Disclaimer: I received an e-book ARC in exchange for my review by Tenebrous Press.

This story follows a woman escaping from her abusive ex-husband when a friend invites her to move to their small town and start a new life. As the summary states there is something spectacularly wrong with that place though and our main character will soon figure out what exactly.
This novel collects a lot of things I enjoy: Weird small towns, the dangers of corn fields (they are so tall and so wide and so easy to get lost in!), women recovering from abuse and finding their voice, scary scarecrows, cultists and most importantly truly unsettling videotapes from the lokal video store.
This book also beautifully dismantles the romanticised notion of the small town as a picturesque place and instead reveals the rotten xenophobic underbelly that hides in these rural places way too often. I also really adored the characters, especially Carina and Hazel (a 16 year old goth girl who loves scary movies) and they are definitely two characters you just cant help but root for despite the overwhelming odds standing against them. I also really enjoyed the way the novel explored fatphobia and the way Carina is treated due to being a mixed race dark-skin fat woman. And there is some (wonderfully gorey and gruesome!) murders in this novel, which I read gleefully. Finally, I also really adored the atmopshere this novel builds, painting a very vivid picture of this town without ever letting the plot get bogged down in unnecessary descriptions.
My only qualm with the book is that I think for the reader the reveal of the murderous beings stalking this small town is revealed a bit too early as we then still spend quite some time with the other characters who don't know what's going on and I think I might have enjoyed it a bit more if I had been able to be kept in suspense as well.
All in all this was a really great horror novel with an unsettling atmosphere, a really immersive writing style, a heartwrenching look into abuse and a great twist on folk horror. I do think this one that might lend itself to a reread for me once October rolls around.

TW: sexual violence, rape, domestic abuse, murder, rich white men

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

I mostly picked this book up due to the interesting synopsis and cover. I had never heard of the author before. I also knew that I would be getting slow horror and when it worked, it worked. Unfortunately, at points the stories weren't just slow, but glacial. K.K. Monroe shines in their use of interesting plots and very detailed character studies, but if you're looking for horror that will actually unsettle you deeply or that delves into the gorey details, you might have to look elsewhere.

I quite enjoyed the introductory short story "The Reckoning", which somewhat functions as a framing device following a woman waking up in the hospital after an accident. I really enjoyed the prose here. The story is a bit short and I think some more padding could have been interesting here, but it is an interesting start! (tw death, car accident). (4/5)
The Lady in the Lake follows a stressed lawyer when her equally busy laywer boyfriend invites her to his father's cabin near a lake for a getaway. Immediately nightmares start haunting her. Unfortunately this one was quite aprubt and did not manage to build tension as much as I had hoped it would. Most of the scary moments happened in dreams and were so disjointed from what we were presented during the day, that they did not really manage to scare me and the end did not hit as hard as I hoped it would. (tw murder, death, drowning). (2/5)
The Mechanism is at parts incredibly good (the radio show parts, the world building) and then unfortunately kinda ruins that by having an incredibly boring MC and a story that moves very, very slowly until it reaches the big reveal. If this story had been a bit snappier, I think I would have really enjoyed it! I did enjoy the prose and the descriptions of the world a lot. (tw child murder, murder, police brutality, mass murder, death). (3/5)
The Red Light is another story that could be really scary and has a great set up, but is really dragged down by its narrator and its plodding pace. The narrator has an incredibly repeptitive monologue and I got tired of his focus on his "balls cancer" and the "burning in his pecker", as well as his constant repeptition of "Nooooo, sireeee, Bob" very, very fast. Unfortunately this one is by far the story I enjoyed least and it is the longest in the collection. The horror is underexplored (in fact we don't get told about the scariest moments. And we had to work to get there! That felt like an incredible letdown), the narrator is annoying, and the pace is glacial. I think this story could have been cut down by... half? without loosing any important moments of the story or used that extra space to explore the horror more. The end was unsettling and intruiging, but I know I would have enjoyed it more if the rest of the story hadn't been such a slog to get through. (tw cancer, death, mass death). (1/5)
Be Careful of What You find is the last story and compared to the others before it, a short one. It follows a teenanger obessessed with death and corpses, who wants to capture something. A short story that manages to present interesting characters and an interesting monster, all presented with good pacing. Not as scary as I had expected, but I had fun reading it. (4/5)

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

When I saw this book on netgalley as a cosmic horror short story collection that focusses on diversity and overcoming the bigotry often baked into the idea of "the Other" in horror, I knew I had to read it. Having read a bunch of Cosmic horror recently as well I also thought I'd know what to expect. And yes, some of the pieces here do fit very well into the typical tropes (cult that wants to summon a God with too many tentacles, weird ocean creatures by the seaside, trying to appease an angry God through sacrificing young girls to it etc), but many of them manage to either takes the tropes and turn them into something new and interesting through a reversal of roles (Life Free or Die by Danny Brzozowski is a great example of the scary cult in the forest that wants to sacrifice the MC to their God, but manages a great Reversal of roles that would make Lovecraft spin in his grave. And that's beautiful!). Other short stories do things with Cosmic Horror that I haven't really seen done before (such as eldritch music in The Birth of Sound). The anthology also explores many topics such as racism, sexism, transphobia, mental illness, poverty and homophobia and does, as promised, extend the Genre further to marginalized voices.
There weren't any short stories I disliked and quite a few I really loved, such as "The Silent Letter" by Chris Nelson, "Six Underground" by Vicky Velvet, "Cracks" by Mary SanGiovanni, "The Things We Did in the Dark" by Julia Darcey, "A Dampened Embrace" by Christopher Hann, "24 Points" by S.A. Cosby, "On the Shores of Midnight" by Marnie Desdemona and "Burning Slumber" by Jessica L. Sparrow.
In general, if you enjoy horror or weird fiction I can absolutely recommend you to dive into this collection and enjoy!

Starting now I also wrote a short list with some thoughts on each piece as well as some trigger warnings I think apply to each piece, slight spoilers ahead:

The Birth of Sound by Timaeus Bloom: eldritch music, short and sweet and scary tw: loss of bodily autonomy
Fractures of Her Reflection by Amanda Headlee: a woman's repetitive behavior due to OCD might literally be the only thing that keeps the world standing, I liked the dread but a bit more explanation on why characters besides the main character acted that way would have been nice, also shoutout to this story for including a disabled character, which I loved! tw: mass death, apocalypse, gaslighting from a medical professional, hospital, injury, past death, car accident mention, past abuse

Life Free or Die by Danny Brzozowski: A nonbinary teacher is fired from their job after getting doxxed online, very reminiscent of the real case of AV Schwandes and other teachers caught up in the anti trans panic, on their way home they get kidnapped, the reversal of transphobic white supremacists as the scary Lovecraftian cult is fun but unfortunately this short story feels a bit unfinished to me and as if it tried to do a bit too much for such a short story, I would love to see an extended version though and I really enjoyed the author's writing style, tw: transphobia, misgendering, discriminatory firing, attempted human sacrifice, white supremacy, hate crime, injury
*FAV* The Silent Letter by Chris Nelson: an investigation of an eldritch word, very SCP-esque, but interesting and fun and I adored the dread it built, tw: death, coma, gore, body horror
Effigies of Monstrous Things by Pedro Iniguez: a rotting housing complex and its inhabitants stuck in poverty and a single father trying his best to keep his daughters save, fun! Fucked up but fun! tw: child death, murder, body horror, gore, unsanitary living conditions
*FAV* Six Underground by Vicky Velvet: a couple is trapped underground slowly running out of air, soooo fucked up, i love a good cave creature and transgender wrongs! tw: child death, murder, violence, confined spaces
You Have Joined the Livestream by Jessica McHugh: Two ghost hunting bros (including all the worst frat bro stereotypes from homophobia, sexism, patriotism and covid denial) are challenged to go to an incredibly haunted location by their haters, fun and with a satisfying end, tw sexism, covid denial, police brutality, homophobia
*FAV* Cracks by Mary SanGiovanni: A teacher notices some children's obsession with a glowing stone. Then people start getting into accidents. Scary and I love a protagonist you just can't vote for (no matter how much you understand their actions). Fun!!! tw: graphic injury, accident, death, child murder
*FAV* The Things We Did in the Dark by Julia Darcey: Two girls sacrificed to serve a dark god and keep him from destroying the world, really atmospheric and interesting and heartbreaking, tw: violence, physical abuse as punishment, death, confinement, human sacrifice (in a way), blood, body horror
In the House, There Were Teeth and There Were Eyes by Ichabod Cassius Kilroy: A lonely man and a fucked up house. Very fun. I love it when architecture weeps and droops and fucks up your life <3, tw: death, body horror
*FAV* A Dampened Embrace by Christopher Hann: A family worshipping an eldritch god and the son that tried to change this legacy, scary and fascinating! tw: death, murder, body horror
*FAV* 24 Points by S.A. Cosby: a father-son-uncle hunting trip goes very wrong, really great horror that manages to be both cosmic and grounded in the natural world and so even more terrifying, tw: suicide, cannibalism/self harm/self-mutilation, injury, death, gore
*FAV* On the Shores of Midnight by Marnie Desdemona: a grieving woman on the seaside searching for a church hidden by the tides, lyrical and with very interesting imagery, tw suicide, harm to animals, drowning, vomiting, starvation, death
The Eye of God by Rachel Searcey: two sisters are stranded on a small island and their food reserves are running low, manages to portray the isolation and desperation really well, tw starvation
Like Ants We March by Jorja Osha: A black boy starts hearing the voice of a friend shot by police through his radio and has to deal with the intense racism of his community, very intense and vivid, tw: police brutality, murder, racism, gun violence, death
*FAV* Burning Slumber by Jessica L. Sparrow: Colonization as eldritch horror, incredibly well done and super interesting! tw: gore, violence, murder, colonialism, self mutilation, eye gore, mention of sexual assault
Passage by Cyrus Amelia Fisher: A group of sailors and a witch trapped in endless ice as the ship captain has to decide if her loyalty truly lies with her crew, very The Terror with added eldritch beast, very fun tw murder, unsanitary food, starvation, cannibalism, death, self harm for ritual purposes
The Comfort of a Cold Pit by Michelle Tang: the old servant of a God meets her successor, i love textile art in horror fiction, so that was cool! Very emotional and introspective, but I enjoyed it! Tw past familial and spousal abuse, death, eye gore
Gyges by Vaughn A. Jackson: urban fantasy meets cosmic horror when a detective who knows some alchemy takes on the creature possessing a little girl, it was fine but might work better as a longer work to really explain the worldbuilding further, tw child endangerment, blood, fire, severe burns
Beggars Can't be Choosers by L. Marie Wood: A director desperately trying to find a good script to work with as his higher ups are pressuring him to deliver something good, okay, but not really my style, tw death, kidnapping (in a way?)

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

This short story collection is as lush, sensual and delicious in the way you'd expect from the title. Often focused on the mouth and all that comes with it (eating, kissing, sometimes both, teeth and tongue included), what I feel really unites these stories is the feeling of longing, of grief and of human (dis)connection. While not every story blew me away, there were many where the themes explored and the stilistic choices employed to do so really drew me in and I absolutely adored the variety of themes explored. My favorite short stories (you can read more in my short reviews of each short story) where Desiccation, K, Anomaly, Persimmons, stories that often feature an unsettling supernatural horror aspect as that is something that I found masterfully done in these short stories. The three stories I did not enjoy that much fell short due to lacking lenght or further detail which I think could have made them a lot more interesting (In the Winter & Lemon Boy) or because I do not feel like they explored a topic in a particularly interesting way (Leaving Things). But not every short story needs to be perfect for me to think that this is a really good short story collection. If you like your short stories messy, strange, horny, queer, scary and sometimes just plain heartbreaking (in various degrees) or you enjoy horror/sci-fi/apocalypse stories I can only suggest you pick this book up and delve in. Maybe peel an orange while you read and enjoy these tangy short stories.
4.5 star rating rounded up to 5 stars to appreciate how these stories are tied together.

Desiccation - A girl living in a strange war torn world with strange sexual desires meets a girl that might be a vampire (she looks dead and is strange and cold) - interesting, fucked up & fun, a really good beginning to this short story collection, particularly I feel for checking how you will vibe with these stories, if you like this one, keep reading, there's more good ones to come! tw necrophilia 5/5
The Fig Tree - grief as a haunting, about returning to a place that you havent been since childhood and starting to cope with loss, tw mention of physical domestic abuse 4/5
Leaving Things - a small isolated Alaskan town besieged by wolves, spooky, weird mix of motherhood and animal sexuality but in a fun messy way, unfortunately nothing new in the genre of female werewolf stories besides the slightly unsavory twist on fucking the wolf boy you raised after he was born from his mother's carcass, I just feel this one could have gone darker and more fucked up and suffered from the dream like reality that many of these short stories employ, tw animal death, wolf cannibalism (in a way), weird sexuality re she does call herself a mother-like figure, 3/5
K - a perpetual liar investigates a haunting at her college, really hot, fucked up, messy, an absolute sapphic delight, tw body horror, death 5/5
In the Winter - a story about an encounter with a fellow student at a university and following him to his room, a bit too short and confusing for me to fully grasp what was going on, but i liked the writing style, 2/5
Anomaly - a world isolated by the ravages of a time war that made everybody distrust their fellow man, filled with constant survailance, in it a woman is griefing her ex girlfriend and agrees to go on a date with a guy who has a ticket to visit a titual anomaly, bittersweet, fascinating, heartbreaking, really worked incredibly well, especially with the writing style, 5/5
Lemon Boy - a random encounter at a party changes a woman's perspective on life when she starts noticing something after it's pointed out to her, haunting, but not really my style, I think this one could have been a lot better if it had been longer, 3/5
Supergiant - a story about giving up everything, even your own body for fame and what happens when your star fades, cool depersonalization body horror at its best, fun, but I think the terror of it could have been a bit more intense for me, 4/5 tw murder
Nip - a creature who only rarely manifest physically spends time with the woman she loves, unsettling end, loved it, 4/5
Natalya - the autopsie of a former lover, fun and stylistically veeery interesting 4/5 tw self harm
Persimmons - a tree blossoms and demands a sacrifice from a young woman living in the valley, very lyrical, fuuuuun !!!!, if you like folk horror, dig in! 5/5 tw sacrificial murder, gore, violence

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

The second I saw "The History and Future of Transness in Cinema" I knew I had to have this book. I do enjoy Media Studies as a field and the history of trans images particularly in horror movies are something I have spent quite some time thinking about and feeling devasted because of it. Thankfully, albeit slowly, there is starting to be a bit more representiation in modern horror (Bit 2019, Hellraiser 2022, We're All Going to the World's Fair 2022, They/Them 2022, Evil Dead Rise 2023, T Blockers 2023), but I also enjoyed reading what came before.
This book is an incredible addition to queer media studies and I really enjoyed reading it! This book does start out a bit academic, but you don't need to be a scholar to understand it and once you get past the first chapter, it all becomes easily accessible. If you are in any way interested in representation in movies then everything described here is easily understandable.
While it is a slow read at times, in part due to the often lenghtly descriptions of a film's plot, that makes it easily accessible if you haven't seen a movie. If you have and you aren't like me, who wants to read every word in a book, you can always skip the summary and get to the analysis faster. I also liked that while a big portion of this text is centered on trans women, as they were portrayed more often in early trans film (although often in very transmisogynist ways), trans man and nonbinary characters also play a role. An incredibly number of topics from documentary depictions, horror, Cronenberg's Media, the Matrix, cis-as-trans casting, Christine Jorgensen, the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and finally The New Frontier of the Trans Film.
So if you want to enjoy a really interesting look into trans media (the good, the bad & the severly transmisogynistic) I can only recommend you check out this amazing piece of queer media study.

And lastly, I'll finish this review with the list of movies I've written down to check out after reading this book:

In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden (In a Year of 13 Moons) - Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Cruising - William Friedkin
City of Lost Souls, I Am My Own Woman, Transexual Menace - Rosa von Praunheim
Second Serve - Anthony Page
Dressed in Blue - Antonie Giménez-Rico
TV Transvestite - Michele Capozzi & Simone de Bagno.
Paris is Burning - Jennie Livingston
Southern Comfort - Kate Davis
Videodrome, Rabid, Crash & Crimes of the Future - David Cronenberg
By Hook or by Crook - Harry Dodge, Silas Howard
Maggots and Men - Cary Cronnenwett
Lingua Franca - Isabel Sandoval
So Vam, Bad Girl Boogey, T Blockers - Alice Maio Mackay

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

I picked up this anthology for three reasons: a) I always want to read more stories written by and for neurodivergent people, b) sci-fi is one of my favorite genres and c) Ada Hoffman, author of the The Outside series is in here and I love what I've read of their work so far. And if you too enjoy these three things (or just the first two) I can already tell you to please read this anthology once it comes out! It's fun, there's quite a few gems in here that are really, really good, it features a not just neurodivergent, but generally diverse cast of characters and did I mention it's fun?
Now as you can see since I only gave this book four stars it is not perfect. One issue I have that I hope might still be fixed is that one of the short stories "The Grad New York Welcome Tour" by Kay Hanifen features a line that unfortunately reproduces cissexism: "Because the status of their genitals was considered a private affair, we relied on neopronouns when we didn't know their names and preferences." While this line tries to justify the use of neopronouns, I think the way it is currently phrased reproduces the idea that gender & pronouns can be tied to the status of somebody's genitals and that is obviously not okay. I do not believe that reading to be the intent of the author or the publishers, especially with other stories in this anthology, which feature quite a few transgender characters, but it is something I noticed while reading and while I am just one nonbinary reader I do believe that it might be good to think about if this should be kept in the finished piece. Another thing that bothered me is that another short story in this anthology "Scary Monsters, Super Creeps" by Cat Rambo mentions that the violent, abusive, can't-take-no-for-an-answer-ubervillains are "narcissists", which just felt extra bad in this case as people develop superpowers due to traumatic events in their childhood and adolescence. NPD is also born out of extreme childhood trauma. Claiming that it is something that universally turns somebody into an abusive partner and a violent monster without the capability for empathy... does really not sit well for an anthology that is by and for neurodivergent people, as it exclused those of us who have NPD, or who don't have any or only have low empathy and don't deserve to be labeled as "Scary Monsters, Super Creeps". The final reason I'm only giving this anthology 4 stars is that unfortunately a few of the pieces in here left me feeling a bit bored, like I couldn't fully connect to the characters or as if something was missing from the story. This is however only a minor problem as the incredible breadth of works presented here does definitely make up for the fact that I did not enjoy every single piece presented here.
So let's move on the things I really, really adored about this anthology: the amount of sci-fi that it explores. There's space exploration and alien first encounters, both peaceful and violent, scientific and cultural exchanges, AI and superheroes. If you like sci-fi, regardless of which type of sci-fi, there will be something here that works for you!
I enjoyed the Illustrations that are features here by barbara Candiotti, Vincenzo Cohen and Natasha Von. They always added to the story and it was always a lovely suprise to flip a page and see that the story I had just finished had received an illustration that added to my imagination.
As mentioned above there is also a great diversity of characters: a wide variety of neurodiversities, characters from across a variety of genders, aliens with incredibly bodily differences (not just the stereotypical green dudes from Mars) and a great variety of hobbies and interests.
I also like that the anthology includes trigger warnings in front of each piece.
My favorite short stories in here were "The Pipefitter" by Tobias S. Buckell, "Shadows of Titanium Rain" by Anthony Francis, "The Space Between Stitches" by Minerva Cerridwen, "The Zeta Remnant" by M. D. Cooper, "Navigational Aid" by Holly Schofield, "Heart-Side Sometimes-Table" by Madeline Barnicle, "Stopping for Fuel on a Starry Evening" by Crystal Sidell, "Meeting of the Branes" by Kiya Nicoll and "The List-Making Habits of Heartbroken Ships" by Stewart C. Baker.

I also wrote a short list of thoughts and opinions on most pieces (except the art and I've also left out the very short poems as I often found I didn't have anything interesting to say about them.) If you want to read that as well here you go (I also extended some of the trigger warnings, but seldomly). My favorite pieces (as mentioned above) are marked by an asterix:

When the Aliens Came by Avra Margariti: a short poem exploring the demands humans could place on aliens since they also place them on autistic people, interesting and heartbreaking
Tw mention of physical child abuse

Music, Not Words by Ada Hoffmann: A mostly nonverbal autistic girl finds happiness in music, when the Aliens arrive she hears the music they make first, heartbreaking but with an interesting end
Tw emotional abuse

The Grand New York Welcome Tour by Kay Hanifen: A person with ocd and undiagnosed but peer-reviewed autism is tasked with guiding a group of alien students through their first earth trip. Unfortunately not my style, despite the intended sweet moment of self recognition in the alien. It does feel incredibly American to invite Aliens to New York and immediately show the Hamilton though.
Tw for racism, anti-alien violence, slight cissexism as the story once implies that pronouns are determined by 'the status of their [the aliens'] genitals' (which we don't know as its considered private, so neopronouns are used).

A Conversation with a Xotiran by M. A. Dubbs: A poem about talking with an alien whose brain works the same way as the neurodivergent MC. Interesting!

* The Pipefitter by Tobias S. Buckell: A lower ranks worker in a space ship finds herself as the highest ranking person around during a ship wide emergency, can her adhd maybe help her in this chaotic situation? Very interesting and very fun, I really enjoyed the writing style! Did make me cry for the main character!
Tw death, injury, internalized ableism

Impact by Jasmine Starr: An autistic girl meets an alien thats also autistic for its species, interesting and sweet, even if the feel good ending was a bit unexpected

Where is Everybody by Anya Leigh Josephs: Love at first Alien Sighting. Autistic girl meets autistic alien. Very short but sweet.

McCarthy Knew by A. J. Dalton: A poem about paranoia, very short

* Shadows of Titanium Rain by Anthony Francis: a really sweet story about an autistic artist achieving first contact to warn an alien race of danger, very star trek-esque, very sweet
Tw injury

The Interview by Brian Starr: An alien is interviewing a very anxious man for an ambassador position, investigates the (weird and convoluted) nuances of conversation, I felt very seen

Someone Different Like Me by Daane Dunnewold: A university student meets an alien and they are different together, very short

Scary Monsters, Super Creeps by Cat Rambo: A person with anxiety in a world with evil superheros finds out she's been dating a superhero all along, interesting and I enjoy the dark worldbuilding but i could have done without the ableism against people with NPD and low empathy and would have enjoyed it more if the villain of the story had been explored in more depth instead of "with great power comes low empathy and also abusing people."
tw ableism (narcissism used to describe a person who doesn't care about others and constant mentions of "empathy" as the thing that makes someone act in ways that don't harm others), domestic abuse, violence

These Things Never End Well by Maub Nesor: An autistic programmer encounters an Alien species, the aliens have rules that are very autistic as well and the autistic person might be humanities only salvation from war, short but interesting, I especially liked the first half

First Contact by David Manfree: An autistic man encounters an alien and helps him rebuild his ship, sweet
tw: harassment, mentions of ableism

* The Space Between Stitches by Minerva Cerridwen: A gas like alien arrives on earth and encounters an autistic person who uses neopronouns and they talk about favorite hobbies, very sweet

Cadre by Sam Crain: two autistic scientists meet alien children, who are also kind off autistic and they get to share their research with them, adorable

The Cow Test by Lauren D. Fulter: an alien girl with adhd needs to abduct a cow to pass her class but accidentally abducts a human girl with adhd as well, they bond over it, very sweet

Our Connected Space by Swarit Gopalan: A short poem about how certain autistic traits (hypersensitivity to sound, attention to detail, lack of societal judgement) could be helpful when meeting an alien

Gamma Zaria by Gail Brown: an autistic person who thinks in pictures and struggles with communication finds an alien planet where she might find a home

Poetry by Chief Red Chef: a very short poem, but stylistically quite interesting

Where Monolithic Minds Can't Travel by Akis Linardos: A person with DID encounters aliens that also house multiple consciousnesses in one body, really interesting!
Tw past attempts to cure, forced medical intervention

* The Zeta Remnant by M. D. Cooper: A space explorer explores a new planet with an AI when they encounter something dangerous, The space explorer and the AI were really adorable together and I enjoyed the way the story managed to hint at the history of characters and the world while still working really well as a short story!

Are We Human? by Brianna Elise: A short and rather academic piece about an alien encountering humans, interesting, but a bit too disjointed for me to fully grasp

A Hint of Color by Jody Lynn Nye: A person with Synesthesia is sent out to explore a new planet, she's the only person that can communicate with the local species there, interesting

Be Your Own Universe by Kay Alexander: A worker on a space ship gets possessed by an alien entity and finds their purposes, interesting, very Star Trek, I enjoyed it, tw: death

* Navigational Aid by Holly Schofield: A lone survivor of a spaceship accident encounters an alien being, heavy focus on communication between different languages, very good

* Heart-Side Sometimes-Table by Madeline Barnicle: A really interesting short story about linguistics and conlangs and an autistic understanding of the world! I loved it!!!!

Trading Partners by Jennifer R. Povey: An autistic woman meets a trading convoy of aliens and joins them, short but sweet.
Tw: mentions of suicide

Greetings from Earth by R. S. Mot: An autistic young adult summon Aliens to her world and shares their existence on TikTok. Interesting and again a lot about communication, which I enjoy.

Close Encounter in the Public Bathroom by Keiko O'Leary: A short poem about a person with OCD encountering an alien in the public bathroom, short and sweet

Primordial Voices by J. L. Lark: an autistic opera singer meets an actress and feels a strange sense of calm when with her, loved the girlies, hated the boyfriend
Tw biphobia, bimisogynistic abuse, emotional abuse & domestic violence

Tangible Things by Jillian Starr: An autistic person faces a violent alien invasion on Earth. They might be the only one able to stop it though. Interesting and fun to read, but the end was very abrupt.

* Stopping for Fuel on a Starry Evening by Crystal Sidell: A short and sweet poem about encountering aliens that communicate in mental pictures while drinking tea in the garden, very sweet

* Meeting of the Branes by Kiya Nicoll: An autistic spaceship pilot with a stutter encounters one alien being known and worshipped by others as Angels, very interesting and fun to read
Tw ableism, bullying

Meaning Green, Unclear by Clara Ward: Two neurodivergent explorers manage to communicate with a newly discovered alien being, interesting set up but a bit short

* The List-Making Habits of Heartbroken Ships by Stewart C. Baker: A sentient ship grieving for their lost crew, heartbreaking but also lovely
Tw grief