Arts & Culture, Books, Digital Culture, Editor's Pick, Fiction, Reviews

Small Presses, Big Nerve: Six Fiction Titles to Watch in 2026

A Litro guide to the best small-press fiction of 2026 so far, with six real titles from independent publishers including Cipher Press, Saqi, Cassava Republic, Moist and Conduit.

by accounts • 6th May 20266th May 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

The Odds Are In — Winner Announced

From over 200 anonymous submissions, five stories were shortlisted for The Odds Are In. We’re pleased to announce AKALA AKA by Anselme Eme as the winner.

by accounts • 1st May 20261st May 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

Doña Yola’s Algorithm

Before the system names a pattern, someone has already seen it. “Doña Yola’s Algorithm” is a story about prediction, authority, and who gets believed.

by accounts • 22nd April 202622nd April 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

Chances Are

By John Brantingham “Chances Are” was selected for Litro’s The Odds Are In shortlist through a blind editorial process. Shortly after submission, we were informed that its author, John Brantingham, had ...

by johnbrantingham • 22nd April 202622nd April 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

Six Months More

By Gull Ditta A data gardener confronts the zero-sum ontology of prediction markets—brilliant speculative fiction that reads like philosophy. Leo’s world was made of percentages and they were the first thing he ...

by accounts • 22nd April 202622nd April 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

AKALA AKA

A West African village grapples with algorithmic futures until the system fails and older wisdom returns. Rich cultural voice meets speculative premise. In the town of Kijani, the future arrived every ...

by anselm eme • 19th April 202619th April 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

Perishables

A quiet, devastating story set at a grocery-store customer service desk, where cracked eggs, a warm rotisserie chicken, and a small act of rule-bending reveal the pressure of dignity, money, ...

by accounts • 19th April 202622nd April 2026

Fiction, Story Sunday

Extinction

At the entrance of the restaurant, she hesitated a little. Out of cautious habit she looked with feigned disinterest first to the left and then, to the right—to appear lost, ...

by Ryan Kwek • 12th April 202614th April 2026

Fiction, Story Sunday, Uncategorised

Remembering the Dead

A young man survives a crash that kills his friend, but memory has gone missing where grief should be. “Remembering the Dead” follows him through shock, guilt and the strange ...

by GerardMcKeown • 12th April 202614th April 2026

Fiction, Story Sunday

Filia

Manda is holding together work, motherhood, class inheritance and a mind close to cracking. In “Filia,” care becomes ritual: for children, for guinea pigs, for memory, and for the self ...

by Litro Magazine • 12th April 202617th May 2026

Feature, Features, Fiction, Flash Friday, Future Archives

Flash Friday: Systems Under Strain (Four New Stories)

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by accounts • 27th March 202627th March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Future Archives, Story Sunday

An Anagram of Elsewhere 

On a bus route threaded through memory, design, and stray thought, Simeon Edwards turns ordinary transit into something stranger: a study in urban perception, presence, and drift.

by simeon edwards • 21st March 202622nd March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Future Archives, Story Sunday

The Cancellation of Michael Z 

One morning, Michael Z. wakes to silence then to scandal. T.L. Huchu’s story is a cutting, darkly comic portrait of literary culture, AI authorship, and the speed of public ruin.

by tenhuc • 21st March 202623rd March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Future Archives, Story Sunday

The House that Auto-Saved

Attunement The house came with instructions that she did not read. She assumed they were the usual conditions, the kind dutifully handed out to every new occupant, outlining features she ...

by lilyworsdall • 21st March 202622nd March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

Cervical

“I awoke dead.” From there, Cervical unfolds into a compact nightmare of bodily estrangement, luxury death, and a future where even dying has terms and conditions.

by accounts • 20th March 202620th March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

New Year, New You

After New Year’s Eve, a husband and wife move into separate rooms. What follows is a precise, unsettling story about emotional hunger, self-deception, and the domestic objects that absorb both.

by accounts • 20th March 202620th March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Flash Friday

Margaretisms 

A daughter tends to her mother on a weather-beaten coast, where memory falters but old phrases remain. A restrained, devastating flash about care, inheritance, and the strange intimacy of letting ...

by accounts • 20th March 202626th March 2026

Fiction, Tuesday Tales

Tuesday Tales: When Home Stops Holding

Four Tuesday Tales about the moment ordinary life turns unstable. These stories find dread not in spectacle but in rooms, routines, and relationships beginning to slip out of shape. ...

by accounts • 17th March 202617th March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Tuesday Tales

The Last Sunday

The boy puts a blanket over the two of them and he turns off the light. His mother stirs but the delicate frame of his little sister remains still. He ...

by accounts • 17th March 202617th March 2026

Editor's Pick, Fiction, Tuesday Tales

Saviour

Someone has been leaving stuff in the recycling room.   The tiny blue piano is missing a leg, although someone compassionate has made do by jamming in a tight-rolled wad of tissue ...

by accounts • 17th March 202617th March 2026