Leslie Storch’s life changed three years ago after learning about Adrian Lamo, a famous hacker, in one of his high school classes. All he had wanted since then was to be like Lamo, who instantly became his idol, and he set out to learn the...

Carry on Smartly by Wayne Westphal Barrow is a collection of six original short stories, where the characters experience moments that require immediate decisions, which define what follows. In The Kind-Hearted Stranger, a teenage real estate agent receives unexpected news and turns to Mr. Kippens,...

Connie’s White World: Jazz Noir Stories by Sam Newsome is a collection of interconnected narratives that follow musicians, performers, and strivers as they navigate identity, ambition, race, and art in contemporary urban spaces. Structured like an album, the book opens with a framing idea that...

Crow: The Luck of Charm by Surya Prakash Shrivastava is a short story about the connection between a boy and a crow. Yash lives in an urban environment, with chaotic traffic and construction noise just outside his window. Inside, chaos comes from his arguing parents....

In Anthony Pond’s Conquistadors, Ryan Jordan joins a small expedition in central Mexico to climb three of the country’s highest volcanoes under the direction of their guide, Ricardo. After becoming ill at a mountain lodge following a meal in town, he chooses to continue with...

Clare’s Boutique: Three Stories and One Essay by Eric Giroux is a collection of moments of vulnerability, identity, and reckoning through the character Clare. In Ice Time, Clare and Jack O’Connor, once best kindergarten friends, reunite later under strained circumstances during a Scout troop trip...

Jeffrey L. Carrier’s Coal Dust on Purple Asters is a short historical trilogy about three families surviving in the rough mountains of Kentucky through wars and the Great Depression. In Rain on Chinquapin Holler, Wiley Hicks, a coal miner, is torn between providing for his...

Cosplay & Consequences (The Fandom Narratives) by J.C. Sato is a brilliantly written novella that could even be described as one long, shifting scene. The setting is an urban cosplay convention where performers, entrepreneurs, fans, and perverts assemble in this growing subculture to show off...

In Case Files from the Nightfall Detective Agency: Fury of the Vampire by David Alyn Gordon, Abraham had tried to build a holy tower to the heavens, but El had struck it down. From then on, the people shunned Abraham. He wandered aimlessly and became...

Caribbean Adventures by Fred G. Baker is a riveting collection of modern pirate tales set mainly in the Caribbean. The stories follow the daring exploits of Alex and his crew, opening with the audacious theft of the luxury yacht Caribbean Queen, which Alex’s crew swiftly...