Bold, Boundary-blurring Fiction

APRIL 2026 ANTHOLOGY

An April anthology of women who burn through silence, expectation, memory, grief, hunger, and ruin.

WOMEN ON

Fire

Explore the issue

Read Editor's Light

Enter the Smoke

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Current Issue

We’re proud to share Women Who Burn, the first anthology from Neon & Smoke.

These stories are not simply about destruction or spectacle, though at times they carry both. They are about women who return to places that never told the truth. Women who stay too long, and then do not. Women who take, endure, and choose anyway.

Written by a powerful group of contributors, each piece stands on its own. Together, they form something deeper. A shared current. A conversation. A kind of fire we are proud to hold space for.

We are deeply grateful to the writers who trusted us with their work. This anthology exists because of them.

The full collection is available to read for free on our site. For readers who want something more tangible, a downloadable version is also available. A print edition is currently in the works and is expected in the coming weeks.

While you are here, a few things are happening at Neon & Smoke. Flash fiction is now open, and our poetry call, Dopamine Hits, closes in less than two weeks.

Thank you for reading, for supporting, and for continuing to meet us in the spaces where these stories live.

- T & J

Where the Glow Meets the Haze

What
We
Want

Flash Fiction

Voice-driven stories with narrative stakes, emotional pressure, and language that leaves a mark.

Poetry

Poems with heat, texture, and aftertaste. Formal or experimental, but never inert.

Digital Art

Curated visual work that deepens the issue theme and adds another pulse to the publication.

Editor's Light

What We Mean By “Half Genre / Always Lit”

At Neon & Smoke , we publish work that is half genre, always lit . Writers ask us what that means. I suppose it’s a reflection of how we see the world: most people, in real life, are hybrids. We are soft and hard. Tender and sharp. Holy and unholy. Poetry one minute and curse words the next. Horny but ashamed. We want connection and we want distance. We want safety and we flirt with danger. We are brave and terrified, loving and cruel, often in the same breath. Human being

Mar 9

We Write, We Grow

Remember when you first knew you wanted to be a writer? I was eight at the time. All of my friends wanted to be firemen and policemen. I wanted to write Batman comics. (Sometimes I still do.) Back then, I thought it was about the action. Now I know it’s about the words. We often say words have meaning. But they have more than meaning. They’re a kinetic force—able to cut, convince, and comfort. They linger. They travel. They land in places we may never see. As I’ve gotten old

Feb 2

Writing Can Be Lonely

Writing can be lonely. Not metaphorically lonely — literally lonely. It’s hours spent inside a mind no one else can access. It’s choosing silence when the world wants noise. It’s disappearing into a story only you can hear, only you can hold. Most days, it’s just you at a desk, trying to say something the way it deserves to be said. And even when you finally finish a piece, the loneliness doesn’t end. You send it to a friend, a partner, a writing group, hoping they’ll feel wh

Jan 5

Our Story Unfolded

Neon & Smoke is a home for bold, voice-driven fiction with emotional weight and narrative fire. We publish stories that don’t sit quietly—tales where the plot might thrill, chill, or make you laugh, but always reveals something deeper. We crave characters who leap off the page, language that crackles, and stories that blur the line between genre and literary not for the sake of novelty, but it’s the most honest way to tell the truth.

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