April 2025

Although today is, in fact, our cats' birthday, this dessert was not for them. Kristin had a birthday in March, and we celebrated with a dinner at the new local steakhouse, where they have really good desserts. This one is the Chocolate Flower. In the background, you can see Donald's Niveaux de Chocolat.

The steaks are unfortunately a bit hit or miss, with the kitchen prone to overcooking them. We did appreciate that they stick a candle and placard on the dessert of your choice instead of gathering staff around your table for an awkward rendition of "Happy Birthday" and foisting an unwanted cupcake on you.

We're still hard at work reading the stories submitted in January. As of last Wednesday, 81 out of 257 were still unread, 9 had been read by one of us but not the other, and 7 had advanced to our short list.

Please consider helping us meet our next Patreon funding target! Right now, we're at $259/month. If we're at $275/month in late May when we make our final story selections, we'll be able to accept 6 stories instead of only 5. We're so close that just a few more subscribers could put us over the finish line on this goal! Subscribe for as little as $1/month for access to our Discord and monthly Insider posts, or choose a higher tier for additional subscriber rewards.

Another great way to support us is to buy our anthologies, or individual eBook issues of our magazine (find the most recent one here or here). We're also hoping to have a third book out by the time we post our next monthly update, this one a reprint anthology of all the stories we published in 2020 and 2021. All our $25+/month Patreon subscribers will get a free copy mailed to them, and everyone else will be able to order it from Amazon (paperback and/or eBook).

For our April story, D.G.P. Rector is back for his fourth Mysterion appearance. Although the first three were far-future SF, "Honey-Fang's Confessor" is historical fantasy: a missionary encounters a legendary king who once slew monsters, but now faces the more difficult challenge of providing for his people in a changing world. Look for it here on April 28th!

Spring is finally here, and we're only a few days away from the season's first homegrown asparagus:

We'll be open to fiction submissions again on July 1st (we're always open to art submissions). If you're hoping to submit something and wondering what we're most interested in, our ideal story is one that we think shows some insight into what makes Christianity unique, and/or what Christians are like--what they think about, fear, wrestle with, hope and strive for, etc. We especially like stories that highlight the distinctiveness of Christian traditions that our readers might not see represented as often. A great example is our most recent offering, Charlie Kondek's crime fiction story "The Gift", with a protagonist who worships at a Pentecostal church and is torn between different perspectives on how Christians should approach the supernatural. Or "One Two Three" by Hannah Onoguwe, which gives our mostly American readers a glimpse into the lives of Nigerian Christians. Most of the stories we receive (and publish, for that matter) feature Catholics or members of some non-specified Protestant community, usually from the US or UK, so we're always excited to see stories that help us show the diversity of Christian traditions and experience worldwide.

Also: more science fiction, please! And humor is always welcome.

Happy writing! And remember, we always have a new story here for you on the 4th Monday of each month. Come back in 3 weeks to read our latest--or subscribe to our Patreon and read it now!

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