Features

Thriller/Mystery “Autumn Enigma” Contest Winner: The Plunge Investigations Unit: Candy Apple Red

by Cory Cart I’m three hours into my Halloween shift at The Plunge, New Orleans’ longest-surviving queer dive bar, when there is a commotion at the front door. The wig comes in first. Tall, purple, teased to the heavens, and dipped in glitter. It walks in like it owns the bar, attached to a body that doesn’t glance left or right. No one recognizes it—not even Claudia, who has a photographic memory for wigs. Then Read more

By logan.farley, ago

That Strategy Guide Feeling: Video Games and the Writing Process

By Bretton Cadigan As a kid I’d often head to the mall with my parents, and if I’d saved up enough allowance, I’d head to GameStop and buy a new video game, along with the strategy guide. If you don’t know about strategy guides (maybe you don’t play games, or you play games better than I do), a strategy guide is a beautifully illustrated paperback manual of hints and strategies meant to help uncover and Read more

By logan.farley, ago

When Horror Gets a Puppy: An Exploration of Stephen King’s Use of Dogs in Horror

By Nick Mendillo The film Good Boy was released on October 3, 2025. Marketed as “a horror film that follows the perspective of the dog,” it immediately intrigued me. I’ve always believed all things are better with dogs—especially horror—and knowing the dog wouldn’t die (as confirmed by director Ben Leonberg) made it irresistible.  The premise is deceptively simple: Indy, the canine protagonist, experiences the threats and eerie surroundings of a haunted house. On its surface, Read more

By logan.farley, ago

Review of Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

By Marielle Seche Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Sexual Assault, Abuse “KATABASIS, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld.” R. F. Kuang’s latest book, Katabasis, is a dark academia fantasy novel that follows two Cambridge graduate students of magick: Alice Law and Peter Murdoch. They use their magical knowledge to journey into Hell to retrieve the soul of their professor and academic advisor, Jacob Grimes—whom they may have accidentally killed. With what’s Read more

By logan.farley, ago

Romantasy Contest “A Hard Day’s Knight” Runner Up: For Love (Or simply, The Tale of Brave Percival)

By Jagger van Vliet From out of a murky trance, there came the sudden rushing of light, the brutal sting of salt, and the sullen grey of morning. A thin, brown rat named Percival awoke from a terrible dream and looked blearily out into the gloom. Nothing around him was familiar, save for the hordes of other rats who were also waking from their own respective slumbers. All of the rat colony, it would seem, Read more

By logan.farley, ago