Tag: short fiction

Short story in Kaleidotrope

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

Not an April Fool’s! It’s ‘Charybdis’, a fun bouncy story about working in customer service, when all your customers are the supernatural type:

I was sitting at my desk with my feet up, filing my nails, when Martin Josephs walked in. Big man, black, probably a shifter with those eyes, probably a bear with those shoulders, he was looking around the dingy Victorian hall as if he might be trying to find the town council, then saw my desk under the pale fluorescent light and headed for me instead. I’d pegged him for a client straight away and you only get one chance to make a first impression. Unfortunately, I plumped for Cherry.

He hesitated, and I swung Cherry’s legs down from the desk with aggravating slowness and gave him a bored pink lipstick smile. “Hi,” I said. “This is the Old World Advice Bureau. Can I help you?”

I love Kaleidotrope and feel very much at home there: everything in the zine is fun and worth reading.

Short story in Cosmic Horror Monthly (September)

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

I am so late to this, but I had a story in the September issue of Cosmic Horror Monthly: ‘Tyger, Tyger’, about a big cat in a concrete jungle, and being so bored you burn your own life down, and of course there’s some William Blake hiding in there too.

Wednesday morning, eleven a.m. There’s an abstract depiction of hell splashed across the lobby. Nick looks once, sees immortal souls arrayed in burning torment, looks twice and realises it’s a tapestry, red blurring into yellow blurring into infernal murk. The symmetry is upsetting, like one screaming face flung endlessly between two fragmenting mirrors. “Can I take your coat?” the girl says. “I’ll show you down.”

This is the third of what I think of as my Weird London stories, following Psychopomps of Central London in The Dark and Puppet Show in Places We Fear To Tread. You can get the issue in print ($11.99) or digital ($3.99).

Podcast – ‘City of Wolves and Lightning’ in Tales to Terrify

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Podcast, Short Story

Graeme Dunlop has done a fantastic reading of my story “City of Wolves and Lightning” for the Tales to Terrify podcast.

This bit of Roman civil war weird was originally published in Lamplight back in 2016, so it’s not currently available anywhere else online. Sometimes I thought about calling it “Sorry Caesar, But Your City is in Another Country!” Maybe I should have done.

3LBE anthology Vol. VII

On By Julia AugustIn Anthology, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story
Three-Lobed Burning Eye Vol. VII cover

The latest limited edition print anthology of Andrew S. Fuller’s Three-Lobed Burning Eye zine is out, with all-new art. This one includes a reprint of my story from Issue 28, ‘Delia’s Door’, as well as stories by Cat Rambo, Mari Ness, JM McDermott, Gwendolyn Kiste and many more, and I cannot wait to get hold of my copy!

Podcast – ‘Tongueless’ in Tales to Terrify

On By Julia AugustIn Podcast, Short Story, Uncategorized2 Comments

Hello! Jasmine Arch has done a fantastic reading of my story ‘Tongueless’ for Episode 468 of Tales to Terrify. This story was originally published in The Sockdolager back in 2016; it’s a messy little horror story about professional jealousy, alien experiments and extremely poor decision-making.

There was a white light in the dark where there shouldn’t have been. It lit up the window and glowed around the door, so I said, “Hello? Is someone out there?” and no one replied. I wrestled the bolt back and stepped out into the porch on my bare toes, shivering as the breeze pushed up my cotton nightie.

There wasn’t anyone there. The light beamed down unnaturally from above. I looked up and saw the thing blotting out the stars just as everything went black.

I love this reading! It’s absolutely spot on. The whole episode is great; I loved The Cremation of Sam McGee and Louis B. Rosenberg’s Dogs, Cats and the End of the World too.

Apparition Lit story free to read

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

And it’s out!

Anna’s reference to the university at Felsina, the city where Violante had been born, made Violante lean happily forward in her chair. “Do you know people at the university? I always wanted to go to the anatomy at the carnival, but my parents wouldn’t let me. That was before I was married, of course.”

“I studied the anatomy with Jacopo Barigazzi,” Anna said. “He spent some time here not long ago. We dissected one of Pietro’s criminals.” She poured herself wine, then filled Violante’s cup too. “Is that enough? How is Baldesar? I thought he might bring you. Pietro would have liked to see him again.”

“Oh no, he’s too busy with his writing. I’ve brought letters from him, though.”

“Last time, he wrote that you had a problem for me. Do you still?”

Read the rest of ‘Passavanti’s Fantasima’ (and buy the whole amazing issue) here.

Kaleidotrope + Big Echo

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, News, Short Story

I have a new story and a reprint out this month.

  1. Doll’s House follows directly on from God Thing, which also appeared in Kaleidotrope back in 2017. They are both bouncy adventure stories about Rob and Lettie, a couple of kids doing inadvisable things in a ruined city, under the disapproving supervision of Rob’s goddess, Ann. You shouldn’t need to read both of them, but of course you may want to. 

    This issue also includes great stories and poetry by Anya Ow, Cat Sparks, William R. Eakin, Santiago Belluco, Helen Stubbs, Megan Arkenberg, Jennifer Crow, Karolina Fedyk, R.K. Duncan, Cassandra Rose Clarke and Hester J. Rook. 

  2. Under Dead Marsh originally appeared in Lackington’s Magazine in 2016 and I am really happy it has been reprinted in Big Echo’s Avant Garde issue, which looks fantastic. 

    The other stories are by Brendan C. Byrne, Stephen Langlois, Ahimaz Rajessh, Yurei Raita, Dan Grace, John Shirley, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, Peter Milne Greiner, Laurence A. Rickels and Rudy Rucker. Mine remains a mix of Dylan Thomas and town council planning application squabbles, on Mars.

 

Lackington’s #18 free to read

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

The “Magics” issue of Lackington’s is now free to read, including my little Roman ghost story, Prima Fuit, Finis Erit.

First Cynthia caught me with her fulminating eyes. O me miserum! Captive and collared, a fool never before touched. Now she, trailing charred Coan silk, her curls breathing cold perfume, leans over my bed: We shall lie together, you and I…

… but of course you should check out the whole amazing issue. I have said this before, but Propertius is my favourite of the Augustan lyric poets, partly just because of all the Augustan lyric girlfriends only Cynthia gets to speak for herself. And what she says is almost never flattering to Propertius.

Detail of Pear Nuallak’s gorgeous illustration!

Short story in The Dark

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction elsewhere, News, Short Story

The February issue of The Dark is out, containing

“The Crying Bride” by Carrie Laben
“The Little Beast” by Octavia Cade (reprint)
“The Red Forest” by Angela Slatter (reprint)

and also “Butterflies and Hurricanes”, a new short story of mine about demon conjuring in Regency London:

The calling cards arrived with the morning milk. Three quarters of an hour later, as told by the clock that discarded eight minutes every day and gained it back with interest when a certain word was spoken, two gentlemen took their seats in the clean brown parlour…

Short Story in Lackington’s

On By Julia AugustIn Fiction, Fiction elsewhere, Short Story

Lackington's #18 Cover

The ‘Magics’ issue of Lackington’s is out, with a little Roman ghost story from me that I’m not going to say much about, because I said it all in an interview a couple of weeks ago, although I had not then seen Pear Nuallak’s gorgeous illustration. The full table of contents is:

When the Vine Came, by S.R. Mandel
Prima Fuit, Finis Erit, by Julia August
The Wytch-Byrd of the Nabryd-Keind, by Farah Rose Smith
Collar for Captain Cormorant, by Rekha Valliappan
Song of the Oliphant, by KT Bryski
Love Letters from Velveteen, by M. Raoulee

Artists: Carol Wellart, Grace P. Fong, Sharon J. Gochenour, Derek Newman-Stille, Pear Nuallak, Kat Weaver, and P. Emerson Williams.

… and you can get the issue as ePub, mobi and PDF if you don’t want to wait six months to read it (which of course you shouldn’t).