ADVERT
ADVERT
ADVERT

NON-FICTION


Short Fiction Review — March 2024

By Danai Christopoulou in Issue Fourteen, March 2024

Short fiction reviews by Danai Christopoulou. Stories reviewed include "There Are Only Two Chairs, and the Skin Is Draped Over the Other" by Alexia Antoniou (published in Bourbon Penn), "Give Me English" by Ai Jiang (reprinted in Fusion Fragment), "The Memory Shop" by Melissa Ren (published in Fusion Fragment), and "Godskin" by CL Hellisen (published in Strange Horizons).


Letter from the Editor, Ya Herd?

By Leon Perniciaro in Issue Fourteen, March 2024

When I was younger, I worked at a sugar refinery, this great gothic castle in a bend of the Mississippi River south of New Orleans. The machines inside made an awful racket, chuffing and grinding and screaming as they turned sugarcane into granulated sugar. It's the largest cane refinery in the Western Hemisphere, and the place had an eerie feel, with huge sections of it abandoned and sugar residue coating the walls and slicking the floors in puddles so thick you couldn't walk through them without getting stuck. It was an overwhelming place, and it's what I think about when I am struggling to work in the noise of the world.


Letter from the Editor, Ya Herd?

By Leon Perniciaro in Issue Thirteen, January 2024

Haven Spec Magazine is now a pro-paying market! We're grateful to everyone who supported our Kickstarter, and we are so glad to be able to give our wonderful authors the rates that they deserve. We have big plans for 2024, including interviews with some amazing editors, stories from across the width and breadth of the human experience, and short fiction reviews from your very own Haven Spec staff (okay, mostly Danai). I very much want Haven Spec to be a part of the wider SFF community, and that means paying people what they deserve, shouting out the stories and magazines we love, and publishing as much awesome fiction and poetry as we possibly can.


Short Fiction Review — January 2024

By Danai Christopoulou in Issue Thirteen, January 2024

Short fiction reviews by Danai Christopoulou. Stories reviewed include "For as Long as You Want It" by Kanishk Tantia (published in Apex Magazine), "Kiss of Life" by P.C. Verrone (published in Fiyah Magazine), "Stars Don’t Dream" by Chi Hui and translated by John Chu (published in Clarkesworld), and "Persistent" by AGA Wilmot (published in Gamut Magazine).


Short Fiction Review — June 2022 (online only)

By TJ Price in Issue Four, May 2022

Thanks for checking out our column, the Short Fiction Review, here at Haven Spec! Three short story reviews by TJ Price.


Short Fiction Review — May 2022 (online only)

By TJ Price in Issue Four, May 2022

Thanks for checking out our column, the Short Fiction Review, here at Haven Spec! For me, there's always a shifting set of criteria when it comes to what constitutes a really great story. It could be that the characters are distinctly well-drawn and that I find the emotional stakes moving. It could be that the world-building is top-notch and integrated seamlessly into the text of the story, providing a rich and vibrant setting for a piece. It could be that the writing itself, on a sentence level, is so stunning that it makes my jaw drop. It could be a combination or something entirely different. I'm always on the lookout for something that does entirely new things with the conventions of prose.


Introduction to the 1831 Edition of Frankenstein

By Mary Shelley in Issue Zero, September 2021

The Publishers of the Standard Novels, in selecting "Frankenstein" for one of their series, expressed a wish that I should furnish them with some account of the origin of the story. I am the more willing to comply, because I shall thus give a general answer to the question, so very frequently asked me—"How I, when a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?"