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Austin Dewar

@austindewar.bsky.social
455 followers 266 following 41 posts

Writer, editor, and educator // Managing Fiction Editor at Strange Horizons // Probably lost in the woods // austindewar.com

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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Congratulations Myna!!! 🔥
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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
This award in particular means a lot to everyone at SH - it’s so specifically directed towards the goal that underpins everything the magazine does. By which I mean: shucks. 💜
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Strange Horizons won Ignyte's Community Award for outstanding efforts in inclusion and equitable practices this year! 💜 🎉
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I have fond memories of going there with my Grandma when I was little and being fascinated by the decorations and displays 😥
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This remains one of my all-time favorite speculative fiction poems. I'm sure a lot of spiritual teachers wish they could deliver a call to repentance as directly to the moral jugular as this little mermaid poem.
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
If you submitted to Strange Horizons and missed the fact that we're asking for anonymized docs now, don't stress. We won't be rejecting anyone on this basis, just make a note of the new policy for next time!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Strange Horizons is currently open for fiction submissions--but filling up fast towards that 1000-story cap!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Strange Horizons will be opening for fiction submissions in just one hour! 🎉🎉🎉 strangehorizons.com/wordpress/su...
strangehorizons.com
Fiction Submission Guidelines
How to submit a story to Strange Horizons.
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Delighted to see "Underneath the Underneath" by @audreyzhou.bsky.social recommended by Wyrmhole this month! Give it a read if you missed it in April! thewyrmhole.beehiiv.com/p/the-wyrmho...
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Also: peacocks!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I actually ended up dipping out on the last hour of Armadillocon because I yearn for the swamps. Magical trail at Mayfield Park--feels like you're walking back in time. Reminded of Whitman here--"I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven" 💚
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I had a fantastic time at @armadillocon.bsky.social yesterday! I was especially moved by the panel on weathering adversity and disability during a writing career--namely, through love--by Elizabeth Moon, @teffeau.bsky.social, @littlebadger.bsky.social, @alanjporter.bsky.social, and Don Webb 💜
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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 10/09/2026
you're way better off leveling up your actual writing skills, because any premise/idea/collection of tropes will slap if you can write well. Stop worrying about whether mermaid zombie princesses are in style. Worry about how you put the words together, how you feed info to the reader, etc.
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
We'll be reopening for submissions Oct 1! Please check out our updated submissions guidelines:
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Myna Chang @mynachang.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
strangehorizons.com
Fiction Submissions Open October 1
Strange Horizons will open to general fiction submissions on October 1, 2026, at 3 p.m. UTC! This window will remain open until we hit our submission cap of 1,000 stories. Our maximum word count fo…
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J. Y. Zhang @jyzh.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
"You want to be a universal language. You want to be the scent of a dream slipping through cracks in the stars." This story has me in a chokehold!! Everyone read MR_MR_CENTICORE
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Sarah Pinsker @sarahpinsker.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
And it looks like my @clarionucsd.bsky.social student Micah Giddens has a story in @strangehorizons.bsky.social !
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
This is the feature story for our Internet Culture Special Issue! If, like the story's protagonist, you too witnessed unspeakable things on the internet at an impressionable and unsupervised age, you'll be blown away by how Giddens portrays the innocence and nostalgia hand in hand with the horror.
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
In this unsettling (love?) story by Micah Giddens, Magic Eye books and early-2000s internet unlock a child's ability to perceive alternate realities within the grotesque, violent, & violating. "I Saw the TV Glow" meets "Donnie Darko" meets wendigo creepypasta! strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...
strangehorizons.com
MR_MR_CENTICORE
In the screen glow of the witching hours you see a silhouette flit in and out of the doorway. Your first meme and your first violation.
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
These lines keep circling in my head this month. They express how I feel about reading and writing fantasy in an age that seems like a very bad time for unicorns.
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
"Why did they go away, do you think? If there ever were such things." "Who knows? Times change. Would you call this a good age for unicorns?" "No, but I wonder if any man before us ever thought his time a good time for unicorns." --The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
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Jen Donohue @authorizedmusings.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Up to $26,647!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Can we get them to $30k and paying contributors 10¢ a word? Share! Donate! Share!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
If you can help us reach just $110 more, you can ensure emerging science fiction and fantasy writers make ABOVE the SFWA professional rate! Know any patrons of the arts who love SFF and want to take it to the next level beyond that...? 👀 All money goes to the authors so they can write even more!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Celebrate Bastille Day and International Non-Binary People's Day in one swift blow by transing the guillotine 🔪 This messy-queer time-traveler retelling of “The Green Ribbon” by @goosemixtapes.bsky.social suggests the “T” in “LGBT” may stand for Terreur: strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...
strangehorizons.com
Guillotine
The guillotine was conceived as swifter, painless, more humane. You touch your throat. You wonder.
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Gautam Bhatia @gautambhatia88.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
UPDATE: The Strange Horizons fund-drive has completed one week; we're just over 70% base funded. Still a LOT of rewards left to pick up: signed book bundles by your favourite authors, patches, SH wallpaper, and some surprise add-ons coming up. Back us here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...
backerkit.com
Strange Horizons 2027 Fundraiser
The annual Strange Horizons fundraiser! Support this free, online, award-winning, weekly magazine of SFFH, which runs entirely on reader - YOUR - donations!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
So freaking cool! Congratulations Joyce! 💜
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Next writing course I teach will have this on the syllabus! 💚 " ... anti-colonial epistemology releases the individual pressure of god-like creation that leads to extraction and dehumanization, and instead [..] writing as a collaborative process with the world itself." #worldbuilding #writing
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Perhaps my favorite short story of all time is "A Family Supper" by Kazuo Ishiguro. It should get more recognition as a masterpiece of contemporary gothic fiction--the dread, the understated family horror, the perfect ambivalence of the ending! magicbarrel.wordpress.com/wp-content/u... #shortstories
magicbarrel.wordpress.com
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Gautam Bhatia @gautambhatia88.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Want to be a “patron of the arts”? Want to sponsor a short story, a poem, or a piece of art, and be publicly credited when we publish it? Back the Strange Horizons fund-raiser here! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...
backerkit.com
Strange Horizons 2027 Fundraiser
The annual Strange Horizons fundraiser! Support this free, online, award-winning, weekly magazine of SFFH, which runs entirely on reader - YOUR - donations!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Please take a minute to support your favorite free-to-read, Hugo Award-winning speculative fiction magazine! 😈 Strange Horizons is entirely volunteer-run, so we depend on this annual drive to publish stories; your donation directly supports writers on the cutting edge of SFF around the world! 💜🚀🌑
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
"Copying and pasting"? "Copy-and-pasting"? Gonna make an alignment chart, and chaotic evil will be "copying and paste," à la "attorneys general."
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
. . . and now I'm thinking about how to gerundize "copy and paste." I like the brevity of "copy-pasting," but it frames sequential actions as simultaneous in a way I find unsettling. #amsidetrackedfromediting
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
My toxic editing trait is googling "en dash" and copy-pasting it from the Merriam-Webster article on dashes because I can never remember what hotkey I assigned to it. #amediting
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
This story that does cool stuff exploring gender, migration, and alterity through entering the entirely non-human-centered POV of a creature that matures across deep time and space. We're also pleased to be the ones to host aegor's first spec fic publication! strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...
strangehorizons.com
Senescence
Without a name or need for one, he arrives scattered at the base of a tree and he rests like that, in pieces, for sixty-odd years. He is forty-nine sticky droplets of impulse and intelligence, tuck…
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
When you can't afford a computer stand because big books ate all your money
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Stumbled on the Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast and can't recommend it enough! The hosts are OG Wolfe fans and have special insight into his work from also being Catholic, former military, medieval history scholar, etc. so they pick up on fascinating allusions! open.spotify.com/episode/1DGx...
open.spotify.com
Ep. 8: How the Whip Came Back
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Audrey Zhou @audreyzhou.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
ICYMI! my story about reproductive freedom and dragons is out now🐉
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
I love the spec fic community because everyone is just so sincerely supportive of each other--watching the Hugo finalist announcements roll out and seeing all the congratulatory comments is so sweet 💜
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
You too!!
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Couldn't be prouder--I'm new to staff, but a longtime fanboy of SH 💜
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Out now! @audreyzhou.bsky.social uses the beautiful and fantastic to illuminate the devastatingly real interiority of one woman's struggle for autonomy, and the impossible dilemma she faces in a society bent on controlling women's bodies (sound familiar?) strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...
strangehorizons.com
Underneath the Underneath
The dragons are beautiful even when they’re dead, their serpentine bodies stacked up and up, their metallic blue scales glinting under the sun. This close, Mina can see how blank their eyes are thr…
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Bugs
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
It's my favorite time of year in Texas :)
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Excellent hopeful speculative fiction poem! "Sometimes, hope is more painful than enduring: but now that we’ve survived, we live our lives at a ship’s helm of our own beginning."
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Can't pass through national poetry month without sharing something from my favorite poet, Kay Ryan. A nice reminder for those of us who struggle with stubborn self-reliance to know our limits and accept the gift of help: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
poetryfoundation.org
The Poetry Foundation
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
It feels wrong to call this poem delightful, but I got a kick out of it. Love the balance of humor and sincerity tacobellquarterly.org/poem-in-the-...
tacobellquarterly.org
Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands
By Felix transcript of poem text, for accessibility: hooking up with strange men on edibles is fucking awesome until you’re lying in his bed afterward and you can’t shut up about how much you want …
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I love the gentle, mesmerizing voice of the narrator in this story, "The Houses of the Stars In Heaven" by @ferdwrites.bsky.social, who guides a young navigator through a speculative (subtly sci fi) reimagining of the afterlife in Polynesian myth. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...
strangehorizons.com
The Houses of the Stars in Heaven
Breathe. Breathe. Even though you are dead you must breathe— Oh, you are running. I suppose you could run. Run, then, if you never want to know what killed you, and why, and where you are now. For …
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Finally got around to officially announcing my new role as fiction editor at Strange Horizons :) Just a little reflection on what Ursula K. Le Guin called the "duty" of escapism, and how happy I am to get to be a part of such a meaningful jailbreaking effort. austindewar.com/2026/04/04/i...
austindewar.com
It’s our duty to escape: Becoming a fiction editor at Strange Horizons
Six years ago, during the Covid shutdown, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands and facing the sudden collapse of what I had thought my future would look like. I was living in Pittsburgh at…
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
The #Artemis mission is giving me a renewed childlike sense of wonder about space exploration irl 🧡
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Austin Dewar @austindewar.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
🍄 Strange Horizons fungus special issue!!! 🍄 As a big fan of fungal themes in speculative fiction I'm nerding out. I especially loved chewing over the imagery in this poem by Sonya Taafe:
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