Aliya Whiteley's Blog

A message is coming through: I predict that if you pre-order The Misheard World through Waterstones over the next few days using the code OCTOBER25 you’ll get 25% off:

Just a quick reminder, as well, that it’s currently up on Netgalley for reviewers to request.

What can I tell you about it? It’s nothing like Three Eight One. It has its roots in classic fantasy, much more so than some of my other stories, I’d say. It took me years to write, rather than months, which is really unusual for me. It started out as a writing prompt that I set myself, grew into an obsession, and the cover is perfect, although I can’t tell you why.

Speaking of classic stories, I’ve contributed a few thoughts about folklore, and my recent story about the Anwick Stone in the Lincolnshire Folk Tales Reimagined anthology, for a Teacher’s Guide to Writing With English Folklore. It’s available through the Twinkl website.

The Misheard World edges a little closer to publication with its appearance on Netgalley for prospective reviewers. If you’re interested in seeing it early and reviewing it, you can request it from the Netgalley website and Solaris will get in touch with you!

Here it is in all its furry glory:

On the non-fiction front, I’ve got a new Climbing Stories out in the latest edition of Interzone, and this one is about time travel narratives and how they’re more common than we think. That’s Interzone 303, with stories, interviews, reviews, essays. As ever, it’s a great read.

It’s about a year until Revolution in the Heart, an anthology of short stories inspired by the work of Ursula Le Guin, will go on sale:

I’m feeling pretty lucky to have a story in this one. Le Guin is obviously a big influence on me, and there are so many talented writers in this book who also want to acknowledge her role in their writing. Jonathan Strahan edited, the cover design is gorgeous, and I think it’s being published (by Titan Books) at the end of September 2026. Here are some links to pre-order in the UK:

Waterstones Forbidden Planet Bookshop.org

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Speaking of short stories, it was great to have my latest one (The Directorial Eye) in Bourbon Penn picked as one of Reactor’s Must Read Short Speculative Fictions for July 2025 – here’s the article, along with links to all the pieces picked for the month. I know, that was July and this is September. Dates are mashing together. I’m a bit ahead/behind the times.

Okay, here goes:

Solaris will publish my next novel, The Misheard World, in February 2026, and SciFiNow has a cover reveal and the synopsis up on their website today.

I’m currently working on the final final edits for this one. It’s been a real antidote to Three Eight One! That’s not to say this one isn’t weird. It is weird.

I’m flat out delighted to have a story in issue 36 of the always brilliant magazine of odd tales, Bourbon Penn. My story is called The Directorial Eye and you can read it online here.

Look at the cover for this edition! I love it.

There are also stories by Richard Butner, Phoebe Barr, K. Alexander Perez, Sam Asher and Alex Irvine, so I’m off to read and enjoy the whole thing myself. It’s lovely to be in such great and strange company.

The latest Best of British StoryBundle is available, and The Creator is one of the bonus titles, which is a thrill – look at the company it’s keeping here:

It’s a limited time offer that finishes in 21 days. Many thanks to Lavie Tidhar for curating this bundle and including my novella.

The Beauty! The Titan version is a US Daily Deal for the Kindle from the 7th to 13th July – $1.99. It’s very weird and very good to think of people still reading that book.

The latest edition of Interzone is now available, and it’s a great mixture of fiction, articles and reviews, as ever. My Climbing Stories column this month is about portmanteau horror films and stitching together your own tailored horror film according to your interests. I’ve been watching a lot of Amicus etc. for a while as background inspiration for a story I’ve been working on, so it was lovely to be able to make a piece of non-fiction on the subject, too.

As an aside, many thanks to the Runalong The Shelves blog, which regularly reviews Interzone and other magazines, and draws attention to the brilliant writing happening there. (Also there was great coverage of the recent Clarke Award!)

Talking of reviews, The Creator has been picking up some really interesting commentary. Thank you to everyone who’s looked at my horror novella of science, art, power and envy. Here are some links:

Supernova Reviews

Ancillary Review of Books

SF Crowsnest

Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction

I’m delighted to think The Creator is finding its way to readers. I loved writing it as a homage to certain stories that are so important to me.

Aaaaaand to the future… There should be some news coming some time in July about my next project – I will post it up on the blog. This next one is really weird. I know, I know, I always say that.

I’ve been writing a column called Climbing Stories at Interzone for a while, now, and I didn’t think there was much in the way of a linking theme between each one, but it turns out I was wrong. Perhaps inevitably with any project that stretches over years, one of the themes becomes time itself. Changing viewpoints, changing inspirations, and even those small alterations to voice, mean that it’s possible to return to certain subjects on multiple occasions and find things to say simply because time has passed, and made all the words old and fresh again.

Four of my columns on the subject of how time gets treated in science fiction, and how that affects our writing about the past and future, have been collected in this really smart Calque Press pamphlet, Glass Case Futures.

These pamphlets are a great series of short non-fiction work – you can see all of them here, and I think it’s possible to get them as a set. Mine is available now. Here’s the blurb:

We spend most of our lives trapped in time: it is easy to believe that our conception of a world divided into minutes and seconds is in some way absolute, the right way of thinking about existence. In these four brief, brilliant essays, Aliya Whiteley unravels this idea with patience and good humour, allowing us to see other times: environments that at first sight might seem to be beyond the realms of human experience, but which Whiteley reveals to be as valid a set of ways of viewing the world as any life dictated by the second hand of a wristwatch. From the ancient artifacts of the Louvre to the wild coasts of Utopia, Whiteley offers us new ways of seeing.

Limited edition – 100 copies

Calque Ideas provides an opportunity for writers to think aloud, using their own experiences and knowledge to approach topics in an accessible and attractive way.

Thanks to Calque Press for the opportunity to put the collection together, and thanks to Vince Haig for the beautiful cover.

I can’t really make sense of the idea that it’s been about fifteen years since I wrote The Beauty, and it’s still sprouting up in new places, with readers discovering it for the first time, or even returning to it. It’s been an enduring fungal growth.

It’s currently available, just for a few days, at a reduced price online – 1.99 for Kobo and Nook digital books.

Just found these copies lurking in my garden.

The Creator is published as of today! I had a blast with this novella-length piece of weird horror that’s a horribly mutated homage and also a nasty thing about our own times, too. Here’s the info:

“Reynold was quite brilliant: the unparalleled inventor, creator, and scientific mind of our time. This is the story of Reynold’s wife, and my dear friend, Patricia.”

Phillip has always been a little in awe of his brother, Reynold – the genius behind ThinkBulb, the invention that changed the world. When he receives a distraught call from his sister-in-law, Patricia, to say that Reynold is dead, he doesn’t hesitate in dashing to her side. Little does he imagine the tragedy and horror that awaits, as he uncovers what really happened to his brother – and where Reynold’s latest obsession has led.

 The Creator is a mini-masterpiece of sumptuously crafted fiction; a murder mystery (perhaps) with a whiff of science gone awry and a subtext of terror; a tale that pays homage to a by-gone era of country estates and gentlemen’s clubs plus a nod towards a classic Hollywood movie. Pure entertainment from first page to last.

The Creator is available as a compact paperback (106 pages), an ebook, and a special A5 hardback edition (88 pages), limited to just 50 copies, each individually numbered and hand signed by the author.

Here it is lurking in a bush:

Huge thanks to Ian Whates and NewCon Press for making this novella part of their NP Novella range. I’m in great company.