Authors in This Issue
“Failed Attempts at Predation” by A.M. Dellamonica
A.M. Dellamonica’s first novel, Indigo Springs, won the Sunburst Award, and their fourth, A Daughter of No Nation, won the 2016 Prix Aurora for Best Novel. They have published stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Reactor, and elsewhere, along with poetry, pop culture essays, and even the 2021 play Dressed as People, which they co-wrote with Kelly Robson and Amal El-Mohtar. Their newest novels, Gamechanger and Dealbreaker, were released under the name L.X. Beckett and are solar punk adventures that imagine humanity surviving climate change and creating a post-carbon economy. The author’s newest story for Asimov’s drops us into the Yukon wilds with a burned-out chemist stuck at a phytoremediation site. His only company? An AI, a comatose pilot, and a lynx cub nursing an injury. All four of them are just trying to survive the things trying to take them down.
“The Language of Machines” by Betsy Aoki
Betsy Aoki (betsyaoki.com and Bluesky at @betsyaoki.bsky.social) is a game producer, poet, and fiction writer whose works have appeared or are forthcoming in Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Translunar Travelers Lounge, Fireside Magazine, The Deadlands, Nightmare Magazine, and horror anthology Sharp and Sugar Tooth: Women Up to No Good, edited by Octavia Cade. Her debut poetry collection Breakpoint was a National Poetry Series finalist and its signature poem was chosen by Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown for the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize. Betsy currently serves as poetry editor for Uncanny Magazine. Her latest story for Asimov’s, first conceived at Clarion West, explores the pitfalls of “first contact” negotiations by the naïve New Humans.
“A Penrose Dirge” by Chris Campbell
Chris Campbell (@chriscampbell.bsky.social, https://www.instagram.com/ccambot/, and www.clundycampbell.com) is a writer of speculative fiction whose stories have appeared in Asimov’s, FIYAH, khōréō, and more. His novelette “In the Palace of Science” (Asimov’s, May/June 2024), was selected for Best of Weird Vol 1. Chris is the editor of New Year, New You: A Speculative Fiction Anthology of Reinvention, and he has received the generous support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Boston’s Office of Arts and Culture in recognition of his ongoing contributions to Afrofuturist literature. A graduate of the Clarion West and Viable Paradise workshops, Chris is completing his MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College. The author’s latest story for Asimov’s introduces Lokton 855376—the greatest mind the Universe has ever produced—on the precipice of their greatest achievement. This comedic cosmic horror, set just before the end of time, features spaghettified civilizations, galaxy-sized grudges, and mechanically unsound methods of Voltroning.
“Sophie Simpson’s Whizz-Bang Day at World War I” by Dale Bailey
Dale Bailey is the author of five novels and three short-story collections, most recently In the Night Wood, a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and This Island Earth: 8 Features from the Drive-In, which includes “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” (March 2016), winner of the Asimov’s Annual Readers’ Poll Award. A new novel, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, will be out this fall.
“The Girl Who Stole Life” by Zhou Wen (translated by Xueting C. Ni)
Zhou Wen is an acclaimed Chinese science fiction writer and the author of two short story collections and more than a million words of published fiction. Her works have earned prestigious accolades including the Gold Award for best novella at the Chinese Nebula Awards in both 2023 and 2024, and the best short story award at the China Science Fiction Readers’ Choice Awards (Gravity Awards) in 2018 and 2021. She was named one of eleven Influential Writers by Dangdang, a major Chinese online bookseller. Her stories—often exploring themes of linguistics, brain science, and digital worlds with a focus on female protagonists—have been translated into English, Japanese, and Korean, and published internationally. Her debut work in Japan, “The Syllables of Silence,” was a finalist for the Best Translated Story at the 2021 Seiun Awards (the Japanese Nebula Awards). In 2019, she received George R.R. Martin’s Terran Prize and attended the Taos Toolbox Writer Workshop. Zhou Wen’s recent writing continues to explore imaginative themes such as the evolution of language in space. She lives in China and travels extensively, drawing inspiration from linguistic diversity and cultural encounters around the world.
Translator Xueting C. Ni has written extensively on China’s cultures and its place in the Western consciousness, working with major organizations such as BBC, BFI, and the Confucius Institute to create cultural programs. She is the author of numerous nonfiction books, essays, and articles, and has been published on platforms such as Art Review, Samovar, and Reactor. Her curated fiction in translation includes Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction (Solaris, 2021), which won the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology in 2022, and Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror (Solaris,2024). Xueting is currently working on a range of projects, including a new anthology and a book on Wuxia culture. She lives just outside London with her partner and their cats, all of whom are learning Mandarin. Her translation of Zhou Wen’s novelette, “The Girl Who Stole Life,” explores questions of language learning, nature versus nurture, and social inequities via the imagining of neurolinguistic technologies.
“Half Inside the Spirit Box” by Stephanie Feldman
Stephanie Feldman (Instagram: @stephanie.feldman and @sbfeldman.bsky.social) is the author of the novels Saturnalia, a Locus Award finalist, and The Angel of Losses, a Crawford Award winner and Mythopoeic Award finalist. Her first short fiction collection, The Night Parade and Other Stories, is forthcoming in fall 2026. In Stephanie’s latest story, a famous escape artist seeks to expose a charismatic medium as a fraud.
“The Sky Above the Earth Below” by Steve Rasnic Tem
Steve Rasnic Tem’s (X: @Rasnictem, Bluesky: @stevetem.bsky.social) writing career spans over forty-five years, including more than five hundred published short stories, seventeen collections, eight novels, and miscellaneous poetry and plays. His collaborative novella with his late wife Melanie, “The Man on the Ceiling,” won the World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild awards in 2001.He has also won the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, and British Fantasy Awards for his solo work, including Blood Kin, winner of 2014’s Bram Stoker for novel. A collection of his Appalachian stories, Scarecrows, recently appeared. Other recent collections include Figures Unseen and Thanatrauma (Valancourt), Everyday Horrors, and Queneau’s Alphabet (Macabre). In 2024 he received the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award. You can visit his website at: www.stevetem.com. The author’s latest tale concerns climate change and its consequences.
“Unspeakable Knowns” by Donald McCarthy
Donald McCarthy is an author from Long Island, New York. He’s published short fiction with Asimov’s, Mythaxis Magazine, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, Pseudopod, The CreepyPodcast, The Grey Rooms, and more. His non-fiction has appeared at Salon, Undark Magazine, The Huffington Post, Nightmare Magazine, and more. A full list of his publications can be found at http://www.donaldmccarthy.com. Donald’s latest work for Asimov’s explores the doublespeak and obfuscations people will go to in order to justify war. Our story’s protagonist will say anything, no matter how contradictory, to sell a war.
“Alpha Gal” by Greg Egan
Greg Egan’s latest books are the novel Morphotrophic and the collection Sleep and the Soul. He last appeared in Asimov’s with “Spare Parts for the Mind” (November/December 2025). In this new story, a simple biological molecule takes on a new status.
“Hot” by Cecelia Holland
Cecelia Holland has been writing since she was twelve. She has won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim, the Irving Stone Prize, and a Connecticut College Medal. Cecelia lives in Northern California.