The knight looked out over the rolling hills, hands on her knees and sword resting on the ground in front of her, ready to be snatched up at a moment’s notice. It was dark, with only the moon and the faint flickering firelight providing any visual on the surrounding area, but her eyes were sharp and well-accustomed to seeing in near pitch-black. The plains where they had made camp seemed to stretch endlessly, grass rippling...
Read moreby Savannah Jade Firm arms wrapped around my body as we lay atop a dark green crocheted blanket in the sand. Each grain molded to the contours of our figures, leaving imprints in the shape of mini sand dunes. Past his shoulder where my chin rested, my fingertips grazed the peak of the nearest dune, tracing the curvature of Earth’s natural occurring memory foam. The sand trickled down, forming a small waterfall that shimmered like...
Read moreby Meahgan Ferral In the dark of the woods, where sunbeams rarely kissed the ground and strangers never stepped, there was a small community, tucked away in the leaves and branches and dirt. I’ve lived my life there, in a cabin with my parents and sister. The two of us spent our childhood roaming beneath the trees with our parents at our heels, whispering in our ears to never wander too far, to never stray...
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Science fiction allures and enthralls because of the unique worlds each story holds. At the core of science fiction, there’s science: some new knowledge, discovery, or breakthrough. Then, there’s technology: how that science is applied, from daily life to a planetary or (inter)galactic scale. When you hear “science,” your mind might jump to physics, biology, chemistry—all those hard sciences. But don’t discount the social sciences, like psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Blending together different sub-sciences leads Read more
Romance is the genre that inspired me to write as a kid. It felt more welcoming and attainable, since I viewed it in an escapist light. I realized I didn’t have to take myself or my writing so seriously, but rather just try to write something fun, interesting and well-written. Another beauty of romance, no pun intended, is how central love is in our lives. Everyone wants to love and be loved in some sense Read more
Our pulse quickens. Our eyes grow wide. We gasp for breath, shudder, and shrink back into our seats. Horror readers—and writers—are a true contradiction. As our favorite genre hurls us mercilessly into our deepest childhood frights, feeds us to monsters, and speeds us headlong into destruction and death, we’ve never felt more alive. What is it about wandering through words, away from the safety of the light, into the terrors of the darkness, through dizzy Read more
Sitting amidst the woods with the golden glow of the sun, you watch satyrs run by with their flutes. Fairies zoom to join them. Well, except for one. She’s barely the size of your finger, but you still manage to see her smile beneath her wide eyes. The fairy offers a hand to you. Sound familiar? Fantasy is a genre known for bending reality in beautiful ways. Whether the world is based on our own, Read more
In thrillers, good and evil are divided. Moral choices stay clear, though risks are high and calls are hard. For all the palpitation-inducing danger, for each acid spurt of adrenaline, what whiplashes protagonist and reader through each thriller’s plot is the knowledge that they have something worth saving. They are the ones who will fight for good. They are the ones who will face down evil. Mysteries can twist the reader’s perception with unreliable narrators, Read more
I read all genres, but mysteries were there for me when the going was rough. During the hardest times in my life I engaged my overactive mind in high-stakes puzzles, in fictional webs of deceit, and in dropped clues and red herrings. Each mystery pointed out the truth: sometimes, life went sideways, the world went wrong, and people went wrong, too. I didn’t want to be gaslit into thinking everyone was safe. I knew that Read more
By Ava Kevitt TW: death, mention of violence They had appeared at the edges of her vision when she was still just a baby, crawling on the floor. Buzzing around her head like flies, her childmind would simply call them ugly monsters. She didn’t know that most people weren’t able to see them. Not until one tried to touch her. That one had been particularly ugly, with skin waxy like paper, slowly sliding off his Read more
By Chase Docter TW: Murder, dismemberment, general cruelty. World religion has, at least in the most developed regions, shrunk significantly more than what was projected; not replaced by carefree agnostics and self-determined atheists, but instead a population of depressed and spiteful nihilists, all convinced that their lives mean nothing to anyone, yet all equally scared to cut the cord for good. Nietzsche said that, after religion faded and declined, the world would be left full Read more
By M. K. Werner My best friend was dead. That was what they had tried to tell me, though I refused to believe it. It was something inconceivable; she couldn’t be gone. I told them so, and eventually they stopped trying to convince me, leaving me in silence to grieve. But I didn’t want to grieve. I couldn’t grieve, because Anastasia wasn’t dead, so there wasn’t anyone to grieve for. They had her funeral today, Read more
By K. M. Lively The thin, spearmint-flavored floss slides between the two back-most molars on the left side of my mouth. I wince as it wedges into tender gums like a rock lodging itself into a tire’s treads. The pain is sharp, throbbing into the nearby teeth, spreading like a virus. When removed, the offending white thread is stained red. There is a lot of blood—more than there should be. But it’s been a while Read more
By Sadie Lallier These are the journal entries of Dr. Helena Martin, an accomplished marine biologist and oceanographer. They were recovered from the USS Abyssal, a submarine sent on a 15 day mission to investigate a disturbance along the southeastern side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The crew of five people departed on September 17, 2016, from Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia. All contact with the crew was lost eight days after launch. After Read more