Category Archives: Print Magazine

Issue 17: The Unknown

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The theme of our seventeenth issue, “The Unknown”, enticed writers to contemplate strangeness and difference of all kinds: in travel and identity, race and sexuality, religion and history. The broad scope in subject matter yielded a corresponding range of tones in authors’ handling of their themes, from sinister to comic.

Lisa S Lee opens the issue with a punchy short piece, “Not Quite Conversations”, born from her experience as a Korean American in the USA. Two more non-fiction tales punctuate the issue: “Variations on the Murder of my Stepfather”, in which Jessica Hinds takes a playwright’s view of the father figure in her life, and Alex Barr’s “A Nice Trouser”, his humorous memoir about an inscrutable Eastern European translator.

As ever, the edition offers a trove of compelling short fiction, all with diverse takes on the theme. Nathan Pettigrew depicts a Christian pastor in “Pride Month” at odds not only with the local imam in his Louisiana parish, but also with his own daughter. Two authors imagine very different responses to bereavement: in “Blue”, Chelsea Utecht conjures the supernatural consequences of a mother’s grief, while the protagonist of Sarah Turner’s “En Route to Elsewhere” takes off for South America following the death of her best friend. Warren Benedetto satirises a group of frenemies in his New York story “A Perfect Fit”, in which superficial preoccupations lead to a murky outcome. Billy Craven’s traveller in rural Ireland rues a wrong turn in his flash fiction piece, “In the Loop”. 

From geographic to time travel, the Unknown issue also showcases the 2023 Shooter Short Story Competition winner. “The Ones Who Came Before” by Alice Gwynn revolves around a child who strays much farther than usual at a castle playground. Gwynn won the accolade for her evocative descriptions and skilful handling of plot twists in a story with deeper undercurrents of identity and loss. 

The work of six poets (Martha Coats, Jenny Mitchell, Cecile Bol, Alexander Gast, Lawrence Bridges and Ben Groner III) complements the edition’s prose with distinctive perspectives on motherhood and love, emigration and art, other places and times. 

Finally, Nicholas West closes the issue with his debut publication, the formally innovative “GPS” – a timely play on technological concerns with an apocalyptic outcome. Here, in Shooter’s Unknown issue, the end of the world can be synonymous with the beginning of compelling adventures in literature.

To order a copy of the Unknown issue, please visit the Subscriptions page.

Dark Arts issue conjures black magic, painting mastery, suburban sorcery and political manipulation

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When daily news everywhere reeks of self-serving political machinations, it’s enough to make readers wish for a little black magic of their own: What spell could oust a buffoon from Number Ten (though perhaps, frustratingly, simply to be replaced by yet another toad)? What incantation might block an ex-president from the White House forevermore?

Some of the contributors to this winter’s Dark Arts edition have inspiring suggestions, if only in the realm of fantasy. Emma Levin opens the issue with an imaginative reversal of the frog prince myth,  “Moments Recalled in the Seven Minutes Before the Police Arrive”. Capitalists – and anyone who enjoys living on the planet – might do well to take note of the consequences in Judy Birkbeck’s allegorical “The Landowners”. In “Green Beans Are Valid”, Annie Power offers a satirical take on the Orwellian ideology police. Indebted to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Max Marioni follows yearning for belonging through to the bitter end in his tale about a student secret society, “The Laurel Wreath Club”.

Some of the issue’s most compelling work took the theme quite literally, moving away from the realm of enchantment into the world of painterly arts. The artist in Lauren du Plessis’s story, “Entropy”, finds such inspiration in astronomy at her mountaintop fellowship that she becomes her work as much as any painter can. In “The Black Place, 1944”, Robert Herbst channels Georgia O’Keefe’s experience in the New Mexico desert, where she created many of her famous paintings. The title of his story nods to some of O’Keefe’s most mesmerising dark art.

The outcomes of dark arts in war are often less positive, as Greta Hayer shows in her historical fiction “Tusk”, about an elephant handler and his giant charge in battle. Elizabeth Hosang’s malevolent “Fixtures” are much smaller, but no less potent, in the very different setting of a gnome-ridden house in suburban Canada.

To lift the spirits – as well as unsettle them – Lisa Farrell closes the issue with her entertaining piece about a rather too effective magician in her story “The Last Act”. Bewitching verse from Alicia Hilton, Jeff Gallagher, James Hancock, Nina Murray and Ceridwen Hall studs the edition, interspersing the prose with poetry on black magic, feminist revisions, challenging creativity, and the magic of science. The issue’s featured poem, Dominic Baur’s “Status Update” (winner of Shooter’s 2021 Poetry Competition), weaves together layered allusions and linguistic associations to conjure a strong sense of underlying narrative. (Both “Status Update” and runner-up Isabella Mead’s poem “Great Aunt Audrey” are available to read here.)

Also online is a new monthly project, Shooter Flash, for those who enjoy even shorter stories than the ones appearing in the magazine. The competition accepts submissions on a rolling basis, with cash prizes, online publication each month, and an annual anthology of the winning pieces that will go out to all of Shooter’s subscribers at the end of each year. The winning stories have been posted online since the inception of Shooter Flash a few months ago – please enjoy these punchy pieces on the website via the link above and, if you’re a writer of miniature masterpieces, go ahead and send us your work!

To order a copy of the Dark Arts issue or to subscribe to Shooter, please visit the Subscriptions page.