Photo by Sarah Shirey
Austin Shirey (SHY-ree) writes strange and fantastic fiction.
He is the author of Pallbearers (forthcoming 2026, Madness Heart Press); City of Spores (2024, Madness Heart Press); and Goodly Creatures (2023, self-published).
His stories have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Wyld Flash, MetaStellar, Haven Spec, Silver Blade, The Dread Machine, Gone Lawn, Orca, All Worlds Wayfarer, and Stonecaost Review, as well as in a handful of anthologies.
When he’s not writing (or working his boring day job), he’s probably reading, watching movies, listening to music, or playing guitar. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, daughters, and two cats.
He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University.
NO AI, EVER.
I do not and will not use AI. Everything I write is 100% human-made. I do my best to only partner with publishers and artists who maintain zero-tolerance AI policies.
Cover by Luke Spooner
Welcome to Madripol, city of artists and madmen, city of mushrooms.
There’s something wrong with this city.
When a strange plague infects Old Town, Johanna Kolibrik thinks the graffiti messages scrawled all over the city might be right. Kolibrik’s got her own problems, though—like paying the bills and keeping her PI business afloat—so when a well-dressed man from New Town offers to double her fee to find his missing wife, she ignores her gut and takes the case.
But when she stumbles across a manuscript that shouldn’t exist, Kolibrik finds herself caught up in a vast web of conspiracy that will challenge everything she believes—a conspiracy that could shake the city of Madripol to its very foundations.
Because in Madripol, everything is connected…
“Austin Shirey's novella about a private investigator in a town overrun with fungi is absorbing and utterly imaginative. The setting is poetry written in mushroom spores, a world fit for fans of Jeff VanderMeer. The story maintains the smoky noir atmosphere, quick pace, and puzzling clues of everyone's favorite detective novels. Wonderfully contagious weird fiction!”
—Ivy Grimes, author of The Cellar Below the Cellar and The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion
Available in eBook, Paperback, and Audiobook.
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