Part of Series
With stories by Alix E. Harrow, Sam J. Miller, Sheree Renée Thomas, Cassandra Khaw, and many more, Apex Magazine 2021 is a collection of darkly beautiful tales appearing originally in Apex Magazine January-December 2021. From a spaceship in the far-flung reaches of space to a cozy living room where a detective interviews a killer, this anthology explores the good and the ugly. It dissects what makes us human versus what makes us monsters. Within these pages, you will meet a golem that doesn’t know how to save its family, a group of robots debating whether they are alive, and a woman striving for that social media-perfect life. From parasitic twins to a hospital dreamscape, to a town full of people wearing masks, this anthology will take you on journeys you never could have expected. Come with us and discover the 48 surreal, strange, shocking, and beautiful stories in Apex Magazine 2021. Table of Contents “Root Rot” — Fargo Tbakhi “Your Own Undoing” — P H Lee “Love, That Hungry Thing” — Cassandra Khaw “Mr. Death” — Alix E. Harrow “The Niddah” — Elana Gomel “All I Want for Christmas” — Charles Payseur “Gray Skies, Red Wings, Blue Lips, Black Hearts” — Merc Fenn Wolfmoor “Barefoot and Midnight” — Sheree Renée Thomas “The Amazing Exploding Women of the Early Twentieth Century” — A.C. Wise “Black Box of the Terraworms” — Barton Aikman “If Those Ragged Feet Won’t Run” — Annie Neugebauer “A Love That Burns Hot Enough to Last: Deleted Scenes From a Documentary” — Sam J. Miller “The Life and Death of Mia Fremont: An Interview with a Killer” — A.K. Hudson “This Is the Moment, Or One of Them” — Mari Ness “Throw Rug” — Aurelius Raines II “Mishpokhe and Ash” — Sydney Rossman-Reich “All This Darkness” — Jennifer R. Donohue “DEMON FIGHTER SUCKS” — Katherine Crighton “Eilam Is Forever” — Beth Dawkins “Without Wishes to Bind You” — E. Catherine Tobler “How to be Good” — R. Gatwood “Osu” — Kingsley Okpii “Survival, After” — Nicole J. LeBoeuf “What Sisters Take” — Kelly Sandoval “Cottonmouth” — Joelle Wellington “Next to Cleanliness” — Rose Keating “Discontinuity” — Jared Millet “Candyland” — Maggie Slater “Gift for the Cutter Man” — D. Thomas Minton “Wake Up, I Miss You” — Rachel Swirsky “Security Breach at Sugar Pine Suites” — Pamela Rentz “Happy Trails” — Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. “Marked by Bears” — Jessie Loyer “Spirits of the Broken Lands” — Kevin Wabaunsee “When Evening Arrives” — Tiffany Morris “An Incident at Hellpoint Prime” — Norris Black “To Seek Himself Again” — Marie Croke “This Shattered Vessel, Which Holds Only Grief” — Izzy Wasserstein “In Haskins” — Carson Winter “Whose Mortal Taste” — Erin K. Wagner “Hank in the South Dakota Sun” — Stephanie Kraner “I Call Upon the Night as Witness” — Zahra Mukhi “Soil of Our Home, Storm of Our Lives” — Renan Bernardo “Robin’s Last Song” — Nina Munteanu “Godmother” — Cheryl S. Ntumy “The synchronism of touch” — Gabriela Damián Miravete “Dreamports” — Tlotlo Tsamaase “Samsāra in a Teacup” — Lavanya Lakshminarayan
Authors
Cassandra Khaw is an award-winning game writer. Their recent novella Nothing but Blackened Teeth was a British Fantasy, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and Bram Stoker Award finalist. Their debut collection Breakable Things is now out.
Renan Bernardo is a Nebula and Ignyte finalist author of science fiction and fantasy from Brazil. His short fiction appeared in Reactor/Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Apex Magazine, Podcastle, Escape Pod, Daily Science Fiction, and others. He writes from secondary world fantasy to dark science fiction, and he enjoys the intersection of climate narratives with science, technology, and the human relations inherent to it. His solarpunk/clifi short fiction collection, Different Kinds of Defiancé, was published in 2024. His dark space opera novella, Disgraced Return of the Kap’s Needle, was released in 2025.
Merc Fenn Wolfmoor is an ace/aro ADHD/autistic non-binary author from Minnesota. Merc is the author of several short story collections and the novella The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt. They have had short stories published in such fine venues as Lightspeed, Fireside, Nightmare, Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, Uncanny, and more. They have been a Nebula Awards Finalist and have had short stories reprinted in several Year's Best anthologies. They are part of the Chipped Cup Collective, of which Robot Dinosaur Press is an imprint division. Merc also enjoys creating book covers. Pronouns: they/them/theirs. Honorifics: preferably none, but Mx. or Mr. are acceptable if necessary.
Gabriela Damián Miravete es una escritora, editora, guionista y locutora. También se ha dedicado al periodismo cultural en los ámbitos literario y cinematográfico y ha colaborado en publicaciones tales como Letras Libres, Lee+, Cine Premiere y Confabulario. Gabriela nació en la Ciudad de México en 1979. Estudió Comunicación y Educación en la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona y Creación Literaria en la Escuela de Escritores de la Sociedad General de Escritores de México. Su trabajo literario ha sido reconocido en México y Estados Unidos. La Tradición de Judas, álbum de cuentos para niños, ilustrado por Cecilia Varela, recibió el Premio de Cuento en la Feria del Libro Infantil y Juvenil de la Ciudad de México (FILIJ) y fue editado en 2007 por CONACULTA. En 2010 ganó la beca Jóvenes Creadores del FONCA, en la especialidad de narrativa, con la que escribió el libro de cuentos aún inédito Pequeños naipes de ópalo. En 2012 fue finalista en el World Fantasy Award con el cuento “Future Nereid”, que fue antologado por Chris Brown y Eduardo Jiménez Mayo en Three Messages and a Warning, libro editado por Small Beer Press. Sus ensayos y cuentos han sido traducidos al inglés y portugués.
D. Thomas Minton writes from his home in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada, but life has given him the opportunity to live and work in many places around the world. When not writing, he helps indigenous communities across the Pacific Ocean conserve their ocean resources for future generations. His training in science and his cultural experiences often inform his humanist (and at times dystopian) science fiction. He is the author of the Calypto Cycle, a series of espionage thrillers set in an alternative 1920s eastern Europe and the middle east. The fourth book in the series, Messages from the Sand, was released in November 2019. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov's, Lightspeed Magazine, InterGalactic Medicine Show, and many other anthologies and magazines. "The Schrödinger War," which appeared in Lightspeed Magazine (Sept 2013), was a 2014 storySouth Millions Writer Notable story and his fiction has appeared on multiple year-end recommended reading lists. He is an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
a former academic, adjunct, cashier, blueberry-harvester, and kentuckian, alix e. harrow is now a full-time writer living in virginia with her husband and their semi-feral kids. she is the hugo award-winning and nyt-bestselling author of THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY (2019), THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES (2020), a duology of fairytale novellas (A SPINDLE SPLINTERED and A MIRROR MENDED), and various short fiction. her next book, STARLING HOUSE will be out on halloween 2023! her writing is represented by kate mckean at howard morhaim literary agency. newsletter: https://writtenworld.substack.com/ email: alixeharrow at gmail.com insta: alix.e.harrow
Norris Black is a Haudenosaunee/mixed-blood author, originally from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and now living in the city of Belleville, Ontario. His work has appeared in several anthologies and his first novel, The Last God, debuted in 2021. When he’s not writing he spends his time learning to speak with machines and taking long walks in dark, spooky woods.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and SF, fantasy and eco-fiction writer. She has published eight novels and a dozen award-winning short stories translated into several languages. Her novels are mostly eco-fiction and thrillers that explore humanity's tense co-evolution with technology and Nature. Nina is also editor of several publishing houses and ezines. She teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. Her three textbooks "The Fiction Writer", "The Journal Writer" and "The Ecology of Story" are used in colleges, universities, and writing institutions throughout the world. Her latest non-fiction book "Water Is..." explores the many identities of water (www.TheMeaningOfWater.com). Find more on Nina and her work at www.ninamunteanu.ca. The books that appear on my bookshelf are all books I recommend. You will not find a book on my shelf or a book review from me that is not a recommended book; if I don't like it, it won't be here.
