Pharmacopeia Obscura: The August Doctor's Notes

Christine Lucas is a Greek author, a retired (disabled) Air Force officer and mostly self-taught in English. Her work appears in several print and online magazines, including Future SF Digest, Pseudopod and Strange Horizons. She was a finalist for the 2017 WSFA award and the 2021 Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction. Her collection of short stories, titled "Fates and Furies" was published in late 2019 by Candlemark & Gleam.
Dorit d'Scarlett is a CaLD poet and writer living in Malaysia whose award-winning poetry and short stories have appeared in Rattle, Meniscus, Dark Poets, and many other international journals. As an immigrant, her work often explores the fragile intersection between visibility and vulnerability. Links to her published work can be found on her website: doritdscarlett.com.
Mike Miksch is a queer author of speculative fiction whose work has been featured in various outlets including HuffPost. He has a freakish depth of knowledge about animals and a worrying fixation on unicorns. He resides in Washington with his family, where this sort of thing is encouraged.
E.A. Shander is an author of speculative and historical fiction. When he is not exploring the far reaches of the galaxy or navigating a post-apocalyptic world, he works in healthcare administration. A U.S. Navy veteran from Allentown, Pennsylvania, he now lives in Orlando, Florida, with his wife, son, and two deranged cats. He is often found in his natural habitat by the pool on sunny days, like today.
C. J. Peterson is a writer of science articles and science fiction.
Maleah Dancer lives in New Mexico with her husband and their puppy dog, Kaz. She loves writing short stories with speculative twists, and she is currently hard at work on a fantasy novel. You can read her short story "The Girl Who Spoke Butterflies" at Halfway Down the Stairs.
After completing his degree with the University of Winnipeg, Morgan Wyman has spent his free time writing, revising, and writing again (though he swears he has other hobbies too). Some of his previous stories can be found in Penumbric Magazine, and in previous anthologies published by JayHenge. Follow him on Bluesky: morganwyman.bsky.social.
Fendy S. Tulodo lives in Malang, Indonesia. His work has appeared in dozens of publications across various outlets. He also makes music under the name Nep Kid, exploring sound alongside his writing. Find him on Instagram: @fendysatria_.
James "Jim" Best is a lifelong reader and writer. His work explores the strange and transgressive, plays with genre tropes, and aims to entertain. It has appeared in Saros Speculative Fiction, Ink Nest Poetry, Flash Fiction Magazine, Horrific Scribblings, Foofaraw, The Lit Nerds, PULP, Twenty-Eight Twenty-Two, Eggplant Emoji and the forthcoming issue of In Another Time magazine. His short story "Haint Seen Nothin{'}" was amongst the winners of the Appalachia Creative Theatrical Society's Voices of Appalachia Short Fiction contest. He lives in rural Kentucky with his family and has called many places home. Find him at James Best on Facebook.
By day, Eric is a mild-mannered artist in the movie poster trade. At night, he writes strange and lurid tales. He lives with his lovely wife, brilliant son, and two elderly cats in Los Angeles, a city made for dreaming. His favorite word is opsimath, and he has been known to burst into song for no good reason. Links to his published work can be found at: erictolladay.com.
Steve Loiaconi is a journalist and a graduate of George Mason University's MFA program. His fiction previously appeared in Griffel, the Mystery Tribune, Mythaxis, Zooscape, and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as the anthologies Why Didn't You Just Leave, Found 2, and America's Future. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, son, and dog.
Holly Schofield travels through time at the rate of one second per second, oscillating between the alternate realities of city and country life. Her speculative fiction has appeared in many publications including Analog, Lightspeed, and Escape Pod, is used in university curricula, and has been translated into multiple languages. She hopes to save the world through science fiction and homegrown heritage tomatoes. \newline Find her at hollyschofield.wordpress.com.
Benjamin Adams was a 2002 Bram Stoker Award nominee for co-editing the anthology The Children of Cthulhu. He has also written professionally for Doctor Who, in the Big Finish anthologies Short Trips: Snapshots and Short Trips: The Centenarian. Other 2026 appearances include stories in Phantasmagoria Magazine, Into the Deep, Dark Woods (WordFire), Summer in the City (Ruadán), and Dreams Divine (Flame Tree). His stories generally deal with grief, love, pain, and trauma, although sometimes they're just about monsters.
Ollie Swasey (they/them) is an editorial assistant and genre fiction writer. Their work appears in God's Cruel Joke, Olit Magazine, Bewildering Stories, and on the Creepy podcast. They currently reside in Boston with their wife and cat. Find them on Tumblr at metaphorfordeath.tumblr.com, or on Bluesky at olliews.bsky.social.
Robert Dawson teaches mathematics at a Nova Scotian university. His SF stories have appeared in Nature Futures, Compelling SF, Tesseracts XX, and dozens of other periodicals and anthologies. His other interests include music, cycling, cooking, and hiking, and he volunteers with a Scout troop. He believes that the world needs more bicycles.
Don Norum prefers removing his big toenails with a Leatherman and a nail file to writing about himself in the third person -- that said, he does have a website (donorum.com) and a Bluesky account (dnorum.bsky.social), and is halfway through the coursework for his John Wick merit badge. He is three dogs old.
Jonathan Titchenal was a passionate reader and writer. His work has appeared in the anthologies Anna Karenina Isn't Dead and A Lonely & Curious Country. Jonathan passed away in 2020, but his friends and family continue to seek publication for his writing.
Robert Borski's writing has been published in Analog, Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and The New York Review of Science Fiction. A former state university employee, he continues to live in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. First encountered in junior high, Carl Stephenson's much anthologized short story, "Leinington Versus The Ants," is the obvious inspiration for Borski's tale in this volume.
Glen Engel-Cox's goal is to travel to every country in the world, of which he's made it to over 100 so far, including stints where he lived in both Asia and the Middle East. Along the way, he has published a novel, Darwin's Daughter; a non-fiction compilation, First Impressions; and short fiction in The Daily Tomorrow, Triangulation, LatineLit, Utopia, Nature, Factor Four, SFS Stories, and elsewhere. A lover of booklore, he publishes a free daily newsletter about events in literature; receive it by becoming a member of his Patreon at patreon.com/gengelcox (it's part of the free tier).
Matthew P. Bettelheim is a wildlife biologist, science writer, and natural historian with an inordinate fondness for the history and mythology of turtles. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and son and an ensemble of pets that includes... turtles. "Endpapers" first appeared in We Are All Thieves of Somebody's Future (Air and Nothingness Press, 2024). His most recent story, "Cut a Shadow Darker", appeared in JayHenge Publishing's 2026 Masque & Maelström Vol. 2: The Overzealous Reinterment of Edgar Allan Poe anthology.
Ruth Bowens wrote her first book at age three and has since been on again, off again across universes. Though attracted to Broadway and long-haul train rides, her heart and her home never stray far from New England. In her spare time she works as an electrical engineer, plays narrative-driven CRPGs, and has almost finished reading all the books she owns.
Alicia Maskley is a poet and writer living in Queensland, Australia. She has a Master's degree in history, and enjoys writing historical fiction with a speculative bent. Her weird fiction has appeared in Small Wonders, Altitude Press, and Nocturne Magazine. More of her work is available online at aliciamaskley.com.
Cover Art by Maximillian Kennedy — www.maxkennedy24.com/commission-info.