Heartlines Spec, Issue 11 (Summer 2026)

The stories and poems in Issue 11 focus on acceptance: whether it's the changes in your family, the loss of your past, or that the future is more unexpected than you planned for it to be. Acceptance isn't a defeat, it doesn't have to be quiet or soft. Sometimes acceptance is clawed. Editorial Editorial by Rebecca Bennett Short Fiction The Ache Before the Wound by Hap Aziz Secrets of the Sea by Ares J. Benoit The Kingdom She Carried by Jillian Schedneck The Lazarus Heart by Esther Lim Fishbowlhead by Moh Afdhaal A Knight of Leisure by J. A. Espersmyth The Tree by T.R. Steele On the Occasion of Your Daughter Becoming a Kallikantzaros by Avra Margariti Poetry Greenhouse by Julia Sinclair Six Minutes Till School by Chris Clemens recollection: to taste by Wren Douglas Twin mission by Diem Okoye Like Clockwork by R. F. Hovis Nonfiction Coup de Coeur: Recent Canadian spec-fic reads by Lulu Vidal