Josh Pearce

Looking for something new to read?

Here's a good starter list: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

My poem "Our Lady of the Atom" is on this ballot!

If you expand this to include poetry...the list of Kaleidotrope three-peats gets even longer... 😀

Bourbon Penn 38 cover reveal. Early release available now to subscribers!

my latest poem is "Plastic Paradise Awaits", the first piece I sold to @strangehorizons.bsky.social after racking up 117 rejections from them! I am nothing if not stubborn.

check it out here: strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

A list of new tags from inkfoundry.net, including "prank phone call" "watch the moon" and "mourning bad parents"

The new tags on inkfoundry give me such unbelievable joy.

POETRY by Josh Pearce Plastic Paradise Awaits Quote Inject direct the petroleum of salvation 2 February 2026 Strange Horizons

Plastic Paradise Awaits
by Josh Pearce @fictionaljosh.bsky.social

"Inject direct

the petroleum of salvation"

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

2025 Recommended Short Stories It’s January somehow, which means it’s time to share my annual list of Sci-fi, Horror, Slipstream, and Fantasy stories I enjoyed. Fair…

📚🚀💀🧚‍♂️It’s that time again! I lost track of how many stories this is (what are numbers? why are numbers?). Flash is heavily represented this year, for people who want a quick read ⏳

#speclit #scifilit #shortfiction #amreading #horrorrecs #horror #weirdlit

idehennessy.medium.com/2025-recomme...

An image of a list of stories: Arachnomorphosis by Beth Goder (Strange Horizons) Half Drowned by S. L. Harris (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) A Clockwork Gun by Josh Pearce (Bourbon Penn) Yarn Theory by Marie Vibbert (Clarkesworld) The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead by E. M. Linden (PodCastle) Laser Eyes Ain't Everything by Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots) Ten Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days by Samantha Mills (Uncanny)

Not finished with awards reading, but here is a batch of stories I really loved by @bethgoder.bsky.social, @slharris.bsky.social, @fictionaljosh.bsky.social, @reasie.bsky.social, @emlinden.bsky.social, @effies.bsky.social, and @samtasticbooks.com.

Thank you for creating these great stories.

Read a short story today that blew me the fuck away.

Though Josh Pearce's "Witches in Cold Mountain Halls" might be better described as some kind of genre-destroying contemporary epic poem built from the bones of a dark fantasy dungeon crawl.

A real feat of deliberate prose as an art form.

The Immanent Joy of Detrumpification As the president graffitis his name to beloved institutions and builds monuments to his own vanity, we must focus on how much fun it will be to tear it all down.

As the president graffitis his name to beloved institutions and builds monuments to his own vanity, we must focus on how much fun it will be to tear it all down. trib.al/059XHbZ

Of Men and Monsters: Josh Pearce Reviews Dust Bunny locusmag.com/review/...

and poetry in
@tenebrouspress.bsky.social's Skull and Laurel
@amazingstories.bsky.social
@kaleidotrope.bsky.social
@utopiascifi.bsky.social
@analogsf.bsky.social
@nightmare-magazine.com
@radonjournal.bsky.social
@sfpoetry.bsky.social's Star*Line

with four more forthcoming

Fiction Fact Factory Catalog 2017 The Body Electrician | Poetry | Star*Line 40.2 A Letter to the Dead | Poetry | Not One of Us #57 Quiverfull | Fiction | Bards and Sages Quarterly, January 2017 | The hospi…

I had fiction published in

@bourbonpenn.bsky.social (A CLOCKWORK GUN)

@kaleidotrope.bsky.social (MICROCOSMUS OF MYSTERY)

@mythaxis.bsky.social (SOMEDAY SOMEONE'S GONNA STEAL YOUR CARBON)

with forthcoming stories next year in both Bourbon Penn and Kaleidotrope

fictionaljosh.com/fiction/

I suppose I should do a year-end round up? I wasn't going to, because I hadn't sold any new stories this year but yesterday I got a flash piece accepted, just under the wire!

On this, the day of my birth, I am pleased to announce that I will be launching my next publication, THE GREATER REALITY AREA, on JANUARY 3RD, 2026. It has been several years since NORTH OF REALITY, and here shall begin my long awaited return to the fray! New logo by @tinyobscurae.bsky.social

got a new moon poem out!

Jason Pearce I'm just a giant squeeze bottle of awesome sauce.

"The Pretendian" is by Jason Pearce, not me! This guy -> www.jasonpearcefiction.com

Good story, though!

Not a Bird - PSYCHOPOMP.COM My friend’s dead father / visits her as a bird

"My friend’s dead father
visits her as a bird,

but my husband is the light in the kitchen
that comes on all by himself"

Not a Bird by Ellen Romano

😭 we are weeping, beloveds 🖤 read this beautiful poem here:

psychopomp.com/deadlands/is...

Planet of the Apiarists: Josh Pearce Reviews Bugonia   And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human. —William G…

Planet of the Apiarists: Josh Pearce Reviews Bugonia

if we are all godimage then what color is godskin

Shoot for the moon in @fictionaljosh.bsky.social’s new poem “Lacus Solitudinis.”

kaleidotrope.net/autumn-2025/...

All Your Bass Are Belong to Us: Josh Pearce Reviews Tron: Ares Tron: Ares, the new Nine Inch Nails visual album, is best experienced on the biggest screen with the loudest sound system available. You want to feel it throbbing in your brain, you want to feel it…

New movie review for @locusmag.bsky.social

I've used Nine Inch Nails lyrics as titles for three of my movie reviews before, but this is the first time I actually get to talk about NIN music!

TRON: ARES review: locusmag.com/review/all-y...

Josh Pearce > A Clockwork Gun > Bourbon Penn Along the edges of the collapsed cities, safely enough away from their ground zero downtowns, Lenore Briar prospected through layers of Fordite and plastiglomerate. She used pick and spade and hand-tw...

-"A Clockwork Gun" (www.bourbonpenn.com/issue/35/a-c...) in @bourbonpenn.bsky.social #35
-"Microcosmus of Mystery" (kaleidotrope.net/archives-2/s...) in @kaleidotrope.bsky.social Spring 2025
- "Someday Someone's Gonna Steal Your Carbon" (mythaxis.co.uk/issue-42/som...) in @mythaxis.bsky.social #42!

“Come one now, come all ye, this story breaks free here…” – The New Pornographers, “Go Places” Fiction “Singularities” by Cressida Roe “The Little Deaths of Autumn” by J.A. Prentice “The Nine Crashes of Flight Lieutenant Hilla Quinn” by Louise Hughes “The Beekeeper’s Daughter” by Neil Willcox “Follow My Instructions, I Promise This Won’t Hurt” by Akis Linardos “What Am I This Time?” by Scott Edelman “The Hunting of the Phoenix” by S.L. Harris “Godling, Runner, Thief” by Avra Margariti “My Collectors” by Shaenon K. Garrity “What a Big Heart You Have” by Marissa Lingen “The Violin/ist or The Madrigal” by Katie R. Yen “Wilayat in Seven Saints” by Tanvir Ahmed Poetry “Eldritch Democracy” by Chris Clemens “Shapeshifters’ Local” by Rick Hollon “Lacus Solitudinis” by Josh Pearce “I have been to the market” by Shana Ross “Atomic” by Jennifer Crow “Bedazzled” by Robert Borski “Bestla” by James Joseph Brown Artwork by Carly A-F

There is, as it happens, a brand new issue of Kaleidotrope.

Issue 9 author @fictionaljosh.bsky.social does some interesting things with structure in "Buttons and Soap." The text inside and outside the parentheses can be read separately or together, each reading revealing its own story.

Read "Buttons and Soap" here: www.radonjournal.com

Bourbon Penn 35 Stories by Benjamin Parzybok, Steve Toase, Margaret Roach, Josh Pearce, Gretchen Tessmer, Andrew Zhou, and Jennifer Hykes. Cover art by Lisa Lach-Nielsen.

Bourbon Penn 35 is live with brand new stories by Benjamin Parzybok, Steve Toase, Margaret Roach, Josh Pearce, Gretchen Tessmer, Andrew Zhou, and Jennifer Hykes.

@sparkwatson.bsky.social @stevetoase.bsky.social @margaretroach.bsky.social @fictionaljosh.bsky.social

Risky Business: Josh Pearce Reviews Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning Amazing action, convoluted writing. Recommended for the spectacle and the stunts, just don’t expect anything to make much sense. Though the franchise started out as spy-action, over the decad…

Risky Business: Josh Pearce Reviews Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning locusmag.com/2025/06...

“You find artifacts of entire dead civilizations, but you’re just scratching the surface. There are also artifacts of reality. The agency has known about this one for some time, but hasn’t had a place to start before now. If you’re interested, I encoded the map in today’s newspaper.”

Strange days indeed in “Microcosmus of Mystery” by @fictionaljosh.bsky.social

kaleidotrope.net/archives-2/s...

Issue 42 of Mythaxis Magazine is out now!
mythaxis.co.uk/issue-42/

Six new stories in text and audio formats, and reviews too!

Many thanks to @SeanMacKendrick.bsky.social, Cheryl Ntumy, Anna Ziegelhof, Travis Ezell, Charlie Winter, Josh Pearce, @faceyouhate.bsky.social, and Micah Hyatt on voice!

“The Weather on Other Planets” by Josh Pearce

The music is unbearable.
You wear an earbud tuned to radio static of lightning strikes on Saturn