Melissa Watkins

2 months ago | lightspeedmagazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Melissa Watkins

Silver and SmokeVan HoangPaperback / eBookISBN: 978166251785347North, February 4th 2025, 383 pgsIssa Bui and Olivia Nong are best friends and aspiring movie actresses. They’re also Vietnamese American in 1930s Hollywood, making fame an even bigger challenge than it ordinarily is. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on who you ask—Issa’s backed up by an estranged, but powerful family of shamans who speak with ghosts and the Chinatown gang empire they’ve built on the backs of that power.

Jan 23, 2025 | lightspeedmagazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Melissa Watkins

Hammajang LuckMakano YamamotoTrade Paperback / eBookISBN:9780063430822Harper Voyager, January 14 2025, 368 pgsHammajang is a Hawaiian pidgin word that means chaos, disorder, or disarray. It’s also a great way to describe the life of Edie Morikawa. Being non-binary and trans fit naturally into the past order of traditional Hawaiian culture.

Dec 19, 2024 | lightspeedmagazine.com | Melissa Watkins

Mechanize My Hands to WarErin K. WagnerHardcover/eBookISBN:9780756419349DAW Books, December 17, 2024, 320 pgsIn 2061, two soldiers lead a raid against an anti-android child militia led by their twisted foster father. In 2060, two military androids commit an atrocity that begins to change the way their kind is perceived. In 2058, two AI-powered service androids discover that they’re more than what they’re made for.

Dec 5, 2024 | lightspeedmagazine.com | Wendy Wagner |Melissa Watkins

So I guess if I’m gonna tell you about the ghost, first I have to tell you why I had to go all the way to Mama Tee’s house in the first place. Basically, this one day last summer me and my boys were just chillin in the parking lot of the rec center. We went there to play two on two but we didn’t cause they only let you use rec center balls on the court and you gotta ask a worker for a ball. The only worker was Valerie, and we don’t like her.

Dec 1, 2024 | lightspeedmagazine.com | Wendy Wagner |John Joseph Adams |Tamara Masri |Melissa Watkins

Author Spotlight: Cressida Blake Roe by Mayookh Barua Back then, communing with the divine was couched in images or metaphors of violence: you have these accounts of wounds, being pierced or attacked. But such is the nature of divine violence that it’s transformative, illuminating. In the context of this story, though, it’s also shoved up against a more earthly, clinical violence. Publishes Online on 12/19