If you had told us fifteen years ago, when LSQ was a one-woman operation running on a steady diet of “wouldn’t it be cool if”, that we would attract authors and stories as good as these, we would have been very pleased indeed!

These stories are deep.They are full of hard earned human emotions, in spite of their fantastical settings. Ghosts and goblins and living houses and fairy tales and the underworld are all great, but if they don’t get under your skin, and maybe even draw some blood from time to time, then what’s the point, at this late hour?

So please accept our latest invitation to the greatest show in speculative literature, as we all change and evolve and become our next selves, together.

Cover art

The cover art for this issue is "It Can’t See Me" by Hannah Elizabeth. See more of their work at their website.

Table of Contents

• "Sojourner" by Esther Alter
• "And Lilith Sewed the Seam" by Allister Nelson
• "Regarding Your Application to This Year’s Orpheus Fellowship" by Anna-Claire McGrath
• "Lost in Target" by Camden Rose
• "How to Carry a Millstone" by Katie McIvor
• "Who We Are" by Ana Wesley
• "Bedtime Story" by Rhonda Parrish
• "Grief in C Minor" by Erin Keating
• "Open Your Eyes" by Allie Marini
• "You and Me, Here and There, Now and Then and When" by JM Cyrus
• "The Fish Who Dreamt of Dragons" by Lilia Zhang
• "Souls on the Open Plane" by Remy Welch
• "The Illusionist’s Daughter" by Wen Wen Yang
• "The Angelus Machine" by Emily Yu
• "Cedar Glen" by Alicia Adams
• "Lost Souls" by Rae Maybee
• "A Pound of Flesh" by K R Samp