This year was the first year I ever actually tried to read the markets I try to submit short stories to. It is elementary advice that you should read where you submit and I’ve ignored it for years. But now that I’m doing it more, I see that it really is rewarding. Not only do you get a feel for what each particular market’s editorial taste is, you realize that 90% of short stories published are rather mediocre, and that 10% that is good is really fucking good. Something to aspire to.
This are not ranked in any way. It wouldn’t be fair to do that, short stories blend together a little more than books, which I spend more time with. These are just ten short stories that I thought were awesome.
“All the Ways to Hollow Out a Girl” by Gwendolyn Kiste in PseudoPod – A great and really dark story about a girl who is “accidentally” murdered by a trio of teenaged boys but comes back to life and how they continue to murder her regularly for the sake of their sadistic fun. (Podcast)
“The Captive River” by C.T. Muchemwa from PodCastle – Excellent African fantasy story that reminds me of Neil Gaiman in its storytelling, but obviously a lot of that is from what he has been influenced by from world folklore. Moved me in several places. (Podcast)
“The Chamber of the All-Seeing Eye” by Liam Hogan in The NoSleep Podcast – Gruesome medieval horror story about battlefield scavengers collecting eyeballs for a lord with eldritch interests. (Podcast)
“The Dragon Killer’s Daughter” by MacKenzie R. Snead from PodCastle – Excellent fantasy about a senile zealot dragonhunter, his tough, loyal, indoctrinated daughter, and the truth behind the dragons he’s been killing all his life. (Podcast)
“Games Without Frontiers” by Andy Dudak from Asimov’s Science Fiction May/June 2023 – Excellent story about future high tech simulation storytelling as an actor inhabits an 80s spy thriller. (Print)
“The Hagfish Has Three Hearts” by Monica Joyce Evans from Escape Pod – Really interesting sci-fi story where whales have grown sentient and the main character can talk with them and has hagfish parts implanted in her and serves as translator between whales and humans. (Podcast)
“If Pages Could Blush” by Kyle A. Massa from Unidentified Funny Objects 9 – A really funny story about a magical library where all the books are sentient and the Necronomicon escapes and elopes with Alice in Wonderland. (Print)
“Lavender, Juniper, Gunpowder, Smoke” by Alyson Grauer in Cast of Wonders – Very good story about a young witch-type who manifests a wax dragon while dealing with a pack of schoolgirl bullies. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer – not in terms of action-adventure, which is very much not what this story is, but in terms of heartfelt authentic high school dynamics mixed with magic. (Podcast)
“Murder Mnemonic” by Loretta Sue Ross from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May/June 2023 – Great, funny little story about a man who was murdered and reincarnated into a little boy who has memories of his murder. This little three-year-old who knows too much but is still just a little kid and his family investigate the murder. (Print)
“Taylor Swift” by Hugh Behm-Steinberg from The Drabblecast – A really hilarious flash fiction story about Taylor Swift robots. (Podcast)
By Lee Blevins 