Featured Short Stories

Lucía de la Calle is a storyteller from Upstate New York and Málaga, Spain. She earned a BA in Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College and enjoys using any and all mediums to create art.

Lara Jordan is a writer based in Arlington, Virginia. She is currently completing The Arithmetic of Mercy, a linked short story collection set in the anthracite town of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Her work explores family, inheritance, and quiet survival across generations. She lives with her husband and four children, and this is her first collection.

K.M. Lively received her MFA from Emerson College, where she won the 2026 Popular Fiction and Publishing Thesis Prize and 2026 First Chapter Prize. She is currently working to publish her debut novel and get certified as a personal trainer. Her work can be found in The Meadow, Tangled Locks Journal, Page Turner Magazine, and is forthcoming in Half and One Magazine.

Originally from the south coast of England, Matthew now lives in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. He writes fiction, fantasy and science fiction... albeit slowly. And while primarily drawn to speculative fiction, he has been known to write pretty much anything that takes his fancy. Along the way, he joined the Army and almost single-handedly demolished the Blockbuster Video in Ramsgate. His writer's pen matches his mind – unkempt, ill-disciplined and prone to digression ad nauseam.

Chad Coplen is a writer situated in the Gulf Coast of Texas where he lives with his wife and two sons. His debut story, Still Water, is a blend of psychological dread and the quiet terror of familiar places transformed-based on dreams and lived experience navigating Hurricane Harvey. His work is informed by a lifelong interior shaped by theology and philosophy-a private framework quietly assembled over decades and now finding its way onto the page.

Alex Summer Milne is a writer and director based in London. Her novel Stray was selected for Hachette’s Grow Your Story scheme for ‘LGBTQ+ fiction stars of the future’ and longlisted for the London Writers Awards. Alex's plays have been produced at The Cockpit, Seven Dials Playhouse and Stockwell Playhouse. She holds a first-class degree in English and Creative Writing from Royal Holloway.

Nomi McLeod is a writer and artist. Both her visual and written work often engage with stories from the boundary between the real world and the imaginal. In the past she has worked as a circus artist, a theatre dresser and an artist’s model.

Austin Ruh works professionally in post production for film and TV, with credits that include: Daredevil: Born Again, The Beast in Me, and No Hard Feelings. Their writing has been featured in the Open Book Zine and onstage in readings throughout NYC.

Nicky Neto is an artist and author of the unpublished book-in-progress GAP TOOTH, a collection of prose poems and lyric essays exploring the spaces between who we were and who we are becoming. He earned a BA in Acting from Point Park University in 2023 and works across writing, performance, and visual art, creating work that moves between observation, intimacy, and wonder. He can be found on Instagram @nickyyneto.