Heartlines Spec

Huge thank you to Nico for a lovely review of all 5 poems in @heartlines-spec.com issue 11!

Concluded our first all-editors CanCon! Thank you to everyone who stopped by to chat and hang out! It was so nice to meet @heartlines-spec.com writers and readers in the wild 🥰 Shout-out to @rhirschgarcia.bsky.social for being our famous author endorser!

Actually another recent story also hits on this topic: “The Impossibility of Fall Prevention” in @heartlines-spec.com issue 10: www.heartlines-spec.com/the-impossib...

My first CanCon and first time as a vendor!!! Come say hi if you're around :D

We’re at Can*Con @canconsffh.bsky.social ALL WEEKEND! Join us in the vendor room at Brookstreet, or catch us at panels. Editors @rebecca-b.bsky.social @emilyyu.bsky.social and @manuelaamiouny.bsky.social will skulking about

A second chance to submit!!!

Additionally! @heartlines-spec.com is briefly open to submissions again. We're looking for a few more Canadian/Turtle Island writers 🍁 for issue 12. We'll be open until the end of Can*Con, so don't self reject and send us that spec piece with an established relationship you've been sitting on!!

Heads up! We have responded to all our submissions. If you haven’t heard back, check your spam and send us an email. We will be reopening soon for more Canadian short fiction and poetry—our hold list isn’t as mapley as it should be 🍁🍁🍁

Congrats to the TOC! We’ve been lucky to work with so many brilliant writers selected 💗

September 30 is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day. Today is a time to raise awareness of the ongoing impacts of residential schools and remember the children who never came home. How are you honouring the day?

Submit your stories and poems to @heartlines-spec.com until the end of Sept. 30! ✍️ ‼️ Your story or poem MUST be SFF/spec WITH a long-term relationship (familial, platonic, romantic) at the core of the work. ‼️ Read the submission guidelines here ➡️ www.heartlines-spec.com/submission-g...

Canadians: As part of a global effort to demand regulation for artificial intelligence developers, The Writers’ Union of Canada has launched a Parliamentary Petition calling for radical transparency for AI training processes & the works they subsequently produce. www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

✨ 10 more days left to submit your fantasy or sci-fi story/poem WITH a long-term relationship to @heartlines-spec.com until the end of the month! ✨ Don't be afraid to dive deep into that fantasy 🧚 or sci-fi 👽setting with characters 🫂 who have known each other for a long time already.

On the Occasion of Your Daughter Becoming a Kallikantzaros by @avramargariti.bsky.social is now FREE-TO-READ! It's parenting on hard mode...but also a lovely balm for anyone who grew up a little feral.

You know how copse is very closer to corpse? 👀 🌲 💀 🍃 The Tree by @authortrsteele.bsky.social is FREE-TO-READ!

A Knight of Leisure by @jaespersmyth.bsky.social became FREE-TO-READ! It's the coziest fantasy with a grumpy knight, a forgiving spouse, and a missing cat. The perfect balm to get you through the rest of your week!

Rainbow Space Magic is a free, virtual weekend of queer speculative fiction, taking place this year on October 3rd & 4th. Register here to receive updates: www.rainbowspacemagic.org

"Like Clockwork," a poem in @heartlines-spec.com pulls all the right strings for me. What a beautiful piece. www.heartlines-spec.com/like-clockwo...

Speaking of distant galaxies, extraordinary creatures, and magical worlds... @heartlines-spec.com is open all through September for submissions!! Send us your SFF stories and poems with a long-term relationship at the core! ✨ Guidelines here ➡️ www.heartlines-spec.com/submission-g...

Fishbowlhead by Moh Afdhaal is now FREE-TO-READ! It all gets weirder as Samil searches the exclusion zone for his brother ❌🏚️⌛ www.heartlines-spec.com/fishbowlhead...

‘tis the season (send me your poems 👀)

Submission inbox is fully OPEN! Let's goooooooooo ✨pure vamp from editors mildly stunned at the passage of time😅 ✨ www.heartlines-spec.com/submission-g...

While you await the new vampire story: 🧟"At the End of the World, Meet Me By the Vending Machines" with @heartlines-spec.com is my zombie story. www.heartlines-spec.com/at-the-end-o... 🐺"Of Wolf and Woman" with @flashpointsf.bsky.social is my werewolf story. flashpointsf.com/2025/06/14/o...

Canadians, we can donate to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Canadian communities through CanadaHelps: www.canadahelps.org/en/charities...

The Lazarus Heart by Esther Lim is now FREE-TO-READ. Do not adjust your television sets, listen to the static instead. 📺 🖤 🖤

It's that time of the year again, and I'm ready to read!! 👀 Send us your stories and poems! ✨✨ ✍️

Heartlines is a terrific publication! and i'm not only saying this because once upon a time they published one of my stories. but their stories are lovely and the editorial team is grand.

We are OPEN for early submissions from equity-deserving writers, looking for poetry and short fiction. Submissions fully open on Sept 1st: ❣500-3500 words ❣pre-existing relationships ❣Fantasy! Sci-Fi! Horror! www.heartlines-spec.com

Ahh thank you for the lovely write-up on The Ache Before the Wound by Hap Aziz www.heartlines-spec.com/the-ache-bef...

Greenhouse by Julia Sinclair is now FREE-TO-READ! 🌿 ☀️ This poem is so lush you're going to stick your nose into the first plant you find. "Her laugh obeys a liquid’s laws of physics – it fills the space into which it’s poured – and tonight it’s shaped like a greenhouse, then my mouth."

This was lovely!

Lovely story abt whatever happened to the young woman from the portal fantasy, after she returned to Earth and became a mother. 💔❤️

The Kingdom She Carried by Jillian Schedneck is now FREE-TO-READ! Motherhood, portal fantasy, and watching the past inform the present ⭕ ⚔️ 🏰

We're one week out from re-opening for equity-deserving stories and poems for Issue 12! This is the perfect time to shuffle through your pieces or...GASP...write something new? Perchance even... read Issue 11 with new pieces releasing on Tues & Thurs www.heartlines-spec.com/submission-g...

recollection: to taste by @awritingwren.bsky.social is now FREE-TO-READ! It's a quick bite of a poem that'll warm you to your bones. "granny left us in the spring, like hoarfrost and with the spring i stopped washing her blood off my clothes;"

Day 11: "Five of Us" by Jayasri Sridhar in @heartlines-spec.com . A bittersweet look at love that was only permitted to bloom after the fall of civilization. #PoemADay www.heartlines-spec.com/five-of-us-b...

The Ache Before the Wound by Hap Aziz is now FREE-TO-READ! Just because there's an app for that, doesn't mean you need it... "TEMPORAL BUFFER :: RESOLUTION MODE ACTIVE Outcome preview received. Resolution strategy recommendation: light humor" www.heartlines-spec.com/the-ache-bef...

Fantastically scary poem by Chris Clemens in @heartlines-spec.com. Give it a read and come scream with me:

Secrets of the Sea by @aresjb.bsky.social is now FREE-TO-READ! 🌊🐚🦀 "In a shack too small at the edge of a wine-dark sea, my mother feeds her whispering shell silver coins in exchange for ocean secrets." www.heartlines-spec.com/secrets-of-t...

So happy that my story about love, care, loss, and possessed trees (I know, you'll have to read to find out...) found a home in this issue of @heartlines-spec.com! ❤️🌳✨

So pumped to read the whole issue, it's gonna be a good one!!🙌🏻

For behind the scenes info, our Editorial by @rebecca-b.bsky.social is free-to-read! We got themes, we got stress, we got slices of (virtual) cake.