CRUX 2026

"This defiantly weird anthology is a dizzying mix of unnatural creatures, doomed starships, shifting labyrinths, philosophical rats, eco-horror eulogies, and things that should not be. Evocative and unsettling Australian speculative fiction and poetry that isn't afraid to eerily transform before your eyes and demand to know what you think." - Rhett Davis, author of Arborescence

Welcome to CRUX, a collection of speculative fiction and poetry from Australia's boldest voices. Curated by a team of Aurealis-winning editors, CRUX challenges preconceptions of what speculative and literary mean in a contemporary context, boldly embracing the hallmarks of genre fiction while never forgetting what it means to speculate: to challenge, to deconstruct, and most crucially, to hope. Featuring odes to ancient styles of storytelling and experiments in the new and unexplored, CRUX is an anthology for right now; one that forges onward without losing sight of the stories and traditions that have inspired us for generations.

With writing from: Arden Baker, Isaac Beach, Will Greatwich, Mara Papavassiliou, Kate Alfano, Emily Mercurio, Luke Weavell, M. Mclellan, S. L. Johnson, Megan Cartwright, David Stevens, Nalini Jacob-Roussety, Jason Schembri, Dmitri Akers.

And illustrations from: Tracey Chen, Arden Baker, Zoe Curtis, Rebecca Stewart, May Du, Jimmy Spence, Lizzi Long, Jesse Densley.