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Darian Bianco: Five years later and Plague Birds is about to reemerge into the world. Did you ever expect for the book to be reissued like this? Can you walk readers through what to expect to be different between this version and the original that came out in 2021?

Jason Sanford: I'm thrilled Plague Birds has done so well that Apex Books is releasing a new edition of the novel. A lot of people have read the novel over the last five years, and now new readers will have the chance to discover the story.

For Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition, I did a minor re-write to the novel, cleaning up mistakes and typos that were in the first edition. In addition, the edition also includes the coda story "Little Fathers of Darkness," which is set six months after the events of the novel. There will also be an essay explaining why Red Day is angry that people keep misusing the term artificial intelligence.

Spoiler: Red Day, the killer blood AI in Plague Birds, isn't impressed with what we call artificial intelligence in today's world.

DB: I'd love to get a peek into what your writerly life looks like at present. What does a usual day involve for you? Are there certain steps to do with creativity that you perform every day? Are you a schedule person, or a go with the flow person?

JS: I've spoken a good deal in recent years about being on the autistic spectrum and also having ADHD. Being neurodiverse means that my writing routines are different from many other writers. I don't write every day. But when I do write, I tend to hyperfocus and write a great deal. It then takes me time to recover from that process before I can write again.

Last year I published a free booklet about all this titled Tips and Strategies for Neurodiverse Writers.  I shared these tips and strategies because much of the writing advice out there can actually hurt neurodiverse writers. For example, when I was a new writer the worst advice I was given was to "Sit your butt in the chair and write 1000 words each day." I understand this advice can help many people, and if it does, go for it. But for many neurodiverse writers, trying to force yourself to follow that advice can be harmful and counterproductive, making you doubt what you're doing or believe you're a failure as a writer.

I know I danced around some of your questions, and I apologize for that. But I go into all this in much more detail in the booklet linked above.

DB: I know you're still hard at work on getting Plagues of Dissension ready for release later this year. What does that process currently look like? Can you give us a hint of what stage you're out, and how you're feeling with all the busyness of this year for you?

JS: I'm currently finishing up the manuscript. I'm also eager to see what you and the other Apex editors think about the manuscript, and what feedback you'll have. As a writer, I love working with editors. The writer-editor relationship is an amazing thing, especially when the goal of everyone involved is to help a story reach its full potential.

For Plagues of Dissension, I first created a short summary of the novel, basically writing a sparse 2,000-word short story that tells the major parts of the book. I did this as a way to mix some overall plotting and outlining with my love of discovery writing, which is where a writer finds the story as they write it. Discovery writing allows me to explore a story and surprise myself as I write it, which helps keep my mind focused on the creative process.

But when you're writing a long story like Plagues of Dissension, doing discovery writing can create problems. You might write yourself into a dead-end, or discover the story doesn't work when you're 2/3rds of the way done. So in order to keep the story on track, I did this thing I call discovery plotting. This is where I write a short summary of the book that is loose enough, from the point of view of the plot, that I can still explore the story as I write it.

As for this year, it's a very busy one for me. This is the first time I've had two major books come out in the same year and it's both exciting and a little scary.

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Preorder your copy of Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition!

The cover art is by Marcela Bolívar, with cover design by Mikio Murakami at SilentQDesign.

Our panel of judges read hundreds of ecofiction stories published in 2025 across more than 170 magazines, journals, and anthologies around the world. The nominated stories featured a diverse range of styles, subgenres, and perspectives, and it was difficult to narrow the field down to the 50 front-runners.  

The shortlisted stories were chosen for their compelling writing, thematic resonance, originality, and emotional impact. Congratulations to the authors! 

The stories below are listed in alphabetical order, and the finalists will be announced in the coming weeks. Thank you to all who nominated or submitted.

ECO25 is distributed by IPG and slated for release Nov 17.

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Shortlisted for ECO25: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction

“A Hole Cut in the Wall of the World – 29” by Rebecca Campbell, The Other Shore (Stelliform Press)

“A Taxonomy of Extinct and Extant Birds of the Twenty-First Century” by A.P. Golub, Reckoning

“Abatement” by Max Wheeler, Split Lip Magazine

“Affinity Gradient” by Miah O'Malley, Phano

“All That Means or Mourns” by Ruthanna Emrys, Reactor

“All the World is Fog” by DaVaun Sanders, Uncanny Magazine

“Ancestor's Gift” by Chisom Umeh, Tractor Beam

“Banded Iron” by T.K. Rex, The Sunday Morning Transport

“Black Gold” by E.M. Kerkman, Apex Magazine

“Butterfly Pavilion” by G. Willow Wilson, Uncanny Magazine

“Devil's Tooth” by Jonathan Gensler, Cosmic Horror Monthly Patreon stories

“Down By The River” by Mae Tang, Silk and Foxglove: A BIPOC Erotic Eco-Horror Anthology, edited by Z.K. Abraham (Hedone Press)

“Drosera regina” by A.L. Goldfuss, Lightspeed Magazine

“Drought's Vengeance” by Wen Wen Yang, Suspect—Singapore Unbound

“Exhibition” by Lu Xu, Saros Speculative

“Funerary Habits of Low Entropy Entities” by Damián Neri, Clarkesworld

“Greasy Luck” by Samir Sirk Morató, Cosmic Horror Monthly

“Half Life of Memory” by L.R. Lam, Tractor Beam

“Herdhunters” by Mike Robinson, Zooscape Zine

“In Every Seed, A Hope” by Christopher Blake, Tractor Beam

“Invasive Species” by Mary Kuryla, Weird Horror Magazine

“Kindling” by Somto Ihezue, Of Enchantment, Enigma, and the Infinite, edited by Jendia Gammon and Gareth L. Powell (Star and Stabers Publishing)

“Lesser Known Months of the Year” by E.M. Linden, Reckoning

“Lolos Last Run” by E.M. Kerkman, Asimovs Science Fiction

“MALO MALO MALO MALO” by Louis Inglis Hall, The Dark Magazine

“Meet Me Under the Molokhia” by Sage Hoffman Nadeau, Imagine 2200 (Grist)

“Mothership Comes to the Heart of the Ocean" by Gu Shi, translated by Ken Liu, Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures, edited by Joey Eschrich and Ed Finn (MIT Press) 

“Mustard Seed” by James Longine Yu, Tractor Beam

“New Niches” by Jacqueline Roberti, Reckoning

“On the Effects and Efficiency of Birdsong: A Meta-Analysis” by F.T. Berner, Diabolical Plots

“Order of the Soil” by Tara Labovich, Tractor Beam

“Our Continuity, Each of Us Raindrops” by Parker M. O’Neill, Imagine 2200 (Grist)

“Outlier” by R.L. Meza, Clarkesworld

“Rules for Seeking Angels” by L.B. Waltz, BOREAL: An Anthology of Taiga Horror, edited by Katherine Silva (Strange Wilds Press)

“Rust” by David D. Levine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact

“The Barrens” by Octavia Cade, Three-Lobed Burning Eye

“The Blaze of Abadan” by Naseem Jamnia, Iran+100: Stories from a Century After the Coup edited by Fereshteh Ahmadi, Leila Elder & Peter Adrian Behravesh (Comma Press)

“The Brave Sister Antigone, But With Spiders” by Syr Hayati Beker, What a Fish Looks Like (Stelliform Press)

“The Endstate of History” by Bernie Jean Schiebeling, The Commuter, Electric Literature

“The God of Rust” by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, Weird Horror Magazine*

“The Iceberg” by Michael Capobianco, Analog

“The Last Two Gardeners of Mars” by Irene W. Collins, Heartlines Spec

“The Oneiromantic Sheep” by F.B. Hughes, Radon Journal

“The Piano Player Has Eight Arms” by Íde Hennessy, Reckoning

“Truth or Consequences” by N.M. William Hawkins, Tractor Beam

“We Used to Wake to Song” by Leah Ning, Apex Magazine

“Weep When You See Me” by Parker M. O'Neill, Rescuing Curiosity

“We Will Not Dream of Coral” by Mário Coelho, Reckoning

“Wheel Dog” by Parker M. O'Neill, Tractor Beam

“When the Fox-Bells Ring” by Ally Wilkes, The Earth Bleeds At Night, edited by Holley Cornetto (Eerie River Press)

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ECO: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction panel of Judges

R.L. Summerling (she/her) is a part-time fiction writer and full-time squirrel watcher from Southeast London. She has fiction in the Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, Volume 5, Interzone, Maudlin House, and Seize the Press. You can find her at www.rlsummerling.com..

Guan Un is an Australian-Chinese writer of speculative fiction based in Sydney. His work has been featured in LeVar Burton Reads, Year’s Best Fantasy Vol 2, Strange Horizons and more. He works as a freelance editor and has now read so much ecofic, his eyeballs are growing slightly mossy. You can find him at @thisisguan.bsky.social or guanun.com.

Alana Perrin is originally from Los Angeles but now drifts from city to city across the US, somewhat like a haint. You can find her hiking with her dog or reading with her cat. She is a slush reader for Apex Magazine.

Colton Kekoa Neves is a gay, Native Hawaiian author who once believed his toy chest could fly him to new worlds and has been chasing that high ever since. By day he’s been a startup entrepreneur, tour guide, bank teller, caregiver, and game designer. By night he’s probably playing too much Magic the Gathering. In between, he writes. Colton is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, class of 2024. He braves the winters in Cambridge, MA with his husband and their monstress-turned-kitty Amelia. Say aloha on Twitter @coltontheshaper.

Ende Mac (any pronouns) is a public defense attorney and slipstream author somewhere out in the Great Plains. You can find them at endewriting.wordpress.com or at their stuffed possum’s Instagram page, @ronanthepossum.

Sasha Brown is a Stoker-nominated author whose work has been called “Creative! But in a bad way.” He’s in lit mags like Passages North and Split Lip, and in genre pubs like Bourbon Penn and Pseudopod. He knows three cool facts about frogs. He’s sashabrown on bsky and sashabrownwriter.com online.

Nichole Lightner is a weird writer and editor living in Ohio. She's teasing out dark hymns from broken records when everyone in the house finally goes to sleep. She would love to talk to you about your niche hyperfocus, especially if it's about abandoned places, ARGs or lost media. She would love to see pictures of your pets. She is the managing editor for Violet Lichen, an imprint of Apex Book Company. You can find more of her work in Maudlin House, 34 Orchard, Inner Worlds, and forthcoming in Cast of Wonders. She lurks at @nicholeon.bsky.social and nichole-l-lightner.neocities.org 

Marissa van Uden grew up in New Zealand, lived in Germany and Los Angles for many years, and now resides in Vermont, in a little cabin in the woods next to a beaver pond. She is the series editor of ECO: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction and the Strange Microfiction anthologies (Apex Mag), and the editor of The Off-Season: An Anthology of Coastal New Weird. Her short stories have appeared in Vastarian Literary Journal, Dark Matter Magazine, Zero Dark Thirty, and Los Suelos. She loves wild things, night hikes, and eerie forests. You can sometimes find her at @marissavu.bsky.social‬ or IG (@marissa.vu and @violetlichenbooks).

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ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction

Want to check out last year’s volume, ECO24? Pick up your copy at Apex Book Company or wherever good books are sold. Retailers, booksellers and librarians: you can order these titles through our distributor IPG at orders@ipgbooks.com.

Praise for ECO24:

"A triumph. 23 stellar tales offering creative and varied takes on the book's themes. Every entry is equal parts thought-provoking, insightful, and impactful."
—Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"The diversity of stories reflects the diversity of the authors and also showcases the indefinable quality of ecofiction. As a whole, the collection challenges our definitions of nature and forces the reader to consider different perspectives."
—Ben Lockwood Ph.D., ecologist and publisher of the Brief Ecology website

"The collection is a strong offering from Violet Lichen that helps showcase what the press and its mission is all about. ECO24 is, in essence, a collection that is more than the sum of its parts.”
—Paul Weimer, reviewer at Nerds of a Feather, blogger, podcaster, and two-time Hugo Award Winner for Fan Writer and Fanzine (Editor)

"A prescient anthology... The stories range from haunting and poetic to visceral and speculative, offering a rich snapshot of how contemporary fiction grapples with themes of habitat, grief, resilience, and hope."
—Mary Woodbury, author, editor and founder of Dragonfly.eco

*Correction: “The God of Rust” was misattributed in the original announcement. The story was written by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece

Violet Lichen Books is excited to announce the acquisition of THEY CALL THE PLACE WILD by Rae Mariz. Pitched as Richard Powers’ THE OVERSTORY meets the Brothers Grimm and Slavic folklore, this novella is a lush dark fantasy about the stories we’re told and the stories we make for ourselves.

This gorgeous novella is a magical blend of the supernatural and the mundane, the beautiful and the weird. Ivy’s prose has a way of drawing you into her truly memorable characters, and the story constantly surprises, shifting seamlessly between weird and creepy to funny and surreal. 

BOOK LAUNCH EVENT

Join the book-release party this evening, Wednesday, Mar 25 from 8 pm to 9 pm EDT! The Cellar Below The Cellar | A Fabled Book Launch is a free, online launch event featuring an exclusive interview with the author, a live reading from the book, a Q&A session, and book giveaways. 

Ivy Grimes will be joined by special quests Christi Nogle, author of Bram Stoker Award® winning novel Beulah; T.J. Price, author of The Disappearance of Tom Nero; and Sasha Brown, prolific author of surreal and weird short fiction. 

The event is hosted by the horror community's beloved P.L. McMillan, author of What Remains When The Stars Burn Out and Sisters of the Crimson Vine, and cohost of The Dead Languages Podcast. Sign up here.

ABOUT THE CELLAR BELOW THE CELLAR

Here are a few things that trade reviews and early reviewers have said about the book:

“Grimes conjures a world that is simultaneously vast, mysterious, and fully lived in, replete with idiosyncratic folk horror elements. … Kelly Link fans won’t want to miss this.” 
—Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Trust me when I say the folk horror community needs this book."
—Sadie Hartmann, the Bram Stoker Awards® winning author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered

"Ivy Grimes has a one-of-a-kind voice and is at her best here!"
—Christi Nogle, author of the Bram Stoker Award® winning novel, Beulah

“A unique twist on a post-apocalyptic story."
— Joseph Pietris, editor and reviewer at The Horror Tree

"Spectacular and idiosyncratic in all the ways masterful works of fiction are.”
—RSL, author and reviewer at The Fantasy Hive

"Like a vintage, delicate, and beautiful fairy tale. ... Definitely on my favorites list."
—P.L. McMillan, author of Sisters of the Crimson Vine and cohost of the Dead Languages Podcast

This beautiful cover art is by Jack Hillside with cover design by Mikio Murakami at SilentQDesign.

BACK COVER DESCRIPTION

A playfully dark folk horror inspired by the fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful" and the mythology around Frau Perchta, set under the blazing sky of endless auroras.

When a wild solar storm wipes out all electronics and traps Jane at her grandmother's house in the woods, she is forced to start a new life off-grid as part of a small, isolated community.

However, there is something very strange about her new neighbors, and the longer she lives under the eerie glow of the auroras, the more she feels her grandmother may be hiding unsettling secrets.

To have any hope in her new world, Jane must find the courage to step into her power and claim her identity, but that would mean facing whatever hides in the cellar below the cellar—a place that seems to be waiting for her.

Full of delightfully weird surprises and off-kilter characters, this adult coming-of-age story explores themes of female empowerment, spirituality, identity, and community. For fans of Kelly Link, Karen Russell, Otessa Moshfegh, and Leonora Carrington.

This title is distributed through Independent Publishers Group. Retailers, if you are interested in stocking this title, please reach out to IPG at orders@ipgbooks.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ivy Grimes is originally from Birmingham, Alabama and currently lives in Virginia. She has an MFA from the University of Alabama. Her stories have appeared in The Baffler, Vastarien, hex, Maudlin House, ergot., Potomac Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the collection Glass Stories (Grimscribe Press) and The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion (Cemetery Gates). To learn more, please visit www.ivyivyivyivy.com. 

BUY YOUR COPY TODAY!

You can order a copy of this novella at the below online booksellers or anywhere good books are sold.

Violet Lichen / Apex Book Company

Bookshop.org

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

Amazon

Or support your community bookstore and buy locally! 

BOOKSELLERS & LIBRARIANS

Interested in stocking Cellar Below the Cellar or other Violet Lichen titles? Our books are distributed through Independent Publishers Group. Reach out to IPG at orders@ipgbooks.com.

ISBN 9781955765411

MSRP paperback: $18.95

MSRP ebook: $9.99

Page Count: 180

Trim: 8.5 x 5.5

Rights: U.S. UK, Australia, New Zealand & Canada

Distributor: Independent Publishers Group

The always talented Marcela Bolívar created this amazing cover art, which was actually an alternative cover to the original design for Plague Birds!

The cover was designed by our favorite graphic-design magician Mikio Murakami of Silent Q Design, whose is always game for any challenge and creates incredible work.

Want to see this spectacular reissue gracing your shelves, so you can dive in and explore the world of the plague birds once more?

Preorder your copy now at the Apex Book Company bookshop with 30% off the cover price!

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Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition

Book Release: June 30th, 2026!

Finalist for the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award! 

Return to Jason Sanford's dark sci-fi world in Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition, newly updated and with an additional afterword and short story, "Little Fathers of Darkness," originally published in Robotic Ambitions: Tales of Mechanical Sentience. 

Glowing red lines split their faces. Shock-red hair and clothes warn people to flee their approach. They are plague birds, the powerful merging of humans and artificial intelligences who serve as judges and executioners after the collapse of civilization. And the plague birds' judgment is swift and deadly, as Crista discovered as a child when she watched one kill her mother.

In a world of gene-modded humans constantly watched over by benevolent AIs, everyone hates and fears the plague birds. But to save her father and home village, Crista becomes the very creature she fears the most. And her first task as a plague bird is hunting down an ancient group of murderers wielding magic-like powers.

As Crista and her AI symbiote travel farther from home than she ever imagined, they are plunged into a strange world where she judges wrongdoers, befriends other outcasts, and uncovers an extremely personal conspiracy that threatens the lives of millions.

Plague Birds is a genre-bending mix of science fiction and dark fantasy and the epic story of a young woman who becomes one of the future's most hated creatures, with a killer AI bonded to her very blood.

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Darian Bianco: Think back on the world in 2021, when Plague Birds first came out. What were the big issues and hot topics of the time? What was the state of the publishing industry? How did these factors affect the timeliness of Plague Birds upon release?

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"You Must Needs Be Strangers"

By Conor Barnes

The ship is burning like the last gasp of sun on the horizon, but it's here, striking here, faster than the earth can spin you away, screaming above all air, in a few minutes it will crash into the deep swamp behind your house and kill all the half-innocent beavers and squirrels and ticks, it's only minutes before you'll forget these creatures forever because there's a disoriented beast crawling out of its ship, flashing between a moose, your own twin, a child, and in between all these, a paper-thin glow with no face at all, and then finally a man, the kind you find pitiable, tall and gangly, crying, "Please, you have to help me, please, they'll kill me," and it's easy, it's so easy to hide him in your bed while local police and then federal police and then nameless police scrounge every inch of your land, because it's not hiding, it's your lover, it's your lover who knows what you want before you say it, who kisses you everywhere you've been too ashamed to ask, and it doesn't matter that he stares at the stars and cries, it doesn't matter that he hides under the covers when he hears sirens, because it's your husband, pushing through the clouds in a little plane with you in the passenger seat laughing and shrieking until there isn't enough air to push through anymore, it's your husband apologising to the swamp for his entry, and in a few years the government will declare it suspects hundreds of aliens live among us, but it doesn't matter, because around the world people will say there's no crime for being scared, and gentle, and kind, and that's later, right now there's just a dot on the horizon that hasn't yet shattered your world.

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Conor Barnes lives in Halifax, Canada. His fiction has appeared in Potato Soup Journal, Apple Valley Review, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. His poetry has appeared in Frogpond and Modern Haiku. He blogs at parhelia.substack.com.

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"The Salt of You on My Tongue"

By Adrian Ward

The remainder of you have learned to hide, finding the corners of the starliner that I rarely see, but the Palatinate will arrive within days, and I am more determined than you are. I remind you of this as I stalk the kitchen, as I have been reminding you since the Palatinate first sent notification that the starliner's systems alerted them to your presence, but still you refuse to show your remaining selves.

"This is our [only] option," I say. My universal translator is imperfect, so perhaps my words are lost, but still—

A rustle, in the cabinet.

I throw open the door, and there you are: three of you, your beautiful pink zooids crammed into the corner.

"It's for the [best]," I say, and reach out.

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The translator could not pass on the nuances of [collect] and [specimen] and [scientific value], so you could not understand my panic.

It failed to translate [chronic] and [cost of treatment] and [debt-derived indenture], so perhaps you could never understand me, either.

#

In a flash I have you in hand. Your zooids struggle, but I am more determined than you are, and before you can slip free I cram you between my teeth and bite down.

The Palatinate will not have you. There will be no first meeting with mankind. I will find all of you, and take you into myself, and the substance of your life will meet the substance of mine until there is nothing left of yours except for memory.

-Could your kind ever [love] a colony organism? you once asked me, and with the salt of you on my tongue I am sure of the answer, because what could this be if not [love]?

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Adrian Ward is a student and writer originally from North Carolina. His fiction has appeared in publications including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Small Wonders, and previously with Apex. Ward can be found online at adrianwardwrites.wordpress.com and on Bluesky @adrianwardwrites.

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"Let's Give You a Brother Today"

By Corinne Hughes

Katherine waited in the prison lobby beneath fluorescent lights and a red sign listing the rules: All visits must be pre-scheduled. No exceptions.

She had mailed Drew postcards for months—Nebraska sunsets, cornfields. A single line on each: Let me visit.

The charges against him were written in careful legal language—first-degree homicide, first-degree sexual assault.

When the door opened to the visiting room, Drew was already there at a metal table, flexing his fingers slowly, watching the skin stretch over the bones as if the movement might surprise him.

When she was five years old, she woke in the night to a bright light outside her window. A metal craft hovered over the yard. A small figure stepped onto the grass.

By morning, she had a little brother. Everyone remembered Drew as if he had always been there. Everyone but her.

Katherine sat across from him. She had asked for contact visitation instead of glass. She needed to see him closely.

Drew's left eyelid drooped slightly, like their father's. His front tooth crowded its neighbor the way it had after it grew back in. Freckles scattered across his cheeks like tiny constellations.

Yes. Human.

Drew had always been curious about what a body could do. Once he jumped from a quarry cliff just to learn how much pain a body could hold. He broke both ankles.

Drew opened a bag of Doritos and studied the triangular chip before biting it. Orange dust coated his fingers. He licked them thoughtfully.

"Still watching me," he said.

Katherine leaned closer across the metal table.

She strained to hear a heartbeat.

She wasn't sure which answer frightened her more—

whether the heartbeat meant he was human,

or that he had finally learned how to be one.

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Corinne Hughes is a writer based in Austin, Texas. Her work blends speculative fiction, poetry, and ecological observation, often exploring the uneasy boundary between human and nonhuman worlds. Her fiction appears in On the Run Fiction, and she is a recipient of the Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant. Her poetry appears in the 2025 Dwarf Stars Award Anthology, StarLine*, Scifaikuest, The Cozy Cosmic, and the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase.

Apex Book Company has published award-winning titles such as Plague Birds by Jason Sanford (Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award Finalist), Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon (Philip K. Dick Award Finalist), and Weird horror cult hit Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt.

Brian Keene is the author of over fifty books and three-hundred short stories—mostly horror, crime, fantasy, and nonfiction. They have been translated into over a dozen languages and have won numerous awards. His 2003 novel, The Rising, is credited with inspiring pop culture's recurrent interest in zombies. He has also written for such media properties as Doctor Who, Thor, Aliens, Harley Quinn, The X-Files, Doom Patrol, Justice League, Hellboy, Superman, and Masters of the Universe. He was the showrunner for Realm Media and Blackbox TV's Silverwood: The Door.

We would like you to write a hypothetical meeting between humanity and a form of alien life. It can be from the human's perspective, the alien's perspective, whatever you want! Write a fantasy, sci-fi, or horror microfiction piece up to 300 words. 

Email the piece to darian@apexbookcompany.com. The top three will be voted on among Apex staff, and the winners will be published on the Apex blog, as well as sent an ARC of Multitude and a keychain! Contest closes on March 9th. 

Return to Jason Sanford's dark sci-fi world with a newly-edited version, including an additional short story and afterword. Sink back into the dangers and thrills of the plague birds, and refresh yourself before the sequel comes out this October!

This novel releases on June 30th, 2026, but you can grab your copy now from our Apex catalog with a special preorder discount of 30% off both the paperback and ebook editions.

For booksellers and reviewers, information for ordering ARCs or wholesale copies for your bookstore can be found below.

DESCRIPTION: Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition by Jason Sanford

Finalist for the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award! 

Return to Jason Sanford's dark sci-fi world in Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition, newly-edited and with a new short story, "Little Fathers of Darkness," originally published in Robotic Ambitions: Tales of Mechanical Sentience. 

Glowing red lines split their faces. Shock-red hair and clothes warn people to flee their approach. They are plague birds, the powerful merging of humans and artificial intelligences who serve as judges and executioners after the collapse of civilization. And the plague birds' judgment is swift and deadly, as Crista discovered as a child when she watched one kill her mother.

In a world of gene-modded humans constantly watched over by benevolent AIs, everyone hates and fears the plague birds. But to save her father and home village, Crista becomes the very creature she fears the most. And her first task as a plague bird is hunting down an ancient group of murderers wielding magic-like powers.

As Crista and her AI symbiote travel farther from home than she ever imagined, they are plunged into a strange world where she judges wrongdoers, befriends other outcasts, and uncovers an extremely personal conspiracy that threatens the lives of millions.

Plague Birds is a genre-bending mix of science fiction and dark fantasy and the epic story of a young woman who becomes one of the future's most hated creatures, with a killer AI bonded to her very blood.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Sanford is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who’s also a passionate advocate for fellow authors, creators, and fans, in particular through reporting in his Genre Grapevine column (for which he's been a finalist multiple times for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer). He’s also published dozens of stories in magazines such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Interzone, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies along with appearances in various “year’s best” anthologies and The New Voices of Science Fiction. His first novel Plague Birds was a finalist for both the 2022 Nebula Award and the 2022 Philip K. Dick Award. Born and raised in the American South, Jason’s previous experience includes work as an archaeologist, journalist and a Peace Corps Volunteer. His website is www.jasonsanford.com.

Support indie authors and indie publishers, and order your copy today!

REVIEWERS:

Are you a reviewer who would like ARC of this title? Please email Darian Bianco at darian@apexbookcompany.com for more info!

BOOKSELLERS:

Interested in ordering copies for your store?

Contact our distributor at IPG orders: orders@ipgbooks.com

ISBN: 9781955765992

MSRP paperback: $19.95

MSRP ebook: $9.99

Page Count: 366

Trim: 9 x 6

Rights: U.S. & Canada 

Distributor: Independent Publishers Group

PREORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

This hopeful and very human story moves between multiple POVs, from cephalopod aliens to people who could be your neighbors, and follows how humanity and aliens alike adapt to finding a new intelligent species in the universe. Will there be peace, or will there be war?

This novella releases on April 28th, 2026, but you can grab your copy now from our Apex catalog with a special preorder discount of 30% off both the paperback and ebook editions.

Also, a paperback preorder exclusive: all paperback preorders will come with cephalopod-themed keychains!

For booksellers and reviewers, information for ordering ARCs or wholesale copies for your bookstore can be found below.

DESCRIPTION: Multitude by Marie Vibbert

We float to the surface, and we see that there is more to the world than the ocean. We see stars.

Then one day, we hear a song from far away.

It could be nothing, a new dance of energies made by stars muttering to themselves... but it could be everything. We pull tight to your direction in the hope that the universe may gift us a conversation. A banquet.

In Australia, a SETI Technician asks her colleague, "A fake from 44 parsecs?"

In Nevada, a soldier flinches as unidentified craft fly overhead.

In Beirut, a mathematician pets her cat and thinks about language.

We are coming. For the hospice orderly with open arms, the seamstress in her alleyway shop, the lawyer angry at her neighbor's sloppy garden. For you are many, and cannot speak as one.

And yet we see you communicate without words. We see you organize and build.

We see you killing us. 

For fans of Ray Nayler, Ann Leckie, and Martin MacInnes, follow the hivemind of cephalopod aliens and explore the power of language, community, and hope.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marie Vibbert is a Hugo- and Nebula nominated author, with short fiction that has appeared over 100 times in top magazines like Nature, Analog, and Clarkesworld, and has been translated into Czech, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was longlisted by the British Science Fiction Award, and her work has been called "everything science fiction should be" by the Oxford Culture Review. She is the editor of the 2026 Triangulation anthology, Bad Romance. She also writes poetry, comics, and computer games. By day, she is a computer programmer in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Support indie authors and indie publishers, and order your copy today!

REVIEWERS:

Are you a reviewer who would like ARC of this title? Please email Darian Bianco at darian@apexbookcompany.com for more info!

BOOKSELLERS:

Interested in ordering copies for your store?

Contact our distributor at IPG orders: orders@ipgbooks.com

ISBN: 9781955765497

MSRP paperback: $18.95

MSRP ebook: $9.99

Page Count: 150

Trim: 8.5 x 5.5

Rights: U.S. & Canada 

Distributor: Independent Publishers Group

PREORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

Eligible stories are between 990 and 7,500 words and were published for the first time in English in 2025.

Read the full guidelines here: https://apexbookcompany.moksha.io/publication/apex-book-company/guidelines

Submission portal: https://apexbookcompany.moksha.io/publication/apex-book-company/violet-lichen-books-eco25/submit

Please note that as this is a best-of anthology where stories may receive multiple nominations, no rejections or other responses will be sent. Finalists will be notified at the end of judging in Q2 2026.

The nominations window closes on January 31, 2026.

Send us your best published ecofiction. We look forward to reading your stories!

About ECO24

A must-read annual showcase of the best nature-based science fiction and fantasy short stories published around the world every year.

Featuring works by rising stars and established names, this anthology is an exploration of humanity’s deep relationships with other species and of our communal fears, grief, and passion as we try to protect our natural world—all told through the lens of the fantastic.

Speculative ecofiction has a long history, but ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction is the first-ever anthology series to showcase the best of the genre published each year.

Ranging from literary science fiction and magical realism to dark fantasy and climate fiction, the stories form a unique snapshot of how some of the most brilliant and imaginative authors writing today are engaging with this extraordinary time in Earth’s natural history.

The inaugural edition, selected by award-winning editor and anthologist Marissa van Uden and a team of passionate ecofiction judges, features works by Eugen Bacon, E. Catherine Tobler, Hiron Ennes, K-Ming Chang, Kay Vaindal, Kelsea Yu, Renan Bernardo, and many other brilliant authors.

Praise for ECO24

"A triumph. 23 stellar tales offering creative and varied takes on the book's themes. Every entry is equal parts thought-provoking, insightful, and impactful."
—Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Each author offers us a unique ecological niche to reveal what our present and future could be, ranging from wrenching disasters to elating possibilities of recovery. These stories are personal and lyrical, and the breadth of imagination and styles make this anthology dazzling. Every story is a gem."
—Sue Burke, author of the Semiosis Series

"I did not realize that there is enough sci-fi and horror fiction on the theme of ecology to fill a year's best anthology, but it is better than that. ECO24 is filled to the brim with powerful and entertaining stories. Speculative fiction is uniquely positioned to explore the nature of our fragile relationship to the only planet in the cosmos that we depend on for life. … A must read."
—David Agranoff, author of The Last Night to Kill Nazis and cohost of The (Philip K. Dick) Dickheads Podcast

Buy your copy now: ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction

Founded in 2024, Violet Lichen Books is the sister imprint of Apex Book Company. Violent Lichen was created by Marissa van Uden to give a home to those dark, literary, weird novellas that might be a little outside of the norm. The imprint focuses on speculative ecofiction, Weird and New Weird, and moody science fiction with uniquely memorable characters. Violet Lichen is also home to ECO: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction, the first ever annual anthology to showcase the best nature-based science fiction and fantasy published across hundreds of magazines, journals, and collections every year. Follow the imprint on Instagram at @VioletLichenBooks.

Apex Book Company has distribution via Independent Publishers Group, and has published award-winning titles such as Plague Birds by Jason Sanford (Nebula Award Finalist for Best Novel and Philip K. Dick Award Finalist), Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon (Philip K. Dick Award finalist 2023), and Weird horror cult hit Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt.

Marie Vibbert is a Hugo- and Nebula nominated author whose short fiction has appeared over one-hundred times in top magazines like Nature, Analog, and Clarkesworld, and has been translated into Czech, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was longlisted by the British Science Fiction Award, and her work has been called "everything science fiction should be" by the Oxford Culture Review. She also writes poetry, comics, and computer games. By day, she is a computer programmer in Cleveland, Ohio. Learn more at her website, marievibbert.com.

This darkly funny, atmospheric folk horror is set in a small, isolated community in the woods and is full of unique and memorable characters, from the delightfully earnest narrator Jane and her mischievous grandmother, to a cheerful pastor with a bizarre obsession, some very peculiar neighbors, and two unsettling dolls.

The novella releases on February 18th, 2026, but you can grab your copy now from our Apex catalog with a special preorder discount of 30% off both the paperback and ebook editions. 

For booksellers and reviewers, information for ordering ARCs or wholesale copies for your bookstore can be found below.

DESCRIPTION: The Cellar Below the Cellar by Ivy Grimes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ivy Grimes is originally from Birmingham, Alabama and currently lives in Virginia. She has an MFA from the University of Alabama. Her stories have appeared in The Baffler, Vastarien, hex, Maudlin House, ergot., Potomac Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the collection Glass Stories (Grimscribe Press) and The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion (Cemetery Gates). To learn more, please visit www.ivyivyivyivy.com.

Support indie authors and indie publishers, and order your copy today!

REVIEWERS:

Are you a reviewer who would like an ARC of this title or other Violet Lichen titles? Please fill out this form or scan the QR code below, and we'll add you to our reviewer list!

BOOKSELLERS:

Interested in ordering copies for your store?

Contact our distributor at IPG orders: orders@ipgbooks.com

ISBN: 9781955765411

MSRP paperback: $18.95

MSRP ebook: $9.99

Page Count: 180

Trim: 8.5 x 5.5

Rights: U.S. & Canada

Distributor: Independent Publishers Group

PREORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

Violet Lichen is open to queries until Oct 31! We are seeking works in the following genres: speculative ecofiction, folk horror, Weird fiction, New Weird, and surreal / literary science fiction. 

We especially love atmospheric and thought-provoking novellas that intertwine a fascination of the natural world with horror and dread, and those that explore how we interconnect with our communities, other species, and whole ecosystems. We love weird fiction that unsettles, expands perspectives, and plays with bending reality, traditions, or tropes. 

Review the Submissions Guidelines for more information!

Your query package can be submitted via Query Manager before midnight Oct 31. Please include the following:

• A one-paragraph pitch.
• The synopsis: Ideally, 1 to 2 pages. Please include spoilers: this synopsis reveals all the important elements of your story in order.
• The first 30 pages If reaching the end of a chapter takes you a little over 30 pages, that’s okay. Don’t sweat it, because we won’t. :)
• Include your comps and ideal readers/target audience. (Optional. If you aren’t sure, leave these areas blank.)
• Cover letter: A more personal introduction to the story. Include anything you’d like to share about yourself, why you wrote the book, or what inspired it.

Violet Lichen titles are distributed by Independent Publishers Group.

If your novella would also be suited for Apex Book Company, please query only one or the other imprint at any one time - whichever seems best suited for your work. A no from one is not a rejection from the other; if one imprint passes, you can still query the other.

Keep an eye on our social media and newsletter for announcements on future open windows!

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"Angels in the Forest"

By Jessica Sirkin

There are angels growing in the forest. Marianne passes them every day on the way home from school. They grow on the trees with wings like white petals and shining green halos like the portraits of saints that hang beside her bed. Their legs are long and curved and white and they sing to her in voices like windchimes and breaking branches.

She tries to show them to her mother who takes her to the library to look up pictures of flowers. She finds the white orchids and points to them. "They're not angels, kiddo. They're ghost orchids." Then she says, "That's funny. Ghost orchids don't grow in New England." Marianne shakes her head. They don't look anything like ghosts. They look like angels. 

At church, Father Mckenzie gives a sermon on angels. He talks about the war in heaven and she imagines her angels fighting, thronging the air above her on white petal-wings. Father Mckenzie tells the story of the angel that came to the Virgin Mary and announced that she would birth the savior. She pictures her flower petal angels hovering above her bed whispering in their broken branch voices. Their green halos shine bright behind them as they spread their wings.

The angels in the forest sing to her of their war among the stars, their long journey down to Earth to meet her. They tell her that she will save them. Their child will grow inside her belly; its long stem will burst out from inside her as it spreads its beautiful wings. 

Behind the angels long green stems grow in a tangled knot. All she has to do is eat one. Marianne thinks of the peaceful face of the Virgin Mary by her bed, her beautiful golden halo. She opens her mouth for communion.

#

Jessica Sirkin is a Boston-based roleplaying game and cybersecurity writer. She has been writing speculative fiction since she read Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" in seventh grade. Her short fiction has appeared in various publications, including Apex Magazine. She is currently working on a novel.

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"Late Bloomer"

By Nuno Gonçalves

There's still so much food left. I'm ashamed to tell you how much I've been eating lately. My skin is stretching over fat in places I never thought could swell so much.

But it will be worth it.

They've stopped cremating the dead. The bodies have just been piled in open holes. I'm having nightmares about the day the holes are full and the corpses overflow.

When the sun is high, the rotten fumes tinge the air orange. It can be pretty sometimes.

I just brought water, a knife, your ashes, and the seeds with me. The swamp is always hot and humid, but there's shadow at least. It's hard to breathe, maybe due to the excitement.

I take off my trousers and sit on the damp soil. My thigh... Eve, you wouldn't believe the size of my thigh! I trace a line with the tip of the knife. It doesn't hurt a bit. Nothing hurts anymore. I cut deep on my inner thigh, following the line, and open a nice pocket lined with blobs of fat.

I fill it with soil, your ashes, and the seeds, then cover it with more soil and tap it flat, as Mom used to do. Should we have listened to her? But run away to where? There's nothing left, is there?

I lie down. It's quite comfortable, you know? I won't need to eat for a couple of weeks. I have plenty of water.

It takes two days for the first flower to bloom. It happened in the middle of the night. You bloomed with a pop. It was like a star turning on in the darkness. You bloomed in my direction, so wide, with such a grinning happiness that you never had before.

I smile back.

#

Nuno Gonçalves was born in Viana do Casetlo, Portugal, in 1985. He is currently an opthalmologist at the Hospital de Faro. He has published short stories in several Portuguese anthologies. In 2022, his first novel, O Pacto, won the António de Macedo Award. The same novel also earned him the Grande Prémio Adamastor de Literatura Fantástica Portuguesa in 2024. In 2025, he published a short story collection, ... e, felizmenta, não viveram para sempre and his novella, Reflorestação, won the X Prémio Anton Risco.

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"One Last Resort on Station Ciel-13"

By Nadine Aurora Tabing

She'd run the gauntlet of pills, herbs, diets, therapies physical and emotional and electric. Finally, eighty-four studies later, Patient S—the only first-gen individual still cited in post-Earth human growth studies—had one experimental treatment left.

"It's painful," the researcher warned. "Maybe more than what you feel all the time."

"That's the point, right?" She gazed out the station window. Earth was floating by again, an endless spray of brown debris barnacled by skyscrapers, cratered by asteroid rubble.

"I hated these as a kid," he continued. "Always on my lola's gardenias. Can't believe this is one of the insects we saved."

The researched uncupped a gloved hand to reveal: a caterpillar, crowned with spikes. It crept, unbothered by the artificial gravity that was supposedly to blame for her muscles developing no stronger than a breakfast wafer. A bug could handle what her body couldn't; she needed a world that didn't exist anymore, a world she only knew from books. 

Time to get this venom therapy or whatever over with. Cringing, she raised her forearm one... Three... Five inches, to meet the caterpillar's spikes.

She screamed. The researcher yanked the caterpillar back.

"No!" She cried. "Wait—"

The—pain—

She expected simple torment: stinging, stabbing. Instead, pain gnashed like fire, overwhelmed her paltry muscular agonies. An archipelago of welts bloomed. To show the researcher, she raised her forearm, one...

Five...

Ten inches.

And held it, steady.

"Serena," the researcher gasped.

She wasn't listening. The pain surged, throbbing, to her head. Eyes shut, she saw—not the station's beiges and blue lights—but an afternoon green and gold. Sunlit insects hummed past, not on dusty air, but flower-fragrant breezes.

It hurt.

That's how it would have been—wouldn't it? Crouched in soil—reaching for a gardenia, easy—grasping a rich palmful of venom. 

Serena opened her eyes. With her other hand, she reached.

#

Nadine Aurora Tabing is a writer, artist, and shiba inu enthusiast whose short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Reckoning, Flash Fiction Online, Worlds of Possibility, and others. Her writing has been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She can be found online at suchnadine.com.

Apex Book Company has distribution via Independent Publishers Group, and has published award-winning titles such as Plague Birds by Jason Sanford (Nebula Award Finalist for Best Novel and Philip K. Dick Award Finalist), Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon (Philip K. Dick Award finalist 2023), and Weird horror cult hit Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt.

Jason Sanford is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who’s also a passionate advocate for fellow authors, creators, and fans, in particular through reporting in his Genre Grapevine column (for which he’s been a finalist multiple times for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer). He’s also published dozens of stories in magazines such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Interzone, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, along with appearances in various “year’s best” anthologies and The New Voices of Science Fiction. His first novel, Plague Birds, was a finalist for both the 2022 Nebula Award and the 2022 Philip K. Dick Award. Born and raised in the American South, Jason’s previous experience includes work as an archaeologist, journalist, and a Peace Corps Volunteer. His website is www.jasonsanford.com.

We've also opened to short fiction submissions again! Check out our submission guidelines and send us your best dark speculative fiction.

Are you ready to fund another year of strange, surreal, shocking and beautiful dark fiction?

Our Kickstarter goal this year is $20,000 which will fully fund four issues. Then, through stretch goals, we hope to unlock issue five and six so Apex can resume a bi-monthly publishing schedule.

To help us reach this goal, editor-in-chief Lesley Conner and managing editor Rebecca E. Treasure have set up some really cool milestone celebrations, including live readings of past stories, early access to stories coming out in 2026, and so much more!

Once we've hit our initial funding goal, we have lots of amazing stretch goals to keep the fun going.

At $22,500, Kai Delmas will be back with a drabble submission period. He will select three drabbles to be published in Apex Magazine in 2026.

At $25,000, we unlock a fifth issue of Apex Magazine! This will be an unpublished authors issue with a special submission period. For this issue, managing editor Rebecca E. Treasure will be stepping up into the chief editor position, running the submission period and selecting all of the short fiction to be published in the fifth issue of 2026.

At $30,000, all six issues of 2026 will be fully funded!

At $31,000, Marissa van Uden will be back with a new installment in her Strange micro-fiction anthology series. Strange Oceans: An Anthology of Dark Seafaring will be filled with stories in the shape of sea logs, coast guard notices, sat-phone messages, and more.

At $33,000, Apex will be able to raise the amount of short fiction in each issue. At the moment, each issue contains 20,000 words of original short fiction. If we hit this stretch goal, we can raise that to 24,000 words, bringing you more fantastic dark speculative fiction!

Anything that we raise above $34,000 will go to our amazing first readers. We have an exceptional team and we would love to be able to compensate them.

We have a lot of big dreams for Apex Magazine in 2026. Help those dreams come true, and back the Apex Magazine 2026 Kickstarter.

For Immediate Release 9/11/2025

Lexington, KY:  Apex Book Company and Violet Lichen Books are delighted to announce that Nichole Lightner is joining the team as Managing Editor of the Violet Lichen imprint.

Nichole is a horror writer and editor from Appalachia who has been the managing editor of The Drabblecast online speculative magazine for two years. As managing editor of Violet Lichen, Nichole will oversee production, marketing and distribution of the imprint’s titles and work closely with EiC Marissa van Uden on acquisitions. "I'm thrilled to bring my own filament symbiotically to the Violet Lichen's cortex," Nichole says.

Marissa van Uden says of Nichole: “Nichole is a beloved member of the horror and dark fiction writing community and a brilliant editor who cares about the authors she works with. She’ll bring a special spark to our team. I’m so looking forward to working closely with her on Violet Lichen’s future titles!”

***

NICHOLE LIGHTNER is a weird writer and editor, living in the edges of Appalachia. She's teasing out dark hymns from broken records when everyone in the house finally goes to sleep. She would love to talk to you about your niche hyperfocus, especially if it's about abandoned places, ARGs or lost media. She would love to see pictures of your pets. You can find more of her work in Maudlin House, 34 Orchard, Twin Pies Literary, Thirteen Podcast, and Inner Worlds. You can find her at @nicholeon (Instagram) or @nicholeon.bsky.social.

VIOLET LICHEN BOOKS (www.violetlichen.com) founded in 2024, is the sister imprint of Apex Book Company. Violent Lichen was created by Marissa van Uden to give a home to those dark, literary, weird books that might be a little outside of the norm. The imprint focuses on speculative ecofiction, Weird and New Weird, and moody science fiction with uniquely memorable characters. It is also the publisher of ECO: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction, the first ever annual best-of anthology for ecofiction.
IG: @violetlichenbooks.

APEX BOOK COMPANY (www.apexbookcompany.com) is a small press dedicated to publishing exemplary works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Owned and operated by Jason Sizemore, Apex publishes the thrice Hugo Award-nominated Apex Magazine. The Apex catalog contains books by genre luminaries such as Maurice Broaddus, Lavie Tidhar, and Cherie Priest. Apex is distributed by Independent Publishers Group.

Violet Lichen Books is thrilled to reveal the cover for the upcoming ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction. 

This stunning artwork was created by the wildly talented Marcela Bolívar, whose ethereal and surreal art blends the botanical weird and the hypnotizing mystery of nature in a way we knew was just perfect for this anthology. The spirit of the natural world lives and breathes through her artwork.

The cover was designed by our favorite graphic-design magician Mikio Murakami of Silent Q Design, whose incredible work always lifts our book covers to another level.

Want to see this gorgeous anthology on your shelf, and dive into some of the best speculative ecofiction published last year?

Preorder your copy now at the Apex Book Company bookshop with 30% off the cover price!

Join us in celebrating ecofiction and the authors writing in this vibrant and eclectic genre.

_____________________________________________________________________________

ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction

Book Release: November 18th, 2025!

A must-read annual showcase of the best nature-based science fiction and fantasy short stories published around the world every year.

Featuring works by rising stars and established names, this anthology is an exploration of humanity's deep relationships with other species and of our communal fears, grief, and passion as we try to protect our natural world—all told through the lens of the fantastic.

Speculative ecofiction has a long history, but ECO: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction is the first-ever anthology series to showcase the best of the genre published each year.

Ranging from literary science fiction and magical realism to dark fantasy and climate fiction, the stories form a unique snapshot of how some of the most brilliant and imaginative authors writing today are engaging with this extraordinary time in Earth's natural history.

The inaugural edition, selected by award-winning editor and anthologist Marissa van Uden and a team of passionate ecofiction judges, features works by Eugen Bacon, E. Catherine Tobler, Hiron Ennes, K-Ming Chang, Kay Vaindal, Kelsea Yu, Renan Bernardo, and many other brilliant authors. 

ECO24 Table of Contents

"In the Field"
Shelly Jones (The Future Fire Magazine)

"The Water Runner"
Eugen Bacon (Ecoceanic: Southern Flows, edited by Tarun K Saint and Francesco Verso)

"Ama's Jungle" 
K-Ming Chang (Orion Magazine)

"A Seder in Siberia" 
Louis Evans (Grist Magazine)

"Love, Scotland" 
E.M. Faulds (Nova Scotia: New Speculative Fiction from Scotland Vol 2, edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson)

"Our Best Selves"
Hiron Ennes (Weird Horror Magazine)

"The Ghost Tenders of Chornobyl"
Nika Murphy (Apex Magazine)

"Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris, '6'"
F.E. Choe (Clarkesworld Magazine)

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackened Husk of a Planet"
Adeline Wong (Strange Horizons)

"The Last Library"
Joshua Jones Lofflin (Astrolabe)

"Bodies"
Cat McMahan (Clarkesworld Magazine)

"Pig House"
Kay Vaindal (Seize the Press Magazine)

"The Plasticity of Being"
Renan Bernardo (Reactor Magazine)

"Batter and Pearl"
Steph Kwiatkowski (Diabolical Plots)

"Parasite's Grief"
Katharine Tyndall (Fatal Flaw)

"Skittering Within"
Kelsea Yu (Apparition Lit)

"To Drive the Cold Winter Away"
E. Catherine Tobler (Strange Horizons)

"One with the Ground"
Guillermo G. Mendoza (Reckoning 8, edited by Knar Gavin and Waverly SM)

"We the People Excluding I" 
Osahon Ize-Iyamu (Lightspeed Magazine)

"Father Time Dares You to Dream"
Trae Hawkins (New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention, edited by Chris Campbell)

"Birdseed"
Matthew Freeman (Through the Portal: Tales From a Hopeful Dystopia, edited by Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteau, published by Exile Editions)

"The Colonists"
Jennifer Hudak (Trollbreath Magazine)

"Mangrove Daughter"
E.M. Linden (Kaleidotrope)

 Take a picture of an Apex magazine or book that you own. It can be a selfie, a picture of the book against a majestic backdrop, a photo of your title with your pet, whatever you want! Once you've taken the picture, please email it to darian@apexbookcompany.com and explain what you love about your chosen Apex product. Three randomly selected winners will get free merch! 

This contest will close on Tuesday, August 26th. No further submissions will be accepted after that time. 

We can't wait to see your photography skills!

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We Who Hunt Alexanders by Jason Sanford

Found family, taking down the corrupt and evil, and a whole lot of teeth? Sign me up!

"By turns dark and deeply touching, We Who Hunt Alexanders is a tightly crafted rumination on fanaticism, monstrousness, and the power of community in a hostile world. With a fascinating new monster, a delightful supporting cast, and some epically bloody comeuppance, this is not one to miss." —Samantha Mills, author of The Wings Upon Her Back

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The Map of Lost Places edited by Sheree Renée Thomas & Lesley Conner

What better way to lose yourself in a story that to really, truly get lost?

"In The Map of Lost Places, Sheree Renée Thomas and Lesley Conner have mapped out a disturbingly unique trip into horror. Featuring stories from both classic authors and up-and-coming writers, this anthology rips apart familiar tropes to reveal terrifying new looks at our world that will shake readers to their core." —Jason Sanford, author of We Who Hunt Alexanders and Plague Birds, finalist for the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards

#

Island of the Dead by Brian Keene

Swords? Sorcery? Zombies? A story that warps reality? Here you go! 

"A dive into isolation and zombie horror while also weaving a rich tapestry of history and giant monsters!" —Rebekah McKendry, director of Glorious and Blumhouse Films editor

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ChloroPhilia by Cristina Jurado

For when you want to reconnect with nature very, very literally.

"ChloroPhilia—an unsettling, enticing novella about evolution in overdrive—is Cristina Jurado's most recent work in English. Like her collection Alphaland, which came out in English in 2018 and then was reissued in 2023, ChloroPhilia offers readers Jurado's unique vision of the world, in which the bizarre and grotesque erupts into the mundane world." —Strange Horizons

ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction edited by Marissa van Uden

A must-read annual showcase of the best nature-based science fiction and fantasy short stories published around the world every year.

Speculative ecofiction has a long history, but ECO: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction is the first ever anthology series to collect the finest short stories published in this genre each year.

Featuring works by both rising stars and established names, this anthology is an exploration of humanity's relationship with other species and of our communal fears, grief, and passion as we try to protect our natural world—all told through the lens of the fantastic.

Ranging from literary science fiction and magical realism to dark fantasy and climate fiction, each story is a unique snapshot of how some of the most brilliant and imaginative speculative fiction authors writing today are engaging with this extraordinary time in Earth's natural history. 

This vibrant lineup for the inaugural edition, selected by award-winning editor and anthologist Marissa van Uden and a team of passionate ecofiction judges from hundreds of nominations, includes works by Eugen Bacon, E. Catherine Tobler, Hiron Ennes, K-Ming Chang, Kay Vaindal, Kelsea Yu, Renan Bernardo, and many other incredible talents.

Both the paperback and digital editions are 30% off! Support Violet Lichen and preorder your copy today! 

Happy Book Birthday to We Who Hunt Alexanders!

Amelia is a ripper, a monster who feeds on violent people who have so thoroughly forsaken love that they've burned away their souls. 

Unseen and unnoticed by most of society, and living as both hunter and hunted, the only emotion rippers feel is anger. But Amelia is different from her fellow rippers, and also feels happiness, sadness, fear, love and every other emotion. To her mother, Danjay, that makes Amelia the strangest of all monsters.

Driven from their home by religious zealots, Amelia and Danjay must learn to survive in the city of Medea, where violent men rule and kill anyone who opposes them. Worse, Amelia has never hunted on her own, and her mother is ill and growing weaker by the day. Only a chance encounter with a human who can see Amelia gives her any hope that she might be able to save her mother.

To succeed, Amelia must learn to hunt in an increasingly dangerous city brought to the brink of war by the corrupt, rich and powerful. Amelia will also have to discover if her differences from her fellow rippers makes her weak, as her mother believes, or if she can instead be a new kind of monster that the world has never seen before.

Praise for We Who Hunt Alexanders

"We Who Hunt Alexanders is a fast-paced novella interlaced with mystery, exploring rage, violence, and the abuse of power while unpacking new truths and unravelling the previously known. It is a bloody yet comforting story about learning to love and trust after being taught to harden against the cruelty of the world, and the difficulty of solving problems if you can't reach the rotten roots, and only trim its branches." —Ai Jiang, Nebula and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Linghun

"By turns dark and deeply touching, We Who Hunt Alexanders is a tightly crafted rumination on fanaticism, monstrousness, and the power of community in a hostile world. With a fascinating new monster, a delightful supporting cast, and some epically bloody comeuppance, this is not one to miss." —Samantha Mills, World Fantasy Award-finalist author of The Wings Upon Her Back

"This novella strives to take a bite of the patriarchy, quite literally... Amelia and her world are extremely compelling, and readers will enjoy inhabiting her brain for a bit." —Booklist

Who decides what makes a monster?

We Who Hunt Alexanders is available in digital and paperback through Apex Book Company's website, Bookshop, Amazon, and more!

Apex Book Company is a dark fantasy, science fiction, and horror publisher founded in 2005 by Jason Sizemore. The company's goal has always been to publish groundbreaking, meaningful, and entertaining fiction by diverse writers from around the world. The company's first book, an anthology of horror titled Aegri Somnia, was a Stoker Award-nominee. This early success encouraged the company to expand its book business, which now boasts over forty active titles.

"Apex is pleased to be partnering with a company that has the reputation and reach of IPG," said Apex Book Company publisher and editor-in-chief, Jason Sizemore. "This will be a boon for Apex, and more importantly, for our authors."

Apex Book Company, whose tagline is "strange, shocking, surreal, beautiful," boasts an ever-growing library of works that feature diverse and innovative storytelling in genre fiction. The company's publishing history includes several acclaimed works such as the first English translation of Ignotus Award-nominated ChloroPhilia by Cristina Jurado, The Apex Book of World SF anthology series, and Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award-finalist Plague Birds by Jason Sanford. Apex's recent releases underscore the company's commitment to thoughtful storytelling: The Map of Lost Places is a groundbreaking horror anthology featuring authors such as Ai Jiang and Samit Basu; Island of the Dead by Brian Keene, a horror sword and sorcery epic reviewed by Stephen King; and Breath of Life by LH Moore, an Afrofuturism collection positively blurbed by Publishers Weekly. Darian Bianco is the current managing editor, with Marissa van Uden serving as the editor-in-chief of Apex's sister imprint, Violet Lichen.

Upcoming releases include Jason Sanford's novella We Who Hunt Alexanders, Violet Lichen's first ever eco-fiction anthology, ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction, and The Cellar Below the Cellar by Ivy Grimes, with more announcements on the way.

We are officially one week out from the launch of We Who Hunt Alexanders by Jason Sanford! If you preorder the title, you get 30% off on both ebook and paperback versions. Learn more about the title below, and don't miss not only this great deal, but an opportunity to support a skilled author, an independent press, and the joy of books. 

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Amelia is a ripper, a monster who feeds on violent people who have so thoroughly forsaken love that they've burned away their souls. Unseen and unnoticed by most of society and living as both hunter and hunted, the only emotion rippers feel is anger. But Amelia is different from her fellow rippers and also feels happiness, sadness, fear, love and every other emotion. To her mother, Danjay, that makes Amelia the strangest of all monsters.

Driven from their home by religious zealots, Amelia and Danjay must learn to survive in the city of Medea, where violent men rule and kill anyone who opposes them. Worse, Amelia has never hunted on her own, and her mother is ill and growing weaker by the day. Only a chance encounter with a human who can see Amelia gives her any hope that she might be able to save her mother.

To succeed, Amelia must learn to hunt in an increasingly dangerous city brought to the brink of war by the corrupt, rich and powerful. Amelia will also have to discover if her differences from her fellow rippers makes her weak, as her mother believes, or if she can instead be a new kind of monster that the world has never seen before.

"Sanford has written a wonderfully paradoxical story: horrific yet sweet, subtle yet blunt, rageful yet loving, historical and—unfortunately—all too timely. I came away both disturbed and comforted, and I very much enjoyed it." —Jim Hines, author of the Magic ex Libris series

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Preorder your copy today!