FicStack Curation #11
Welcome to the second curation post of 2026. This week we have seven stories for you to dive into and enjoy.
Be sure to give the featured authors a read, a like, drop them a comment, and maybe give them a restack.
Inga Jones, Thriller Tips for Writers
I started 2026 by looking for well-written, quick-to-read, entertaining stories for the FicStack community. If you only have a few minutes, but want to enjoy a great story, you will enjoy these picks.
“Experimental Short Story #1” by Jill Angie, Jill Writes Mysteries. In this quick mystery with a twist, we meet a protagonist with unknown intentions for an elderly woman. What I loved most, is that this story managed to surprise me, despite its brief length.
“I wasn’t Right” by Peter Smetanick, Disorder. This gritty micro-fiction is a great showcase of voice. You might not agree with the protagonist’s worldviews, but you will be pulled into this story of witnessing a near-death experience.
Wendy Russell, Sass&Sage
Let’s talk about attention spans.
If you think you only like short fiction, I’d gently suggest you might just be afraid of commitment. Serial fiction doesn’t rush, doesn’t spoon-feed, and doesn’t beg you to finish it in one sitting. These two openings prove why that’s a feature, not a bug. Read the first chapter. See how long you last.
“Chapter One” in A Court of Books and Coffee by Hallie Jules of Fabled Lines: Soft Magic With a Sharp Wit. When a bookstore assistant manager with terminal imposter syndrome is handed an unfinished Romantasy manuscript, she and her coffee-shop-owning best friend are pulled into its world and recast as the main characters. To get out, they’ll have to finish the story — and finally deal with the very real romance they’ve been tiptoeing around — as magic starts quietly bleeding into their latte-fuelled, bookshop-lined reality. Hallie Jules writes with warmth, wit, and a lovely lyrical touch, layering cosy detail, emotional intelligence, and genre-savvy humour in a way that feels instantly cinematic. This chapter wrapped around me and said come with me, and honestly, I didn’t argue.
“Chapter 1.1”, in The Pale, by Alex Shiffman, Alex’s Substack. In the Pale of Settlement, one death is enough to ignite a riot — until a stranger recognises a man who should, by all rights, be long dead. This first chapter hooked me almost immediately. There’s a quiet assurance to this opening that made me trust it from the first line. Rather than throwing spectacle at the page, it builds pressure — political, religious, and deeply human — and lets that do the work. Alex drops us into a tense street where a dead Jewish boy, a restless crowd, and a Russian officer trying to keep the peace are all balanced on a knife-edge. The writing is calm and unsentimental, which somehow makes it hit harder; you can feel how quickly things could tip from uneasy order into outright violence. What I loved most is how lived-in it all feels — history isn’t explained so much as carried, in bodies, in glances, in the things everyone knows but no one wants to say out loud. This is the kind of serial that earns your trust and then quietly tightens its grip.
Gary Mucklow, G.S.Mucklow
I’m going to be honest: I have a weakness for the bleak stuff. I don’t mean misery for misery’s sake, but those stories where the atmosphere is so thick you have to wipe the mud off your screen. Where the characters are doomed not because of a monster, but because of a choice they made three pages ago. These stories are exactly that kind of heavy.
“The Clearing”, by lokikone Three hunters find a sack in the river containing something that is alive, wrong, and pulsating. They carry it into the woods, where a woman is waiting for them. What happens next isn’t a battle, but a sentencing. This story grabbed me by the throat with its very first description of the sky: “a flat gray nobody would call a color.” Lokikone is channeling a massive Cormac McCarthy influence here, stripping away quotation marks and comfortable punctuation to create a prose rhythm that feels like a slow, laborious trudge through freezing weather. It’s hypnotic. I see a lot of “weird fiction” in the stack, but this one stands out because of its sensory texture. You can smell the wet dog, the copper, and the spoiled milk. The horror here is quiet, ancient, and deeply focused on consequence. The author doesn’t explain the magic, they just force you to witness the ruin it leaves behind. If you like your fiction haunting and atmospheric, this is the one.
“The Apology Letter”, by A Sjoberg. While my first selection was about the danger of the wilderness, this one is about the danger of your own kitchen table. There is a specific kind of anxiety that comes from an unanswered question. When you receive a message that says “We need to talk,” or find a note that says “I’m sorry,” without context, your brain fills in the gaps with your worst fears. This story weaponizes that instinct. Clara is sitting in a quiet house with her dog, reading a letter that has no signature. The writer is apologising, but they won’t say what for. They only say it “had to be done.” What I really like about this piece is the restraint. It’s a masterclass in withholding information. The author, A Sjoberg, understands that nothing they write on the page could be as scary as what the reader imagines is happening. The story is short, sharp, and uses the structure of the text—short, stabbing paragraphs—to ratchet up the tension until the very last line. It’s a quick read, but it leaves a lingering sense of paranoia. It’s a reminder that sometimes the scariest thing isn’t a monster, but a stranger who thinks they know what’s best for you.
“Borrowed Breath”,by Marius Creed. A widower begins waking up in the middle of the night gasping for air. It is his wife returning to borrow the breath she can no longer draw herself. This short piece is devastating because of the absolute lack of resistance. Marius Creed has written a story about dependency that masquerades as a ghost story. The pacing is masterful. The prose mimics the rhythm of respiration by moving from short, panicked gasps to a long, final exhale. Creed notes that he wanted to explore “hauntings that don’t announce themselves” and “presences that feel almost intimate.” He nails it. The horror lies entirely in the giving. It is a terrifyingly tender look at how easily we might trade our own life just to keep a memory warm for one more night. It reads like a sigh in the dark. It is short, intimate, and leaves you desperate to take a deep, full breath of your own by the end.
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Thank you so much for featuring the first chapter of my novel!! I am over the moon!!
Thanks for the share, I really appreciate it!