Cave wall with ancient handprints stencil art, featuring multiple white and reddish handprint silhouettes overlapping on a rough, reddish-brown surface.

Trace Fossil

/trās ˈfäsəl/

A fossil of a footprint, trail, burrow, or other trace of an animal rather than the animal itself.

The art in wake of the artist.

Summer

Sheila Black

Juliana Briggs

Ambrielle Butler

Benjamin Ficklin

Casey McConahay

Jillian Wardell

G. J. Gillespie

Issue

Summer 2026

2025

Anthology

Trace Fossils Review’s 2025 Anthology highlights some of our favorite pieces from the magazine’s second volume of publications.

Purchase the anthology

Trace Fossils Review’s 2025 Anthology highlights some of our favorite pieces from the magazine’s second volume of publications.

Purchase the anthology

Buzzcut

A Conversation With the Up & Coming

In July, Trace Fossils’ editor-in-chief, Jessie Leitzel, sat down with the 2025 Buzzcut interviewees, Ruby Varallo and Lillian Colette Hughes, to discuss their debut books…

Read the interview

A Conversation
With the Up & Coming

In July, Trace Fossils’ editor-in-chief, Jessie Leitzel, sat down with the 2025 Buzzcut interviewees, Ruby Varallo and Lillian Colette Hughes, to discuss their debut books…

Read the interview

Cover of a book titled "Bleeding Bloom" by Lillian Colette Hughes. The cover features a large deer skull with antlers lying on dark gravel, with small plants and mushrooms growing around it. In the background, a train tracks and a forested mountain scene is depicted under a dark blue sky.

Book cover titled 'RECEIPTS' by Ruby Varallo featuring an abstract illustration of a face with bold black outlines, stylized eyes, lips, and a starburst pattern around the face with newspaper text elements.

Current Issue

Featured

Lobular

Sheila Black | Poetry

A Transience

Benjamin Ficklin | Fiction

Caterwaul

Casey McConahay | Fiction

The Astronaut

Ambrielle Butler | Poetry