Spring 2026

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Editors

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Fiction Contributors

Bryanna Licciardi	The Polisher
Lucho Payne	Crying the Neck
Nazaret Ranea	When I Married the Giant
Emma Wells	Jólakötturinn

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Visual Art Contributors

Metalhead Melankolis	GET THE BIG PICTURE
Ayomikun Ojoade	Aboki’s Bench (The Witness) Still, as Lilies Red Hood
Sasa Sa	Plum Certain Voting Line Starts Here

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Nonfiction Contributors

Arti Jain	But before you can tree, you must mushroom
Augustine Obasi	Grandma’s Mudhouse
Mallory Sorber	Letters I Can Never Send

Drama Contributors

Giulianna L Marchese	Impact
Eric Wiley	My Father Was A Playwright

Stepping into April, Spellbinder is growing steadily, in small but meaningful ways, and perhaps just a little braver. Call it optimism—or Spring.

Our blog has welcomed new writings and expanded features. The Editors’ Picks category, while continuing to highlight reviews of previously published pieces, now includes ‘What We’re Reading’ posts, offering a glimpse into the current reads of our wonderful team and, hopefully, some inspiration for our readers. Meanwhile, the Tips & Resources section published The Cost of Being Creative, a critical piece that examines the myths upholding class exclusion in the arts and provides practical ways to resist them. We’ve planned new reflections, recommendations, and analytical pieces that will illuminate the diversity and dynamism of today’s literary world, all of which you can explore on our website.

Our Instagram community continues to expand, and we’re thrilled to see more faces joining our literary conversation. Our upcoming feature, ‘Typewriter Confessions,’ aims to be an interactive space between us and the audience hosting sometimes amusing, sometimes melancholy, but always honest commentary. In addition to that, the ‘International Reading List’ offers a monthly curation of literature from around the world, honouring the global reach of our platform.

In that spirit, the Spring 2026 Issue brings together some of our strongest voices yet. Our contributors experiment boldly with language, form, and emotion. The poetry reflects on human experience and consciousness, weaving together the intimate and the universal. Fiction ranges from folklore-inspired stories mourning giants to tense hunts in Icelandic woods, alongside flash fiction that captures eerie atmospheres and surprising twists in just a few brief paragraphs. Creative Nonfiction offers powerful narratives exploring loss in many forms: the loss of safety after discrimination, the weight of our grandparents’ experiences, and the sudden disappearance of dear friendships. The Drama section features scripts that challenge traditional notions of playwrighting and push the boundaries of form. Meanwhile, Visual Art exhibits striking collages that demand attention and are impossible to tear our eyes away from.

There is a clear pattern of exploration within Spellbinder. Art is never neutral; it is political in its attention, its empathy and its capacity to provoke thought. As artists, we must continue to explore, to resist, and to unify. Our magazine seeks to capture this tension—showing the personal, the communal, and the systemic, and giving space to work that both illuminates and questions. We’ve been continually inspired by the pieces we publish and the ways in which our contributors embrace their craft while experimenting with it. Whether through poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, or visual art, we want Spellbinder to be a platform where writers and artists confront reality, celebrate nuance and explore how creativity can both mirror and reshape the world we inhabit.

We live in a world that shifts every second, its joys and horrors alike on constant display. Yet, as Mary Oliver reminds us, “it is a serious thing / just to be alive on this fresh morning / in the broken world.”

Seeing how this mission resonates with our community, we are deeply grateful to the people who make Spellbinder possible: our volunteers, whose dedication keeps everything running, and our readers, whose curiosity and engagement continually inspire us. Their support allows Spellbinder to evolve and make each issue a labour of love and purpose.

Co-Editors-in-Chief
Effy Kousteni & Tatianna Kalb

Poetry Shortlist – Spring 2026

Anthony Albright	Blood Quantum
Konstandinos Mahoney	Dead Bird
Derek M Ferguson	The Clearances
Louise Warren	Marconi send a message. I fail to send a message.
Christian Hanz Lozada	embers
Duc Van Khanh Tran	Earthly Magnet
Zama Madinana	lines for tsitsi

Fiction Shortlist – Spring 2026

Trevor Conway	Business Plan
Riley E. Smith	Raw
icK	Bedlam

CNF Shortlist – Spring 2026

Brontë Turner	Crossings
Michelle Crowell	The Heat of Our Fire

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