An otherworldly banquet of contemporary fantasy, dark fairy tales, and soft science fiction, Next Curious Thing collects some of Gale's best short fiction from 2013 to 2018, including Best of the Net winner 'In the Beginning, All Our Hands Are Cold'. Known for her ability to mix the extraordinary with the relatable, darkness with splendour, and heartache with hope, Gale showcases a wide cast of fascinating female and queer characters in the most curious of situations. In addition to its pr...

Magic, mystery, and the macabre collide in Pick Your Potion, a mesmerising collection of genre-blending fantasy, science-fiction, and horror stories from award-winning Australian author Ephiny Gale.The 26 weird tales in Pick Your Potion are female-centric, mostly queer, and always intriguing.Within these pages, you'll find:A deadly and addictive magical board game.A time-loop demon apocalypse.A dimension-jumping cruise ship....

Jack and Jill build an indeterminate time machine.Madalyn Walker returns from fairy land, 3 times.Nine people search for a reason to hold them down to Earth.Illia struggles to direct from within a human body.Two burn to death; one burns others.King Santino unleashes his powers of cut-to.A magic-free world questions its devotion to fairy tale rules.Full of speculative tales, queer ladies, and dark, lush storyte...

In 2020, the world was tipped upside down and shaken in ways we could barely have imagined, except perhaps in the post-apocalyptic and dystopic worlds of story. Amidst pandemic illness and death, political machinations and despair, one of the casualties has been, at least in a financial sense, the Arts. Governments across the world have slashed funding, galleries, theatres and entertainment venues have closed amid lockdown restrictions, money is being carefully metered with jobs more uncer...