-and-youngest to older-and-younger. “I was just agreeing that I probably shouldn’t have told Nana to shut the fuck up.” “Coulda been handled better,” the younger says. They pass a

TWO SHORT PIECES by Ellie Powell

October 9, 2025

In which Kazuo Ishiguro runs a dating hotline on the radio like in Sleepless in Seattle ME Hello? KAZUO ISHIGURO Hello, you’ve reached the Kazuo Ishiguro Dating Hotline. My name is Kazuo Ishiguro. How can I help you tonight? ME Oh, wow. I didn’t think you’d actually pick up. I’m Ellie. I loved The Buried Giant. KAZUO ISHIGURO Everyone loves The Buried Giant. We’ll see what Guillermo does with it. Are you dating, Ellie? ME No, but it’s all a bit more complicated than that, don’t you think? KAZUO ISHIGURO No, not really.

THE SURRENDER OF MAN: A CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI FALK by Rebecca Gransden

October 8, 2025

With The Surrender of Man (Inside the Castle, 2025), Naomi Falk examines twenty works of art, using each as both touchstone and springboard for scrutiny of modernity. An exhibition of the psychic space inhabited by the intersection of time, memory and art itself, the book unravels as a stream of commingling impulses. Falk’s often febrile interrogations display a hunger to get to grips with the interior world as it probes contemporary existence. At times raw, inspirited, raging, and contemplative, the volume acts as a catalyst for the author’s questioning nature, and stridently asks what the hell is art for anyway?

HEIR APPARENT by Jack Lennon

October 7, 2025

1 Your wife was overjoyed when your uncle drowned in three inches of water at the bottom of a cave. It meant your family would inherit his house. Although you both wished it wasn’t in such tragic circumstances. That’s what you kept saying to people. Not that you had any strong feelings about him or his death. You barely knew him. Was spelunking in Chile a normal pastime of his? Nobody knew him well enough to tell you. Not at the funeral, not during the will reading, nor when you took his place in his very respectable neighbourhood. They would