The twenty artists of Issue 13 cope with the breakdown of delusion.
Visit the house that won’t let you live the lie … get your copy at https://34orchard.com/issue-13/ today!
The downloadable PDF is designed so that it can be printed on double-sided paper for easy reading like a print magazine. As always, the issue is free, but there is a donation link should you choose to contribute. And if you like what you’ve read, spread the word!
We’re thrilled to present our table of contents for the Spring 2026 issue, which will be released on April 25, 2026.
Sooner or later, that delusion you created to make the pain of a traumatic reality feel safer, the one you created to get through it, breaks down. When it does, it’s like being destroyed all over again.
In Issue 13, twenty artists cope with the breakdown of delusion. A town believes its missing youth troop is somewhere safe despite a dead scoutmaster and strange clues left behind—but the truth they’re ignoring isn’t the one they would’ve imagined, and it’s far worse. An orca shows us that motherhood is fraught with the delusion that she can always keep her offspring safe. A couple is shattered to discover that not only can one romantic evening in the woods fail to repair their relationship, it can make things uglier. A desperate soul hooked on tarot cards continuously refuses to accept their answers. And Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy’s wedding gown, destroyed and rebuilt before the big day, was an omen that Camelot itself would come apart at the seams, an omen willfully unacknowledged.
Sometimes, being trapped in a trauma cycle can yield surprising things.
Welcome to the house that won’t let you live the lie.
Welcome to 34 Orchard.
Cover: Leaving Las Vegas – Trisha J. Wooldridge
Boys – Jeremiah Towle
I Found a Leg Bone in My Yard – A.M. Symes
An Orca Mourns in Puget Sound – Kelsey Oliver Imanishi
September Whitecaps Whip Up in the Bay – Kate LaDew
Once in a Black Moon – Mike Deady
A Heart Broken – Míša Hejná
The Fire – Keira Reynolds
Rot – Meg Douty
Fortune Telling – MJ Vickers
Descent to the Planet of the Gremlins – J.H. Siegal
The Last Road Tripper – Andrew Majors
The Bath – Elizabeth J. Coleman
The Alligator – Christopher Hann
The Unrequited Love of the Ocean – Ray Chanteur
The Ocean is Haunted and So Am I – H.V. Patterson
Last Year – Jennifer Winston Mayette
What Sort of Angels and Why – Matthew Thomas Bernell
The fox. – Priya Evans
I Was an Irrelevant Man – Cassondra Windwalker
Arrives here https://34orchard.com/issues/ on our issues page on April 25!
Hello all,
We just finished responding to all of our remaining submissions today, Sunday, March 8, 2026. We thank you for your patience!
If you sent a submission within our window of January 1-10, 2026, and you have not received a response, please feel free to reach out to us through our Contact form or by dropping us an email at 34orchardjournal@gmail.com.
Stay tuned! We’ll be announcing our ToC for the Spring 2026 issue soon!
Kristi
Hello all,
Our response deadline is February 28. Due to staff illness and personal situations we are running behind, and still have about 125 pieces to finish considering. If you have not heard back from us, it means your work made it to our final rounds of consideration.
We are completing our selections as quickly as we can! Thank you for your understanding, and if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us at 34orchardjournal@gmail.com.
I’m hopeful all of our responses will be sent by March 8.
Kristi
IT’S OFFICIAL! 34 ORCHARD is now a member of the CLMP (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses). The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses is a network of small, independent publishers who work together to support diverse writers, connect them with readers, and strengthen literary culture. They view publishing as a creative practice rooted in mutual support and community, and they actively engage everyone who cares about literature to ensure independent publishing continues to thrive.
We’re looking forward to participating and sharing and being part of something larger than us in helping keep great art in the world.
To learn more about their important work and what they’re about, visit here: https://www.clmp.org/about/what-we-believe/
I couldn’t be more thrilled about being part of a community that shares information and resources so that we can continue to provide high quality literature to our readers.
CLMP showcases many independent publishers of books and lit mags on their social media. If you love indie, we recommend following them on Insta to stay abreast of what’s out there.
Our submissions window is now closed. Thank you to all who submitted! That so many writers would love to be in our pages is an honor, and we appreciate every single submission, even if we don’t publish it.
If you haven’t received a response yet, we are working on it—we go as fast as we can so that your work isn’t sitting in our inbox eating up time it could be under consideration at another market that may not accept simsubs. We aim to have all responses sent out no later than February 28.
We’ve got some stellar selections for this year, so if you’re also a reader, you have much to look forward to!
In January of 2027, we plan to be open for fiction and poetry.
If you have any questions or concerns and need to contact us, you can either reach out to us through the form on our Contact page or email us at 34orchardjournal@gmail.com.
We wish you a productive, healthy, exciting 2026!
In gratitude,
Kristi and Anne
Submissions for SHORT FICTION are now open! The window will close at 11:59 pm your local time on Saturday, January 10, 2026.
We are considering fiction pieces for our Spring and Autumn 2026 issues from 1000 to 6000 words. Please note, we are not accepting poetry submissions this time around. We will welcome poetry again in January of 2027.
We do our best to respond as quickly as we can, and aim to have all responses sent out no later than February 28.
Our guidelines are here: https://34orchard.com/guidelines/
If you have any questions or concerns and need to contact us, you can either reach out to us through the form on our Contact page or email us at 34orchardjournal@gmail.com.
We hope you’re enjoying these waning days of 2025 and making plans for a wordful 2026!
Our submissions window for our 2026 issues is about to open. Submissions open at 12:00 am your local time on Thursday, January 1, 2026, and will close at 11:59 pm your local time on Saturday, January 10, 2026.
We are considering only fiction pieces from 1000 to 6000 words. Please note, we are not accepting poetry submissions this time around. We will welcome poetry again in January of 2027.
Our guidelines are here: https://34orchard.com/guidelines/
If you have any questions or concerns and need to contact us, you can either reach out to us through the form on our Contact page or email us at 34orchardjournal@gmail.com.
We love our cosmic horror—it asks so many questions and makes us think. We also love short films. So the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, going strong since 1995, is our jam.
Hosts Gwen and Brian Callahan go above and beyond—the quality of this festival, from curation and content to pledge campaign rewards and collateral material—is top notch.
Although the in-person festival happened in September, the streaming edition arrives December 5-9, 2025, and you’ll be able to enjoy over sixty short films, several full-length features, author readings, and panels right from your living room.
This year’s thirtieth anniversary theme is Cthulu on the High Seas, so in addition, some contributors to the Lovecraftian Microfiction/Challenge from Beyond books, which always accompany the festival, were instead asked to write an X-files-esque story surrounding The Emma, a two-masted schooner that plays into strange events in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulu.” There are stories by favorites like Cody Goodfellow and John Shirley (34O editor Kristi Petersen Schoonover’s story “Compaction” is included too). The books will be on sale after the festival on Arkhaam Bazaar’s website.
If short films and cosmic/existentialist horror rocks your world, this festival is for you! You can purchase tickets for the December 5-9, 2025 streaming event here: https://hplfilmfestival.eventive.org/passes/buy.
34 Orchard 