A collection of compelling short stories about an app that shows who is thinking about you.

The PING app is now live on the phones of everyone you know. It’s a notification system that shows, by tapping into your unique frequency, exactly who is thinking about you, and if they’re thinking about you with fear or love-related emotions. It’s a constantly updating digital pulse on your screen, a signal simultaneously incredibly intimate and unflinchingly judgmental.

The PING Anthology is a collection of 25 original stories bound together by this single, unsettling premise. From the suspenseful to the romantic to the mind-bending to the heartbreaking, these writers explore what the world becomes when emotional privacy is a relic of the past.

This anthology presents the winning entries from an international short story contest exploring the invasive impact of this technology on our society, our relationships, and our self-esteem. These stories map a world uncomfortably close to our own—one where the last private space we had —our own minds —has been opened to the public. You will discover a genre-hopping collection of tales about people who have learned more about the minds of others, and themselves, than perhaps they ever should have.

Five judges were involved in scoring and curating the entries. First, second, and third-place winning stories are featured, along with several honourable mention “Judge’s Pick” stories that have comments by the judge at the start, along with the most compelling submissions which scored the highest.

Fans of “The Black Mirror,” psychological fiction, suspense, twisty thrillers, and even spice and supernatural dread will find something for them in these pages.

Lead Short Story, and Winner of ARC Readers “Creepiest” and “Personal Favourite categories” : Early Access by Babs Rudlin