Writing is a challenging task. A profession for some, a hobby for others. Regardless, there is often a shared sense of helplessness when it comes to matters such as who is published, why they're published, and the processes behind those decisions.

It is with these three questions in mind (who/why/how) that we subject our short fiction editorial team to your questions and force them to answer on livestream! Join Jason Sizemore, Lesley Conner, and Maurice Broaddus for a live Apex Magazine event—Apex Magazine Editor Q&A, hosted by Beth Dawkins!

Remember to check out the Apex Magazine Kickstarter page, running until August 18, 2021.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

"Survival, After" — published in Apex Magazine, issue 124, July 2021.

Read it here: https://apex-magazine.com/survival-after/

Nicole J. LeBoeuf is a New Orleanian writer of short speculative fiction and poetry appearing in such venues as Cast of Wonders, The Future Fire, Departure Mirror Quarterly, Daily Science Fiction, and the vampirism anthology Blood and Other Cravings (Tor Books, 2011). She also posts weird flash-sized story-like objects to Patreon four times monthly. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado with her indy RPG-writing husband and their adorably criminal rabbit. Her not-so-secret superhero identity is that of roller derby skater Fleur de Beast of the Boulder County Bombers. She blogs at www.nicolejleboeuf.com and tweets at @nicolejleboeuf.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Giant Wyrm," "Symmetry," "Welcome to Horrorland," and "Fresh Air," all by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Some sounds in this podcast provided by the Free Sound Project. Find out more at www.freesound.org.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

"Eilam Is Forever" — published in Apex Magazine, issue 124, July 2021.

Read it here: https://apex-magazine.com/eilam-is-forever

Beth Dawkins grew up on front porches, fighting imaginary monsters with sticks, and building castles out of square hay bales. She currently lives in Northeast Georgia with her partner in crime and their offspring. She can be found on Twitter @BethDawkins.

Summer Fletcher is the host and assistant editor of PodCastle. When not writing their own stories, they can be found enjoying impractical things like fancy pastry or shooting arrows from horseback. More at https://summerfletcher.com.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Fanfare for Space," "Spacial Winds," "Space Xplorers," "Night Vigil," "Stay the Course" and "Shadowlands 4 - Breath," all by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Some sounds in this podcast provided by the Free Sound Project. Find out more at www.freesound.org.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

"All This Darkness," published in Apex Magazine, issue 123, June 2021.

Read it here: https://apex-magazine.com/all-this-darkness

Jennifer R. Donohue grew up at the Jersey Shore and now lives in central New York with her husband and her doberman. She is a Codexian and an Associate member of the SFWA, with work appearing in Escape Pod, Truancy, The Future Fire, and elsewhere. Her novella series, Run With the Hunted, is available on Amazon and most digital platforms. She tweets @AuthorizedMusin.

Our narrator this month is A.F. Grappin.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Come Play with Me" and "The Dread," both by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Visit him at www.incompetech.com. Some sounds in this podcast provided by the Free Sound Project. Learn more at www.freesound.org.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at apex-magazine.com.

"The Life & Death of Mia Fremont: An Interview with a Killer," published in Apex Magazine, issue 123, May 2021.

Read it here: https://apex-magazine.com/the-life-death-of-mia-fremont-an-interview-with-a-killer/ 

A. K. Hudson lives in the Pacific Northwest where she works for a video game developer by day and writes speculative fiction by night. Her stories have appeared in various anthologies, including the 2019 Sirens Benefit Anthology. You can find her geeking out over fantasy novels and punctuating her posts with Schitt’s Creek memes on Twitter @TheAKHudson.

Our narrators this month are Veronica Giguere and Jackie Mahoney.

Veronica Giguere (V.) is a storyteller of the spoken and written word. She narrates across genres, but her favorites are science fiction and fantasy. Her passion for science and innovation shines in her roles as audiobook narrator, science fiction author, podcast producer, and forever-geeky mom. Find her at http://www.voicesbyveronica.com/

Jackie Mahoney is a Toronto-based actor, producer and writer who specializes in historic performance. Over the course of the pandemic, Jackie has digitally performed aboard the RMS Carpathia and produced a series of holiday-themed radio plays in support of local non-profits and charities called "The Twelve Plays of the Holidays." She works as an actor and show designer with Live History, an internationally touring interactive historic theatre company, and as a historic actor at Black Creek Pioneer Village and with the Gibson house Museum.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Ossuary 1 - A Beginning," "Spatial Harvest," and "Morgana Rides," all by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Learn more at www.incompetech.com.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at apex-magazine.com

"If Those Ragged Feet Won't Run," published in Apex Magazine, issue 122, March 2021.

Read it here. apex-magazine.com/if-those-ragged-feet-wont-run

Annie Neugebauer is a novelist, blogger, nationally award-winning poet, and two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated short story author with work appearing in more than a hundred publications, including Cemetery Dance, Black Static, and Year’s Best Hardcore Horror volumes 3, 4, and 5. She’s a columnist and writing instructor for LitReactor. You can visit her at www.AnnieNeugebauer.com.

New Zealand born fantasy writer and podcaster Philippa (Pip) Ballantine is the author of the Books of the Order, The Chronicles of Art, and The Shifted World series. She is also the co-author of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series with her husband Tee Morris. In nonfiction, Pip has cowritten with Tee Social Media for Writers from Writer’s Digest.

Her awards include an Airship, a Parsec, the Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice, the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for steampunk, and a Sir Julius Vogel. Philippa currently resides in Manassas, Virginia, with her husband, daughter, and a furry clowder of cats.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Darkling," "Gathering Darkness," "Leaving Home," "Long Note Four," "The Escalation," "Ossuary 6 - Air," and "Water Lily," all by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Learn more at www.incompetech.com. Some sounds in this podcast provided by the Free Sound Project. Find out more at www.freesound.org.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at apex-magazine.com

"The Amazing Exploding Women of the Early Twentieth Century," published in Apex Magazine, issue 122, February 2021.

Read it here: https://apex-magazine.com/the-amazing-exploding-women-of-the-early-twentieth-century/

A.C. Wise’s fiction has appeared in publications such as Apex, Uncanny, Clarkesworld, and multiple Year’s Best anthologies. Her work has won the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, as well as twice being a finalist for the Sunburst Award, twice being a finalist for the Nebula Award, and being a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She has two collections published with Lethe Press, and a novella published by Broken Eye Books. Her debut novel, Wendy, Darling, is forthcoming from Titan Books in June 2021, and a new collection, The Ghost Sequences, is forthcoming from Undertow Books in Fall 2021. In addition to her fiction, she contributes review columns to Apex and The Book Smugglers. Visit her at her website.

A storyteller of many forms, Aly Grauer has been known to perform onstage, on podcasts, at ren faires, and at world-class theme parks. Of late, she is the audio editor for Skyjacks: Courier’s Call, where she also performs as June Hymnal. Aly is also a writer, teaches dialect lessons, provides narration for audiobooks, and occasionally creates small roleplaying games. Aly and her husband Drew live in Chicago, IL where they both serve as heated furniture for their two cats, Queen Felicia and Wedge.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Melodie Victoria," "Almost New," "Frogs Legs Rag," and "Reawakening," all by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Learn more at www.incompetech.com. Some sounds in this podcast provided by the Free Sound Project. Find out more at www.freesound.org.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

"Mr. Death" — published in Apex Magazine, issue 121, January 2021.

Read it here: https://apex-magazine.com/mr-death/

Please note that this episode contains references to child death.

A former academic and adjunct, Alix E. Harrow is now a full-time writer living in Kentucky with her husband and their semi-feral kids. She is the author of Hugo-award-winning short fiction, and her debut novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. Find her at @AlixEHarrow on Twitter.

Chris Lester is a writer, voice actor, scientist, and podcaster. He is the creator of Metamor City, an urban fantasy series that has won three Parsec Awards for excellence in audio fiction. His books can be found on Audible, Amazon, and many other online retailers. In addition to voicing his own work, he has narrated stories for Escape Pod, Nobilis Erotica, and Erotica a la Carte, and for author Abigail Hilton. To learn more about his fiction, hire him for audio work, or subscribe to his fiction podcast The Raven and the Writing Desk visit his website at chrislester.org.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Bittersweet," "Grim League," "Heart of Nowhere," and "When the Wind Blows," all by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Some sounds in this podcast provided by the Free Sound Project. Find out more at www.freesound.org.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

"Root Rot" — published in Apex Magazine, issue 121, January 2021.

Please note that this episode contains references to substance use disorder and alcohol use.

Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/root-rot

Fargo Tbakhi (he/him) is a queer Palestinian-American performance artist. He is the winner of the 2018 Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and a Tin House Summer Workshop alum. His writing is published in Strange Horizons,  Foglifter,  Hobart,  The Shallow Ends,  Mizna,  Peach Mag, and elsewhere. His performance work has been programmed at OUTsider Fest, INTER-SECTION Solo Fest, and has received support from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. He is currently a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow and works at Mosaic Theater.

This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by KT Bryski. Theme music by Alex White. Other music in this podcast includes "Tempting Secrets," "Stay the Course," and "Night Vigil," all by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Some sounds in this podcast provided by the Free Sound Project. Find out more at www.freesound.org.

Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications.

Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

The Apex Magazine Kickstarter continues until August 19! In this Q&A session, Andrea Johnson leads Apex editorial team Jason Sizemore, Lesley Connor, Maurice Broaddus, and Shana DuBois through a wide array of topics and listener questions - from the slush pile, to the fiction they love, to plans for the zine.