MISSION AND VISION
Deeply animal, deeply human
We’re on the trail. We got our noses to the ground. In this den there are plott hounds sniffing out for quality animal-centric speculative fiction. Here at Plott Hound Magazine, we want stories that really dig deep into what it’s like to be an animal yet also teach us what it means to be human. Both deeply animal and deeply human. Humans have had enough stories to go around and more. It’s time to make some room for the ones with paws, claws, fangs, and tails. Let’s hear them howl, roar, growl, and hiss. Here, they run wild. Throw us a good bone to chew on. Help us fill this space to make it a dazzling menagerie.
THE PLOTT HOUND PACK / STAFF
Allison Thai
Editor-in-chief
she/her
Favorite animals: wolves, sharks, snakes, European badgers, axolotls, bearded vultures
Allison is a second-generation Vietnamese-American and the eldest child of Vietnam War refugees. By day she puts humans to sleep for surgery, by night she moonlights as a devourer of words and video games and dabbler in illustrating. Her short fiction is published at Apex, Podcastle, Worlds of Possibility, and various anthropomorphic animal anthologies, as well as listed in Reactor (formerly Tor.com) and Locus recommended reading lists. She attended Viable Paradise in 2017 and Clarion West in 2023. Stories with talking animals were her gateway into a lifelong love for reading and writing, and she is enthusiastic about unleashing more great animal stories into the wild. (Icon art by kawaiipicnic)
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A Humphrey Lanham
Poetry editor
they/them
Favorite animals: capybaras, hedgehogs, American crows, Pacific tree frogs
A tends to procrastinate, take pictures of cats, and occasionally write. They straddle both the prose and poetry worlds. A is a 2019 graduate of the Odyssey writing workshop and chaired the Wordos workshop from 2017 to 2020. They are an author spotlight interviewer for Lightspeed. On the poetry side, they’re an active member of Poets Studio and publicist in training. They live in the wilds of Oregon with an assortment of humans, cats, houseplants that thrive on neglect, and a murder of crows. Ru, their glorious moron, is probably an anthroxenobiologist studying humans and their strange hydrophilic proclivities, but everyone else keeps insisting he’s just a common house cat.
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Anastasia Spinet
Submissions editor (short fiction)
she/her
Favorite animals: cats, fennec foxes, spiders, corvids, hawks
Anastasia is a writer residing somewhere along the East Coast of the United States, where she shares her home with a large brood of felines. She is the author of the anthropomorphic cyberpunk novel, Quicksilver, as well as many short stories that involve talking animals. When she isn’t writing or wrangling dogs as part of her day job, she enjoys drawing, playing D&D with her friends, and hunting for mushrooms in the woods. (Icon art by maritimemutt)
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Bella Chacha
Submissions editor (short fiction)
she/her
Favorite animals: dogs
Bella Chacha is a Nigerian writer, Pushcart Prize nominee, and runner-up at Defenestrationism.net’s 2025 Short Story Contest, with publications in Incensepunk Magazine, Cast of Wonders, Plott Hound, Channel Magazine, Flame Tree Publishing, and Cosmic Daffodil Journal, among others.
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Chase Anderson
Submissions editor (flash)
he/they
Favorite animals: raptors (avian and saurian), saber-toothed cats, big cats, eels
Chase is a weird, queer digital storyteller who writes weird, queer stories full of magic and monsters. He draws inspiration from biology, chemistry, history, and whatever his neurochemicals are doing today. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he wrangles spreadsheets and identifies his coworkers’ backyard birds. (Icon art by Tuxedo Dragon)
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Ezra Rodriguez
Submissions editor (short fiction)
he/they
Favorite animals: cats, wombats, foxes, snakes, ferrets
Ezra is a fiction writer, playwright, and editor based in Baltimore, Maryland. Their fiction has previously been featured in Strange Horizons and Plentitude Magazine. His full length play We All Fall Down was featured in the D.C. Queer Theater Festival in 2020.
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Frances Pauli
Submissions editor (flash)
she/her
Favorite animals: snakes, spiders, seahorses, horses, bears
Frances is a writer living on the dry side of the Washington state. Slightly obsessive about model horses, vintage typewriters, houseplants and tarantulas, she does her best to focus some of that energy into her fiction. Her flash pieces have appeared in Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online. Her favorite stories involve talking animals, traditionally unloved species, and a touch of romance.
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Stewart C. Baker
Submissions editor (flash)
he/they
Favorite animals: cats, platypuses
Stewart C. Baker is an academic librarian and author of speculative fiction, poetry, and interactive fiction whose stories and poems have appeared in Asimov’s, Fantasy, Nature, and other places. Born in England, Stewart has lived in South Carolina, Japan, and Los Angeles, and now lives with his family and a varying number of cats, dogs, rabbits, chickens, and fish, within the traditional homelands of the Luckiamute Band of Kalapuya in Oregon–although if anyone asks, he’ll usually say he’s from the Internet.
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Vic Waite
Submissions editor (short fiction)
she/they
Favorite animals: foxes, cows, wolves, possums, maned wolves
Vic is a transfemme nonbinary author and collector of odd jobs. During the day they help keep their local hospital running by ensuring tools and equipment are safe and sanitary. After hours they put words to the page and tell their stories. Most of their experience pertains to short fiction, predominantly fantasy with a sprinkling of sci-fi, and almost always starring anthro characters. Mythology is a major source of inspiration for them, though interesting ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere. (Icon art by SmallerGod)
What’s in a name? The face and story behind Plott Hound Magazine:
Plott Hound is a play on the word “plot” and the plott hound, a type of scent hound originally bred for hunting bears. It’s also the state dog of North Carolina. Leo the plott hound was a beloved member of the Le family: longtime friends for decades and considered cousins and siblings to the editor-in-chief and her parents, respectively. The Thai and Le families united under the shared experience of being Vietnamese-American immigrants, and bonded over a common love for the outdoors and frequent camping trips, which Leo took part of with gusto as he loved to run in the woods, and sometimes stick his nose where he shouldn’t (a skunk’s tail, among other things). Leo passed away from cancer in 2020, but years later, he became the inspiration behind the magazine’s name, and continues his legacy as the face of Plott Hound. The Le family—Huy, Quynh, Tran, Don, and Doan—join the Plott Hound team in thanking you for your support of the magazine.