About
We’re envisioning a Universe that’s expansive and dynamic, inclusive and lush, a perpetual explosion that defies temporal systems of organization or measurement. Instead of publishing sequential issues or a stream of work that relegates what came before to the background, we’re interested in connecting and recombining the work we publish and the artists who make it on an ongoing basis. Letting the shape of their creations, however seeming-distant in genre or style or intent, tell larger stories together.
We welcome you to stumble your way through the Universe in search of unexpected connection. And we hope that when you find something you love, you feel drawn to explore the asterism it belongs to, the other stars in its vicinity, the potential meanings of colors and shapes. We hope you’ll look into the voids in this ever-changing Universe and dream up what might, someday, call that place a home.
“Change / is the one unavoidable, / irresistible, / ongoing reality of the universe.” — Octavia E. Butler
Be forewarned: things will keep changing. The Universe isn’t a fixed entity.
We hope that’s exactly what will keep you coming back.
Masthead
Joel Hans (he/him) was once called a saguaro in disguise. His fiction is published or forthcoming in Story, West Branch, No Tokens, Puerto del Sol, Booth: A Journal, and more. He has an MFA from the University of Arizona, where he also served as the managing editor of Fairy Tale Review. He still lives in Tucson, Arizona with his family. Find him at joelhans.com.
Jae Towle Vieira (she/they) always returns to the river. Their short fiction has been published in Carve, Passages North, Mississippi Review, The Normal School, New England Review, and elsewhere. They have an MFA from the University of Arizona. They are the founding editor of Manzanita Papers. Find them @jaetowlevieira.
Astrid Liu is a MFA Creative Writing candidate at the University of Arizona who writes multimedia poetry and nonfiction, and translates from Cantonese to English. Their work has won the University of Arizona Minnie Torrance Award, a Carsons Scholar Fellowship, and appeared in the Academy of American Poets. She currently lives in Tucson with their black cat Jackie and the desert stars.
Astrolabe, anthologized
The Waiting Room At The End of the Universe
by Veronica Tucker
Children here sometimes age in reverse. I once saw a toddler fold into an old man between triage and discharge.
Whale / 2025
Best Microfiction 2026
Light of My Life
by Ian Li
We grab coffee. She’s a physicist. Light is a particle, etching our each encounter on speckled film.
Orbit / 2024
Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three
This Is What Always Happens
by Khalid Mitchell
She gazes into the dark expanse. Outer space. Time occurs in the form of a distant star—a white, shimmering speck. She pinches it between her fingers and pulls.
Urn / 2024
Best Small Fictions 2025
The Last Library
by Joshua Jones Lofflin
He sometimes finds the tops of poles spiking up from the earth, their cracked insulators bleached white like knuckle bones. He marks them on his map. He marks the map again when they disappear.
Errants / 2024
ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction
Life Cycle
by Max Wheeler
At the school, kids would sometimes sneak looks inside each other's cavities, carefully cracking the little doors open just a sliver, not wanting the animals to escape before full gestation.
Crescent / 2023
Best Small Fictions 2024
Melanin No. 6
by Arihant Jain
Fishtail / 2023
Best of the Net 2024
Skin and Bone
by Melissa Llanes Brownlee
Her toes curling in the sand, Tita counts the shells spiraling beside her. Their bleached bodies, remnants of once-living creatures, wondering if her bones will shine as brightly when she is dead.
Owl / 2022
Best Small Fictions 2023