Mad Scientist Journal – Summer 2019

by Alan Bennington, Amanda Cherry, Faith Consiglio, Dave D'Alessio, Jonathan Danz, Deborah L. Davitt, A. M. H. Devine, Judith Field, Catherine Ann Fox, Sean Frost, Paul Alex Gray, Lucinda Gunnin, David Harrison, Joachim Heijndermans, Andrew Jensen, Cecilia Kennedy, Steve Neiman, Wendy Nikel, Alex Pickens, David Reynolds, Shana Ross, F. J. Speredelozzi, Paul Stansbury, Johanna B. Stumpf, Kathryn Yelinek

Longevity and inspiration through music, super-human abilities, and alternative educational methods. These are but some of the strange tales to be found in this book.

Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2019 collects thirteen tales from the fictional worlds of mad science. For the discerning mad scientist reader, there are also pieces of fiction from A. M. H. Devine, Andrew Jensen, and Wendy Nikel. Readers will also find other resources for the budding mad scientist, including an advice column, gossip column, and other brief messages from mad scientists.

Authors featured in this volume also include Amanda Cherry, Kathryn Yelinek, Paul Stansbury, Shana Ross, Johanna Beate Stumpf, Judith Field, Alan Bennington, Deborah L. Davitt, Faith Consiglio, David Harrison, Jonathan Danz, Dave D'Alessio, Paul Alex Gray, Cecilia Kennedy, Alex Pickens, Catherine Ann Fox, David Reynolds, F. J. Speredelozzi, Joachim Heijndermans, Steve Neiman, Sean Frost, and Torrey Podmajersky. Art provided by Ariel Alian Wilson, America Jones, Leigh Legler, Justine McGreevy, Luke Spooner, Scarlett O'Hairdye, and Errow Collins.

About the Authors

Alan Bennington

Alan Bennington is a retired IT consultant who now teaches a few bits of English and mathematics. This is his first attempt at writing prose fiction.


Amanda Cherry

Amanda Cherry is a wife and mom, an actor, and an author loving life in the suburbs of Seattle, WA. She’s an alumnus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas whose biggest claim to fame is having once co-starred with a Gecko in an insurance commercial.

As a queer, disabled author of urban & contemporary fantasy, space opera, and role play games, Amanda is drawn to stories that center people whose experiences and points of view are too often erased. She loves magic, mayhem, clever villains, unlikely love stories, and marginalized folx coming into their own power.

Amanda’s debut novel, Rites & Desires was released in 2018. Her short stories have appeared in Cobalt City Christmas: Christmas Harder and several editions of Mad Scientist Journal. She was on the writing team for the tabletop role play game Acute Paranoia and was a finalist in the 2018 NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. She’s been a story consultant to the SyFy Docu-series Looking for Leia in which she was also an on-camera participant.

Amanda is a giant nerd, and a fixture of sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book conventions across the country. Find her on panels about everything from fashion & fanfiction to impostor syndrome and chronic illness. If you’re looking for someone to talk about Star Wars, Star Trek, gaming, or daring to be hyper-femme in geek spaces, she’s your gal.

Amanda has contributed to geek culture sites Tosche StationEleven-ThirtyEight, and Star Trek.com and has been featured in Journey Planet.

She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, SFWA and Broad Universe.

Amanda is represented by Claire Draper of the Bent Agency.


Faith Consiglio

Bio for Faith Consiglio:

I grew up in Rockland County, NY before completing college and medical school at Stony Brook in Long Island. I am currently a psychiatry resident physician in Westchester and have a passion for studying and creating characters.


Dave D'Alessio

Dave D'Alessio is an ex-industrial chemist, ex-TV engineer, and ex-award-winning animator currently masquerading as a social scientist. His more than twenty previously published stories include "The Twenty-Year Reich," finalist for the Sidewise Award for best alternative history short story of 2017, and "Jack the Giant-Killer: A Species Traitor?" in Mad Scientist Journal, Volume CXCVIII, August 2015.


Jonathan Danz

Jonathan Danz is a speculative fiction writer living in West Virginia with his wife, daughter, and cat, all of whom are artists in their own right. He attended Viable Paradise 21 and narrates for various science fiction, fantasy and horror podcasts. He likes books, bikes and beer.


Deborah L. Davitt

Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son.  Her poetry has received Rhysling, Dwarf Star, and Pushcart nominations; her short fiction has appeared in InterGalactic Medicine Show, Compelling Science Fiction, and Pseudopod. For more about her work, including her Edda-Earth novels and her forthcoming poetry collection, The Gates of Never, please see www.edda-earth.com.


A. M. H. Devine

A. M. H. Devine is a recent graduate of Kenyon College, where they earned a degree in English, and is currently residing in a current state of flux. You can find them bouncing from city to city, collecting stories and drinking hot chocolate. This is their first publication.


Judith Field

Judith Field lives in London, UK. She is the daughter of writers, and learned how to agonise over fiction submissions at her mother's (and father's) knee. She's a pharmacist working in emergency medicine, a medical writer, editor, and indexer. She started writing in 2009. She mainly writes speculative fiction, a welcome antidote from the world she lives in. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications in the USA, UK, and Australia. When she's not working or writing, she studies English, knits, sings, and swims, not always at the same time.


Catherine Ann Fox

After rigorous experimentation, Catherine Ann Fox has discovered that wearing lab goggles when chopping onions is 95% effective in protecting the eyes from noxious fumes. Though today people laugh when they see her, soon they will recognize her genius, just as soon as she figures out how to weaponize onion fumes. Catherine’s work has appeared in 50 Word Stories and Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit. She lives in Mooresville, Indiana with her husband.


Sean Frost

Sean Frost is a software developer in Michigan, who writes comics and stories while watching horror and science fiction movies. He lives with four demanding cats and a very understanding wife. It is entirely likely that he has a few too many hobbies.


Paul Alex Gray

Paul Alex Gray enjoys writing linear and interactive fiction starring sentient black holes, wayward sea monsters, curious AIs, and more. His work has been published in Nature Futures, Andromeda Spaceways, The Arcanist, and others. Paul grew up by the beaches of Australia, then traveled the world and now lives in Canada with his wife and two children. On his adventures, Paul has been a startup founder, game designer, and mentor to technology entrepreneurs. Chat with him on Twitter @paulalexgray or visit www.paulalexgray.com


Lucinda Gunnin

Lucinda Gunnin is a short story author and commercial property manager in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She writes a gossip column for Mad Scientist Journal and has a published collection of short horror Seasons of Horror available at Amazon.com. When not writing, she’s a gluten-free gamer girl, sushi lover, and cat-spoiling pet parent. Find her on Twitter @LucindaGunnin.


David Harrison

David Harrison is a speculative fiction and mythology writer from Wellington, New Zealand. He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with majors in Classical Studies, Religious Studies, and Latin and now divides his free time between writing and visiting the zoo too often (feeding giraffes helps with writer's block). He can be found on Twitter @DavidSHarrison.


Joachim Heijndermans

Joachim Heijndermans writes, draws, and paints nearly every waking hour. Originally from the Netherlands, he's been all over the world, boring people by spouting random trivia. His work has been featured in a number of publications, such as Metaphorosis, Hinnom Magazine, Every Day Fiction, Asymmetry Fiction, Kraxon Magazine, and Gathering Storm Magazine. He's currently in the midst of completing his first children's book. You can check out his other work at www.joachimheijndermans.com, or follow him on Twitter: @jheijndermans.


Andrew Jensen

Andrew Jensen lives in the Ottawa Valley near Canada's capital city. In addition to writing speculative fiction, he plays trumpet, impersonates Kermit the Frog, has a black belt in Karate, and is a United Church minister. Some of his recent publications have been in DreamforgeAbyss & Apex magazine, Tales from the Fluffy Bunny, Well Said, O Toothless One, and Futuristic Canada.


Cecilia Kennedy

Cecilia Kennedy: Earned a doctorate in Spanish and taught in Ohio before moving with her husband, teenage son, and cat to the greater Seattle area. Together, they own a Google Home Mini, which is a delightful innovation, as long as it’s locked away whenever anyone wants to tell a story about their day. She writes horror stories that have appeared in Headway Quarterly, Gathering Storm Literary Magazine, Coffin Bell, Sirens Call, Maudlin House, and Open Minds Quarterly. However, she reserves her "scariest" writing for her DIY blog, Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks (https://fixinleaksnleeksdiy.blog/), where she describes her attempts at cooking and home repair.


Steve Neiman

Steve Neiman is actually a bit of a mad scientist who has his Ph.D. in non-Abelian Gauge Theory. He writes words to celebrate Team Human’s wins and foibles. He writes equations to figure things out.


Wendy Nikel

Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she's left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and is forthcoming from Analog. Her time travel novella series, beginning with The Continuum, is available from World Weaver Press. For more info, visit wendynikel.com.


Alex Pickens

Alex Pickens grew up in Appalachia, where he spent his time hiking, reading the Classics, and fingerpicking the blues. His work has recently been accepted by The Inkwell Journal, Maudlin House, Silver Blade Poetry, Mad Scientist Journal, Gone Lawn, Pretty Owl Poetry, Eastern Iowa Review, Jersey Devil Press, Crack the Spine, and Moonpark Review, while his flash fiction has been nominated for a Best Microfiction, 2018 anthology.


David Reynolds

David Reynolds is a writer from Dublin, Ireland. He is 60% water.


Shana Ross

Shana Ross bought her first computer working the graveyard shift in a wind chime factory, a beloved HP whose hard drive resides in her basement with a number of early works. Her writing career has been dormant for 18 years for reasons both practical and best discussed in therapy, but she has been making a respectable living as a consultant, executive coach, and global leadership expert.  In 2018 she dyed her hair purple and is starting to turn that all around.  This is her first published fiction.


F. J. Speredelozzi

F. J. Speredelozzi is a recent graduate from UMASS Boston where she studied English Literature. She has been previously published in The Watermark and The Mass Media. In her spare time, you can find her writing, drawing, reading, or going on adventures. faithsaysstuff.wordpress.com


Paul Stansbury

Paul Stansbury is a life long native of Kentucky. He is the author of Inversion - Not Your Ordinary Stories, Inversion II - Creatures, Fairies, and Haints, Oh My!, and Down By the Creek – Ripples and Reflections as well as a novelette: Little Green Men? His speculative fiction stories have appeared in a number of print anthologies as well as a variety of online publications. Now retired, he lives in Danville, Kentucky.
Email: paulsstansbury@gmail.com
Website: www.paulstansbury.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulstansbury


Johanna B. Stumpf

Johanna B. Stumpf is a German millennial, living and working in Norway. She is fairly new to fiction writing, but she did enough academic writing to earn a PhD in computer science from the University of Oslo.


Kathryn Yelinek

Kathryn Yelinek lives in Pennsylvania, where she works as a librarian.  She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop.  Her fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, NewMyths.com, Metaphorosis, and Deep Magic, among others.  Visit her online at kathrynyelinek.com.