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- THE WYRMHOLE (April 1, 2026)
What’s in the Hole?
Hello Friends, Wyrms, Countrymen,
It is April 1st, and do you know what that means? You should go prank someday today for me. Go tell them that WYRMHOLE will be converting to visual novel format with full music and voice acting for our issues every month or trick them into believing that wyrms aren’t real.
I’ve gotten sucked into this spacetime bending thing also known as Pokopia. I don’t know if I can recommend Pokopia because every time I sit down to play it, I look up and see hours have passed. Playing Pokopia is like entering the Faerie realms: do it at your own risk, but you’ll have a great time.
I recommend some short stories that have been living rent-free in my mind below. For this month’s WILD CARD, I sat down with our very own Iz J. Kim to talk about her upcoming book SUBLIMATION, which is even more exciting than the food was at her wedding a few weeks ago. (Congrats to Iz on both counts!!) We talk about why you should read the book, and Iz answers some of my burning questions.
(Also, if you like this issue— share the HOLE!)
Tina S. Zhu / April 2026 Editor in Chief / New York, USA
Five Stories That Are Currently Living Rent-Free In My Head
Patrick J. Zhou, The Cincinnati Review. 2025. 5k words
Pigboy hangs out with his Your Own Personal Jesus™. I’m not sure what exactly is going on here, but I’m obsessed with it!
Natalie Wallington, Okay Donkey. 2025. 1k words
If you watch too many cult documentaries like me, you’ll enjoy this one! Really creepy at the end.
Amber Sparks, Wigleaf. 2026. 500 words
(Their website design is interesting, so there is no direct link to share. You have to go into the Archive and last name S-Z.)
Another flash fiction! In which Zeus is the bro-est of the bros.
Wailana Kalama, The Dark. 2026. 4k words
In which Dad has a scary secret. The setting work in this story is wonderful, and this story also gets creepy.
Leeyee Lim, Strange Horizons. 2025. 8.3k words
The different sections of this story spanning past, present, and future have kept it living rent-free in my head for the past year. The one shared element between them—the appearance of the nian, a lionlike monster. All except the first section also feature diaspora characters. There’s something interesting going on with the negative space in the story and the common elements between the sections that’s keeping it in my head.
Pak recs…
Karlo Yeager Rodríguez, Typebar Magazine. 2026. 3.8k words.
This atmospheric stream-of-consciousness tale dances on the periphery between speculative horror and a hazy childhood dream. Between the tropical spelunking, the “what was that, hey what was that,” and the time skip, this story is rich with themes of regret and chilling metaphors for gentrification. The kids are alright (kinda) and they yearn for Jeff VanderMeer’s Annhilation.
Iz recs…
Ursula Vernon, Apex Magazine. 2017. 7.6k words.
Do you ever read a story and it feels like the story has existed for a long time, that it's a folktale out of deep history, and yet it was written in 2017? This is a story like that. It's very strange and very dark and I am oddly fond of it
Tia recs…
Jordan Kurella, Apex. 2026. 4.9k words.
We all live on a jackalope and something’s killing people! Excellent hook and it gets better from there. Weird and awesome, with funky worldbuilding and a great voice, Kurella’s “Unsettled Nature” is well worth a read!
The Best of March Cover Art
Beautiful work Tales and Feathers!
April Riddle of the Month
April Riddle of the Month:
You hang by me or put me through an eye,
Yet I am made for mending, not for hurt.
I’m part of screws, though you may strip me from them,
And if you, talking, lose me, you can pick me up again.
What am I?
Submit answers through bsky or Discord!
March Riddle of the Month & Solution:
I can be made of snow or wool,
and other things besides,
I cover one or cover all,
And beneath me some can hide.
I’m often meant for comfort,
And I can with love be made,
I lie abed through long cold days.
I may fall or be laid.
What am I?
Good Moomin(s) of the Month
Spring has sprung!
WILDCARD
Wildcard: Special Interview Edition Ft. Isabel J. Kim
Our very own Isabel J. Kim has a book coming out! SUBLIMATION will be published on June 2, 2026 from Tor Publishing Group. The book is full of what we know and love from Isabel, and I caught up with her to ask her some questions I had.
I want to ask you about your upcoming book. Give me the elevator pitch for SUBLIMATION. Why should a WYRMHOLE reader go check it out?
The WYRMHOLE reader should preorder SUBLIMATION because by doing so, you support the “Isabel Does Not Need to Return to the Law Firm” fund, and thus Isabel will write more weird things that make you go “well. that happened. what the hell was that” instead of “contracts.”
Everyone else should read SUBLIMATION because it kicks ass. SUBLIMATION is set in a universe where crossing a border splits a person in two. The one who goes, and the one who stays. If these people ever meet again and physically touch, they merge back into one person. The story follows a woman who goes back to Korea for her grandfather’s funeral, where her other self is waiting, with schemes and machinations that she isn’t expecting.
I could probably describe it better than this but look man. Either you want to see the inner machinations of my twisted mind or you don’t.
If you were to describe SUBLIMATION with any meme(s), what would you choose?
Something that stuck out to me when reading both the short story that inspired SUBLIMATION and the book was how much tech and the tools used in the tech industry have wormed their way into the world of the book. For example, the concept of instantiation is derived from Git. (Version control for programmers keeps a history of how code is changed and allows for different branching alternatives that may or may not end up in the master version). The terms 'instance' and 'instantiation' in the world of SUBLIMATION come from programming too, and multiple characters in the book work in the tech industry. What is it about the programming and tech world that inspires you?
So, first, I’m woefully online and too many of my friends work in the tech industry (does every tech man in his late 20s feel the need to create a startup? Signs point to yes!). But more than that, the tech world seems to be the source of a lot of very big personalities and disruption, while simultaneously being in bed with the government (hello, Palantir). Stories need conflict, and an industry that has adopted “move fast and break things” as a motto is the perfect villain for a contemporary narrative. Also, like, god I loved the internet and it’s been enshittified beyond belief. Part of my interest in writing about the tech world is that I personally feel that a lot of the promises from my childhood about progress and society and forward momentum have been violently beaten with a hammer right in front of my salad.
If instances were real, what would your instance be like and what would your relationship with your instance be?
My instance would either be in Korea or California, and either way I would be unsettled by their accent. Depending on the trajectory of their life, I would probably propose that we all write under one pen name so that we can write more books in less time. I tend to be pretty utilitarian about these sorts of things, haha.
One joy of reading the novel version of SUBLIMATION after the short story for me was getting to see your protagonist Soyoung/Rose fully realized as a character in ways you didn't have wordcount for in the short story version. I'd love to hear more about the process of turning the short story into a novel. Did you hit any roadblocks, or was it smooth sailing?
It was so much fun characterizing Soyoung! Writing the short story, Soyoung was a sort of shadow presence that the narrator, Rose, was supposed to be mystified by, even though her feelings dictated a lot of the plot. Getting to put her headspace on the page added a lot of delicious dramatic irony for the reader, and hopefully made the plot of the novel and the characterization of the two characters much more complex.
I would say that the most difficult part of expanding the work was figuring out which parts of the story made the post sense to dig into, and where it would feel organic to write more story or characterization. There’s a whole new POV character in the novel, and his journey is supposed to be a sort of dark mirror to Soyoung-Rose’s, and figuring out how he intersected with Soyoung-Rose was interesting but difficult. I’m being vague as hell. If I say any more it’s going to be crazy spoilers, though.
This is a recommendation newsletter, and I'd love to know if there were any books you were reading for research purposes to write your book, other works of fiction, movies, TV, video games, etc. that inspired you.
Okay, so I’m going to combine “inspired by” and “reminds me of SUBLIMATION” for my answer here, because there were some pieces of media that I watched or read later which reminded me of SUBLIMATION.
In no particular order: Inception, Severance, Free Food for Millionaires, Pachinko, The Echo Wife, Everything Everywhere All at Once.
What kind of fanfics do you think people are going to write after reading your book?
My greatest hope is that people take the concept of instancing and apply it to other IP, in the same way that “daemon AUs” were relatively popular, using the concepts from the His Dark Materials series.
A parting song from the Editors…
That’s it! That’s all we got! If you liked our stuff a HOLE lot, share us with a friend! Tune in next month for more shenanigans!