Editorial – Autumn 2026

Dear Readers,

I am writing this editorial with several tabs open alongside—in one I am spectating a game of Blood on the Clocktower (which, if you haven’t played it and you love murder mysteries, you must play), in another I have a recorded lecture of the McCormack Speculative Fiction Writing Workshop, then I have several more tabs with the submission links, novel excerpts, and response letters I am writing for each of my cohort members at the workshop, and finally, I have this editorial open in a Google doc. I am, of course, writing this in the kitchen, having made dinner (burgers and milkshakes, in case anyone was wondering) for my little family, and I am writing this like a letter because I had a friend’s birthday come up recently and they asked me to write them a letter and it was lovely and intimate and it surpassed my writer’s block (do try this at home). All this to say, that what brings me here is a passion to bring you the most wonderful, convoluted, profound, weird, and fantastic speculative fiction that I can find in this South Asian slushpile, and I hope this issue will bring you joy and distraction.

Let me tell you what is in store. I did not put out a themed call for this issue because there have been a lot of AI stories going around recently and one of the conclusions was that themed calls garner more AI submissions than others. So, I thought to myself, why force the writer to conform to any specific theme, why not just let them send me the best of the best that they have poured their heart and soul into? And, guess what, the universe had a different plan. Not only did I find some amazing stories, but they all also have similar themes running through them xD

So here are five very personal, very diverse stories on the topics of grief, death, immortality and humanness. All of them are science fiction in some way or shape, but they also genre bend and find themselves in new territory like dark fantasy or weird or supernatural.

First we have ‘The Immortal Dust’ in which portals erupt and show you the people you have lost. This lyrical tale ruminates on reincarnation, immortality and motherhood. Then, we jump into the fast-paced ‘Restraint Protocol’ where, in a near-future dystopia, touch has been banned and two people in love start a revolution. Then we find relief in the absurdity and profoundness of The ‘Exorcism of Mrs. Sen’, where a jaded man tries to find a fresh start with the woman who jilted him, but first he must banish the digital ghost of his nagging mother that won’t leave his ancestral home. Then, we hop onto a train and on the way to our last stop we read ‘The Last Local’, a genre-bending story that takes place in Mumbai where an overworked corporate employee bonds with a djinni on the night train, to save herself from an abusive life. And then, our last stop: ‘Time is a Mere Feeling’ where a dying man must come to terms with his caretaker robot swallowing all of his memories before he fades away.

All of this is held together by the most beautiful thing in this issue, the artwork by an artist I greatly admire. This illustration somehow ties so well to all these themes with its blue-purple color palette, its otherworldliness, the sense of freedom, and rising above it all portrayed by the character flying above what can be construed as worshippers or a mob. This ties in perfectly to our non-fiction: “The Monstrous Feminine: The Resurgence of Women-centric Horror in South Asian Cinema” as well, which is about how feminine rage can be misconstrued in film and other media.

Ultimately, there is so much to unpack in this issue, I hope that it immerses you in alternate realities and I hope it makes you wonder.

With spells and wishes, 

Your Editor