Responses to all submissions for our final issue have gone out now. Thank you to everyone who has shared their work with me over the last few years, it has been a real honour to read your words and see your artworks ❤️

14 now!

Looks like a good survey to take part in, especially if you're a reader of Inner Worlds.

Thanks for sharing, everyone! We're up to 12 responses now, and the more the merrier.

My conference paper was accepted! 🎉 Has reading or writing speculative fiction supported your mental health in any way? If it has, please please take 10 mins to tell me about it here: www.cognitoforms.com/InnerWorlds1... Thank you! ❤️ #SFF #SciFi #Horror #Fantasy #SpecFic

I'm working my way through issue 10 submissions, thank you everyone who sent something in!

Day 28! I read Puparium by @jyzh.bsky.social published in @innerworlds.bsky.social. This is a sad one. Sort of a review here (maybe more thoughts tomorrow): mickstaniforth.wordpress.com/2026/01/28/s...

IT'S HERE! We are SO thrilled to officially reveal our Issue 1 table of contents! Every single piece in this issue is unbelievably good, and we cannot wait for you to read these stories and poems in March. These authors are amazing 🪐🗡️ More details in the thread! 🧵 (1/6)

STP Issue #13 is out now! A bumper issue of weird fiction, wretched vibes, queer cyberpunk, vengeful aliens, an unhinged horsegirl, and loads more. The sick cover art is by Ana Luna and design is by J.R. Bolt.

Inner Worlds @innerworlds.bsky.social ⭐ is open to submissions for Issue Ten: General Submissions. #CallforSubmissions

OMG! WHAT!? So thrilled my @hexliterary.bsky.social story (which is indeed, VERY weird) "Proscenium" made this incredible list!

What?! (is what I say realizing that my story "The Only Good Billionaire" is on this list and being really excited but unable to properly express in words how I feel, so anyway, yay, and thanks for the honor)

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Wooo! Congratulations to all the brilliant authors on this list, and especially @amabilisohara.bsky.social whose nominated work "A Sign Hangs From My Hunger" appeared in our sixth issue. Read it here: inner-worlds.ghost.io/a-sign-hangs...

As you read, play, watch, listen, and otherwise enjoy new #SpeculativeFiction this year, please recommend works for the Otherwise Award to consider! otherwiseaward.org/award/2026-o... #sff #awards

Thank you @lmanusos.bsky.social for the kind words about Inner Worlds, and for including "Mumbi and Second Coming" by Celestine Ndanu K. on this brilliant list! ❤️

Another shout out for this survey, if you have 10 minutes to spare! Working on the conference abstract today :-)

A very fond farewell to 2025, year of my first publications at @innerworlds.bsky.social and @nightshadesmag.bsky.social If you missed them the first time around: inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-wond... www.nightshadesmag.com/the-wound-i-...

Submissions are open now for our final issue! The theme for this issue is 'endings' inner-worlds.ghost.io/submission-g...

My spooky post-apocalypse short story, "Home on the Hillside," was published by @innerworlds.bsky.social in their March issue. Free to read here: inner-worlds.ghost.io/home-on-the-...

It’s New Year’s Eve, and 2025 has been A Year. I thought everyone might appreciate a cozy gift. Please get the Worlds of Possibility Volume 2 ebook for free, if you would like it! www.juliarios.com/a-gift-to-en...

I did have 2 of those stories published this year. inner-worlds.ghost.io/i-am-become-... is the most experimental thing I have written all year, and also my first SF publication!

Submissions for issue 10 are open a few hours early! For this, our last issue, we're looking for stories which explore the theme of endings 🥲 1-14 January: open to authors who are members of marginalised groups only 15-31 January: open to everyone

"'Isn’t it funny', the words ring in your head relentlessly incessant, like a child sobbing loudly nearby whose wails you cannot ignore, you cannot ignore, 'I have felt your grief... but not my own'." Read 'I Haven't Felt My Grief' by @blehwtongue.bsky.social inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-i-ha...

Calling all Inner Worlds writers and readers: please tell me your thoughts about mental health and speculative fiction! 🧠❤️

hellitself.com/pala/ Go check this out. It's my latest published short story, and it's free to read. :)

I’ve been so excited to share this one. Much gratitude to @nightshadesmag.bsky.social for making the blend of English/Arabic dialogue work on the page (not easy, it turns out). It’s a tale of gaps (between languages, between worlds, and between who we are and who we ought to be). Hope you enjoy.

I too have made an Awards Eligibility graphic. I had to install new software. Go me. Here it is. I would like three of my stories from 2025 considered in 2026.

Here's my 2025 Awards Eligibility post. 🦄✨ Thank you so much to everyone who read, published, or supported my writing journey this year! Feel free to nominate anything you liked. Thank you for your consideration.

"I am the oldest daughter. To look after my family, I will have to bring a leopard home. Or be married off to a man with a string of leopard teeth laced around his neck. But I am not interested in men." Read 'Ghost Leopard' by @crystalkoo.bsky.social inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-ghos... #SFF

"I am the oldest daughter. To look after my family, I will have to bring a leopard home. Or be married off to a man with a string of leopard teeth laced around his neck. But I am not interested in men." Read 'Ghost Leopard' by @crystalkoo.bsky.social inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-ghos... #SFF

"What do you do when you’re expected to honor the memory of someone who didn’t care for you the way you deserved?" You can read my Reactor-recommended (!!!!) story, "If You Can’t Make Your Own Regret, Store-Bought Is Fine" in @innerworlds.bsky.social issue 9! inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-if-y...

So sad to hear about @innerworlds.bsky.social closing. It's a beautiful zine that's showcased all aspects of mental health in its stories. They published my OCD story, "Flash/Flash/Flash". inner-worlds.ghost.io/flash-flash-... I'll forever be grateful. Check it out. 💙📚

Fabulous picks, including 'If You Can’t Make Your Own Regret, Store-Bought Is Fine' by @rjaurand.bsky.social from our latest issue!

I have some sad news to share, folks 😔 inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-10-wil...

More sad news. It's tough to balance our need for paying jobs with the desire to share beautiful words from incredible authors. But until publishers can make a living, magazines will continue to struggle. Bills gotta get paid somehow. You can help: go subscribe to a short fiction mag TODAY!!!

We're reopening to submissions on January 1st. Writers, ready your most depressing, unnerving, dislocating, horrible stories.

Inner Worlds was full of truly thought provoking and *profoundly* moving stories that we were lucky to read, stories that expanded the limits of genre fiction. I'm grateful to have been a part of it and wish you all the best, Sarah. ❤️

I have some sad news to share, folks 😔 inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-10-wil...

"We do not know if Lepidoptera have episodic memories, or if it, too, would endure. Ma has always believed that it would—that the caterpillar remembered itself. She had to, if she found metamorphosis beautiful at all." Read 'Puparium' by @jyzh.bsky.social inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-pupa...

"We do not know if Lepidoptera have episodic memories, or if it, too, would endure. Ma has always believed that it would—that the caterpillar remembered itself. She had to, if she found metamorphosis beautiful at all." Read 'Puparium' by @jyzh.bsky.social inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-pupa...

"To nine-year-old Mumbi, this chaos was normal, a soundtrack she’d grown up inside. But deep in her chest, she knew that Jesus would come like a thief." Read 'Mumbi and the Second Coming' by Celestine Ndanu K. inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-mumb...

🌌 Heads up: @innerworlds.bsky.social is open Jan 1–14 for marginalised authors and Jan 15–31 for writers 🌌 Send 500–2,500 word SFF or supernatural horror with a strong emotional or psychological focus. Pays £0.02/word. Guidelines: horrortree.com/taking-submi...` #WritingCommunity #AmWriting

"To nine-year-old Mumbi, this chaos was normal, a soundtrack she’d grown up inside. But deep in her chest, she knew that Jesus would come like a thief." Read 'Mumbi and the Second Coming' by Celestine Ndanu K. inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-mumb...

Thank you to everyone who has responded to this so far, it has been wonderful reading your answers. Please keep them coming! :-)

"The rumble, I’m used to. It’s going almost all the time but with her it increases to growls, with no break. The timbre enough to warm the base of my spine. The sound like ongoing building work in an unending city..." Read The Monster by @nomonbooks.bsky.social inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-the-...

Thank you to everyone who has responded to this so far, it has been wonderful reading your answers. Please keep them coming! :-)

"The rumble, I’m used to. It’s going almost all the time but with her it increases to growls, with no break. The timbre enough to warm the base of my spine. The sound like ongoing building work in an unending city..." Read The Monster by @nomonbooks.bsky.social inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-9-the-...

New story day! My sci-fi (?) short story “Sore Winner” is live now in The /tƐmz/ Review #33. Come stew in the weird, dark games we play when we’re bored. Maybe you’ll feel better about winning this time.

On December 12th I read Moult by Anita Harris Satkunananthan, published in @innerworlds.bsky.social! "This is a city of people who continuously shed their skin." Gorgeous writing and the imagery of shedding skin is used in many impactful ways throughout. Really enjoyed this one.