Haven Spec Magazine

@havenspec.bsky.social

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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

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An excerpt of the poem "Roommate" by Arthur H. Manners, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: The day after Danny died of pneumonia He came downstairs to call the landlord. I watched trembling from the kitchen As he rasped and bubbled into his phone, “Damp’s gotten worse, you need to get down here.” [...] The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the poem "Mothercraft (a villanelle)" by Erin Brown, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: It isn’t magic, doll, which fastens you. I am the needle, thread, I am the pin. It is the art I wield, the work I do. I hasten credit where I think it due, And do not find earned pride to be a sin. It isn’t magic, doll, which fastens you. The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the short story "We are the Giants We Fear" by Lee Zanello, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: This is a trick our uncle teaches us before he leaves. When the rumbling from the mountains makes our homes shake and we are scared or anxious, he calms us by forcing us to focus on our immediate environment. “Look for colours,” he says. “Something red, something brown, something yellow. Listen, really listen, to the space around you. This is your home and you are safe here.” Our uncle teaches us many things as kids, my sister and me. We learn how to make a fire, which plants are edible and which can heal a wound. He takes us... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the short story "Tring-a-Ling" by Dafydd McKimm, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: The Monster pedals into the village on a bright yellow bicycle, red tassels streaming from the handlebars, stabilizers clattering on the cobbles as it rings its bell—tring-a-ling, tring-a-ling—past the first of the well-kept houses. Mrs Griffiths, scourge of aphids, rain-goddess to hydrangeas, spots it as it passes her gate, arrests it with a "Hello there, young man. Where have you come from?" To which the Monster, face aglow, angelic in the sun, replies in a voice like... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
Haven Spec Magazine, Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026. Cover and table of contents. The issue is now available to subscribers, and its contents are as follows: Cover Art by Matthew Spencer. Fiction: Fragments of Sky in Quantum Grief by Lex Chamberlin. She Will Help You The Only Way She Knows How by Janel Comeau. Skin Deep by Cressida Roe. Tring-a-Ling by Dafydd McKimm. We Are The Giants We Fear by Lee Zanello. Poetry: If I must exist here, by Eleanor Ball. Fairest One by Sophia Zhao. Persephone Wins Custody of Herself by Marisca Pichette. Roommate by Arthur H. Manners. Mothercraft (a villanelle) by Erin Brown. Nonfiction: Letter from the Editor, Ya Herd? by Leon Perniciaro. Poetry for the End of the World by Jessica Peter. Little Fiction Reviews by the Editors of Haven Spec Magazine.
An excerpt of the poem "Persephone Wins Custody of Herself" by Marisca Pichette, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: between cold-pink toes the grass my mother worked so hard to plant wilts, browns, dies. white dress stained muddy at the hem, hair tangled with sticks I catch a snowflake in my teeth. [...] The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the short story "Skin Deep" by Cressida Roe, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: We started shifting in sixth grade. It wasn’t hard, just a simple slither sideways into another skin, more invisible beneath pelts and exoskeletons than in running shorts and t-shirts getting too tight in the wrong places. Easier to bark in a circle, run up trees after squirrels, scuttle beneath a tilted horizon. I had a rodent phase early on and guiltily gorged on scraps of mac-and-cheese. That’s how Mom found out. She’d been trying to sweep me out the front door with a broom when I shifted back. Of course, she had a meltdown and demanded I tell her who I picked up ... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the poem "Fairest One" by Sophia Zhao, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: and I know Mama knows best after He, eyes fair beneath a crown of gold, presents to her a pair of iron shoes, a pit of burning coal, [...] The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the short story "She Will Help You The Only Way She Knows How" by Janel Comeau, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: Sophie Barbeau had taken just four steps through the front door of her childhood home when her mother noticed the bruises. “What’s this?” Her mother licked the pad of her thumb and scrubbed at Sophie’s cheek, the way she’d scrubbed at dirt and crumbs and smears of melted popsicle when Sophie was little. A deep purple bruise bloomed on her cheekbone as a coat of makeup rubbed away. Sophie pushed her mother’s hand aside. “Ow, Maman. It’s nothing. Just a... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the poem "If I must exist here," by Eleanor Ball, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: then with open arms. Bitten nails. Tongue bloody from eating itself like a snake. From pressing my mouth to yours. Oracle, puzzle, three-body problem. Then in prayer, licking the wounds of the earth. Then sunflowers, springing [...] The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
An excerpt of the short story "Fragments of Sky in Quantum Grief" by Lex Chamberlin, in Issue 22 of Haven Spec Magazine (February 2026). The text reads: The pieces did not trickle down at the start—they fell in sheets that peeled off like expired wallpaper, leaving a starless abyss gaping wide overhead. It’s been months now. The deluge has slowed some: a chip here, a sliver there, carving a dark and crooked chunk from the otherwise perfect summer sky. But it’s always at its worst where I’m currently biding my time, on a gritty towel in the shadow of some oversized driftwood—she loved the beach more than anywhere else. Someone too much like her runs past, and my heart clenches... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Harmonies of the Harvest, by Matthew Spencer. It shows a figure with a human body and a deer head.
Haven Spec Magazine, Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026. Cover and table of contents. The issue will be available to subscribers on February 16th, and its contents are as follows: Cover Art by Matthew Spencer. Fiction: Fragments of Sky in Quantum Grief by Lex Chamberlin. She Will Help You The Only Way She Knows How by Janel Comeau. Skin Deep by Cressida Roe. Tring-a-Ling by Dafydd McKimm. We Are The Giants We Fear by Lee Zanello. Poetry: If I must exist here, by Eleanor Ball. Fairest One by Sophia Zhao. Persephone Wins Custody of Herself by Marisca Pichette. Roommate by Arthur H. Manners. Mothercraft (a villanelle) by Erin Brown. Nonfiction: Letter from the Editor, Ya Herd? by Leon Perniciaro. Poetry for the End of the World by Jessica Peter. Little Fiction Reviews by the Editors of Haven Spec Magazine.
An excerpt of the poem "Rainmaker" by Olumide Manuel, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: Rivers above and below, hear my voice. A ripple is how you speak. A pour is how you sing. I sing with both feet in vestigial bodies. By the stitch of the skies in me, I call you forth to this dance. In the epigenesis of silence, you forged the ways. The womb of the world was sedentary until you fed its first seed, broke it to light with your wet voice. You raised the first song to the dawns. The thunderbirds harvested it from there. The winds scrapped their leftover screams. The trees mothered the first mother—clay-skinned, sea-eyed. She disgarnished the grief... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the short story "A Tree is not a Home" by Diana Dima, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: A tree is not a home. But you, twelve years old and bony, dragging a suitcase behind a gray mother into the gray building where you were now going to live, looked back at me as though it was all wrong. As though the building should have been me. You came out soon afterwards, walked across the parking lot and over the low wire fence into my patch of land. (I saw you, in a manner of speaking, like an arrow rushing at me in the dark.) I could tell that you had never seen a birch before. You pressed your cheek... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the poem "last psalm" by P.H. Low, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: that you might be appeased by one such as me. that, smug on your garnet altar, you would unhinge your jaws and drink wetly of my fear, as a thousand mahogany harps tremble beneath your altar [...] The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the short story "Branches" by Matt Tighe, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: You smile when you see her across the street again. She laughs when you ask her the way to the station. It is right there behind her, South Entrance in huge letters, people bustling in and out of the oversized doorway. She asks where you are from—don’t they have trains there—and you smile and shrug. A version of you exists in almost every branch of reality, but part of you, the part that hurts, that knows how she holds your heart, has only just... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the short story "Bootcut" by Allison Pottern, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: Running your hand along the clothing rack, your finger catches on a Goodwill miracle: a pair of jeans that actually fits. They have no tag—no name brand—just a questionable stain below the left front pocket, no big deal. It’s like maybe these jeans have lived a more exciting life than you have. Maybe if you put them on, a bit of that excitement could rub off on you. The flared, dark-washed jeans look like once upon a time they were very expensive. Now that they’re in your broke hands, they’re merely “vintage.” But... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the poem "Queercoded Villanelle" by anaum sajanlal, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: Build an altar to memory. Do not forget. Dot ancestors all over, then kneel down and pray to all the joys you do not think possible, yet. And once you have swallowed the moon of your grief, get up and run. Leave your eye-silver flowing. Though they burn altars to memory, we do not forget. [...] The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the short story "And If You Must Be Wicked, You Must" by Elou Carroll, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: You are looking right at her when it happens. When your hands clench around his throat—his skin bright and warm beneath your fingers. It should be her with her nails sharp and her knuckles paling. She is behind him with her mouth hanging open. She cannot hold your stare—she looks away and bites her lip. For the first time, you are reversed, as if you were born in the mirror all along. She hunches her shoulders and squeezes her eyes shut. Then, she looks up. She watches. She must. [...] The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the short story "A Beginner’s Guide to Summoning Demons" by Cynthia Zhang, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: 1. Buy two cartons of salt: one for the actual summoning, the other for practice. Don’t worry about iodized versus sea salt, fleur de sel or pink Himalayan—as long as it’s not low-sodium, any brand will do. 2. Candles, too—your mom has some around the house, but she will notice if you take them all. Even if she doesn’t, you doubt the scent of Ocean Rain and Vanilla Sugar will impress any demons you want to bind. Votive candles are best, though tealights will do in a pinch, a pack of twenty for one ninety-nine... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the poem "A Party, A Party!" by Faith Allington, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: You don’t choose vampires and ghouls any more than they choose you, but you find consolation in each other, all the unloved and objectified strata of myth. Everybody wants to fear you The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the short story "Demon in Repose" by J. A. W. McCarthy, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2026). The text reads: You know this elevator well. You’re leaving the room that was never really your room, another transient visitor in a transient space, but something nips at the back of your neck as you wait for the cables to pull the elevator car up to your floor. What did you forget? Blue and grey and beige carpet squares point endless forking paths towards doors sheltering lost things and lost people, but you’re not among them anymore. Last night’s haven has spat you out despite its warm welcome. What did... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.
An excerpt of the short story "Magical Girl: Corporate Failure" by Lia Lao, in Issue 21 of Haven Spec Magazine (January 2025). The text reads: The problem with saving the world at sixteen is that you’re doomed to chase that high for the rest of your life. You’ll fall asleep tossing and turning, dreaming of tiaras that cleave through bone, sky-high heels you can land spinning kicks in, and blood splattering across your face—thick, black, and pungent, like decay settling into your skin. And when you wake each morning to the tinny, lifeless pulse of your alarm, you’ll wish that your limbs actually ached, that the claw marks... The background is the issue's cover art, titled Pile, by Aimee Cozza. It shows a figure with blood around their mouth and on their neck and chest, cuddling a pack of wolves.