Starting in 2020, I decided to read more short fiction. I ended up reading so much that in 2021, I decided I'd make lists of stuff I really liked - not just short fiction, but everything - and post them online so other people could check them out as well.
This page is updated at the end of every quarter (formerly every month), and contains all of my recommendations since January 2021.
2024
January-March 2024
Fiction
- Do Not Waver, My Heart by Shanna Germain (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Home Safe by Kiran Kaur Saini (Translunar Travelers Lounge)
- Personal Mythology by Betsy Aoki (Translunar Travelers Lounge)
- Ten Thousand Crawling Children by R. A. Busby (Nightmare Magazine)
- The Man Who Fed Dilophosaurs by M. M. Olivas (Apex Magazine)
- The Pitha Seller of Qismat Square by Maria Hossain (Translunar Travelers Lounge)
2023
October-December 2023
Fiction
- Rafi by Amal Singh (Clarkesworld)
- Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny Magazine)
- The Tyrant's Heir's Tale by Carrie Vaughn (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Where the River Comes From by Kailtyn Zivanovich (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
July-September 2023
Fiction
- A Name is a Plea and a Prophecy by Gabrielle Emem Harry (Strange Horizons)
- An Anatomy of Waves by T. R. Siebert (Kaleidotrope)
- Empathetic Ear by M. J. Pettit (Clarkesworld)
- Holding Back the Darkness by Stephanie Burgis (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Merciful Even to Scorpions by Kay Chronister (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
April-June 2023
Fiction
- (emet) by Lauren Ring (PodCastle)
- And For My Next Trick, I have Disappeared by Chimedum Ohaegbu (Uncanny Magazine)
- An Inheritance of Scars by Martin Cahill (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Day Ten Thousand by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld)
- Destiny Delayed by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Apex Magazine)
- One for Sorrow, Two for Mirth by Tina S. Zhu (Strange Horizons)
- Stickmen by Edward Ashton (Kaleidotrope)
- The Cuckoo of Vrežna Mountain by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
March 2023
Fiction
- Zeta-Epsilon by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld)
February 2023
Nonfiction
- A long time ago in a revolution far, far away (Revolutionary Organizing, Lumpen, and Anarchy in Andor) by Peter Gelderloos (The Anarchist Library)
Fiction
- Amma's Kitchen by Rati Mehrota (The Deadlands)
- Who the Final Girl Becomes by Dominique Dickey (Nightmare Magazine)
- Your Great Mother Across the Salt Sea by Kelsey Hutton (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
January 2023
Nonfiction
- Climate Change and Antibiotic Resistance: Facts for Fiction by Jason P. Burnham (SFWA)
- Securing Neocolonialism: Reverse Extractivism in Tade Thompson’s The Wormwood Trilogy by Jenna Hanchey (Strange Horizons)
Fiction
- The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside by Isabel J. Kim (Apex Magazine)
- What Is Owed and What Can Never Be by Ariel Marken Jack (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
2022
December 2022
Fiction
- Earth Dragon, Turning by Anya Ow (Uncanny Magazine)
- Mad Honey by Aimee Ogden (Lightspeed Magazine)
- On the Way Home by Laine Perez (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Our Heartstrings Howl the Moon by Eleanna Castroianni (Strange Horizons)
November 2022
Nonfiction
- How to Weave the Artisan Web by John Scalzi (Whatever)
Fiction
- The Noon Witch Goes to Sound Planet by Kristina Ten (Lightspeed Magazine)
- Troubling A Star by Andrew Dykstral (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
October 2022
Nonfiction
- Reclaiming a Traditional African Genre: The AfroSurrealism of Ngano by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Fantasy Magazine)
- Too Dystopian for Whom? A Continental Nigerian Writer’s Perspective by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Uncanny Magazine)
Fiction
- Sharp Things, Killing Things by A. C. Wise (Nightmare Magazine)
- Ten Steps for Effective Mold Removal by Derrick Boden (Apex Magazine)
- The Dirty Golden Yellow House by Debbie Urbanski (Lightspeed Magazine) (warning: sexual abuse, coercion, & apologism)
September 2022
Nonfiction
- Breaking Out of Capitalist Realism by Juliet Kemp (Uncanny Magazine)
Fiction
- Clockwork Bayani by EK Gonzales (Strange Horizons)
- The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World by MKRNYILGLD (Lightspeed Magazine)
- The Crow Husband by Sarah McGill (Strange Horizons)
- The Queen of the Earless Seals of Lake Baikal by Kristina Ten (Lightspeed Magazine)
- We Are All of Us by Deborah L. Davitt (PodCastle)
August 2022
Fiction
- A True and Certain Proof of the Messianic Age, With Two Lemmas by P. H. Lee (Fantasy Magazine)
- Bramblewilde by Jordan Taylor (Uncanny Magazine)
- If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You by John Chu (Uncanny Magazine)
Documentaries
July 2022
Fiction
- A Once and Future Reckoning by Rajan Khanna (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Omphalos by Ted Chiang (Exhalation: Stories)
- The Small Shop of Me by Renan Bernardo (Daily Science Fiction)
June 2022
Fiction
- Baba Nowruz Gives His Wife a Flower Only Once a Year by Fatima Taqvi (Fantasy Magazine)
- Deepo 12 by Jeff Hewitt (Escape Pod)
- The Eight Hundred Legs of the Rio-Niterói Bridge by Renan Bernardo (Podcastle)
- You, Me, Her, You, Her, I by Isabel J. Kim (Strange Horizons)
May 2022
Fiction
- An Incomplete Account of the Case of the Bird-Talker of Yaros by Eleanna Castroianni (Podcastle)
- I think of my grandfather by Jonathan Duckworth (The Deadlands)
- Mal de Caribou by Becca de la Rosa (The Dark Magazine)
- One Day the Cave Will Be Empty by K. J. Chien (Fantasy Magazine)
- The Cheesemaker and the Undying King by Lina Rather (Lightspeed Magazine)
- The Fruit of the Princess Tree by Sage Tyrtle (Apex Magazine)
- The Projectionists by E. M. Linden (The Deadlands)
- XY by Lucy Zhang (Fireside Magazine)
April 2022
Fiction
- Everything the Sea Takes, It Returns by Izzy Wasserstein (Lightspeed Magazine)
- The Path of Water by Emma Törzs (Uncanny Magazine)
- Two Spacesuits by Leonard Richardson (Clarkesworld)
March 2022
Fiction
- Burying the Seeds of Spider Gods by Ted S. Bushman (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- It Rises and Falls and Rises Again by RJ Taylor (Apex Magazine)
- The Historiography of Loss by Julianna Baggott (Lightspeed Magazine)
February 2022
Nonfiction
- Bodies of Mass Destruction: Gender, Personhood, and Violence in Trans Speculative Fiction by Artur Nowrot (Strange Horizons)
- Gone with the Clones: How Confederate Soft Power Twisted the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy by Louis Evans (Uncanny Magazine)
Fiction
- Build-A-Body by Avi Burton (Escape Pod)
- Clay by Isabel J. Kim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Lily the Immortal by Kylie Lee Baker (Uncanny Magazine)
Poetry
- The Astronomer by Lily Grodzins (The Deadlands)
January 2022
Fiction
- Dissent: A Five-Course Meal (With Suggested Pairings) by Aimee Ogden (Lightspeed Magazine)
- Godmaker by J.A. Prentice (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird by Maria Dong (Lightspeed Magazine)
- Payday Weather by Matthew Claxton (Escape Pod)
- The Night Dance by Leah Cypress (Uncanny Magazine)
2021
December 2021
Nonfiction
- A Universe of Possibilities: Planets of Red Dwarfs by Julie Nováková (Clarkesworld)
- From the Sense of Wonder to the Sense of Wander by Francesco Verso (Apex Magazine)
Fiction
- First Leaf by Elise Stephens (FIYAH)
- Just One Step, and Then the Next by E. N. Díaz (Clarkesworld)
- Missing Dolls Around the World by Ai Jiang (The Dark)
- Red is Our Country by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko (Lightspeed Magazine)
- The Age of Swirling Mist by J. F. Gleeson (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- The Cold Calculations by Aimee Ogden (Clarkesworld)
- The Calendar of Saints by Kat Howard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- The Tinder Box by Kate Elliot (Tor.com)
- To New Jerusalem by Farah Kader (FIYAH)
- Vegvísir by David Goodman (Clarkesworld)
Podcasts
- 16.49: Magic and Technology: Two Sides of the Same Coin (Writing Excuses)
November 2021
Fiction
- Apolo Licio, Apolo Veráva by Teresa P. Mira de Echeverría, translated by Art Sierra
- Deep in the Gardener's Barrow by Tobi Ogundiran (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- I Call Upon the Night as Witness by Zahra Mukhi (Apex Magazine)
- No Say by Jonathan Louis Duckworth (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- The Burning Girl by Carrie Vaughn (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Podcasts
- 16.44: World and Character Part 1: All Your Characters Are Biased (Writing Excuses)
- 16.46: World and Plot: The Only Constant is Change (Writing Excuses)
- Listening Like a Conlanger: Word Avoidance on the Internet (Conlangery)
October 2021
Fiction
- All the Open Highways by Alexis Gunderson (The Deadlands)
- Down to Niflhel Deep by Maria Haskins (Podcastle)
- In Case You're the One to Devour a Star by Tamara Jerée (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Sand by Jasmin Kirkbride (Tor.com)
- Small Monsters by E. Lily Yu (Tor.com)
- Thread Count by Cynthia Gómez (Strange Horizons)
- Tidings by Rich Larson (Lightspeed Magazine)
September 2021
Nonfiction
- Alone? or, How a Survivalist Reality TV Show Defangs Publishing’s Narrow Definition of Agency by Maria Dong (Apex Magazine)
- Debarkle by Camestros Felapton
- Trials By Whiteness: Orientalism and Liberal Multiculturalism by Jaymee Goh (Strange Horizons)
Fiction
- Chanson D'Amour by Orrin Grey (Nightmare Magazine)
- Mister Dawn, How Can You Be So Cruel? by Violet Allen (Lightspeed Magazine)
- Sometimes You Get the Bear by Tim Pratt (The Deadlands)
- The Revolution Will Not Be Served with Fries by Meg Elison (Lightspeed Magazine)
- What is Mercy? by Amal Singh (Fantasy Magazine)
Video
- Game of Tones (about tone in language) by Artifexian (Youtube)
August 2021
Fiction
- Doll Seed by Michele Tracy Berger (Apex Magazine)
- Face Changing by Jiang Bo, translated by Andy Dudak (Clarkesworld)
- Faithful Delirium by Brent Lambert (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Golden Girl by A. M. Guay (khoreo Magazine)
- Promises We Made Under a Brick-Dark Sky by Karen Osborne (Clarkesworld)
- The Clock, Having Seen Its Face in the Mirror, Still Knows Not the Hour by Adam Stemple (Clarkesworld)
- The God Skrae Eats Death by Stephen Case (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Where Things Fall from the Sky by Ally Wilkes (Nightmare Magazine)
- Worth the Whistling by Adriana C. Grigore (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Podcasts
July 2021
Fiction
- He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars by Grace Chan (Clarkesworld)
- Shock of Birth by Cadwell Turnbull (Lightspeed Magazine)
- The Cataloguer of Deceit by Ian Rosales Casocot (Strange Horizons)
- The Falling by M. V. Melcer (Clarkesworld)
- The Graveyard by Eleanor Arnason (Uncanny Magazine)
- Uniform by Errick Nunnally (Apex Magazine)
- When You Die on the Radio by Adam R. Shannon (Lightspeed Magazine)
June 2021
Nonfiction
- Where Will You Place Us When We are Dead? by Monte Lin (Strange Horizons)
Fiction
- Bones in It by Kristina Ten (Lightspeed Magazine)
- Empty Houses by Caspian Gray (Nightmare Magazine)
- Poubelle by Robert Reed (Clarkesworld)
- The Chicken House by Jenny Friend (Strange Horizons)
- The Far Side of the Universe by noc, translated by Michelle Deeter (Tor.com)
- The Lay of Lilyfinger by G. V. Anderson (Tor.com)
May 2021
Nonfiction
- I Do Not Want to Write Today by Shing Yin Khor (Catapult)
- It's All Just a Draft by Tobias S. Buckell
Fiction
- A Blind Eye by M. H. Ayinde (Daily Science Fiction)
- Disenchantment by P. H. Low (Fantasy Magazine)
- Safe as Houses by Avra Margariti (Daily Science Fiction)
- The Cabbit by Maria Dong (Nightmare Magazine)
- The Frankly Impossible Weight of Han by Maria Dong (khōréō Magazine)
- The Woman Who Destroyed Us by S. L. Huang (Lightspeed Magazine)
- Throw Rug by Aurelius Raines II (Apex Magazine)
Video
- How to Evolve Vowel Harmony Systems by Artifexian (Youtube)
April 2021
Nonfiction
- how come these ghosts is white? by Brandon Taylor (Substack)
Fiction
- A Handful of Sky by Elly Bangs (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- A Stranger Goes Ashore by Adam R. Shannon (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Colors of the Immortal Palate by Caroline M. Yoachim (Uncanny Magazine)
- Quintessence by Andrew Dykstal (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Sarcophagus by Ray Nayler (Clarkesworld Magazine)
- That Boy in the Picture by Alex Sobel (Daily Science Fiction)
- The Giant with No Heart in Her Body by Nike Sulway (Strange Horizons)
- Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine)
Podcasts
March 2021
Nonfiction
- Institutions are the AIs Your Mother Warned You About by Navarre Bartz (SFWA)
- Seduced by the Ruler’s Gaze: An Indian Perspective on Seth Dickinson’s Masquerade by Sid Jain (Uncanny Magazine)
- "We'll Know It When We See It": The Trouble with Finding (Alien) Life by Julie Nováková (Clarkesworld)
Fiction
- Boiled Bones and Black Eggs by Nghi Vo (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Burn the Ships by Alberto Yáñez (Lightspeed Magazine)
- The Guadalupe Witch by Josh Rountree (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld)
- Olivia's Table by Alyssa Wong (Lightspeed Magazine)
- The Orbiting Guan Erye by Wang Zhenzhen, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan (Clarkesworld)
- Terra Rasa by Anastasia Bookreyeva, translated by Ray Nayler (Clarkesworld)
Podcasts
Video Games
January & February 2021
Nonfiction
- Diversity Plus: Diverse Story Forms and Themes, Not Just Diverse Faces by Henry Lien (SFWA.org)
- Worldwide Story Structures by Kim Yoon Mi
Short Fiction
- Bromelia by Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez (Strange Horizons)
- Pathfinding! by Nicole Kornher-Stace (Uncanny Magazine)
- Roots on Ya by LH Moore (Apex Magazine)
- The Demon Sage's Daughter by Varsha Dinesh (Strange Horizons)
- The Failed Dianas by Monique Laban (Clarkesworld)
- We, the Girls Who Did Not Make It by E. A. Petricone (Nightmare Magazine)
Webcomics
- Now Recharging by Maiji/Mary Huang