Each year The Fabulist makes nominations to the Pushcart Prize, which publishes an annual “best of the small presses” anthology. We’re limited to six, so, tough choices …
This year’s batch of fables, yarns and tales are by turns eerie, poignant, bitingly satirical, and hilariously surreal. All use the methods of “fantastika” to unlock some of the mysteries of the human heart.
Regardless of whether any Fabulist Magazine writers wins any prizes, we want to thank the authors for sharing their fiction with us, and acknowledge their exceptional work (listed below in alphabetical order by author’s last name).
You Will Remember This
By T.J. Acena / September 9, 2022
Time travel is all a matter of perspective in this haunting, hypnotic tale of loss and memory.
Secret Histories of Central Park
By Claire J. Bateman / August 19, 2022
In this charmingly skewed yarn, landscapes fold like origami, and a dress of empty pockets is full of possibilities.
Watching Over Me
By Galen David Bunting / August 26, 2022
The angel-story trope becomes something altogether more ambiguous and unsettling in this evocative tale of a strange childhood encounter.
Unrooted
By Amanda Rizkalla / July 29, 2022
Life is one long season of change in this sweetly surreal tale of a peripatetic tree.
Diary of the Last Woman on Earth
By Bowie Rowan / November 4, 2022
Caveat Lector: There is a brief reference to self-harm in this weird, sweet, paranoid, desperate, hopeful, beautifully surreal spiral of a narrative.
Pussy Money
By Sepideh Saremi / July 8, 2022
Caveat lector: This bitterly satirical fantasy repeatedly refers to human anatomy and bodily functions in explicit, cynical and even despairing terms.
