StarShipSofa

Pedro Iniguez is a Mexican-American Bram Stoker, Elgin, and Rhysling Award-nominated horror and science-fiction writer from Los Angeles, California. He is the author of Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future, and Fever Dreams of a Parasite, among others. Forthcoming books include his SFF collection, Echoes and Embers: Speculative Stories, and his debut picture book, The Fib, which are slated for 2025 re...

Maggie Slater’s (she/her) speculative fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Metaphorosis, and Redivider, among other venues. She lives in an 1800s farmhouse in New England with two half-tamed boys, one half-trained dog, her husband, her parents, and at least one benign ghost. For more information about her and her current projects, visit her blog at maggieslater.com or find her on Instagram: @maggiedot_writes or on Bluesky: @m...

Tina Connolly writes fantastical stories for kids, teens, and grown-ups. Some of them are serious and some of them involve flying bananas. Her books include the Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series, the collection On the Eyeball Floor, and the official Choose Your Own Adventure book Glitterpony Farm. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. She also co-hosts Escape Pod, narrates sto...

Akis Linardos is a writer of bizarre things, a biomedical AI scientist, and maybe human. He’s also a Greek that hops across countries as his career and exploration urges demand. Find his words at Apex, Strange Horizons, Uncharted, Heartlines Spec, and visit his lair for more: https://linktr.ee/akislinardos

This story originally appeared in The Colored Lens #49, Autumn 2023.

Narrated by: Doni Nicoll

Do...

Bogi's bios can be found scattered all over the internet. In the spirit of cooperation demonstrated in the story, Bogi would like to ask you to take a few moments to engage in a tangible act of solidarity with people experiencing state violence and/or oppression: Palestinians, Ukrainians, Roma in Hungary and the world over, and more — the list is very long, but maybe together we can make it shorter and help each

other.

...

Sarah Day writes horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Her debut dark fantasy novella Greyhowler is available from Underland Press (https://books2read.com/b/greyhowler). Find her on Bluesky (@sarahday.org) or subscribe to her newsletter (https://buttondown.com/sarahday).

Tim Pratt is the author of more than thirty novels, most recently multiverse/space opera adventure The Knife and the Serpent. He’s a Hugo Award w...

Main fiction: "The Ganymede Blues" by e rathke

e rathke writes about books and games at radicaledward.substack.com. A finalist for the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award and recipient of the Diverse Worlds Grant, he is the author of Glossolalia, Howl, and the space opera series The Shattered Stars. His short fiction appears in Mysterion Magazine, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and elsewhere. 

This story originally app...

Guido Eekhaut is a European writer of weird, speculative fiction, crime and literary fantasy, residing in Spain and Belgium; Dutch-, English and French-speaking, published 70 books and 180 stories in several languages, awards and nominations mostly for crime writing, no cat (likes cats, does not have one, but has a lot of books).

This story is original to StarShipSofa.

Narrated by: Will Stagl

Will Stagl lives in his adopted home o...

Eris Young is a transgender writer of speculative fiction. Their work has appeared in publications including Escape Pod, GigaNotoSaurus, Small Wonders, and the Immigrant Sci-Fi Short Stories anthology from Flame Tree Press. Their novel-in-progress, Idomeneja, was longlisted for the Cheshire Novel Prize. They are fiction editor at Scotland's science fiction magazine, Shoreline of Infinity, which won a 2024 British Fantasy Award ...

Main fiction: "The Şehrazatın Diyoraması Tour"

Selena Chambers is the author of Babes in Toyland’s Fontanelle for Bloomsbury Academic’s 33 1/3 series, and the Weird short story collection Calls for Submission from Pelekinesis. Her writing has been translated in five countries, as well as published in the U.K. and Australia. Nominations include: the Pushcart, the Colorado Book Award, the Best of the Net, as well as the Hugo Award and...

Main fiction: "The Godfall's Chemsong"

Jeremiah Tolbert is a web designer and writer living in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife and son.

He writes science fiction and fantasy. His work often places an emphasis on working class characters and how genre elements impact their lives. It’s predominantly optimistic about science, and is often set in the Midwest, generally, and his home state of Kansas, specifically.

This story originally appe...

Main fiction: "When Dessa Danced"

Donyae Coles is the author of Midnight Rooms, has a variety of puffy princess dresses and one cat but she wants more of both. She has traveled the world four times over and may do so again. Her short work has been published in a variety of horror and other speculative fiction anthologies and magazines such as Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, and All These Sunken Souls. When she's not writing, she's te...

Antony Paschos is a Greek author with short stories in Interzone, Galaxy’s Edge, ZNB Presents, Giganotosaurus, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, and other magazines. He has published three books in Greek and one in French. His work has been translated into four more languages. He is a member of the Athens Club of Science Fiction, and lives in Athens.

This story originally appeared in Interzone #298, March 2024.

Narrated by: Kalia...

Main fiction: "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!" by John Kessel

Born in Buffalo, NY, novelist and story writer John Kessel is emeritus professor of literature and creative writing at North Carolina State University, where he taught courses on literature and creative writing and helped found the MFA program in creative writing.

His fiction has received the Theodore Sturgeon, Locus, James Tiptree Jr./Otherwise, Ignotus, and Shirley J...

Main fiction: "Spintered/Splintering" by Rhiannon Rasmussen

Rhiannon Rasmussen is an author and illustrator of dark speculative works, not all of which involve exoskeletons. Rhiannon’s fiction has appeared in venues including Lightspeed Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and as Magic: the Gathering official web shorts. Visit rhiannonrs.com or @charibdys on Bluesky.

This story first appeared, in a slightly different form, as a download via G...

Main fiction: "Quirks" by Marie Vibbert

Hugo and Nebula nominated author Marie Vibbert’s short fiction has appeared in top magazines such as Nature, Analog, and Clarkesworld, and been translated into Czech, Chinese and Vietnamese. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was long listed by the British Science Fiction Award and her work has been called “everything science fiction should be” by the Oxford Culture Review. She also writes po...

Jay Caselberg is an Australian author and poet whose work has appeared in multiple venues worldwide and been translated into several languages. From time to time, it gets shortlisted for awards or appears in Year’s Best volumes. He currently resides in Germany.

This story originally appeared in Interzone, June 2003.

Narrated by: Nobilis Reed

Nobilis Reed is the host and narrator of the podcast, “This Kaiju Life” which is entirely ...

Main fiction: "Movie Night" by Matthew Kressel

Matthew Kressel's many works of short fiction have or will soon appear in Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Tor.com/Reactor, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in many other publications and Year's Best anthologies. His far-future novel Space Trucker Jess (Fairwood Press) is scheduled for late 2025. And his Mars-based science fiction novella The Rainseekers (Tordotcom) will appear i...

Brian Trent is the award-winning author of the sci-fi thrillers Redspace Rising and Ten Thousand Thunders, and more than a hundred short stories appearing in the world's top fiction markets, including in the New York Times' bestselling Black Tide Rising series, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Galaxy’s Edge, and numerous year’s ...