Davian Aw

Short Stories

“The Hotel Endless” – Diabolical Plots, June 2022
It began with a hotel, programmed to shape the perfect rooms for all its eager guests.

“Beyond” – Space and Time Magazine #141, Spring/Summer 2022
This magnificent house was the only place the boy had ever known.

“The Future History of Your Body“ – Daily Science Fiction, 31 Jan 2022
time. humanity. immortality.

“Control” – Anathema, Issue #5, August 2018. Republished in Transcendent 4: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction 2018.
On identities, bodies, selfhood and control. There’s an app for that. (Content notice for off-screen abuse)

“Eternity is a Long Time” – Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Vol. 17 No. 3, July 2018.
A man crosses the Causeway to find an empty city. Then come the dreams – if they are dreams.

“Between the Shadow and the Soul” – Future Visions: Volume 1, 15 June 2018.
In the near future, immersive virtual reality allows people to intimately experience a movie by becoming one of its characters. For two outcasts struggling to find their way in a hostile world, the escapism it promises quickly becomes an obsession, for that reality is the only place where they feel they can belong.

“Stay” – Augur, Issue 1.1. March 2018. Included in Quick Sip Review’s Queer SFF roundup list for April 2018.  Podcast produced by Drabblecast in July 2021, narrated by Chioke I’Anson. Interview on the story here.
You were every guest on the fourteenth floor.

“There Are No Echoes” (Reprint) – Mysterion, 25 June 2018. Original: The Future Fire, September 2017.
A story of faith, identity, and time travel. The arrow of time does not always fly straight.

“Last Thursday” (Revised) – Ares Magazine, September 2017. (Original: November 2014, Issue #2)
In an innocuous shipping facility in an underground city, a man discovers another person with the exact same memories as him.

“Hero” (flash) – Daily Science Fiction, 6 June 2017.
A boy has the superpower to save fictional characters from death. Audiences are not pleased.

“Alive” (flash) – 200 CCs, 2 August 2016.
A scientist tries to bring his dead wife back to life.

“One’s Company” – Diabolical Plots, March 2016. Included on Tangent Online’s 2016 Recommended Reading List.
Time travel cures all loneliness.

“Call Me Only When You Get There” – Lamplight Magazine, Volume 3 Issue 4, August 2015. Issue available for purchase in a variety of formats.
A spaceship goes missing from the universe. No one knows it exists. Then someone gets a phone call from a passenger.

“Note to A Stranger” (flash) – Daily Science Fiction, 25 June 2015.
We met in the space the mundane shops go, in those unscheduled moments when others take their place and old Uncle Joe popping by for a snack finds the 7-Eleven replaced by Maerlyn’s Magick Shoppe.

“Undead Undead” – Plasma Frequency, Issue #10, February/March 2014. Out of print.
Zombies? Zombies.

“We Won’t Be Right Back” – Every Day Fiction, 5 November 2012. The Story Shack, 10 December 2012.
Cryogenics are a great way to migrate to the future!

Poetry & Microfiction

• “timelost wanderers” / “the dark room” (poetry) – NewMyths.com, Spring 2022
• “merely players” (poetry) – Short Edition, September 2021
• “flight to nowhere” / “[earth annihilated]” (poetry) – Star*Line 44.2, Spring 2021
• Time Traveller’s Memory” (poetry) – The Future Fire, October 2020. Nominated for 2021 Rhysling Awards.
• “winter’s end” (poetry) – NewMyths.com, December 2020
• “into thick air” (poetry) – Air: Sylphs, Spirits and Swan Maidens, August 2020
• “unprepared poets on an alien planet” (poetry) – Frozen Wavelets, June 2020
• “ok millennial” (poetry) – Star*Line 43.3, Summer 2020
• “mirrorverse” (poetry) – Eye to the Telescope, “House and Home” issue, 15 April 2020
• “Before the Storm” / “Inversion” / “Understudy” / “Passing” / “Final Jam” (poetry) – Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight, March 2020
• “[learnt a new language]” (poetry) – Star*Line 43.1, Winter 2020
• “You Are Here” (poetry) – Arsenika, Issue 5, Winter 2020
• “bedtime stories” (poetry) – Quatrain Fish
• “grave robber” / “cyber warfare” (poetry) – Scifaikuest, November 2019
• “bliss” / “under land and sea” (poetry) – NewMyths.com: Twilight Worlds II anthology, Winter 2019
• “Off-Label Uses of the VR Stock Photo Gallery” (poetry) – Rendez-vous, October 2019
• “those who tell the stories” (poetry) – Strange Horizons, October 2019. Nominated for 2020 Ignyte Awards.
• “honey, i’m home” (poetry) – Star*Line 42.3, Summer 2019
• “auction” (poetry) – Polu Texni, 5 August 2019
• “the void” (poetry) – Star*Line 42.2, Summer 2019
• “paradise” (poetry) – Dreams & Nightmares, Issue #112, May 2019
• “peripatetic” (poetry) – Polu Texni, 13 May 2019
• “gatecrasher” (poetry) – NewMyths.com, December 2018.
• “safe time” (poetry) – Eye to the Telesope, “Time” issue, 15 April 2018.
• “second life” (poetry) – Star*Line 41.2, Spring 2018.
• “a haunting” (poetry) – Not One of Us, Issue #59, April 2018.
• “Liberation” / “Home” / “Afterglow” (poetry) – LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, Issue #10, April 2018. Available for purchase in print or ebook.
• “this is for the times” (poetry) – Mythic Delirium, 20th Anniversary Issue, April 2018.
• “pause.” (poetry) – NewMyths.com, 15 March 2018.
• “one day” (poetry) – Eye to the Telescope, “Evolving Gender” issue, 15 October 2017.
• “Medical Tourism” (poetry) – Star*Line 40.4, Fall 2017.
• “rainfall” (poetry) – Abyss & Apex, July 2017.
• “They Came in Peas” (poetry) – Spaceports & Spidersilk, July 2017.
• “Remnants” (poetry) – Eye to the Telescope, 15 April 2017.
• “Upvoted” (microfiction) – Nanoism #742, 6 April 2017
• “Proven Strategies in Human Public Relations” (poetry) – The Future Fire, Issue #40, April 2017. Mini interview here
• “job interview” (poetry) – Star*Line 40.1, Winter 2017. Editor’s Choice.
• “archaeological puzzle” (poetry) – Star*Line 40.1, Winter 2017.
• “repast” (poetry) – Not One of Us, “Care” issue, 2017.
• “secret identities” (poetry) – Strange Horizons, February 2017. Nominated for 2018 Rhysling Awards.
• “sacrificial virgin” (poetry) – Star*Line 39.2, Summer 2016.
• “The Fall” (poetry) – Star*Line 39.1, Spring 2016
  when superheroes fail
• “hush” / “it might not get better” / “give us silence” (poetry) – Stone Telling, “Hope” issue, January 2016.
• “Lookalikes” (microfiction) – Nanoism #665, 7 October 2015
• “Love Potion” (microfiction) – Nanoism #647, 3 June 2015. Featured in ‘Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook’ by David Galef.