The city is dying. Children gather around my stall, half a plaza away from the cool shadows of the great cistern, and wait for tales. Their eyes are still bright despite the crust that grits their …

The men were already in the newsagent’s when Alder woke. She’d been dreaming of eating soil, her mouth packed with dirt, her stomach working itself into thorny knots. She’d woken up with a shudder,…

He did not know why he had agreed to marry her. For a long time he thought it was because she would hum at everything she did. She hummed while cooking. She hummed while cleaning and sewing. She hu…

Spur had hunted this vast swath of forest before. Known as the Blue Rim – from the Strays’ enclaves it looked like a blue-green streak – it undulated its way to the far horizon. She licked her lips…

I stand at the door, my pack heavy across my shoulders. The two books inside are light, but it’s not their weight that burdens me. I look down the street in each direction, searching the crowd for …

A ping in my ear indicated the sweet flow of money into my account. That would be the payment from the Transgalaxy MegaCorp for blowing up their competition a year before yesterday’s hostile takeov…

Leyra has often told me that life is a cruel joke played upon the living by gods or chance. I can certainly see her point, after being stuffed in a sack, flung downstairs, and slung across a horse …

I think of you, and like a jinn, you appear. Your voice, tinny and modulated as it curls out of my phone, returns me to the last minute I saw you and every minute before. You have an offer I can’t …

“You know, this really doesn’t look right.” Alicia frowned. “Look, if ICARUS says we go right, we go right.” She swung the car down the dirt track. “He’s plugged into the traffic, the weather, engi…

Stellar Short Fiction by Women-Identified Writers Since 2009

As an admitted bibliophile, it took me a surprising amount of time to jump on the e-reader bandwagon. I finally gave in when I realized that 1) in many cases, the digital book is much cheaper than …

About the ebooks The ebook versions of every issue purchased through Gumroad include the EPUB, MOBI, and PDF versions of the files and are DRM-free. Sales of the issue support LSQ and help us pay o…