Tonja K. Johnson

Critical Friends The Strange Horizons SF/F Criticism Podcast

NEW PODCAST ALERT!

Episode 18 of the Critical Friends podcast is here!

This week, Dan Hartland, Cameron Miguel, and Nick Hubble discuss fantasy and its connection to history.

"What can fantasy teach us about history writing and how can it change it?"

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

Red square with images of vampires and a robotic Afrofuturist creature behind it. Text on the red square reads: 2025 Awards Eligibility. The Husband, PodCastle (Jan 2025), Dark Fantasy Short Fiction. A Nameless Thing, FIYAH #36 (Oct 2025), Sci Fi/Horror short fiction. Blacula, Nightmare (Dec 2025), Horror Poetry.

Very proud of everything I put out this year. Here’s hoping next year will be even more spooky and queer!

FICTION Quote "A handful of months after he died, we held a funeral for him. His body bucked inside the coffin; I remember the deadened thump of his shins striking hard against the wood. There was blissful silence in the car ride home, save for my mother’s weeping." I Wish You Died Laughing  by Lio Abendan Strange Horizons 1 December 2025

I Wish You Died Laughing 
by Lio Abendan @lioabendan.bsky.social

"A handful of months after he died, we held a funeral for him. His body bucked inside the coffin; I remember the deadened thump of his shins striking hard against the wood."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

Zines in SF/F that are nonprofits AFAIK and thus worthy of your support on this Giving Tuesday. (Pls add others you know of!)

BCS
@strangehorizons.bsky.social
@reckoningmag.bsky.social
@escapepod.org @podcastle.org @pseudopod.org

FIYAH All Black Everything T-Shirt

FIYAH #20 Cover

FIYAH #29 Cover

FIYAH #31 Cover

Small business Saturday, you say? Consider supporting FIYAH as we approach year ten of publishing Black SFF stories and poetry! Back issues, art, gift subscriptions, merch, and more! Tell a friend, you never know who is missing out 🔥🔥🔥 fiyahlitmag.com/shop/

Atop a purple illustrated background, white text reads "Nonfiction: We are looking for personal essays, literary/media criticism, creative nonfiction, and more by 2SLGBTQIA+ authors. At this time, we are only considering full pieces (up to 4,000 words) and cannot consider pitches. OPEN NOW!! Find all the details at othersidespec.com/guidelines."

Atop a purple illustrated background, white text reads "Reprints: We are looking for previously published speculative short fiction (up to 17,500 words by 2SLGBTQIA+ authors. At this time, we are only looking for stories that cannot currently be read online for free. OPEN NOW!! Find all the details at othersidespec.com/guidelines."

We're officially OPEN TO NONFICTION AND REPRINT SUBMISSIONS! We are looking for full nonfiction pieces (not pitches) and reprints of stories currently unavailable for free online.

🪐See our guidelines for details: othersidespec.com/guidelines

🗡️Submit here: hybrispress.moksha.io/publication/...

Small Wonders, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Lightspeed: Review by Charles Payseur Small Wonders 7/25 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 8/7/25, 8/21/25 Lightspeed 8/25 The July Small Wonders features some great poetry, including Courtney Floyd’s “Renfield at His Windowsill”, which captures…

“Bloody Muddy Water” by @jduckwriter.bsky.social from @bcsmagazine.bsky.social, “To Access Seven Obelisks, Press Enter” by @spacevalkyries.bsky.social from @lightspeedmagazine.com, and more short fic recs from @cypayseur.bsky.social

Congratulations 🖤🖤🖤

Sssssooooo... yeah. (Wow!) 😳🤗

A surprise drop for your weekend reading pleasure! Check out our special reprint issue: SINNERS, SAINTS & HAINTS! Guest editors: @edenroyce.bsky.social + @shakeemasmalls.bsky.social Cover by @goblinprincete.bsky.social

Black authors been IN these genre streets, don't let anyone say otherwise 🔥🔥🔥

"Don't Hide From the Mirror by Nico Martinez Nocito. Apex Magazine, Issue 151."

"Gaze into it instead." 🪞🎭

New drabble fiction today by @nicowritesbooks.bsky.social: "Don't Hide From the Mirror"

Read it here: www.apexbookcompany.com/a/blog/apex-...

in case you missed it!

our latest is up and free to read 🖤

The cover to the parody comic Soul Food Wars. A young Black man in a red and white sweatshirt holds a plate of soul food while an excited Black girl in a purple shirt with locs in ponytails looks on. They stand in a small restaurant. A menu is on the wall above a counter where another Black youth eats. A Black man with locs tied back cooks in the kitchen.

It's feasting month here in the US so here is my comic Soul Food Wars. Black kids at a culinary school in Charleston learning about Soul food. Only available in my shop!

ko-fi.com/sarahamackli...

They Return - PSYCHOPOMP.COM Finger by finger, my father’s hand sprouts like fungus from the cold hard ground. Loamy, cinereal, it grows into an arm.

“Finger by finger, my father’s hand sprouts like fungus from the cold hard ground.”

it’s Fantasy Friday! 🍄

and today’s fantastic short is

They Return by @ecastroianni.bsky.social

read it here ✨

psychopomp.com/fantasy/issu...

quick reminder for my writers out there -

(yes... YOU! 😻)

rejection

*does NOT mean*

you are a bad writer!!!!

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

This issue absolutely rips. Fantastic stuff through and through.

Thaw - Lightspeed Magazine The thaw comes early. Though I’ve been held here for dreams upon dreams, I am not ready. Shoals of us overwinter in the ice. As our bodies slow to quiescence, the ice resonates between us: signals tha...

"All That Touches the Air" An Owomoyela, from LIGHTSPEED (2011) www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/all-...

LIGHTSPEED also just published "Thaw" by An in the October 2025 issue www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/thaw/

Grimdark Magazine acquires world rights to a new C.L. Clark novella In August 2026, we will be publishing a new dark fantasy novella by BFA award-winning editor and Nebula-nominated author C.L. Clark.

Massive news! We’ve just announced our second (of three) novellas for 2026 with the brilliant @clclark.bsky.social

Help me pool resources via the GFM or Donate directly to supportjamaica.gov's emergency relief efforts.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies - Where They Sleep by Heather Clitheroe On those late afternoons, when the day slipped away and the night lights came, the shades would wander out from the empty hills, down to the road. All kinds of them. People we knew. But more we didn't...

Ghostly BCS for Halloween! "Where They Sleep" @lectio.bsky.social BCS #419: "the shades would wander out from the empty hills. People we knew. But more we didn't, moving slowly along in search of something, somebody. Then they would mill aimlessly" www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/wher...

Text reads: Fed up with your world? Visit ours. clarkesworldmagazine.com Includes our robot mascot's head looking up and over at the cover of a recent issue that has a building on a hill with red tubes bursting through the walls and into the sky. A small robot and some people approach the woods in front of the building. Ok, so maybe that place has problems too, but at least it's pretty to look at. I won't say that won't happen in the real world because you never know who will decide to invest in the BuildingDestroyer(tm) after seeing that picture instead of buying a subscription and supporting real human artists and authors. Those people probably wouldn't support us anyway because we hate their so-called "AI" and mock their little toys when we have the opportunity to. But yes, visit our world. The stories are good. Really. At least we think so. Can't hurt to try, can it? Stay as long as you like. There's nineteen years of stories, many in audio too. Just don't forget to stop to eat and drink and sleep and take care of yourself. And when you're ready, go back to the real world and fight your monsters or just breathe. You can come back any time. I suppose I should stop rambling now. I apologize for the lack of a screaming possum in this ad, but trust that it is there in spirit.

Sometimes you just need to escape for a little while. Short stories are great for that.
Visitors welcome. Subscriptions are good too.
clarkesworldmagazine.com

Cover: Mushroom Mother of Us All by Paul Lewin. In the center, an elderly Black woman has her eyes serenely closed, a brown-orange nose piercing on her right nostril and an orange line/mark on her chin. Her hair are the green leaves of trees, trunks growing out of the side of her face, and mushrooms growing through the leaves. She wears large earrings of orange, sienna, with aqua and white lines and dots. Her hands hold a bowl lined with Black faces and mushrooms growing out of the bowl. In the center of the bowl and thus the front of her chest is an orange sun surrounded by a dark pink halo like a globe. The text "Uncanny," "November/December 2025," "Issue Sixty-Seven," and the credits are in white.

Behold, Space Unicorns! The Uncanny Magazine Issue 67 Table of Contents and Paul Lewin cover! buff.ly/D7a2nXG

Announcement: PodCastle Is Trialling a Six Month Submissions Window!! We will open in November and close in April. See our announcement on the website for details. All our usual Submissions Guidelines still apply.

podcastle.org/2025/10/17/a...

Pssst. One week left until our unthemed issue window closes. Send us your lovely words...!

fiyahlitmag.com/submissions/

Do give our friends @roguestarmag.bsky.social a follow today! Emerging markets flourish with your support, let's do the thing and show them some love ❤️

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #444 Issue #444 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies online magazine, featuring stories by Peter Darbyshire and Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe and cover art by Bruce Brenneise.

BCS #444 ebook out early @weightlessbooks.bsky.social & Kindle Store & subscribers, featuring scary stories by @peterdarbyshire.bsky.social (new Angel Azrael) & @oluwasigma.bsky.social (sequel to @theignyteawards.bsky.social Winner): weightlessbooks.com/fiction/bene... www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceas...

#PC914: The Magnolia Returns by Eden Royce, read by Laurice White. A #PodCastleOriginal! Rated PG. The Magnolia blooms out of nowhere at any time of year it chooses, bringing its dilapidated wooden slats and rickety front steps to a neighborhood that somehow believes it has always been there. The butcher shop itself is well-worn, looking like it has seen better days: peeling seafoam green paint on salt-blasted boards, the once-vivid red front door now a faded smear like lipstick after an ardent lover’s attention. Once it arrives, the locals begin to talk about visiting. They have always talked of the things they miss in life, and more often than not, it’s the food, the ingredients. Depending on when and where the Magnolia appears, either the supermarkets don’t stock the items the locals crave — the chicken feet, the pig tails, jowl, and ear — or these once-reviled parts of the animal have become so popular with the wealthy, it’s impossible for the poor to attain them.

#PC914: The Magnolia Returns by Eden Royce, read by Laurice White. A #PodCastleOriginal! Rated PG.

podcastle.org/2025/10/21/p...

Apex Magazine 2026 An award-winning digital literary magazine of science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror.

Support the 2026 @apexmag.bsky.social Kickstarter! Apex publishes amazing SF, dark fantasy, and horror and we need their stories now more than ever.

I'll give an Apex gift subscription and dedication to one random person who promotes this Kickstarter! 1/
www.kickstarter.com/projects/ape...

FIYAH No 36 Gods and Monsters Cover art by Odera Igbokwe

We up! In a day FULL of stellar releases to celebrate, behold our latest issue of FIYAH! Gods and Monsters. Six stories. Three poems. All we're missing are your grabby hands! 🥰
fiyahlitmag.com/shop/issues/...

PSYCHOPOMP & CIRCUMSTANCE is out today!

This is a Southern Gothic fantasy with family secrets, Gullah funeral traditions, a beautifully strange house, and a generous sprinkling of magic.

In hardcover, eBook, & audiobook

Available wherever books are sold.

#booksky #Blackbooksky