Best Reads of 2026?

So, it's the time of year when websites, magazines and literary organisations prepare their best-of lists for 2026, even though there's over two months of the year left to go.

J.S. has selected her most enjoyed reads of 2026 (well, the last two months of 2025 and the first nine months of 2026, to be precise) for Book DNA. You can read about her three chosen books here, though the photo below may give you something of a clue as to what she has selected.

Look What the Clockwise Cat Brought In...

Issue 47 of the Clockwise Cat has slunk into the room this September and brought in with it two poems by J.S. Watts: the brand new "Spring Sound Escape" and the reprinted "A Float of Ravens" (first published in Picaroon Poetry). Read and make a fuss over it here

Thoughts On An Evening Walk

Horror, dark fiction and speculative fiction online magazine, Tales From the Moonlit Path, has published a new, short, dark tale from J.S. - Thoughts on an Evening Walk. You can read it for free by clicking on the story's title, and, while you are at it, why not check out the other fine Summer Issue tales and articles, including a tribute to the very fine actor, Sam Neil.

Telling "Telling Stories"

Telling Stories, a short story by J.S. Watts, was first published in The Lorelei Signal in July of last year. Now you can listen to it as an audio podcast with thanks to Tall Tale TV.

Stop Press News!

J.S. is very, very pleased to have signed a contract with a publisher for the publication of a new, full poetry collection.

More details will be provided in due course. Watch this space...

Bad News. Good News.

 

The bad news: apparently the summer issue of The High Window, as just now published, will be the last one. Ever.

The good news: to sweeten the pill slightly, J.S. has two new poems in the summer issue - Hospital Thoughts During A Very Long Afternoon and Half-Heard Truths and Stories - plus a review of Incompletion, a poetry collection by Oliver Dixon, and you can read all three pieces for free.

To read J.S.'s two new poems, go here and scroll down to the end (they are a long way down).

To read J.S.'s review of Incompletion, go here and scroll down.

Going in Search of Beasties

J.S. Watts will be reading a brand new poem as part of the following event: