A story subscription from Singapore
Each month you receive eight original long reads from our desk in Kampong Glam. They arrive in the web reader, as voiced audio, and as a printed issue posted across Singapore. We founded Unbelievablechronicles in 2026 to give long stories a proper home. You will always know whether a piece is Fiction or drawn From the record.
2026
year the desk opened
8
original stories every month
3
formats: reader, audio, print
Unbelievablechronicles is a subscription publisher. We commission original work, edit it for the ear and the page, and send it on a fixed rhythm. The desk sits on Kandahar Street in Kampong Glam and opened in 2026. If a piece draws on archives, we say so on the first screen you open.
Reader
A membership is built around eight new stories a month. Each one is written to be finished in a sitting, then kept in the Vault so you can return to it. We do not fill a month with fragments or with work first published elsewhere. You open the reader and the week’s chapter is already waiting, with your place held if you left mid-page.
Audio
Every story ships with a professionally voiced edition. You can set the pace between 0.8× and 2×, download for offline listening, and pick up at the same sentence you left. The cut matches the reader, so a commute across the island and an evening in the chair are the same Chronicle, spoken or silent.
Full Chronicle and Collector members receive a stitched monthly issue in an envelope. Singapore addresses are included in the plan. Postage beyond the island is a stated add-on. The print run follows the same eight stories, so the object in your hands is the month you already heard and read, made to keep on a shelf.
Trust here is a tagging job, done in public. Everything we publish is original text from writers we commission. Work assembled from archives and documents carries the mark From the record. Invented work carries the mark Fiction. The label sits on the cover card, in the reader, on the audio screen and on the printed contents page.
Fiction
When a story is invented, we mark it Fiction before you start. Names, streets and papers inside those pieces serve the plot. Read them as made work. We still check public details when they prop up the world of the story, so the ground under the invention holds. The tag is the contract: you are entering a constructed room, and we will not pretend otherwise.
From the record
Pieces marked From the record are assembled from public archives, gazettes, maps, broadcasts and published testimony. We do not invent speech for the dead. Where a source is thin, a short note at the end of the piece says so. You can choose the strand from the Vault list before you invest the sitting, which is the point of putting the tag beside the title.
Length
A finished Chronicle runs between eighteen and thirty-three minutes in the reader. Audio follows the same cut. We send drafts back until the shape can be finished on a bus or in an evening chair. That range is a production rule, not a mood. If a piece cannot live there, it does not ship in that month’s eight.
A month of eight stories is a sequence of commissions, checks and cuts. Themes are chosen for heat and for whether they will still matter in print six weeks later. Archive pieces are read against the documents. Fiction is read for internal law. Only then do we lock the reader, the voice and the posted issue to the same text.
First
We ask writers for a story that can hold eighteen to thirty-three minutes without collapsing into a sketch. Briefs name the strand up front: Fiction or From the record. For archive work we list the public holdings we expect to see cited. For Fiction we ask for the rule of the world on a single page. Payment and delivery dates sit in the same letter, so the month has a spine before anyone types a line.
Then
Archive manuscripts come back with the documents attached. An editor reads the piece against those papers and against anything the writer did not supply. Dialogue is allowed only where a published source already holds it. Fiction manuscripts are checked for continuity and for stray claims that would read as reportage. The tag is applied at this stage and does not change after typesetting.
Before it ships
We time the reading aloud. If a draft overruns, it returns to the writer with a map of the cuts. The audio session uses the locked text. The print file uses the same file as the reader. Singapore copies leave for the post on the first of the month. Members abroad wait on the extra postage window we publish on the plans page. Nothing ships untagged.
Kampong Glam
Unbelievablechronicles works from 56 Kandahar Street, #03-01, in Kampong Glam, Singapore 198904. The room is small on purpose. Commissioning, copy checks and the monthly print proof happen at the same table. Visitors come by appointment on weekdays between 09:30 and 18:00 SGT, and on Saturday from 10:00 to 14:00. Write first if you want the door opened for a manuscript or a classroom plan.
We are a Singapore publisher with members on the island and abroad. Print posting inside Singapore is part of Full Chronicle and Collector. Extra postage beyond the island is listed in Singapore dollars on the memberships page. Email is answered within one working day. The telephone is answered in those same hours. There is no second brand and no other city on the masthead.
Tuesdays lock a new chapter into the reader. Fridays carry the one-page email that names what arrives next. The first of the month is for the printed issue. Between those marks we sit with writers, with the audio producer, and with the printer’s proof. The meeting is for the eight titles, the tags, and the clock on each cut.
You will not find a wall of prizes or a claimed headcount on this site. The useful numbers are the ones that describe the product: eight stories, three formats, a reading band of eighteen to thirty-three minutes, and a cancel-from-your-account rule with no extra notice. If you want the February issue, the memberships page is the next step. If you want to send work, use the contact form and say so in the subject line.
We read proposals for both strands. Send a one-page brief, a sample of 800 to 1,200 words, and a note on whether the piece would be Fiction or From the record. Name the public holdings if you are working from the archive. We answer within ten working days. We do not ask for a full manuscript on first contact, and we do not take simultaneous reprints of work already sold elsewhere.
Classroom sets and team seats start at five memberships. Gift passes sit on the Collector plan and can also be arranged as a one-off through the desk. Tell us the start month, the number of seats, and whether you need print on the island. We will send a plain quote. Billing is in Singapore dollars. Cancellation for a group follows the same end-of-paid-period rule as a single account.
The fastest route is the form on the contact page. You can also write to hello@UnbelievableChronicles.com or call +65 6291 4478 during desk hours. If you are sending a sample chapter as a reader rather than a writer, use sample.php instead; that page is for members and visitors who want to try the voice of the current season before they join.
The February issue is now open for new members in Singapore and abroad. Pick a membership, read all eight stories this month, and leave from your account when you wish.