Adam Fout — Dark Short Stories and Poems

Dark science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, and poetry — read free now

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My Story “Correction” Was Published in Factor Four Magazine

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Factor Four Magazine has been super supportive of my writing and is an incredible venue that pays much higher than average rates and is really dedicated to supporting writers. I am particularly grateful to Richard for giving two of my stories a chance—having a venue pick up a second story makes me feel like I’m really on the right track.

This story is only available if you purchase Issue 6, which you can find here. While quite short, this issue traces the current trends in incarceration in the United States to their logical conclusion, particularly condemning the attitude promoting/fetishizing punishment (and not rehabilitation) that is prevalent in our country.

My Story “We Are Cherished” Was Published by DreamForge

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The awesome new speculative fiction magazine DreamForge recently published my short story “We Are Cherished.” This one was a lot of fun to write and was an attempt to break out of the mode of depressing fiction I’d been writing to create something hopeful.

I am forever grateful to Scot at DreamForge for building something so inspiring and hopeful and then inviting me to be a part of it in this small way.

To read the story, you’ll need to subscribe to the magazine. You can get a small discount on the issue I appear in here.

My Story “Living, as They Do, at the Bottom of the Sea” was published today in Breath & Shadow

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My story Living, as They Do, at the Bottom of the Sea was published today in Breath & Shadow.

Breath & Shadow is a wonderful publication out of Maine that publishes work focused on disability.

Because my disabilities are “invisible,” I often feel compelled to convince myself that they don’t exist (dangerous), and so, in reaction to this feeling, I do what I can to give them voice and call them what they are. Being published in a magazine of this sort might be helpful to other people who suffer from the same disabilities that I do, but it mostly helps me to remember who and what I am, which in turn helps me do the things I need to do to properly deal with my disabilities.

This story came out of the phrase “Underwater Basket Weaving,” the idiom referring to the supposed absurdity of college classes that don’t teach a definable skill, and the umbrella assumption above this that anything we cannot immediately find a use for (or make money from) must be worthless.

There are many things, in my mind and in the world, that have uses beyond the obvious, or that have value despite a lack of “usefulness.”

Living, as They Do, at the Bottom of the Sea is the result of my exploration of these ideas. Read it here.

Vicious Neon — A Speculative Flash Fiction Story

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A digitized sword with the words "Vicious Neon" sticking out of it. Read this flash science fiction story for free.

Her hand sparkles with emerald pixels, the silver blade winking in and out of digital existence. Her smile is vicious, flecks of zeros and ones flashing behind lips of neon purple.

His face is sharp, angles of radiation and phosphorescence, his grimace a slash of fury. He raises a severed hand in defense, bleeding golden binary, jade fractals, pink tessellations. Her blade descends, trailing twin tails of orange and crimson particles that pop and flare.

His grimace becomes a smirk. From his chest, a holographic cannon etches itself into reality. Its boom echoes across a cerulean landscape of infinite lines.

Read more flash science fiction stories here.

My Story “Shackles” Was Published Today in Factor Four Magazine

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My first piece of professionally published flash science fiction, a piece called Shackles, was published today in Factor Four Magazine.

Factor Four Magazine is a new publication that publishes flash science fiction, fantasy, and other genres.

My story, Shackles, explores what it means to be human in the far future, when our bodies and our methods of communication are practically unrecognizable, and when having bodies and using methods of communication becomes a burden rather than a blessing.

With those ideas in mind, I ask this question:

What comes next?

 

Take a look at Issue 3 here—both print and ebook versions are available, and subscriptions start at $4:

Issue 3 of Factor Four Magazine (including my story Shackles)