My daughter got a Crunchyroll subscription for Christmas. What anime do y'all recommend watching?

Readers enjoyed Monday's "Hallmark"-style Xmas story: "I have a weakness for such stories, and their cozy familiarity. If Kurt Vonnegut is right, that the purpose of art is to make us appreciate being alive, then 'Vermont Christmas' is a true work of art." www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/12/verm...

Our family Christmas movies this year have been Elf, A Muppet Christmas Carol, Home Alone and Die Hard. Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.

Saw Deep Red: 1970s giallo (stylised Italian horror) about a serial killer that failed to hold my attention. Not helped because it was a "director's cut" with all the - unnecessary - scenes from the cutting room floor playing in a jarringly different dub. My fave giallo's still "Terror at the Opera"

Before publishing houses, before book tours and blurbs and prizes, there were gatherings. People stood in circles. Around fires. In public squares. In rooms with bad light and good wine. And someone said: Listen. I have something to say. That, at its core, is what a literary magazine still is.

Seasons greetings, readers. May words be your steel beam, your safe harbour, your inextinguishable fire.

A Christmas Eve tradition of ours - we take turns to read this poem out loud to each other. 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43171/...

Literary magazines pull in the opposite direction to fascism. They are the propaganda of free thought.

Readers were effusive about Friday's story: "This is a very powerful story (and sadly timely, given recent headlines.)" "This is one of the most moving narratives I've encountered on Fiction on the Web." "This is one of the best stories I've read on here." www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/12/the-...

Reader comments on last Monday's Fiction on the Web story: "The tale has a good balance of what made Philip Dick so memorable and what makes William Gibson so timely." "What incredible world building! And you have such deeply poetic craft!" www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/12/the-...

Rewatched The Departed. An undercover cop and a mole in the police try to identify each other while infiltrating a Boston gang. It gets tense, but for the first half of the film I struggled to take DiCaprio & Damon seriously as amoral tough guys (weirdly I was getting them mixed up). Great 2nd half.

Saw The Theory of Everything, biopic of Jane and Stephen Hawking. Perfectly pleasant, but biopics are rarely as satisfying as fiction, because they're constrained by having to tell a "real" story - and neither are they as rigorous as biography, so I'm left with lots of questions.

Watched It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Strangers witness a dying man confess where he buried the spoils of a heist. A comically destructive slapstick road trip ensues as they race to the loot. Fun, great plot, amusing but not laugh-out-loud funny. Best part: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgV_...

Last year, 3 movies were released that stood out to me as GOATs. This year - 2025 - none. Tell me why I'm wrong.

In "Saxon Was My Friend" by Harrison Kim, a child haunted by a floating head longs for a serpentine companion to scare it away. Here's a reader comment: "This was creepy to the Nth degree." www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/12/saxo...

The Lascaux Review are #2 on the FISH list this year. "Beautiful language is meant to be heard as well as read." www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/fish-list....

I'm off work till the new year! Woohoooooo!

Watched the old Jason and the Argonauts movie. I enjoyed the idea of the gods playing out the fates of the mortals beneath them as a literal board game. The famous Ray Harryhausen effects are still pretty cool, especially the skeleton fight at the end. I enjoyed it more than Cleopatra (also 1963).

According to the stats, my top socials post of the year was: "For the first time in its 28-year history, Fiction on the Web just cracked 1 million visitors in 12 months. And still growing!" That was 17 April this year. Now, 8 months later, we're up to 1.6 MILLION IN 12 MONTHS!

And this one goes out to all the amazing editors out there <3 Find them (and how to submit to them!) here: www.chillsubs.com/lists/great-... #writing #writers #writingcommunity

Chill Subs has announced its community-voted Best Literary Magazines of 2025, and Fiction on the Web came #4 in the Great Editors category! www.chillsubs.com/lists/great-...

We’re thrilled to be included in the top 500 on the FISH list! Thank you, @charliefish.bsky.social, for taking the time to compile the list! Take a look: www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/fish-list....!

I saw Palme d'Or winner It Was Just An Accident at the cinema, about a minor accident with escalating consequences. This film was a slow-cooked Khoresh of moral ambiguity, with remarkable long takes, moments of comic relief, and a chillingly unresolved ending. Long live the brave Panahis.

Do you follow Fiction on the Web on insta? www.instagram.com/fictiononthe...

Do you follow Fiction on the Web on LinkedIn? www.linkedin.com/company/fict...

Reader comments on last Monday's short story about a magician who's a little too effective for his own good: "One of the most delightful absurdist stories I've read on the FOTW site." "I thought this was very entertaining and original." www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/12/conn...

Thank you to everyone who voted Fiction on the Web as #4 in the Great Editor category! And congrats to all the well-deserving magazines on the list.

In "The Last Jew in New Judea", a postman in a Pakistani town hides his Jewish identity, but the self-aggrandising son of the general is determined to stir up trouble. A reader comment: "I admired the way this story tackled a difficult subject head-on." www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/12/the-...

My favourite song I discovered this year: The Doll People by Sofia Isella. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD-u...

Did you know that Fiction on the Web Patreon members get access to loads of free audiobooks of some of the best short stories we've published? www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/audiobooks...

Watched The Wages of Fear, classic French suspense thriller about bums (Mario and Luigi - heh) doing a suicidally dangerous job carrying nitroglycerin across mountain roads. The first half-hour could have been condensed, but once the truck trip starts it's edge-of-the-seat stuff.

The FISH list evaluates thousands of magazines across 14 “liveliness” metrics—including community engagement, editorial transparency, and awards recognition—to spotlight journals that thrive though volunteer effort and a dedication to storytelling. www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/fish-list....

This year's toy trends! I was the school Santa, and the most asked for toys by 2-10 year-olds this year were: Labubu dolls, robot dogs, remote control cars, and Lego. Cutest wishlist request: a 4-year-old wanted a purse to give her mother.

Although it’s been almost a year of being around, we made it on the FISH List of lively independent #litmags! Woohoo! FLARE is number 1282 out of 1848 lit mags that qualified! Thank you for curating all this, @charliefish.bsky.social! See the list here: www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/fish-list....

This month, I nominated Anastasia Petrenko's story She Was Trouble for a Best Small Fictions award: altcurrentpress.com/best-small-f...

This year will be the 11th that I've been my local school's Santa. My kids don't even go there anymore. I think it's super sweet how excited the children are to see Santa, and it's fascinating to hear which toys are on-trend each year.

Fiction on the Web is nominating three short stories for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Good luck to the authors John Onah Otroyin (Kiss Me On a Hill), N.F. Kenure (Ulari and Her Idiot), and Lara Reilly (The Solar Heater, publishing on 9 January). www.caineprize.com

I read an anthology of "queer erotic sci-fi, fantasy and horror" called Unreal Sex. Standout story was Anima Kingdom by Diriye Osman, which magically captured how it feels to be a gay Somali living in Peckham. Sexy, mind-expanding, romantic, real. www.amazon.co.uk/Unreal-Sex-S...

What better way to celebrate Christmas than with Fiction on the Web merch? Oh, wait, I just thought of a few better ways, but still... www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/shop.html

Having read, and loved, four or five Heinlein novels in the past, I (foolishly?) bought a collection of 15 Heinlein books spanning the 1950s-1980s. "Have Space Suit - Will Travel" was a fun one about a precocious kid who wants to go to the moon, but ends up kidnapped by aliens and going way further.

Saw Paddington: the Musical. I wept with childlike joy and wonder. The songs, the energy, the pace, the production - all incredible - but above all, the bear. I could hardly believe it was real, as if a perfectly expressive cartoon had come to life. One of the best things I've ever seen on stage.

I saw Wake Up Dead Man at the cinema. The greatest strength of the Knives Out movies is that they are so aware of the literary and cinematic history of murder mysteries, and pay deft homage to it while cleverly subverting our expectations. I loved this religiously-themed third instalment.

I read Bernard Shaw's 1932 novel The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God. The titular black woman finds a series of embodiments of mostly contradictory Godly concepts/attitudes that leave her resolutely unsatisfied. This felt like a fable, full of barbs at the hypocrisies of religion.

I just nominated Anastasia Petrenko's story "She Was Trouble" for a Best Small Fictions award! Good luck, Anastasia 😁 www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/03/she-...

I mean, who in their right minds would buy Fiction on the Web merch as a Christmas gift? Anyone? www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/shop.html

A Christmas gift for the video gamer in your life? www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Charlie-Fish...

Watched the star-studded Towering Inferno (1974 burning building disaster movie). It did a great job of giving a sense of the horror of the situation - the terrifying inevitability of the fire's approach. Hollywood wouldn't dare make this post-9/11. I felt uneasy thinking about Grenfell too.

Readers loved "Shared Time" by Scardavino at Fiction on the Web: "Poignant, touching!" "This brief story has a good deal of emotional power." "This story moved me so deeply." "Very touching and beautiful ❤️" www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2025/12/shar...

The FISH list of lively independent literary magazines has been updated for 2026, and there's a new #1: Flash Fiction Magazine! The list ranks thousands of lit mags on 14 unique metrics such as community engagement, awards won, and editor transparency. www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/fish-list....

We are thrilled to have made #25 on the FISH list! Thank you to @charliefish.bsky.social for all you do in the lit community. www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/fish-list....