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A short story magazine that assembles a thrilling new mix of stories from genres including horror, science-fiction, comedy, and suspense. Buried at the heart of every story in the magazine is a unique artifact, an object that has inspired our storytellers to create a big idea, an irresistible question, a new immersive world, or a sense of wonder. Unearth your next great story with Assemble Artifacts.

Vanished tells the stories of women and girls in upstate New York who are often overlooked or unseen. The characters range from an aging art professor whose students are uninterested in learning what she has to teach, to a young girl who becomes the victim of a cruel prank in a swimming pool, to a television producer who regrets allowing her coworkers into her mother’s bird-filled house to film a show about animal hoarding because it will reveal too much about her family and past. Humorous and empathetic, the collection exposes the adversity in each character’s life.

Third-grader Aven Green is a real professional musician! She just needs to choose what instrument to play. When she decides to try the piano, Aven is disappointed when she can’t master Mozart in one whole day. To pick up Aven’s beat, her parents take her for a four-hour drive to see someone just like her play the guitar. With new inspiration and a special gift from her great-grandma, Aven is ready to take on the school talent show. Will she be ready in time? Or will she blow her big chance?

Aven knows she is an expert baker of cakes and cookies since she has been baking with her mom for a really long time. Plus no one bakes quite like she does. She cracks eggs with her feet and measures sugar and flour with her feet—plus measuring cups—since she was born without arms. And now Aven has her eye on the prize: a beautiful blue ribbon for baking at the county fair. So she teams up with her friends Kayla, Emily, and Sujata. But it turns out they all have very different tastes and a lot of opinions about baking.

Early in her career, Katie Pryal learned that being a professor isn’t easy if your brain isn’t quite right. “I was a junior in college when I finally realized that I was different in a way that my medically inclined parents would call ‘clinical.’” In these deeply personal, fiery essays, Pryal tells her story of transformation that began the moment she chose to publicly disclose her own mental illness and leave her career in higher education to begin fighting for a better world for people with psychiatric disabilities.

Devon Connor has always known life as a normal 12-year-old girl at St. Frances Institute for Heirs and Orphans. That is, until a supernatural shadow walker arrives to assassinate her. Unbeknownst to Devon, she wears the enchanted and legendary Crown of Guilledon as a trinket, and the shadow walker will stop at nothing to get it. With this attempt on her life, Devon is forced into the journey of discovering her true power and her forgotten past. But the timing couldn’t be worse. This mysteriously cursed crown has led her right to the brink of a dark and dangerous war.

Life has always been a banquet for Sappho, one to be savored to the fullest. Following a magnificent destiny, her strange and sensual odyssey has carried her to the far corners of the ancient world, from Delphi to Egypt, to the Land of the Amazons, and the realm of Hades. For Sappho, it was always about love—love that seduced her into a plot to depose a dictator, and love that made her trade an unwanted marriage bed of a despised and drunken husband for a seemingly endless series of lovers, both male and female.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in the early 1920s, the American Dream was already on the skids. Originally based on the idea that the pursuit of happiness involves not only material success but moral and spiritual growth, the dream had by Fitzgerald's time become increasingly focused on money and pleasure—a phenomenon the high-living writer was only too familiar with.

When the most bookish, clumsy geek manages to bag the most handsome man on campus—the man that all the other girls would happily have thrown their Kappa Kappa Delta sisters under the bus for—then it can’t end well. But Maggie has beaten the odds and is 10 years into her marriage with Jack. However, the pages in the book of fairytales are beginning to smolder and burn as she starts to question his fidelity. Forced into action by her suspicions, and hindered by her oversexed mother and underbrained friend, Maggie embarks on a search for truth.

It Is Time is a series of powerful writings that is a calling for the examination of oneself, one's life, and one's entire existence. It Is Time questions if we are promoting growth or destruction, projecting life or projecting death, bringing forth hope or discouragement to not only those we encounter but to our loved ones, whom we claim to so very much cherish. It compels the listener to question are they living, or merely existing in this world?

Maria e Nicola sono una coppia rodata, lui pilota di aerei, cuoco e genero perfetto (per quanto esprima la sua ansia in dolori notturni che gli stringono il corpo), lei un po' meno perfetta, una di quelle donne che in borsa non trovano mai nulla e che, soprattutto, molti anni prima ha ucciso Estate, sua sorella. La famiglia di origine si è strutturata intorno a questo lutto, il padre ha smesso di andare in ufficio, la madre si è sforzata di avere rapporti con lei, la figlia rimasta.

In How We Disappear, award-winning author Tara Lynn Masih offers listeners transporting and compelling stories of those taken, those missing, and those neither here nor gone—runaways, exiles, wanderers, ghosts, even the elusive Dame Agatha Christie. From the remote Siberian taiga to the harsh American frontier, from rural Long Island to postwar Belgium, Masih’s characters are diverse in identity and circumstance, defying the burden of erasure by disappearing into or emerging from physical and emotional landscapes.

Cara Foster is, one might say, eco-anxious—perhaps even eco-neurotic. She eats out of dumpsters—not because she wants to but because it’s the right thing to do—does laundry as seldom as possible, takes navy showers every couple of days, and is reevaluating her boyfriend for killing a spider. Then, during a mimosa-soaked Sunday brunch, she meets her boyfriend’s alluring mother, Millie. As they begin spending time together, getting pedicures and drinking martinis, Cara becomes hooked on Millie and this new freedom from the harsh realities of life in the twenty-first century.

If Kate Chamberlin can’t reveal her true identity to the world, she must settle for sharing only her talent. Hired as a musician for KDKA radio, Kate plays everything from sponsors’ jingles to complex sonatas. As long as the whispers around the broadcasting room refer to her as “Killjoy Kate” and not “Catarina the crime boss’s daughter,” then her life is safe from danger. Or so she thinks. When anonymous violent threats surface, Kate is wary of accepting protection from the handsome Detective Jennings. No one, especially him, can know the gruesome realities of her birth.

What would you do if your country was counting on you to deliver an important message? That’s the story of 16-year-old Sybil Ludington’s famous midnight ride. In 1777, Sybil and her family believe the American colonies should be free from British control, and Sybil’s father leads a regiment of New York militiamen. Using spy tactics and codes, the Ludingtons gather intelligence, hoping to stay one step ahead of their enemies. When British troops raid nearby Danbury, Connecticut, Sybil gallops through the night to call out her father’s men.

Over a year has passed, but the time spent in jail has done nothing to soften the hatred in Jayla’s heart. After Jasmine’s betrayal, it’s only a matter of time before Jayla can give her a taste of her own medicine. The opportunity arises when Sheila Weston, the senator’s wife, intervenes, offering Jayla an assignment that she can’t refuse. Little does she know how much this assignment will change her life forever. Betrayal is at every turn, and no one can be trusted. As new secrets are revealed, Jayla finds herself tangled in a web so twisted it brings her past full circle.

Eden Water's life has always been far from ordinary. After a close call with a murdering psychopath, all Eden wants to do is go home and rest. But, that can't happen, at least not yet. Eden has received a call from Nathaniel, the alpha of the Eastern shifters. The alpha's community has been attacked, and the young shifter, Tommy, has been taken. Now, Eden must race against the clock as she searches for clues of who took the little boy and why.

Remember that life's greatest lessons are usually learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. The path Karthiga lays out is simple but not easy because you need to participate persistently in manifesting your blessings. A Woman's Life is Art is a revolutionary tool that outlines a road map for women who want to be great. It doesn't just help you develop better habits, it also convinces you that acquiring them will make you a better person. The truth is that there are no limits in everyday life unless you set them.

The Girl with a Magical Martian Brain is a brutally honest autobiography recounting a tumultuous life interspersed with miracles and other side communications. Learn how love is the energy of the universe and how its fuel sparks our souls providing purpose and meaning to life. Soul lessons differ, but the common thread in humanity's tapestry is we are here to learn how to give and receive love. Self-love as first priority catapults you into loving others and your life purpose. Make love your religion, compassion your occupation, and kindness your karma.

On the run after a disastrous affair, artist Leah Mason plans to reinvent herself in a small Cornish village where nothing ever happens. But life is in St. Jofra is far from quiet, and soon Leah befriends her next-door neighbour Nat, and crosses paths with the handsome doctor Joshua Gray. When an old friend tracks her down with vengeance in mind, Leah is forced to confront all the things she had hoped to forget. But can she find love?