April is coming and with it, the changing seasons. In the north, spring is here and we're leaning into the sun, while the south of our planet is descending quietly into darkness. Whether you're coming into the dark or out of it, Apex is your companion in the shadows.
Issue 143
Issue 143 continues to release on the website. Cover art by Caroline Jamhour, original fiction by Nika Murphy, Hannah Yang, Renan Bernardo, Natasha King, and Leah Ning, flash by Andrew Kozma and Lyndsey Croal, essays by Shiv Ramdas and E.D.E. Bell, Marissa van Uden's interviews with authors Natasha King and Nika Murphy, and reprints from Christopher Caldwell and Eden Royce. A.C. Wise continues the wonderful Words for Thought short fiction review column, and we have our Holiday Horrors winner and runners-up. This is a rich, earthy issue with stories of plant body-horror and complex family relationships, perfect for this time of year.
Germination by Caroline Jamhour, cover design by Justin Stewart
Snap Judgment Episode 10
Apex Magazine is excited to present SNAP JUDGMENT Episode 10 of our rapid-fire, live-streamed critique series. Every quarter, industry professionals Lesley Conner, Rebecca E Treasure, and a special guest offer live feedback on the first page (up to 250 words) of genre short stories or novels. Stories are read by our talented host and narrator, Aly Grauer. We are pleased to announce that our special guest editor for this event is author and editor Rae Wilde!
Snap Judgment 10 will stream live on Thursday, April 18th, at 12pm eastern.
Rae Wilde (she/her) is a queer woman and author of dark fiction who has published numerous works under the pen name Rae Knowles. Her available long works include The Stradivarius (May 2023) and Merciless Waters (November 2023). She was the co-editor of Scissor Sisters, an anthology of sapphic villains (January 2024), and co-authored Lies that Bind (February 2024) in collaboration with April Yates. Rae has published 20+ shorter works in magazines and anthologies such as Dark Matter Ink, Nightmare, & Ghoulish Tales. Her forthcoming work includes a collection with Off Limits Press (September 2024) and a 2026 novel which has not yet been announced. Rae is represented by Laura Williams at Greene & Heaton.
Get submission details here.
Cinderwich by Cherie Priest
"Who put Ellen in the blackgum tree?”
Decades after trespassing children spotted the desiccated corpse wedged in the treetop, no one knows the answer.
Kate Thrush and her former college professor, Dr. Judith Kane, travel to Cinderwich, Tennessee in hopes that maybe it was their Ellen: Katie’s lost aunt, Judith’s long-gone lover. But they’re not the only ones to have come here looking for closure. The people of Cinderwich, a town hardly more than a skeleton itself, are staunchly resistant to the outsiders’ questions about Ellen and her killer. And the deeper the two women dig, the more rot they unearth … the closer they come to exhuming the evil that lies, hungering, at the roots of Cinderwich.
Cinderwich is coming from Apex Book Company in May. Preorders are available now!
CHERIE PRIEST is the author of two dozen books and novellas, most recently the Booking Agents mysteries Grave Reservations and Flight Risk. She also wrote gothic horror projects The Toll, The Family Plot, and the Philip K. Dick nominee Maplecroft; but she is perhaps best known for the steampunk pulp adventures of the Clockwork
Century, beginning with Boneshaker. Cherie lives in Seattle, WA, with her husband and a menagerie of exceedingly photogenic pets.
Writing Classes with Apex
The Reach Your Apex initiative is our way of making the knowledge and skills of publishing professionals available to those individuals who are seeking to improve their literary craft. While a majority of our offerings target the craft of writing, we will intersperse our curriculum with workshops/webinars covering various topics about the art of editing and the business side of publishing. We launched a website dedicated to our classes and workshops, including on-demand recordings!
Coming up in April we have classes with Paul Jessup, Premee Mohamed, Natania Barron, and more.
You can find our current list of classes here. We also now offer pre-recorded on demand classes as well as critiques and query feedback!
Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon
Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon is a part of the current SF StoryBundle! From curator Lavie Tidhar: "I hope you enjoy this year's crop, and find something you like in the selection. Remember that the bundles not only support the authors and their publishers directly, but also our partner charity. At a time when the world seems ever more strained and polarised, literature joins us together, and speculative fiction offers us that rarest of things, hope. So dive in, and I hope you enjoy these stories!"
Danged Black Thing's cover is on the BFSA shortlist for Best Artwork by Elena Betti, and the author is on the shortlist for Best Short Nonfiction and Best Shorter Fiction.
Apex Flash Fiction
The Flash Fiction Contest for March 7-31—themed Grimoire—will close on March 31. The theme for April 7-30 will be announced and will open to the public on April 7th for flash fiction submissions. Themes are chosen by Patrons at the end of the month and announced to Patrons on the 1st of each month. Submissions will be open to the public on the 7th of each month. Submissions close on the last day of the month at midnight (US Central Time).
The winner will be paid $0.08/word or $10, whichever is more. The winning story will appear on our Patreon as an exclusive and will be included in a forthcoming issue of Apex Magazine.
Discord Happenings
As always, we have a fun community on our Discord, offering critique swaps, co-writing opportunities, and general community support for writers. (Rejectomancy, anyone?)
Patreon Exclusives
On our Patreon, we have an exciting lineup of exclusives for our Patrons from the Authors of Issue 143. We'll have our usual interviews, critique opportunities, and some story insights. Keep an eye on our Patreon!
Not a Patron? Join us for as little as $3/month to get access to these exclusives and the magazine in your inbox!
To add the Apex Events Calendar to your google calendar, follow this link: https://tinyurl.com/4c74rext
