Mwenya S. Chikwa - Future Ancient 🇿🇲

Swooping back in with the deets on our two THEMED issues of the year! Tell a friend who would write the hell out of these 🔥🔥🔥

fiyahlitmag.com/submissions/

FIYAH # 37 FIYAH Issue 37 is available in downloadable PDF and EPUB formats. Buying for someone else? Hit up the Gift Issue for transferable download codes. See the description below for content details.

Swooping back this very fine MLK Day with our first unthemed issue of 2026! Behold! Get yours! Tell a friend!

fiyahlitmag.com/shop/issues/...

A Botanist’s Guide to Memory and Forgetting - Small Wonders Plants that wipe memories are illegal, and for good reason. Too much potential for misuse, or just miscalculation.

Are you forgetting something? How about now? Read "A Botanist's Guide to Memory and Forgetting" by E. M. Linden and try to remember why you thought you had forgotten...

Piglet Delivers by Maria Haskins in issue 152 of Apex Magazine.

Story day! My story "Piglet Delivers" is now available to read online in Apex Magazine! I am so excited to share this strange story of my heart with the world. If you grew up with Milne's books about the Hundred Acre Wood, you might feel (somewhat) at home. www.apexbookcompany.com/a/blog/apex-...

Black-and-white photo of Kemi Ashing-Giwa, a Black woman with a natural worn short on the sides and tall on the top. She wears a fine-gauge crew-neck sweater in a light tone and lip gloss. They sit on a chair or sofa with an upholstered back, in front of a light source (a curved window with panes, or perhaps a translucent tent?). She is turned with her face in three-quarters view as she looks attentively toward something or someone off-camera. Their eyes are focused, creased at the corners as part of their warm, broad smile.

Color photo of Meg Elison, a fat and fair-skinned woman with brown eyes and short, curly black hair. She wears a red-and-white colorblock dress, a silver key on a chain around her neck, and red lipstick. She stands before a neutral backdrop and smiles knowingly, looking directly into the camera.

Would you like someone to read you a good story? You’re in luck! This week, Story Hour’s guests are Kemi Ashing-Giwa and Meg Elison! Join us Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. PST! @kashinggiwa.bsky.social @megelison.bsky.social
www.storyhour2020.com

My heart leapt into my throat when I saw this. This is the first real piece of reader art I’ve ever seen. I’m struggling to express how much this means to me. Thank you.

We're eager to follow up the success of last year's Black Isekai issue with more exploration of structure.

Our 40th issue is your opportunity to delve into MAGIC SCHOOLS!

More info on each coming soon. We can't wait to see what you have in store for us!

Happy Friday y'all! We'll be posting more about our 2026 themed issues, but here's a sneak peek to get your ideas percolating for the upcoming submission windows:

Summer: Black Kishōtenketsu
Fall: Conjuring Academies & Spellbound Scholars

Share with a friend who you know will eat this up 🍽️

'We are so cold 🥶💔
We are so cold 🥶💔
We are so cold 🥶💔
Freezing rain, long nights, no shelter.
Our children are wet and shaking, and donations have stopped 😢
We urgently need €250 for a tent to protect my children.
Any help can save lives 💔🙏'

A picture of Heba and her two sons. The sons are sleeping, Heba is looking into the camera. It is dark, they are outside.

Heba has a message!

We're going through a tough time and trying to get back on our feet.

Your support helps us keep going and secure the essentials.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who supports us
We need $100 a day 🤍 Support link ⬇️
gofund.me/c3bf6fb78

My Top 10 African Short SFF Stories of 2025

Hey y’all! If you've been following this blog you probably know exactly what this is. At the start of every year, I make a list to highlight the African speculative fiction short stories I read and enjoyed the most from the previous year. This year,…

To click, to peruse, to share: storybundle.com/translation

Shows 12 book covers in an array, with text: Twelve Books, One World, One Future, In Translation — To Benefit Global Voices Lingua, StoryBundle.com/Translation

Human writing
Human design
Human translation
Human pain
Human joy
Human hope
Human experience
Human insight
Human collaboration
Human perseverance

This is all the real deal.

I hope people will feel the love put into this, on so many levels, and let the light of these stories shine.

ICYMI, our general submission window is open this entire month!

We want stories and poetry with a strong voice and a sense of adventure, stuff that makes us feel things, stuff that lets us use our hearts and our brains and leaves us wanting more!

Guidelines & schedule:
www.havenspec.com/submit/

Distraught, enraged, and tired. An author cc’d @fiyahlitmag on an email to The Writing Atlas, a site dedicated to “cataloging short stories.” There are 130 FIYAH stories listed with (presumably) AI summaries. Some have LINKS to a Dropbox folder. Our issues aren’t publicly available for scraping.

"The Coffinmaker" by Jude Kar - Seize The Press We buried my little brother inside a condom. Mom was upset; she didn’t appreciate the philosophy behind my work. After the funeral, I was ousted from the house. I moved to a small Turkish island in th...

The first story from Issue #13 is now free to read!

Jude Kar's "The Coffinmaker" is a surreal trip through the final days of Caspian - a coffinmaker, an artist - as he attracts the ire of the camel-headed locals and raises questions about what we leave behind when we're gone.

'WAIT. Don’t scroll. Take 5 seconds and breathe with him. My son Hamoud urgently needs surgery to place a device that helps him breathe. Every delay is dangerous. Please help save his life. Even $1 or a share can give him a chance to breathe again.🙏🥺🙏💔'

Always a stacked list of brilliance. Can't believe there was a Zambian sff story in Omenana I missed. I'm slacking. 🤣

Ten(ish) of the Best African Speculative Short Fiction Stories of 2025 - Reactor Here are some of the speculative fiction gems that may have flown under the radar in 2025...

2025 was another great year for African short fiction! Author @wtalabi.com recommends 10 highlights across science fiction, fantasy, and horror, from "magic-for-wealth schemes" to an unsettling religious organization (in space). And if there's some ties in there...? We're not complaining.

Once again if you are not currently following @shingai-be-like.bsky.social , do so now

Hideous licensing agreement from Red Ogre Review, but what really jumps out at me is the moral rights waiver

Review * Interview * P.A. Cornell P.A. Cornell’s novelette, Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl, will be released on February 3 by Stars and Sabers Publishing. I’m a big fan of P.A.’s short stories so I was excited to get a look at …

If you missed it, a little while ago I talked to @mynachang.bsky.social about my new book and a few other things too. Check it out!
mynachang.com/2026/01/15/r...

FIYAH first issue cover! Art by Geneva Benton. Edited by Justina Ireland and Troy L. Wiggins. Stories from Malon Edwards, Brent Lambert, Wendi Dunlap, DaVaun Sanders, V.H. Galloway, and L. D. Lewis.

FIYAH second issue cover! Art by Geneva Benton. Edited by Justina Ireland and Troy L. Wiggins. Stories from Maurice Broaddus, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Russell Nichols, Christopher Caldwell, Wole Talabi, Barbara L.W. Myers, and Eden Royce.

FIYAH third issue cover! Art by Geneva Benton. Edited by Justina Ireland and Troy L. Wiggins. Stories from Danny Lore, Sydnee Thompson, Jennifer Marie Brissett and Xen. Poems from Mame Bougouma Diene, Uche Ogbuji, Rodney Wilder.

FIYAH fourth issue cover! Art by Geneva Benton. Edited by Justina Ireland and Troy L. Wiggins. Stories from C. L. Clark, Stephanie Malia Morris, Emmalia Harrington, Arnica Ross, and Melody Gordon. Poems from Resoketswe Manenzhe and Constance Collier-Mercado.

So we're definitely celebrating FIYAH's cover art for Black History Month! Feast on this absolutely legendary run from @gdbee.bsky.social to set off year one 🥰 Of course you're following Geneva already, and this is your reminder to scoop up a print, her graphic novel, and more: gdbee.carrd.co

A hand holds up the follow titles against a lightly cloudy sky: Charwe x Elton Ndudzo The Fifty Rand Note and Other Short Stories x Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya The Toppling x Cynthia Rumbidzai Marangwanda Aquilina (or The Confession Of Hatifari Maforimbo) x Masimba Musodza Weeping Tomato x Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure The Mad Man on First Street and Other Short Stories x David Chasumba Turquoise Dreams: An Anthology of Short Stories by Zimbabwean Women, edited by Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure Things You Cannot Say With Your Mouth: The Carnelian Heart Short Story Anthology 2024, edited by Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo

Recent Zimbabwean lit from Carnelian Heart Publishing 🇿🇼🫶🏽

And our direct submission link - aanpress.com/submissions....

☕⭐🌍

Hard SF submissions are open for Tea or Coffee, Stars, and Gravity.

✔️ All 3 elements required
✔️ 2k words max
✔️ Pays $0.08/word
🚫 No AI

📅 March 1–31, 2026
🔗 horrortree.com/taking-submi...

Brought to you by @aanpress.bsky.social
#HardSF #WritingSubmissions

Proud to be here for another Black History Month! Show some love to the Black creators who've been a part of FIYAH for the past decade:
go.bsky.app/VSHmC2p

surprise: it's pre-order time! 🥩✨️ seeing this collection emerge into the world makes me feel so loved. a lot of passion & effort from multiple people went into creating this. i hope that you're all as excited for it as i am

My dear friend @sheilawilliams.bsky.social is ill and has been hospitalized with a brain aneurysm.

She has been a rock for so many writers, and has worked quietly and self-effacingly to continue to broaden the range of voices published in Asimov's.

Morning fam! The horrors persist, but so do we 🔥 Whether you write for resistance, love, joy, vengeance, or purely out of spite...get your words IN this week. We need em and we need you 🥰 let folks know how your WIP is going!