I am so very happy to report that our Kickstarter was a success and we are funded through the rest of 2025 to pay pro rates! I am shy by nature, but please take a moment to hear my ragged voice cheering across time and space in celebration that we managed it. And you know what? It wouldn't have been possible without you, so yes, you should absolutely be cheering as well. Let us join in a roaring chorus of hooping and hollering so loud that we shake the rafters of creation. Who knew I could get so excited about fundraising?

Lindz McLeod: I love the idea of finding new ways to tell stories; I think at heart I’m a playful, mildly unserious person, and that definitely comes across in Turducken; there’s a triptych of flashes in there about a threesome (two human, one not) where the non-human person can only speak with certain limitations. At first, she can only speak in Philip Pullman plotlines, and later it’s dialogue from Frasier… Deeply unserious, but deeply fun to play with. There’s no idea too ridiculous to try at least once—that’s my motto.

So, Augur has three founding pillars. First is we aim to publish, prioritize, and showcase the work of marginalized and underrepresented creators. We are aware of what the dominant culture is like. When you go up to the top and you see who really has the power, it’s still mainly white and straight, and so we want to make a space for those marginalized creators. We want to pay them pro rates, and we want to bring those diverse voices to an international stage. Secondly, funding stipulations are that we publish 75-80% Canadian content. We are Canadian, so we are invested in Canadian and Indigenous literature, specifically Canadian speculative literature. But also, because we are sort of a bigger, more reputable magazine, we’re able to bring those Canadian and Indigenous writers to an international stage as well.

Short fiction reviews by Danai Christopoulou. Stories reviewed include "Something Cruel" by Gabrielle Emem Harry (published in Will This Be a Problem? The Anthology), "Lucinda Espinosa’s Twenty-Seventh Death" by M.R. Robinson (published in Fusion Fragment), "Sunflower Loop" by Beth Goder (published in Translunar Travelers Lounge), and "What We Don’t Know About Angels" by Kristina Ten (published in Lightspeed).

All my words have left me. My tongue has slithered sluglike from the hollow of my mouth.

It's hard to write in times like these. Hard to speak. But there is something inexplicable in the written word, something ineffable. Fiction and poetry are the canvases on which we paint our hopes and dread. In systems that would silence us, writers scream with the scribbling of pens, the soft clacking of keyboards.

Short fiction reviews by Danai Christopoulou. Stories reviewed include "And She Had Been So Reasonable" by Rachel Bolton (published in Apex #117), "Any Good Sacrifice" by C. J. Subko (published in Small Wonders #17), "House Traveler" by Thomas Ha (published in Bourbon Penn #34), and "Telling the Soul of Mars" by Alina Pete (published in Augur #7.2 ).

The summer is ended, and we are not saved.

Okay, that sounds a little dramatic. Let's try that again.

Dear Reader,

The summer is ended, and we can now drink tea and wear our autumn jackets.

It lacks a certain gravitas, sure, but that's why no one has ever asked me to found a new religion. It'd be more pumpkin spice and less eternal damnation, and then where would we be?

Short fiction reviews by Danai Christopoulou. Stories reviewed include "Sibilance" by E.G. Condé (published in Interzone), "Safe Passage" by Elia Karra (published in Fractured Lit), "Once There Was Water" by Katie McIvor (published in The Dark), and "The Angel’s Share" by Martin Cahill (published in Reactor).

I once read that people facing parole hearings have a much better chance of release if their hearing is early in the morning. This is because, by the afternoon, the parole board has decision fatigue—the parts of their brains responsible for hearing testimony and weighing evidence are literally exhausted, and so they just start saying no to everyone. This is, in fact, a terrible reality that incarcerated people face in this country, and it's only one of the very many aspects of the carceral system that has to fundamentally change.

Short fiction reviews by Danai Christopoulou. Stories reviewed include "A Pilgrimage to the God of High Places" by Marissa Lingen (published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies), "The Plasticity of Being" by Renan Bernardo (published in Reactor (previously Tor.com)), "At Night She Dreams of Silverfish" by Monica Joyce Evans (published in Apex), and "We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read" by Caroline M. Yoachim (published in Lightspeed).