Well, we're in the depths of January now and the past week at my house has seen rain, snow, freezing, and flooding (in the neighborhood, not in the house!). It's been a grim, gray few days, the kind that make someone daydream of travel. So it's a good thing our publications this week at Necessary Fiction brought us to Mexico City, London, Paris, and outer space (which might be even colder and darker than a northern winter but at least it would be something different).

On Monday we brought you Gabrielle Stecher's review of Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barerra, translated by Christina MacSweeney and published by Two Lines Press. I believe this is Gabrielle's first time writing for us, and we're very pleased to share her work. You can find more of her writing at her website.

Then our weekly story on Wednesday was "What Is Scattered Still Collects" by Chloe N. Clark. If you enjoy the story — and we think you will! — you might want to check out Chloe's most recent book, her collection Patterns of Orbit. And I also saw recently that Chloe is offering "a totally online and asynchronous and highly generative horror writing class" in March, if you'd like to work on your own writing.

A couple of new books by contributors to be published in the first week of February Half Crime by Rusty Barnes, a story collection from Redneck Press, and also Catherine Gammon's collection The Gunman and the Carnival.

And I spotted regular contributor Amina Gautier telling Shelf Awareness about her reading habits the other day. Her new collection The Best That You Can Do has just been published by Soft Skull.

If you're a past contributor with news to share, please get in touch to let me know — I can only include the news I know about!

Thanks for reading,

Steve Himmer