Haven Spec Magazine

@havenspec

Online SFF magazine featuring stories and poetry for the 21st century! We publish numerous issues a year, two of which are focused on the climate crisis. Editor: Leon Perniciaro. HavenSpec.com

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Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Poetry👀 "Wintering Grounds" is a poem by @brokenswanquill.bsky.social about the sorrow that comes with unbridgeable distance and the unsettled ache of whatever love might remain Read it here: havenspec.com/poetry/winte...

Excerpt of the poem Wintering Grounds by Anna Madden. The text reads:

You mapped out the flight
after the bathroom flooded.
The pipes’ veins across a leaf,
frozen until bursting.

A migration to escape our winter,
I’d thought while tracing contrails skyward.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Fiction👀 "Convergence" is a short story by @danpeacock.bsky.social about paranoia and war and the eternal possibility that we might yet work together before it's too late Read it here: havenspec.com/fiction/conv...

Excerpt of the short story Convergence by Dan Peacock. The text reads:

Something triggers a sensor and jars me awake, as if I’m falling. The enemy does not seem to be moving, but they are much, much closer. My empty weapon systems jerk into action again, hitting my firewall before they can kick-start another lethal short-surge inside me. I wait for the enemy to show their hand.

And nothing happens.

Suddenly, it makes sense. Gravity is patient, infinitely tireless, and it is slowly teasing both of us together in a silent convergence.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Poetry👀 "Here Comes The Men In Black, or, Out Wrecks The Shroud, or, Kelly's Black Boyfriend Is Actually The Eschaton???" is a poem by @csilverandgold.bsky.social about imagining new universes of racial possibility and belonging Read it here: havenspec.com/poetry/here-...

Excerpt of the poem Here Comes The Men In Black, or, Out Wrecks The Shroud, or, Kelly's Black Boyfriend Is Actually The Eschaton??? by Christopher Leigh Silverberg. The text reads:

Spacetime changes now
beneath and to the
right of you, your theater’s
shroud of film, dead presidents, and skylight—
all sources of white, I mean, all sources of light—cosmology is
hushed, flayed, opened
silent before a new elementary birthing. And
this is the end of the thing we in adolescence called high noon.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Fiction👀 "If You Don’t Return, I Want You To Know" is a short story by @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social about risking everything to save the people you love Read it here: havenspec.com/fiction/if-y...

Excerpt of the short story If You Don't Return, I Want You To Know by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor. The text reads:

I stand on the edge of a kaleidoscope of inverted colors and inside-out sounds and backwards tastes. Baked cinnamon cornbread coughed onto a plate, fried pistachio green lullaby, baby shrinking from childhood into a crib lined with felt dinosaurs and milk-scented bibs.

Everything has a sense of echo. Not a sound, but the feeling that afterimages of myself, my existence, are spreading out like ripples through the cosmos. I’m balanced on a wire of straight gray light, and the expansive presence of the bridge is blooming around me.

Quinn is somewhere out here.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Poetry👀 "The First Spider on the Moon" is a poem by @hvpatterson.bsky.social about empathy and a longing for that which might never be reached Read it here: havenspec.com/poetry/the-f...

Excerpt of the poem The First Spider on the Moon by H.V. Patterson. The text reads:

The jumping spider who lives in my kitchen
longs to leap to the moon,
to run fuzzy trichobothria over
her pitted-cheese surface

I watch him jump, each leap fifty times his body length,
relatively impressive,
but objectively mere inches.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Fiction👀 "In This Dimension, Do You Still Believe in God?" is a short story by @loragray.bsky.social about how sometimes a thing gets broken and can't be fixed (whether in marriages or interdimensional travel) Read it here: havenspec.com/fiction/in-t...

Excerpt of the short story In This Dimension, Do You Still Believe in God? by Lora Gray. The text reads:

Every time I try to go home, the Bridge deposits me back into this dimension, back into this living room.

And every time I’m reminded of how beautiful Abdi is. There is an unassuming elegance to the way he drapes his jacket onto the hall tree, a delicate artistry when he toes off his Birkenstocks, one palm pressed to the wall, his mussed hair obscuring his eyes.

There are dark circles beneath them now.

Oh, darling, you look so thin.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Poetry👀 "Flowers, Coffee, Cinnamon and the Long Way Home" is a poem by Arden Baker about homesickness and fighting to do the impossible Read it here: havenspec.com/poetry/flowe...

Excerpt of the poem Flowers, Coffee, Cinnamon and the Long Way Home by Arden Baker. The text reads:

Sasha was not always going to be an astronaut
She much preferred
floral arrangements (natives, not gardenias)
and coffee (robusta, a dash of oat milk)
and cinnamon (a light dusting, ochre snow)
in the café at the end of her street.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

👀July 2026 Fiction👀 "Pieces of Anna" is a short story by @rlmeza.bsky.social about a father's grief and the kindness of community after he loses his astronaut daughter Read it here: havenspec.com/fiction/piec...

Excerpt of the short story Pieces of Anna by R.L. Meza. The text reads:

An elderly couple found Anna’s seat on their evening walk, with the help of their gull-chasing terrier. In the photo from the front page of the local paper, the pilot’s chair sat upright, facing west, like it had been brought there to witness one last sunset. Fading light limned its dripping silhouette. But the seat was as empty as the seashell fragments littering the shore.

Twenty-three somber teenagers formed a half circle around the mech’s charred helmet for a group photo. Years before, Anna had visited their grade school to deliver a presentation on the invention that would one day...

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

Our ✨July 2026 issue✨ is now free to read online! Here is a thread of everything inside it. Please read it and please spread the word! havenspec.com/issues/issue... 🧵

Cover of Haven Spec Magazine, Issue 24, published July 2026.

Fiction in the issue is by R.L. Meza, Lora Gray, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, and Dan Peacock.

Poetry in the issue is by Arden Baker,
H.V. Patterson, Christopher Leigh Silverberg, and Anna Madden.

The cover art is titled "Finally, some sleep" and is by Caleb Worcester. It features an astronaut lying comfortably on a cloud high above the lights of a city.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 6d

If you haven't read the poem "The Carcass of the World" by @aijiang.bsky.social from our 🌟June 2026 issue🌟, now's your chance! It's about the anguish of dying lands and the things that rise at the end of the world, and you can read it here: havenspec.com/poetry/the-c...

An excerpt of the poem "The Carcass of the World" by Ai Jiang, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

When the carcass of the deer first appeared
erect and alive—not in flesh but in soul—
Father told me that the world was ending.
Its antlers grew, rose into the sky, pierced
its heart with its sharpened edges, and we stood,
watched as the clouds bled, pouring dark tears,
unleashing lightning redder, brighter
than what flowed through our veins, darker...

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· 8d

If you haven't read the short story "Horseland" by EC Dorgan from our 🌟June 2026 issue🌟, now's your chance! This one's about authenticity and the monsters that haunt our hearts and histories, and you can read it here: havenspec.com/fiction/hors...

An excerpt of the short story "Horseland" by EC Dorgan, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

By every measure, I’m a success. I have the perfect home, the perfect partner. He works for an oil company. We’ve paid down our mortgage and invested in equities. He makes a good salary, but I make more, empowering people and selling my story.

I help people find their authentic selves. They say my talks are life-changing. Last year I was on a national news magazine cover, and last month, I made Edmonton’s “Forty Under Forty.” Our guest room became my award room. Now the laundry room’s full, too.

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 10

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "The Archivist of Vanished Tongues" is a poem by Oladosu Michael Emerald about the dead and dying tongues we speak and how we make them live, and you can read it now! havenspec.com/poetry/the-a...

An excerpt of the poem "The Archivist of Vanished Tongues" by Oladosu Michael Emerald, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

They say the wind here speaks in broken alphabets. I collect dying languages, fragile things made of breath and dust, barely alive, like insects caught in amber. I’m a boy born with sand in his mouth, raised by silence and the slow scratch of forgotten scripts across his skin.

At night, the walls murmur in extinct vowels. I write them down with a stylus carved from my father’s rib, pressing ink into salt paper. The letters flicker like moths caught between two flames. Above us, the sky...

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 10

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "SOLD: One Soul, Gently Used" is a poem by @nicowritesbooks.bsky.social about regret and impossible choices, and you can read it now! havenspec.com/poetry/sold-...

An excerpt of the poem "SOLD: One Soul, Gently Used" by Nico Martinez Nocito, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

His eyes trail over me with the hungry wanting of a nightmare.
“You’d sell your soul for a few coins?” His voice has the lilt
of my own splintered fears. “Why, what
a terrible bargain, when you could fix every error
that led you here?”

The man in black offers a second chance, who will raise him?

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 10

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 "Strawberry Island" is a short story by Emily O'Malley Liu about first love and finally coming home, and you can read it now! havenspec.com/fiction/stra...

An excerpt of the short story "Strawberry Island" by Emily O'Malley Liu, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

We were boys when we met by the seashore. He threw a stick at me and called me ugly. I tackled him into the sand. We became inseparable.

His name was Angelo. For fourteen days, Angelo and I met as if by preordination at dawn, on the beach behind my family’s vacation rental on the southern Maine coast. The tide in the bay went out, out, out, and so did we, scouting across the massive expanse of wet, freshly revealed earth, hunting in the tide pools that formed between the rocks...

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 9

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 "What Is A Lake Beyond An Extinct Word?" is a short story by @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social about drought and the broken promises of a not-too-distant future, and you can read it now! havenspec.com/fiction/what...

An excerpt of the short story "What Is A Lake Beyond An Extinct Word?" by Corey Farrenkopf, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

The cabin is cool compared to the elements outside. It holds some ghost scent of fresh water, the whisper of times not so hard, times when people could still float a house across a lake to better lands, to a future not so hollowed-out and ravaged by their past decisions. She wonders what it was like to truly believe in better. How it was a reality for her grandfather when he was her age.

Mattie gives a little laugh.

What even is a lake anymore beyond an extinct word?

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 9

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "A Science Center Education" is a poem by @lynnesargent.bsky.social about life and chance and how lucky we are that we exist and can build all our hopeful fragile lives together, and you can read it now! havenspec.com/poetry/a-sci...

An excerpt of the poem "A Science Center Education" by Lynne Sargent, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

It was a wheel of probability,
of all the living beings in the world:
organized, a pie-chart
of domain, kingdom—mammals separated out,
humans separated again from that, and last
the smallest sliver, barely large enough to hold
its colour representing the chance:

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 8

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "What to Watch For" is a poem by @jordanrhirsch.bsky.social about hope in a world that refuses to forget, and you can read it now! havenspec.com/poetry/what-...

An excerpt of the poem "What to Watch For" by Jordan Hirsch, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

Grandmother taught me what to watch for:
curling blue leaves growing opposite each other.

Every year, she threw a handful of seeds in the soil,
and now I do, too. She taught me

what to watch for: cooler mornings,
something called frost, the shores receding back

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 8

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 "Mother's Bane" is a short story by @madihaab.com about breaking the cycles of abuse that we are heir to (and also killer plants), and you can read it now! buff.ly/q8XzXO4

An excerpt of the short story "Mother's Bane" by Madi Haab, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

Edwin was an enthusiastic lover, eager to please and to pleasure. He kissed Briar all over, even the strange red bumps she’d first noticed on her skin that morning. His mouth was slow, then teasing, and he brought her to her peak—once, twice—as they made love.

After, they fell back on the mattress in a sweaty, sticky-sweet tangle. “You taste like honeysuckle,” he whispered in her ear before dozing off.

Those would be her husband’s last words.

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 7

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "Poison" is a poem by Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe about oil and blood and the prayers we offer to the wind and the earth, and you can read it now! buff.ly/qYxCPxJ

An excerpt of the poem "Poison" by Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

Heaven falls again. & the river cries black.
So much until it becomes a miracle, how a

woman can bleed & not bring out blood the
color of night. In my ache for catharsis, I

baptize in his mouth of filth. In the name of
the father. I am dunked. The oil clings to my...

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 7

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 "We Whose Fathers Have Transformed into Wild Animals of the Land, Sea, and Sky" is a short story by @spencerwriting.bsky.social about the pain and trauma we inherit from our fathers, and you can read it now! buff.ly/bWOUiVI

An excerpt of the short story "We Whose Fathers Have Transformed into Wild Animals of the Land, Sea, and Sky" by Spencer Nitkey, in Issue 23 of Haven Spec Magazine (June 2026). The text reads:

Kaye dreams of killing his father. When I am not terrified of this dream, I am so jealous that I wish I could steal it through his lips. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever saw my father again. Kaye’s certainty calms me, violent as it is. Now, as Kaye stares down the sight of his rifle and the tremendous buck we’ve been tracking for three days comes up from the brush, he is closer than ever to achieving it. In the Sierra Nevada, mosquito-bitten and muddy, I am not jealous. My tongue tastes of pennies, and more than anything, I am sorry. I want to take Kaye in my hands, run his calloused fingers across my beard, and ground him in something, anything, other than the circle of his scope and his father’s beating heart.

The background is the issue's cover art, titled Red and Gold, by Carly A-F. It shows a skeletal figure with fire and branches for hair as they loom over a solitary human figure in the foreground.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jul 6

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 ICYMI, "Horseland" by EC Dorgan is a short story about authenticity and the monsters that haunt our hearts and histories, and you can read it now! havenspec.com/fiction/hors...

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jun 30

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "The Archivist of Vanished Tongues" is a poem by Oladosu Michael Emerald about the dead and dying tongues we speak and how we make them live. Find it in our June 2026 Issue! havenspec.com/issues/issue...

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jun 30

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 "Strawberry Island" is a short story by Emily O'Malley Liu about first love and finally coming home. Find it in our June 2026 Issue! havenspec.com/issues/issue...

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jun 29

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "A Science Center Education" is a poem by @lynnesargent.bsky.social about life and chance and how lucky we are that we exist and can build all our hopeful fragile lives together. Find it in our June 2026 Issue! havenspec.com/issues/issue...

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jun 29

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 "What Is A Lake Beyond An Extinct Word?" is a short story by @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social about drought and the broken promises of a not-too-distant future. Find it in our June 2026 issue! havenspec.com/issues/issue...

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jun 25

👀June 2026 Poetry👀 "The Carcass of the World" is a poem by @aijiang.bsky.social about the anguish of dying lands and the things that rise at the end of the world. Find it in our June 2026 Issue! havenspec.com/issues/issue...

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jun 25

👀June 2026 Fiction👀 "Horseland" is a short story by EC Dorgan about authenticity and the monsters that haunt our hearts and histories. As a special preview of the issue, you can read it NOW! havenspec.com/fiction/hors...

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Jun 24

Our ✨June 2026 issue✨ is ready! Subscribers will get it tomorrow, and everyone else can read it July 2nd! In this issue, you'll find five new stories and six new poems, many of which are vaguely environmental and all of which are amazing!

Cover of Haven Spec Magazine, Issue 23, published June 2026.

Fiction: EC Dorgan, Spencer Nitkey, Madi Haab, Corey Farrenkopf, Emily O'Malley Liu

Poetry: Ai Jiang, Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe, Jordan Hirsch, Lynne Sargent, Oladosu Michael Emerald, Nico Martinez Nocito

The background features cover art by Carly A-F and features a skeletal figure with branches and fire over their head as they loom above a solitary human figure.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Feb 22

👀Submission Snapshot, 2026 Winter Reading Period👀 Fiction submissions: 967 Open: 658 Holds: 20 Passed: 274 Withdrawn: 15 Total poetry submissions: 211 Open: 108 Holds: 3 Passed: 97 Withdrawn: 3 (See the next post in this 🧵 for caveats about this data!)

A graph showing the total number of submissions to Haven Spec Magazine for the 2026 Winter Reading Period (covering January 1st to today, February 22nd). Each day is color-coded for open, recommended, rejected, and withdrawn. Almost all of the January submissions have been processed (either rejected or held for further consideration). The graph peaks at February 1st, with about 115 submissions, of which about half have been processed.

Haven Spec Magazine@havenspec· Feb 21

👀February 2026 Poetry👀 "Roommate" is a poem by @arthurmanners.bsky.social about housing crisis horrors. Read it for its gothic vibes (and its terrible landlord). Subscribe and read it now! havenspec.com/issues/issue...