Is it really time for a new issue of Defenestration? Has the summer really come and gone? It must be true, otherwise I wouldn’t be here typing these words: Welcome to the August 2023 issue of Defenestration!

This month’s issue starts off with a new take on an old joke and… well, I don’t want to say the issue gets progressively weirder after that, because it’s all pretty weird. We’ve got some teleportation, some shark attacks, and juuuust enough pocket monsters to be amusing without resulting in a cease and desist letter. There’s a bunch of other funny stuff, too, but if I told you all about them here it would ruin the surprise. I know you’re curious.

It’s here. We’ve made it. Folks, we’ve made it to 20 volumes of Defenestration. That means we’ve officially hit the 20-year mark. This magazine is officially older than some of its contributors. I don’t have anything to say to commemorate this milestone, other than Defenestration is awesome, has always been awesome, and will continue to

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It’s hard to believe we’ve already arrived at the last issue of the year, but here we are, folks. It’s December, 2022 is coming to a close, and the latest issue of Defenestration has arrived!

Once August’s issue came out, a bunch of weird stuff started happening. Bigfoot bought a hat, but that’s hardly noteworthy. Was IS noteworthy was that, someone, well, noteworthy, gave a shoutout to Defenestration, which caused a deluge of submissions for a month and a half. This isn’t an exaggeration, either. Normally we get a steady stream of submissions, but it got to a point where it was a struggle just to keep the inbox at 50 submissions or less. We’re a small operation with meager crew, most of whom are fictional, so that was a lot of stories and poems to read. I want you to keep that in mind as you read this month’s issue, because the stories and poems below were chosen from among the hundreds Eileen and I read over the past few months. It’s quite the badge of honor to be among the few chosen from the multitude.

Prepare yourselves, people of the internet, for the August 2022 issue of Defenestration! How are you all doing? Good? Staying hydrated?

This month’s issue is totally weird. I’ve mentioned this before, but it seems like writers are all part of the same strange zeitgeist during each of our reading periods, and Eileen and I see very clear themes and subject matter in many of the poems and stories submitted. Sometimes you can chalk that up to what the market’s doing; some magazine or anthology might have just concluded its selections for a themed issue, and now everyone’s trying to find a home for the very niche story they wrote. That’s only sometimes, though. More often than not, writers and poets are just breathing the same inspirational air.

Welcome, welcome, to the April 2022 issue of Defenestration! It might be spring, but the weather has gotten cold and wet and miserable around Defenestration HQ, which means we all had to dig our sweaters out of storage and made the tough decision to burn our charming wooden deck furniture for warmth. Nature is against us, friends, but that hasn’t stopped the latest issue from dropping right on time.