StarShipSofa

Main fiction: "The Screenplay on the Edge of Forever" by T. K. Rex

T. K. Rex’s science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in more than forty publications, including Asimov’s, Grist, and their debut collection, The Wildcraft Drones, published in 2026 with Stelliform Press. Their second book, The Cursed Blade of Wek, arrives in 2027. They live in San Francisco, co-host Stir: a seasonal reading series on Folsom Corridor, and spend most weekends at a local bookstore. T. K.'s newsletter, socials, and upcoming events can be found at tkrex.wtf.

This story originally appeared in T...

P.A. Cornell is a Chilean-Canadian speculative fiction writer. A two-time finalist for the Nebula Award, her stories have been published in over seventy magazines and anthologies, including Lightspeed, Apex, and multiple “Best of the Year” anthologies. In addition to becoming the first Chilean Nebula finalist in 2024, Cornell has been a finalist for the Aurora and World Fantasy Awards, and in 2022 won Canada’s Short Works Prize. When not writing, she can be found assembling intricate LEGO builds or drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. Sometimes both. For more on the author and her work, visit her website pacornell.com.

T...

Marie Vibbert is a past Hugo and Nebula finalist with over 100 stories in pro publications from Analog to Zombies Need Brains. Her latest book is a novella, Multitude, wherein you can follow the hivemind of cephalopod aliens and explore the power of language, community, and hope.

This story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction, June 2016.

Narration by: Ibba Armanas

Ibba Armanas is a two time EMMY-nominated Director/Producer for KLCS-PBS Los Angeles. A huge sci-fi fan and occasional narrator, she’s excited to be back on StarShipSofa after a decade of absence.

...

Eric Del Carlo's short fiction has appeared multiple times in Analog, Asimov's, and Clarkesworld, as well as many other magazines and anthologies over the years. He returns to StarShipSofa with the first story he wrote in 2026. Eric lives in the States, in his native California.

"Traipsing the Else" is original to StarShipSofa.

Narration by: Brian Rollins

Brian Rollins is a voice actor and podcaster living in Colorado. You can hear him hosting the Dorky Geeky Nerdy Trivia Podcast every Wednesday or narrating audiobooks like the Glen and Tyler adventure series, the Uncommon Bonds...

Kit (formerly Ekaterina) Sedia is a critically acclaimed writer of speculative fiction and noir, and a World Fantasy Award winning editor. He is the author of several novels and a short story collection, featuring stories originally published in venues such as Asimov’s, Analog, and Clarkesworld. His translations from Russian have appeared in The Big Book of Classic Fantasy and The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. He also co-wrote a script for Yamasong: March of the Hollows, a fantasy feature-length puppet film voiced by Nathan Fillion, George Takei, Abigail Breslin, and Whoopi Goldberg.

Kit cu...

Tim Pratt (genderfluid, any pronouns) is the author of more than thirty-five novels, most recently multiversal space opera The Jewel and the Comet. Pratt is a Hugo Award winner for short fiction, and has been a finalist for Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Stoker, and otherawards. She publishes a new story every month at www.patreon.com/timpratt and posts incessantly on Bluesky

(bsky.app/profile/timpratt.org)

This story originally appeared on Tim Pratt's Patreon account.

Narration by: Zed Hope Simon

Zed Hope Simon (they/them) is a...

Jeremy Szal was raised by wild dingoes, which should explain a lot. He writes epic fantasy and dark space opera of a character-driven, morally grey nature. He sold The Common trilogy to Gollancz/Orion when he was 23, which includes STORMBLOOD, BLINDSPACE, and WOLFSKIN, about a drug harvested from alien DNA that makes users permanently addicted to adrenaline and aggression. He’s the author of over fifty short stories, translated into seventeen languages, many of which appear in his short fiction collection BROKEN STARS. He was the editor for the Hugo-winning StarShipSofa until 2020 and has a BA in...

Seia Tanabe is a horror and weird fiction writer based in Osaka. She won the 15th Japanese Horror Novel Award in the Short Story category for her debut work, "Iki-byobu" (The Living Folding Screen). Deeply inspired by local folklore, ghost stories, and urban legends, she has published numerous horror novels and edited several anthologies. Tanabe's English-language debut, "The Parrot Stone", was published in the anthology Phantasm Japan.

This story was translated by the author and is original to StarShipSofa.

Narration by: Will Stagl

Will Stagl is Star Ship Sofa's audio...

T. K. Rex is a science fiction and fantasy author from the western United States, whose stories can be read in numerous publications, including The Wildcraft Drones, their debut collection on shelves May 21, 2026. The Wildcraft Drones begins in the near future of "The Flowers Where Five-Eighty Used To Be" and follows the evolving relationship between humanity, nature and technology into the far future. T. K.'s stories, socials, and newsletter can be found at tkrex.wtf.

This story originally appeared in Tractor Beam, March 2025

Narration by: Diane Severson

Diane Severson...

Scott Edelman has published 135+ short stories, many of which have been collected in These Words Are Haunted, What Will Come After, Tell Me Like You Done Before, Things That Never Happened, and 101 Things to Do Before You're Downloaded. He has been a Stoker Award finalist eight times. Additionally, he has hosted the 2026 Hugo Awards finalist Eating the Fantastic interview podcast since February 2016.

This story is original to StarShipSofa.

Narration by: Brian Rollins

Brian Rollins is a voice actor living in Colorado with his wife. He's the prolific narrator behind...

Cat Rambo’s 300+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In 2020 they won the Nebula Award for fantasy novelette Carpe Glitter. They are a former two-term President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Their most recent works are space opera Devil’s Gun (Tor Macmillan, 2023) and anthology The Reinvented Detective (Arc Manor, 2023), co-edited with Jennifer Brozek.

Narration by: Diane Severson

Daine Severson is a lyric soprano specializing in Early Music, specifically Baroque and medieval music and loves her work te...

P.A. Cornell is a Chilean-Canadian speculative fiction writer. A two-time finalist for the Nebula Award, her stories have been published in over seventy magazines and anthologies, including Lightspeed, Apex, and eight “Best of the Year” anthologies. In addition to becoming the first Chilean Nebula finalist in 2024, Cornell has been a finalist for the Aurora and World Fantasy Awards, and in 2022 won Canada’s Short Works Prize. When not writing, she can be found assembling intricate LEGO builds or drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. Sometimes both. For more on the author and her work, visit her website pacornell.com.

T...

Kenneth Mark Hoover is a professional writer who has sold over 70+ short stories, and several novels, including those of the Haxan series. He is a member of SFWA and HWA. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Strange Horizons, and many others. Mr. Hoover divides his time between New Mexico and Texas. He writes full-time.

This story is original to StarShipSofa.

Narration by: Christina Rau

Christina M. Rau, The Yoga Poet, leads Meditate, Move, & Create workshops for various organizations in person and online. Her co...

Kenneth Mark Hoover is a professional writer who has sold over 70+ short stories, and several novels, including those of the Haxan series. He is a member of SFWA and HWA. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Strange Horizons, and many others. Mr. Hoover divides his time between New Mexico and Texas. He writes full-time. 

This story is original to StarShipSofa.

Narration by: Will Stagl

Will Stagl lives in Tucson, Arizona and is a proud member of the StarShipSofa team. He’s like to kick o...

Carrie Finch is a writer in San Francisco, California. Her published fiction includes fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She has two cats, who take turns lying down on the keyboard and keeping her from writing. carriefinch.com

This story originally appeared in Broken Time Blues, 2011.

Narration by: Doni Nicoll

Doni Nicoll-Duir (nickel-dar) is originally from the Western Slope of Colorado. He has lived in and out of Arizona his whole life and now finds himself settling down in Tucson, AZ. Doni works in the renewable energy sector as a design...

Main fiction: "Starpoop"

Sandra McDonald is an avid writer, reader, foster mom, and cat wrangler. A military veteran and veteran teacher, she is the author of several books and several dozen published short stories in magazines and anthologies. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and has won awards for stories that explore the intersections of gender, duty, and science fiction. You can sometimes find her on social media, but more likely she is stuck in a minivan in a school pickup line in Florida, scribbling story ideas on the back of store receipts.

Caren Gussoff Sumption lives in a nest of books, knitting, and rescue cats, south of Seattle, WA. The author of 6 books (most recently, her postcolonial, deep space, far-future comedy of manners, So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion) and more than 100 short stories, Caren received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 2008, was the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E. Butler Scholar at Clarion West. 

Caren is autistic, Romany, Jewish, and can't carry a tune (she tries anyway, gods help us all). Find her online at www.spitkitten.com

This...

Sandra McDonald is an avid writer, reader, foster mom, and cat wrangler. A military veteran and veteran teacher, she is the author of several books and several dozen published short stories in magazines and anthologies. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and has won awards for stories that explore the intersections of gender, duty, and science fiction. You can sometimes find her on social media, but more likely she is stuck in a minivan in a school pickup line in Florida, scribbling story ideas on the back of store receipts.

...

By day, Lori Selke is an ESL instructor (and stealth adjunct composition instructor) who lives in Oakland, California. But beneath that wholesome and mild-mannered facade lurks a zine veteran, an education and social justice academic, a queer writer and activist, and a general thorn in the side of normativity. Their fiction has been previously published inNightmare Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Asimov's; their nonfiction has appeared at NPR.org, Offbeat Home, The Billfold, and the SF Weekly, as well as the open-access academic journals Refuge and the International Journal of Human Rights Education. 

This story originally appeared in Ou...

Caren Gussoff Sumption lives in a nest of books, knitting, and rescue cats, south of Seattle, WA. The author of six books (most recently, her postcolonial, deep space, far-future comedy of manners, So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion) and more than 100 short stories, Caren received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 2008, was the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E. Butler Scholar at Clarion West. 

Caren is autistic, Romany, Jewish, and can't carry a tune (she tries anyway, gods help us all). Find her online at www.spit...

K. Ceres Wright received her master’s degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and her published cyberpunk novel, Cog, was her thesis for the program. Her short stories, poems, and articles have appeared on the Strange Horizons and Amazing Stories websites; in the FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction; Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler (Locus Award winner; Hugo Award nominee); and Sycorax’s Daughters (Bram Stoker Award nominee); among others. Her most recent publication is Too Old to Dance but Young Enough to Rock ’n’ Roll, a post apocalyptic military sci-fi novella she cowrote with L...

Main fiction: "Stars in a Grave, Stars in a Skull"

Jeremy Szal was born in 1995 and was raised by wild dingoes, which should explain a lot. He writes epic fantasy and dark space opera of a character-driven, morally grey nature. His main series is the Common trilogy from Gollancz/Hachette, which includes Stormblood, Blindspace, and Woflskin, about a drug harvested from alien DNA that makes users permanently addicted to adrenaline and aggression. He’s the author of over fifty short stories, translated into fifteen languages, many of which appear in his short fiction collection Broken Stars. He...

This story originally appeared in Wild & Wishful, Dark & Dreaming: The Worlds of Alethea Kontis (2016).

Alethea Kontis is an actress, storm chaser, and New York Times best-selling author. She has received the Scribe Award, the Garden State Teen Book Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. She was twice nominated for both the Andre Norton Nebula and Dragon Award. Alethea narrates stories for multiple award-winning online magazines and does freelance work for Writing the Other. Born in Vermont, Alethea currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida where sh...

This story originally appeared in Punktown (2000).

Jeffrey Thomas’s books include Punktown, Deadstock, Blue War, The American, and The Unnamed Country. He has been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award and John W. Campbell Award, and his stories have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Horror Stories 2022, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror #14 (editors, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling), and Year’s Best Weird Fiction #1 (editors, Laird Barron and Michael Kelly). Thomas lives in Massachusetts.

Narration by: Christina Rau

Christina M. Rau, The Yoga Poet, leads Meditate, Move...

Owen Kerr has been a writer, freelance editor, and indie game designer since 1999, but don't tell his mom; she thinks he's selling feet pix on MostlyPans. His most recent projects include lore for an OSR setting, a full-bore post-apocalyptic fantasy game (Splintered Moon - PbtA), and his self-published fantasy novel, Confessions of an Outlaw Locksmith. If you liked "Cycles," check out his LinkTree for more! https://linktr.ee/chantedevening

Narration by: Owen Kerr

Owen Kerr is also a voice actor and reader.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa.<...

Rudy Vener's stories have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, StarshipSofa, Sally Port Magazine, and The Beast Hunt Anthology Vol 1. He has won Connecticut's Tassy Walden Award for New Voices in Children's Literature, and been a finalist in the Jim Baem Memorial Short Story Award. Rudy is a retired software engineer, former online pizza marketing entrepreneur, and cheese lover. He lives with his family and two cats in North Haven, Connecticut where he is hard at work on more short stories and novels. Readers can visit him at www.rudyvener.com

This story is...

Kelsey Hutton is a Métis author from Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation, also known as Winnipeg, Canada. Kelsey was born in an even snowier city than she lives in now (“up north,” as they say in Winnipeg). She also used to live in Brazil as a kid. Her work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Augur Magazine and others. When she’s not beading or cooking, you can find her at KelseyHutton.com, on Instagram at @KelseyHuttonAuthor, or on Twitter/X at @KelHuttonAuthor.

This story or...

Jay Caselberg is an Australian author and poet whose work has appeared around the world and been translated into several languages. He currently resides in Germany and can be found at Caselberg.net.

This story originally appeared in Borderlands (Australia), January 2006.

Narrated by Randal L. Schwartz

Randal L. Schwartz is best well known for his seminal books on the Perl programming language that helped make the world wide web possible and popular. He produced a weekly audio and video podcast on open source software, but has given that up after 13 years to get...

K. A. Teryna is an award-winning author and illustrator. She was born in two places at once, one of which is beyond the Arctic Circle. Her fiction has been translated from Russian into six languages. English translations of her stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Reactor, Apex, F&SF, Podcastle, and elsewhere. Her English-language short story collection Black Hole Heart and Other Stories has been published by Fairwood Press. As of late, Chekhov the Cat has become K.A. Teryna's co-author. He's in charge of keeping her warm and firmly in her seat. K.A. Teryna's we...

M

The author of eight novels and two short story collections, Richard Dansky is widely regarded as a leading expert on video game narrative and writing. He has written for franchises including The Division, Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, and many others, and was also a key contributor to White Wolf’s classic World of Darkness horror RPG setting. His upcoming projects include the novel Nightmare Logic from Falstaff Dread, the graphic novel Bridgewater from Delcourt, and the nonfiction book The Video Game Writer’s Guide To Surviving an Industry That Hates You.

This stor...

Robert Guffeyis a lecturer in the Department of English at California State University – Long Beach. His books include The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook (Madness Heart Press, 2024), Cryptopolis & Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2024), Dead Monkey Rum (Planet Bizarro Press, 2023), Operation Mindfuck (OR Books, 2022), Widow of the Amputation & Other Weird Crimes (Eraserhead Press, 2021), Bela Lugosi’s Dead (Crossroad Press, 2021), Until the Last Dog Dies (Night Shade/Skyhorse, 2017), Chameleo (OR Books, 2015), and Spies & Saucers (PS Publishing, 2014). A graduate of the famed Clarion Writers Workshop in Seattle, he's written for numerous publications, among them The Believer, The Evergreen Review, The Los Angeles Review of Book...

Gustavo Bondoni is a novelist and short story writer with over five hundred stories published in fifteen countries, in seven languages. He has published several science fiction novels including two trilogies, six monster books, a dark military fantasy and a thriller. His short fiction is collected in Thin Air (2023), Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019), Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).

In 2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The James White Award. He...

Hugo- and Nebula nominated author Marie Vibbert’s short fiction has appeared over 90 times in top magazines like Nature, Analog, and Clarkesworld, and been translated into Czech, Chinese and Vietnamese. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was long listed by the British Science Fiction Award and her work has been called “everything science fiction should be” by the Oxford Culture Review. She also writes poetry, comics, and computer games. By day she is a computer programmer in Cleveland, Ohio.

This story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2019.

Narrated by: Ch...

Libby Cudmore is the author of The Big Rewind (William Morrow 2016) and Negative Girl (Datura 2024) as well as the Wade & Jacks series in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchock Mystery Magazine, and Tough. Her work has been published in Orca, Dark Waters, Stone's Throw and the Anthony Award-nominated Lawyers Guns & Money: Crime Fiction Inspired By the Songs of Warren Zevon, which she co-edited with Art Taylor.

She is the recipient of the Eleventh Hour Innaugural Literary Prize, the Shamus Award and the Black Orchid Novella Prize, as well as a finalist for the 2025 International Thriller Writers...

Alex Shvartsman (Brooklyn, NY) is the author of Kakistocracy (2023), The Middling Affliction (2022), and Eridani’s Crown (2019) fantasy novels. Over 120 of his stories have appeared in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, et al. He won the WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and was a three-time finalist for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction.

His translations from Russian have appeared in F&SF, Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Analog, Asimov’s, et al. Alex has edited over a dozen anthologies, including the long-running Unidentified Funny Objects series.

This story originally appeared in Galaxy's Edge...

Pedro Iniguez is a Mexican-American Bram Stoker, Elgin, and Rhysling Award-nominated horror and science-fiction writer from Los Angeles, California. He is the author of Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future, and Fever Dreams of a Parasite, among others. Forthcoming books include his SFF collection, Echoes and Embers: Speculative Stories, and his debut picture book, The Fib, which are slated for 2025 releases.

This story originally appeared in Infinite Constellations, 2023.

Narrated by: Mary Murphy

Mary is a New York based actor/voice-over artist. She loves the world of...

Maggie Slater’s (she/her) speculative fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Metaphorosis, and Redivider, among other venues. She lives in an 1800s farmhouse in New England with two half-tamed boys, one half-trained dog, her husband, her parents, and at least one benign ghost. For more information about her and her current projects, visit her blog at maggieslater.com or find her on Instagram: @maggiedot_writes or on Bluesky: @maggiedotwrites.

"Any Day But Today..." originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, #79, 2020.

Narrated by: Zed Hope Simon

Zed Hope Simon (they/them) is...

Tina Connolly writes fantastical stories for kids, teens, and grown-ups. Some of them are serious and some of them involve flying bananas. Her books include the Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series, the collection On the Eyeball Floor, and the official Choose Your Own Adventure book Glitterpony Farm. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. She also co-hosts Escape Pod, narrates stories, and runs the intermittent flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake. Find her at tinaconnolly.com.

This story originally appeared in Helix #9, 2008.

Narrated by: Tahereh Safavi

Tahe...

Akis Linardos is a writer of bizarre things, a biomedical AI scientist, and maybe human. He’s also a Greek that hops across countries as his career and exploration urges demand. Find his words at Apex, Strange Horizons, Uncharted, Heartlines Spec, and visit his lair for more: https://linktr.ee/akislinardos

This story originally appeared in The Colored Lens #49, Autumn 2023.

Narrated by: Doni Nicoll

Doni Nicoll-Duir (nickel-dar) is originally from the Western Slope of Colorado. He has lived in and out of Arizona his whole life and now finds himself settling...

Bogi's bios can be found scattered all over the internet. In the spirit of cooperation demonstrated in the story, Bogi would like to ask you to take a few moments to engage in a tangible act of solidarity with people experiencing state violence and/or oppression: Palestinians, Ukrainians, Roma in Hungary and the world over, and more — the list is very long, but maybe together we can make it shorter and help each

other.

This story originally appeared in Life Beyond Us Susan Forest, Lucas K. Law, and Julia Novakova, eds.

Narr...