Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released on the first Tuesday of every month. EDITORIAL Words from the Editor-in-Chief-Jason Sizemore FICTION Asylum of Cuckoos - Lila Bowen To Blight a Fig Tree Before It Bears Fruit - Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley A Night Out at a Nice Place - Nick Mamatas The Heaven-Moving Way -- Chi Hui (translated by Andy Dudak) Symphony to a City Under the Stars -- Armando Saldaña The Ghost Stories We Tell Around Photon Fires -- Cassandra Khaw The Best Friend We Never Had -- Nisi Shawl POETRY Treebound -- Mary Soon Lee Monster: Puppeteer -- Mary Soon Lee the saddest of angels -- Jeremy Paden NONFICTION Interview with Lila Bowen - Andrea Johnson Interview with Cover Artist Daniele Serra - Russell Dickerson Orrin Evans: The Pioneer of Black Comic Book Publishing -- Shawn Pryor Fear of Failure 2.0 -- Damien Angelica Walters COLUMNS Between the Lines with Laura Zats and Erik Hane Page Advice with Mallory O'Meara and Brea Grant