Please send in your mycelial pitches to gautam.strangehorizons@gmail.com.

For word-count, formats, and remuneration, please see here.

Imagine yourself as a sword fighter, a vigilante hero and upholder of justice. Imagine you are a xia in the world of jianghu—whether a solitary traveller on a mission, an outlaw on the run, or a member of a powerful sect or dying clan. Or imagine you are a Daoist cultivator, soaring across the sky atop swords and clouds, with a story that stretches across realms and even lifetimes.

Welcome to the Wuxia & Xianxia Special, fellow walkers of the jianghu.

Many of us have become fans of wuxia and xianxia fiction ever since we first encountered eminent wuxia and xianxia authors like Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Huan Zhu Lou Zhu. Others among us fell in love with these genres through films from the Shaw Brothers Studio, Pili puppet shows, drama adaptations, RPGs, manhua, and other kinds of popular media. 

Over the past decade, there has also been a new and revived interest in the xianxia genre with the rise of web novels, and more recently, through the lens of danmei, as shown by the popularity of dramas like The Untamed.

For this special issue, we are interested in:

• Traditional and new approaches to wuxia and xianxia fiction  
• Stories full of action, conflict, drama, and intrigue 
• Rich, diverse, colourful, and nuanced worldbuilding, whether featuring the jianghu, a xianxia world, the imperial court, or other kinds of setting
• Unique approaches to classic wuxia themes like honour, free love, good versus evil, and individual choice versus fate
• Re-imaginings of what these genres look like in the 21st century 
• Works that experiment with, subvert, and reinvent genre tropes, including in combination with other Sinophone literary traditions such as danmei, chuanyue (time travel), gong’an fiction (court case), and beyond 

The editors for the Wuxia/Xianxia Special invite you to submit fiction, poetry, translations, and nonfiction. 

We welcome writers who are new and experienced. The submissions call is open to BIPOC and racialised writers ONLY, and we especially welcome writers of the Sino/Chinese diaspora who grew up with Hong Kong and Taiwanese serials, with web novels or folktales in translation. We ask writers to be mindful of cultural appropriation. Yellowface is not allowed.

Editorial Team:

Ms. Mia Tsai (she/her) and Ms. Yilin Wang (she/they) for Fiction (2,000 – 7,000 words; please query if longer); Poetry (of any length or complexity); Translations of fiction and poetry from Chinese into English. 

Mx. Joyce Chng (she/they) for Non-Fiction (2,000 – 3,000 words).

Fiction

Mia is looking for fresh takes on wuxia and xianxia, with new or blended settings that can be historical or contemporary–or set elsewhere. If you have xianxia with a science fiction twist or a science fantasy wuxia, please do submit.

Yilin is interested in stories that take innovative and genre-bending approaches to wuxia and xianxia, especially stories that feature danmei elements, time travelling, and fresh unconventional worldbuilding. 

Poetry

Yilin is looking for poems that feature elements or themes from wuxia/xianxia literature and from the myths and folklore that have influenced these genres. She encourages submissions that play with form, language, and genre, including works that pay homage to the long tradition of xia poetry written in Classical Chinese. 

Translations

Yilin welcomes unpublished translations of wuxia/xianxia fiction and poetry that have been first published in Chinese. She is especially interested in translations of both overlooked classical works that inspired the formation of the wuxia/xianxia genres (such as xia folktales and Tang dynasty “frontier poetry”) and in representative or innovative works by established or emerging wuxia/xianxia writers. 

When you submit, please also include a letter from the rights holder confirming the availability of English translation rights. 

Nonfiction 

Joyce wants new perspectives on wuxia and xianxia. Essays on intersectionality, the interplay of different cultures and diasporic interpretations are most welcome.

Instructions for Submitting

The submission window for the Wuxia/Xianxia Special Issue will run from 2nd January to 1st March.

Submit to https://strangehorizons.moksha.io/publication/strange-horizons/21/submit. We accept only RTF, DOCX or DOC files in standard manuscript format. Times New Roman, font size 12.

In the SUBMISSION TITLE in Moksha, please write [WUXIA SUB] before the title/name of your work.  You are strongly encouraged to include the name of the editor who you are submitting work to. An example would look like this:

[WUXIA/Fiction:  __(title of story)__ - editor’s name]

Please address the appropriate editor in your cover letter. You can address us by given name, but if you use honorifics, please use the proper ones.

If you would like to include content warnings for your submission, please list them in your cover letter. 

Please email wuxiaspecial2023@strangehorizons.com for clarification on any questions and concerns you may have, except for whether or not you will be rejected. We’ll probably just tell you to submit it anyway. Do not self-reject.  Likewise, use the email for queries only. DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR WORK THERE.

Please note: we do not allow simultaneous submissions or reprints for this issue. We also do not allow multiple submissions. (Three poems per submission is allowed). To clarify: We only allow each writer to submit in one category. 

Writers with outstanding Strange Horizons submissions can still submit here.

We look forward to reading your works.

The Strange Horizons Southeast Asian special welcomes non-fiction, fiction and poetry from Southeast Asian writers living in Southeast Asia as well as the diaspora. We especially welcome writers who have never submitted to an international speculative fiction venue before.

We are not seeking writing from non-Southeast Asians for this special issue. Please feel free to submit your work to Strange Horizons’ regular submissions at any time.

The editorial team for this special issue will comprise of:

Dr. Jaymee Goh (she/her) for Fiction (2,000 – 7,000 words; please query if longer).

Ms. May Chong (she/her) for Poetry (of any length or complexity).

Mx. Joyce Chng (she/they) for Non-Fiction (2,000 – 3,000 words).

We would like stories that are joyous, horrific, hopeful, despondent, powerful and subtle. Write something that will take our breath away, make us yell and cry. Write unapologetically in your local patois and basilects in space; make references to local events and memes to your heart’s content. Write something that makes you laugh and cry. Indulge in all the hallmarks of your heritage that you find yourself yearning for in speculative literature, but know that we will not judge you based on your authenticity as a Southeast Asian. 

The submission window for the SEA Special Issue will run from 28th February to 30th of April. As Southeast Asia is technically in the future for the rest of the world, the window will close at 5pm Eastern Standard Time.

Submit via the Moksha portal specific to this special issue. We accept only RTF, DOCX or DOC files.

In the SUBMISSION TITLE in Moksha, please write [SEA SUB] before the title/name of your work.  You are strongly encouraged to include the name of the editor who you are submitting work to. An example would look like this:

[SEA SUB/Fiction:  __(title of story)__ - Jaymee Goh]

Please address the appropriate editor in your cover letter. You can address us by given name, but if you use honorifics, please use the proper ones.

If you would like to include content warnings for your submission, please list them in your cover letter. 

Please email sea_special_2022@strangehorizons.com for clarification on any concerns you may have, except for whether or not you will be rejected. We’ll probably just tell you to submit it anyway. Do not self-reject.  Likewise, use the email for queries only. DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR WORK THERE.

Please note: we do not allow simultaneous submissions or reprints for this issue.

We look forward to reading your works.

Strange Horizons is now accepting fiction submissions for the Palestinian Special issue! The issue, edited by Rasha Abdulhadi and Basma Ghalayini will be published at the end of March 2021.

We are open for submissions from now until January 31, 2021. Don't wait till the end to send your work!

For poetry, non-fiction, reviews, or art, please contact those departments directly and mention in your coverletter that you would like to be considered for the Palestinian Special issue. To contact other departments, please use this list of contact information and general guidelines.

The issue is focused on speculative fiction by Palestinian writers, wherever they live. This includes Palestinian people from or living in the West Bank, Gaza, in refugee camps, and in diaspora. We welcome work from people who live at the intersections of multiple cultures, languages, and identities, including people with Palestinian heritage living around the world. We especially welcome work by writers who are also Black, Indigenous, trans, queer, in disability community, and of marginalized genders and sexualities.

Genre: speculative fiction broadly defined, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, surrealism, weird, interstitial, hybrid, etc. There is no theme; though we welcome those that are themed, stories do not have to be about Palestinians or set in Palestine.

Word limit: 6,000 words. No lower limit, shorter pieces are preferred.

Languages:

• If you're sending untranslated original text in Arabic or English, you are not required to include a translation.
• If you are already collaborating with a translator, you are welcome to include the translation. If you are not, we will arrange a translator.
• If you're sending text in a language other than Arabic or English, please include an Arabic or English translation.
• Translations should be included in the same document as the original text.
• Translations do not count toward the word count limit, only the original text.
• Please contact us at palestinian@strangehorizons.com if you have questions or need help!

Format: Please send only RTF, DOC, or DOCX files. Please keep formatting as simple as possible. We strongly prefer Times New Roman 12-point, double-spaced manuscripts. Include your name, pseudonym if any, email address, and word count on the first page of your manuscript. You can get the word count from your word processor or an online tool like https://www.charactercountonline.com.

Multiple submissions: Please send only one story at a time, but you can send another one if you receive a response before the submission window closes—another reason to send work as soon as possible before January 31!

Simultaneous submissions: No.

Reprints: Yes! Please indicate clearly in your cover letter if a story is a reprint, and in what publications and which languages it was previously published.

Pay rate: Authors will be paid 0.10 USD per word for original fiction and $100 flat rate for reprints. Translators will be paid 0.08 USD per word in the source text. There is no entry fee.

Due date: 31 January 2021.

No email submissions. Please only submit stories using the submission form linked below.

Submit here! All stories should be submitted using this form in Moksha. Please include any translations of a single story in the same document when submitting.

Cover letter: In your cover letter, please briefly mention where you're from or where your roots are, so we have some idea of your relationship with the region that this special issue is focused on.

If you have any questions at all, please email palestinian@strangehorizons.com!

Strange Horizons is now accepting fiction submissions for our Mexico Special issue! The issue will be published at the end of November 2020, and Libia Brenda (that's me!) will be the guest editor for the fiction selection.

We are open for submissions from now until Aug 31 2020. Don't wait till the end to send your work in!

This issue will focus on speculative fiction by Indigenous people in Mexico, Mexican people, and people of Mexican origin. This includes people living in Mexico, in the borderlands/la frontera and Rio Grande Valley, and in diaspora, as well as displaced and undocumented peoples making home in these places. We welcome work from people who live at the intersections of multiple cultures and identities, including people born in Mexico living in other countries. We especially welcome work by writers who are Black, Indigenous, trans, queer, in disability community, and of marginalized genders and sexualities.

Genre: speculative fiction broadly defined, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, surrealism, weird, interstitial, etc. There is no theme; though we welcome those that are, stories do not have to be about or set in Mexico.

Word limit: 4,000 words. No lower limit, shorter pieces are preferred.

Languages:

• If you're sending untranslated original text in Spanish or English, you are not required to include a translation.
• If you are already collaborating with a translator, you are welcome to include the translation. If you are not, we will arrange a translator.
• If you're sending text in an Indigenous language, please include a Spanish or English translation.
• Translations should be included in the same document as the original text.
• Translations do not count toward the word count limit, only the original text.
• Please contact us at mexico@strangehorizons.com if you have questions or need help!

Format: Please send only RTF, DOC, or DOCX files. Please keep formatting as simple as possible. We strongly prefer Times New Roman 12 point, double spaced. Include your name, pseudonym if any, email address, and word count on the first page of your manuscript. You can get the word count from your word processor or an online tool like https://www.charactercountonline.com.

Multiple submissions: Only one story at a time, but you can send another one if you receive a response before the submission window closes—another reason to send work before August 31!

Simultaneous submissions: No.

Reprints: Yes. Please indicate clearly in your cover letter if a story is a reprint, and where and in which languages it was previously published.

Pay rate: Authors will be paid 0.10 USD per word for original fiction and $100 flat rate for reprints. Translators will be paid 0.08 USD per word in the source text. There is no entry fee.

Deadline: 31 August 2020.

No email submissions. Please submit stories using the submission form linked below.

Submit here! All stories should be submitted using this form. Please include any translations of a single story in the same document when submitting.

Cover letter: In your cover letter, please briefly mention where you're from or where your roots are, so we have some idea of your relationship with the region that this special issue is focused on.

If you have any questions at all, please email mexico@strangehorizons.com!

Strange Horizons lanza su convocatoria en busca textos narrativos para su Especial de México, que se publicará a finales de noviembre de 2020. La editora invitada de este número soy yo, Libia Brenda, y estas son las bases de participación:

El periodo de recepción está abierto desde hoy hasta el 31 de agosto. ¡No esperes hasta el último día para mandar tu texto!

Esta edición especial está enfocada en ficción especulativa escrita por personas que pertenezcan a alguno de los pueblos indígenas de México, personas mexicanas y gente de origen mexicano que está en el extranjero; es decir, abarca a quienes viven México, incluyendo la frontera norte, y a quienes viven fuera del país, también a personas refugiadas y migrantes (con o sin documentos) que hayan fincado su hogar en cualquier otro lugar. Son igualmente bienvenidos textos de personas de procedencia multicultural y que tienen raíces o ascendencia mexicana en combinación con otras identidades, orígenes o nacionalidades. Es más que bienvenido el trabajo de personas con alguna discapacidad. También, el trabajo de personas trans, queer o que, en general, pertenezcan o se identifiquen con géneros y sexualidades marginadas o discriminadas.

Géneros: ficción especulativa pensada como una categoría amplia que incluye: ciencia ficción, literatura fantástica, horror, surrealismo, weird, híbridos, etc. No hay un tema específico y, aunque esta entrega es mexicana, no es indispensable que las historias se desarrollen en México.

Límite de palabras: 4000 (cuatro mil) palabras como máximo, no hay un mínimo. De preferencia buscamos textos breves.

Idioma:

• Si mandas un texto originalmente escrito en español o en inglés, no es indispensable que mandes la traducción.
• Si ya estás colaborando con alguien que traduce, es bienvenido el texto en su lengua original, más la traducción. Pero si no, nosotros nos encargamos traducirlo.
• Son más que bienvenidos los textos en cualquiera de las lenguas indígenas; si ese es tu caso, por favor envíalo en la lengua en que fue escrito y también una traducción al español (o al inglés, como tú prefieras)
• En el caso de que mandaras tu cuento en dos lenguas, por favor incluye el original y la traducción en el mismo documento
• Las traducciones no se toman en cuenta en el conteo de palabras, únicamente el texto en el idioma original en que fue escrito
• Si tienes alguna duda, no dudes en mandarnos tus preguntas o pedir ayuda en este correo: mexico@strangehorizons.com

Formato es mejor si mandas tu texto como documento .RTF, .DOC o .DOCX.

• Es necesario que tenga el siguiente formato (entre más simple, mejor): Times New Roman a 12 puntos, espacio doble, alineado a la izquierda.
• También incluye en la carátula de tu manuscrito: tu nombre, seudónimo (si lo tienes), correo electrónico y el número de palabras. Para el conteo de palabras, puedes usar el contador de Word (o del procesador de palabras que uses) o puedes echar mano de esta herramienta en línea: https://www.charactercountonline.com/

¿Múltiples entregas?: Solo se permite el envío de un texto por autor en un mismo envío, por favor. Podrías mandar otro sólo si recibes una respuesta antes de que cierre el periodo de entrega. ¡Otra razón para mandar tu material lo antes posible!

Entregas simultáneas: no

Textos publicados con anterioridad: sí se permiten. Solo indica claramente en tu carta de presentación si el texto ya se publicó antes, dónde, en qué medio y en qué idioma.

Pago: 0.10 USD (diez centavos de dólar) por palabra del idioma original en textos inéditos. 100 (cien) dólares en caso de trabajos previamente publicados. Las traducciones se pagarán a razón de 0.08 USD (ocho centavos de dólar) por palabra en el idioma original. (No hay cuota de inscripción.)

Cierre: 31 de agosto 2020

No se aceptarán trabajos enviados por mail. Mándanos tu texto usando el link indicado a continuación:

¡Envía aquí! Todos los textos deben mandarse utilizando este formulario. Por favor incluye la traducción del cuento en el mismo documento.

Carta de presentación: en tu carta de presentación (incluida en el formulario de envío) describe brevemente de dónde eres o cuál es tu origen, para poder hacernos una idea de cuál es tu relación con la región en la que se enfoca este número.

Si tienes cualquier duda, siéntete con la confianza de mandarnos tus preguntas a: mexico@strangehorizons.com

This will be published at the end of September 2019, so this is a very tight window: we are from now until Sep 23—don't wait till the end to send your work in!

Please note: this call for submissions is completely independent of regular Strange Horizons submissions, and is a separate queue with a different schedule. Only the details on this page will apply.

This issue focuses specifically on speculative fiction by writers who are from or have roots in Brazil. We especially welcome work by Brazilian writers who are Black, indigenous, disabled, and of marginalized genders and sexualities.

Genre: speculative fiction, broadly defined, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, surrealism, weird, interstitial, etc.. There is no theme.

Word limit: 4,000 words. No lower limit, shorter preferred.

Language: English, including work that has been translated into English.

Format: Please send only RTF, DOC, or DOCX files and try to stick to standard manuscript format as much as possible.

Multiple submissions: Yes. You can submit up to two stories at the same time, but please submit them independently as separate files. You're welcome to send more after receiving responses.

Simultaneous submissions: Yes. Please indicate clearly in your cover letter if so, and withdraw promptly if accepted elsewhere. Response times will be quick for this call.

Reprints: Yes. Please indicate clearly in your cover letter if a story is a reprint and where it was previously published.

Pay rate: 0.08 USD per word for original fiction.

Deadline: Sep 23 2019

No email submissions. Please submit stories using the submission form via the link below.

Submit here! All stories should be submitted using this form: https://strangehorizons.moksha.io/publication/strange-horizons/17/submit

Cover letter: In your cover letter, please do briefly mention where you're from or where your roots are, so we have some idea of your relationship with the region that this special issue is focused on.

If you have any questions at all, please email fiction@strangehorizons.com.

Thank you once again for your enthusiastic support.

We began our annual Kickstarter in late June. As of July 21st, we are FULLY FUNDED with all of the fund drive content unlocked. We are now well on our way through our stretch goals: a Strange Horizons podcast by Be the Serpent is already funded, and we are a mere 1000 USD away from a Mexican SFF special issue. Further goals include a climate change special issue and raising our fiction rate to 10 cents per word. If you haven't taken a look yet, please do! We have some new shiny things to offer this year, including autographed books and pins designed by Ness & yt. If we hit 20,000 USD, we unlock the rainbow snake! There's only one week to go to raise these funds, so spread the word and bring that purple planet around in style.

Another change is our recently welcomed new staff. Dante Luiz is joining our art department, Rebecca Evans and Fred G. Yost are joining the web team, Carey Ford Compton has joined the copy editors, and new first readers include Drew Matthew Beyer, A. Z. Louise, Emory Noakes, Ekpeki Oghenechovwe, Joel Oliver-Cormier, Abbey Schlanz, and Luke Tolvaj. We're excited to get to work with new folks and new insights in our purple planet collective.

We've also added more banner art from Tahlia Day! Tahlia’s visionary pieces are our default image for the magazine. We've picked up the following works: Amaranthine Chaos, Blue Cove, Muspelheim 1, Paper Topography 4, and Venus Canyon 2. See more of Tahlia's art on her website.

• Ability to work well with others in an online setting and use WordPress and Slack.
• Discretion: for example, we'll ask that you not blog about the details of your job, though it's fine for you to publicly say that you have the job.
• Reliability: all of the magazine’s departments depend on the team of copy editors to clear pieces in a timely fashion before each issue is published, so you must be able to reliably do some editing every week.
• Please note that while on staff, copy editors may not submit to Strange Horizons as authors.

• One to two hours each week. Some weeks it may be less, depending on your assigned department; more should be rare. However, some pieces are galleyed with a short time window before publication, so flexibility and availability on weekends are helpful. Copy editors rotate through departments monthly, with a month off after every four months.
• Commitment to stay on for at least six months if possible.

Fantastic news, readers! We've just hit our first fundraising milestone at $3,000! In thanks, we've published the first piece from our fund drive special issue, "The Fortunate Death of Jonathan Sandelson," a novelette by Margaret Killjoy.

When we hit our next milestone at $5,000, we'll publish an essay by Darcie Little Badger entitled, "Guns. How Primitive." If that sounds like something you want to read (we certainly want to), please post about the fund raiser on your social media platform of choice! Word of mouth is the best way for us gain support, and nothing brightens our day like reading testimonials by our readers and contributors.

Thank you for supporting us this far. If you haven't yet, please do donate to our Kickstarter! Your donations are what keep us going.

Onward to $13,000!

-Kate, Jane, and Vanessa

Okay, well I am thrilled to announce that the time has come for the Strange Horizons fund drive!

As most of you know by now, Strange Horizons is entirely voluntarily funded-our amazing family of supporters is the reason we are able to bring you such a bevy of delicious poetry, fiction, art and non-fiction from across the world of SFF and speculative literature.

To help Strange Horizons keep bringing you all that great stuff in 2019, we need to raise $13,000. This will help us bring you more devastating, beautiful fiction like 'Strange Waters' by Sarah Hills, more tricksy, capricious poetry like 'To Current Occupant' by Marie Vibbert and more searing and insightful articles and columns, like Erin Horáková's 'Freshly Remember'd: Kirk Drift'.

If you'd like to help us meet those goals, please donate to our Kickstarter!

On our journey to being fully-funded, we'll also release shiny, new bonus content in the fund drive special issue. Here's what you can look forward to:

$3,000 - bonus fiction by Margaret Killjoy
$5,000 - bonus article by Darcie Little Badger
$7,000 - 2 bonus poems by Mary Soon Lee
$9,000 - bonus review by Erin Horáková
$11,000 - bonus fiction by Natalia Theodoridou
$13,000 - SH is fully funded! E-books for all donors!

So that's the road to another year of Strange Horizons in 2019.

The thing is, we have bigger plans. Some of you have been reading for years, and you know the score by now. We want to go further and bring you even more exciting work from fresh new writers in the genre, established SFF superstars and all the fantastic writers in between.

Stretch goals from last year's fund drive brought us the triumphant Southeastern USA special issue, guest edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Erin Roberts and Rasha Abdulhadi, and focusing on work by black, indigenous and/or writers of color from the Southeastern USA. In 2016, stretch goals helped us develop Samovar, our sister site for SFF in translation. It's the stretch goals that let us push that little bit further, and do a little bit more.

So, if we raise $14,500 we'll add an international SFF special to our roster for 2019. We've been on a bit of a roll with these in recent years: we've put together collections of stellar work from Spain, India and the Arab League and diaspora. This has been one of our favourite ways of bringing voices from all over the world into our pages, and we hope you've all enjoyed reading them as much as we've enjoyed putting them together.

That's not all. If we raise $16,000 we'll run a special issue focusing on comics, featuring new solicited work from comics artists, writers, and critical work relating to the artform. We've wanted to create an issue like this for a while, and we know we can put together something fabulous with your help.

If you want to help us spotlight SFF and storytelling forms from around the world, donate now.

Now onto something Kate and I feel really strongly about. As our long-term readers will know, while we pay all our authors, our wonderful, skilled staff put in a huge amount of work to make each weekly issue, and they do it on an entirely voluntary basis. Our team of editors, proof-readers, webmasters, first-readers and so many others, delight and astound us every week with the things they pull out of the bag to bring this magazine together.

There have been lots of conversations in the field over the last few years about widening access to editorial positions, and the difficulty in doing so if these posts are unpaid. We want to make sure Strange Horizons is a place where talented staff can hone their skills and start making their way in the field of SFF, and we don't want anyone to miss out on that opportunity because they can't afford to work for free.

This year, we want to raise $21,000 so that we can pay our amazing staff a small honorarium to thank them for their dedication, their hard work, and for making Strange Horizons the magazine it is. It's a small step, but a necessary one. The Editors-in-Chief won't be included, but everyone else who has been actively working on the magazine for the year will.

If you feel as passionately as we do, and want to make sure Strange Horizons can keep fostering incredible editorial talent, please donate now.

So, you know what we're planning to do with the money. But if you decide to become a donor to Strange Horizons, what do you get in return? I'm so glad you asked.

• If you donate any amount whatsoever and we fully fund at $13,000 you'll get a fund drive e-book, containing all our special bonus content from this year's fund drive.
• If you donate $25 you get access to all of the Strange Horizons ebooks from 2018
• If you donate $40 you get the above and digital wallpaper of our 2018 artwork for your computer/phone/device.
• If you donate $50 you get the above and a mug, t-shirt or tote bag branded with the Strange Horizons logo
• If you donate $75 you don't have to choose! You get a mug, t-shirt and tote as well as all lower tier rewards.
• If you donate $100 you get all lower tier rewards and a set of art postcards, featuring all of the art from this year.
• If you donate $150 you get one of our special limited edition Strange Horizons lapel pins and all the $75 rewards.

Strange Horizons is dear to all of our hearts, and we know it is dear to many of yours too. Help us to keep pushing the boundaries of the field, to keep bringing you work from the best writers and editors around, wherever they might be.

Donate now and let's make 2019 our best year yet.

This will be a special issue of Strange Horizons published at the end of July 2018, and it will focus on the work of writers who are black, indigenous, and/or people of color from the Southeastern USA, which is a region that we think tends to be underserved and underrepresented in speculative fiction.

Please note: this call for submissions is completely independent of regular Strange Horizons submissions; this is a different queue with a different schedule and read by different editors. Only the details on this page apply.

This issue focuses specifically on the work of writers who:

• are black, indigenous, and/or people of color.
• are from or have roots in the Southeastern USA. Southeastern states traditionally include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia; however, if you're from Arkansas or Louisiana—two Southern states that are west of the Mississippi River—then you are welcome to apply as well.

So please do submit to this issue only if that description fits you! If not, please check out the regular SH submission guidelines from the main menu above.

Genre: speculative fiction, broadly defined, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, surrealism, weird, interstitial, etc.. There is no theme.

Word limits: 1,500 to 7,500 words.

Format: Please send only RTF, DOC or DOCX files and try to stick to standard manuscript format as much as possible.

Multiple submissions: You can submit up to two stories at a time, but please submit them independently as separate files.

Simultaneous submissions: No. Response times will be relatively short (you should hear from us by the end of June at the latest.)

Reprints: Yes, but please indicate clearly in your cover letter if a story is a reprint and where it was previously published.

Pay rate: 0.08 USD per word.

Deadline: May 31st 2018

No email submissions. All stories should be submitted using this form: https://strangehorizons.moksha.io/publication/1/16/submit

Cover letter: In your cover letter, please do briefly tell us your background and where you're from or where your roots are, so we have some idea of your relationship with the region that this special issue is focused on.

If you have any questions at all, please email us at seusa@strangehorizons.com.

This year, we share the shortlist with siblingzines we love and admire, many of whom are peopled with SH alumni. We’ve been happy to publish fiction and nonfiction by many of the nominees, including Saladin Ahmed, Liz Bourke, Frances Hardinge, N.K. Jemisin, Paul Kincaid, Alisa Krasnostein, Ann Leckie, Yoon Ha Lee, Ursula K. Le Guin, Foz Meadows, Sam J. Miller, Nnedi Okorafor, Charles Payseur, Alexandra Pierce, Sarah Pinsker, Rebecca Roanhorse, Tansy Rayner Roberts, John Scalzi, Kim Stanley Robinson, K.M. Szpara, Bogi Takács, Ursula Vernon, Fran Wilde, Renay, Gary K. Wolfe, and JY Yang.

Make no mistake: this nomination is for everyone who has made Strange Horizons what it is. You have kept us funded, submitted writing to us, edited for us, voted for us, and cheered us on. Thank you so much.

Strange Horizons publishes nonfiction regularly, in the form of articles, reviews, columns, interviews, and roundtables. Based on your clicking habits, dear readers, here is a reminder of what you paid the most attention to in 2017 from the SH nonfiction team:

100 African Writers of SFF. This is an ongoing series by Geoff Ryman, with interviews and perspectives covering a continent. In 2017, we published pieces on Cape Town, Nairobi, and Malawi, as well as the diaspora in the U.K. and an interview with Sofia Samatar. A winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Non-Fiction in 2016, we expect great things from this series and Ryman in 2018.

“Kirk Drift.” This entry in Erin Horáková’s Freshly Remember’d column smashed the record for most popular item of any category on our site last year. In her essay, Erin traces the change in the popular culture perception of Captain Kirk of the Star Trek franchise from his first days in the original series. Do you think of Kirk as a reckless, rebellious womanizer? Think again.

“Decolonizing Science Fiction and Imagining Futures: An Indigenous Futurisms Roundtable.” Rebecca Roanhorse ran this discussion early last year with Elizabeth LaPensee, Johnnie Jae, and Darcie Little Badger. It considered a future with visible indigenous faces, customs, and perspectives, as well as issues with representation in the present. From alternate realities to a redefinition of what “discovery” means, this roundtable is worth a re-read.

“Emotional Labour in SFF.” SH editor Eli Lee ran this roundtable with Mazin Saleem, Leigh Alexander, Laurie Penny, and RJ Barker. The piece discusses the characters who shoulder emotional labor in speculative fiction, where it is lacking, and what sorts of stories we could tell about social care in the future.

“Where Do Female Werewolves Come From?” This essay by Hannah Priest is about female werewolves and their origins in urban fantasy. It begins in ancient mythology and continues through Latin texts, the Victorian Gothic, and colonialist narratives. Priest digs into hypermasculinity and misogyny, objectification and class.

Our reviews team puts out three reviews per week, every week. It was difficult to narrow down the best options for 2017, but here’s a brief list of popular reviews:

Mazin Saleem’s review of Alien: Covenant

Vandana Singh’s review of The Great Derangement

Samira Nadkarni’s review of Deserts of Fire

Keguro Macharia’s review of Binti: Home

Rachel Cordasco’s review of Tamil Pulp Fiction, Vol. III

M. Milks’s review of Meanwhile, Elsewhere

Zina Hutton’s review of Luke Cage

We wish you a fond revisit of Strange Horizons nonfiction!

We're very happy to announce that this special issue's fiction will be co-edited by one of the most acclaimed editors in shortform speculative fiction, the multiple World Fantasy Award-winning Sheree Renée Thomas! (Jennifer Marie Brissett interviewed Sheree for us in 2009, talking about her celebrated Dark Matter anthology series.)

2018 will feature Sheree in an editorial role in multiple projects, including the Trouble the Waters anthology from Rosarium Publishing and a special issue of Apex Magazine. We're very happy to see Sheree's editorial work getting more prominence and recognition in the field, as emerging writers and new contributors in her Dark Matter anthologies went on to become a National Book Award Finalist, a Pulitzer Prize Winner, and Tiptree, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy Award Winners as well.

But in a way this is also indicative of a problem we'd already recognized in designing this special issue: the list of names that come to mind when looking for an editor is always narrower than it should be. Partly this is because the field is usually not good at recognizing the talent that's already there; 2018 being a jubilee year of Sheree Renée Thomas is unfortunately the exception, not the rule. And partly because it's difficult for new editors to get into the field at all, a difficulty (in being read, in being seen, in having work recognized) that is only multiplied for editors from backgrounds, demographics, or regions marginalized in speculative fiction.

With this special issue we want to celebrate and recognize Sheree as one of the field's great editors, but we also want to explicitly make room for someone new to work with her and gain that experience. So we will have a second guest fiction editor for this issue, and we're opening up that up for applications. If the profile below fits you, please contact us! We're looking for people who:

• are black, indigenous, and/or people of color
• are from or have roots in the Southeastern USA. Southeastern states traditionally include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia; however, if you're from Arkansas or Louisiana—two Southern states that are west of the Mississippi River—then you are welcome to apply as well.
• are interested in the editorial side of speculative short fiction and want to pursue that line of work in future

If this sounds like you, definitely do apply; if it sounds like somebody you know, do make sure they see it!

This editorial position will be limited to the Southeastern USA Special issue's fiction selection (i.e., excluding nonfiction and poetry), and will involve reading submitted stories, making selections, and discussing and editing those selections in collaboration with your co-editor. Most of this work will happen in April and May, and will conclude with the publication of the issue in July.  We're offering an honorarium of $50.

If you're interested, please email us at seusa@strangehorizons.com with the subject line "Co-Editor Application: [your name]". The body of your email (no attachments) should include:

1. A brief introduction: tell us who you are and why you're applying, and please do describe your relationship with the demographics and region that this special issue is focused on. We're not policing identity, but we do want to get an idea how you would relate to the work that's going to show up in submissions.
2. Choose at least three short stories that you think are particularly interesting. They can be in any genre or style; if they're online, include a link. For each story, briefly explain why you chose it in this context, and what you think is interesting about it. Not more than a couple of paragraphs per story, please.
3. If you have any previous experience as an editor in the field, or any other relevant experience, do tell us! (You don't need to have anything here. If you have no experience whatsoever but you really want to be an editor, we'll be glad to hear from you.)

The deadline for guest fiction editor applications is Mar 19 2018. (We'll announce an open call later for submissions.)

She might be best-known nowadays for the groundbreaking The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and its androgynous protagonist; and The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974), which presented a functioning (if highly imperfect) anarchosyndicalist utopia. And there’s Earthsea, of course, a series of epic fantasy novels that set the blueprint for the genre. As one review says so accurately about them: "they read as if they were not written but found, dug out like jewels from rock" (Village Voice). But Le Guin's vision reached far beyond these better-known works. There's Always Coming Home, (1985), an extraordinary piece of worldbuilding detailing the lives of people who "might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California." There's The Lathe of Heaven, an exploration of the fragile nature of reality; and The Word for World is Forest (1976), both ecocriticism and anti-imperialist touchstone. There are very many others, too, all of which evince her fearless creative rigour.

Le Guin's non-fiction displayed the same clarity. She was a prolific essayist and critic, writing on subjects varying from feminism and politics, as in Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989), to language and literature, as in Steering the Craft (1998), and also, quite often, her home state of California (she was born and grew up in Berkeley, although she and her family moved to Portland, Oregon sixty years ago). Her exploration of these worlds was curious, lucid, inspiring, and generous. In 2015, she even did an open access online writer's workshop, and was inundated with questions—her first response was to one asking: "How do you make something good?" She called fiction "a golden string" that leads us "to the freedom that is properly human, the freedom open to those whose minds can accept unreality."

Often, writers as revered as Le Guin can feel austere: they seem like gods, their feats unreproducible. She might be firmly fixed in the pantheon, but she made it clear she had no time for airs and graces. She seemed intimately connected to everyday life and daily reality—her blog posts over the past few years about her cat, Pard, for example, showed her dry sense of humour, her deep appreciation of the immediate and domestic, and her certainty that a literary sensibility is utterly at home amongst cats, friends, and family.

At Strange Horizons, we look to the future of speculative fiction—we hope to be open to the constant unfolding of new perspectives, new possibilities, and, especially, new voices. Le Guin wrote much of her work in an enormously productive period from the 1960s to the millennium, which should suggest, given that Strange Horizons was founded in September 2000, that she belongs to our past rather than our future. But this can't hold for Le Guin. Her ideas—particularly in the realms of politics, feminism, gender, sexuality, and spirituality—contain exactly the same liberating magic today as they did when she first conceived them. Remember, this is the woman who not so long ago reminded us that "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings." Her work is the essence of questioning, subversion, and transcendence. She will always be relevant.

Le Guin refused to accept science fiction and fantasy as marginal genres, just as she refused to accept that women weren't allowed both to participate fully in their own lives and communities and be committed, disciplined artists. In her embrace of what might instead be possible, she blazed a trail for us. She was the most wily and wise of worldmakers, and her legacy is clear—it's for us, as writers and readers, to think deeply, work with love and discipline, and to have the courage to believe in the transformative power of fiction, and of imagining other realities.

The Strange Horizons staff share their thoughts on Le Guin:

Romie Stott

When it comes to Le Guin, her work speaks for itself, and she spoke for herself in ample interviews and lectures. Her book The Dispossessed is one of my favorite narratives in all of literature—hopeful and vital and clear-sighted. It's the book I press on friends or strangers who make the mistake of telling me "I'm looking for something to read..."

AJ Odasso

As with many of the most vital discoveries of my life, I arrived late to Le Guin’s work.  During what I now recognize as the most difficult year of my 36 so far in this existence (2012), an artist friend sent me a battered, edition-mismatched set of all six Earthsea books.  She recognized that I was in dire, unsafe circumstances from which I had no immediate escape, while at the same time cataloguing the self-discoveries I was unearthing (on the neurodiversity, biological sex, and gender identity fronts) while trapped in those circumstances.  I can unequivocally say that the dragon women of Earthsea gave me the strength to recognize that what others called my monstrosity was worth celebrating, and that The Left Hand of Darkness steeled my resolve to cut ties with my captors and thrive.  Le Guin’s writings saved my life and set me free.  Every word I type is set down in the hope that I might pay these blessings forward.

Joyce Chng

She has inspired so many writers and will still continue to inspire young feminists in years to come. The Left Hand of Darkness opened my eyes. Those Who Walk Away From Omelas remains—in my mind—the most disturbing and most needed story (and more so) in this day and age when fake news and dictators dominate the media. My own regret is that I did not have the chance to meet her in person.

Requiescat in pace. Rest in power.

Maureen Kincaid Speller

I value Le Guin for her fiction, the first science fiction I ever read that was about things I also cared about, but I value her too for her non-fiction, her reviews in particular. I didn't always agree with her assessments, but that's not the point. I value her writing for the disagreements they provoke, and for the example she set me in the way she wrote about other people's work.

Aishwarya Subramanian

Her prose was incredible (has anything ever been as good at flight and sea as the Earthsea series?), her novels were all the great things people have been saying about them this past week, but like others here, I loved Le Guin most as a critic, of her own work as well as that of others. In her fiction and her nonfiction she treated books as living things that exist in and respond to the world; things to be read and written carefully and morally. We were so lucky to have her.

Catherine Krahe

It took me a few tries to really enjoy Le Guin's novels-- her short stories were great, particularly "Mountain Ways", which I recommend to people who haven't read any of her work yet, but the novels suffered from people treating them as perfect.  It wasn't until I learned that she thought she'd made a mistake in The Left Hand of Darkness by using masculine pronouns and that she'd change it if she could (and she did in "Coming of Age in Karhide") that I could engage with it.  The book was flawed, which meant we could have a conversation, rather than me worshipping passively at the Infallible Pillar of Literature.  Rather like "Mountain Ways", in fact-- the world says it's clean and simple, but then you put people in and it all tangles up.

That's what I focus on when I think of Le Guin: she criticized her own work and saw things to correct.  She didn't treat any of it as fixed and unassailable, but as something alive to discuss and discover.  I hope to be able to do the same.

Vanessa Rose Phin

What happens when you start out eaten? When you wander labyrinthine darknesses, performing rites with no sense, trying to make them your own rites, against the pattern of training? What happens when take off your cowl beneath the legacy that has no roof? You know what happens, because you showed it to me.

Rest in stories.

Our authors for this issue are all resident in or part of the wider diaspora of one of the twenty-two states of the Arab league. While there is a strong and vibrant tradition of SFF in the Arabic and Middle Eastern world, to date very little of this work has been translated into English, and at a time when these cultures are often presented in narrow, harmful ways in Western media, bringing these works to an Anglophone audience is increasingly important.

In recent years there has been a wider awareness of the rich landscape of Arabic and Middle Eastern speculative literature, thanks to works like Iraq +100, which was the subject of one of our most popular roundtable discussions to date. We are excited to present new work from Diaa Jubaili, a contributor to Iraq +100, in this issue. We have also had the pleasure of reviewing work such as The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz, which have comprehensively proved that literature from the Arabic community and diaspora is not marginal to the SFF world, but central to and instrumental in the future of the genre. As such, this special issue both recognises an existing tradition, and a key moment in the popular reception of these works.

It has been a major goal of ours at Strange Horizons to do more in the arena of translated SFF. As well as the two pieces of fiction in this special issue, do consider visiting our sister magazine, Samovar, for more excellent translated fiction and poetry from all over the world. Special thanks are due to Samovar editor Sarah Dodd and M. Lynx Qualey of arablit.org for their invaluable help with putting together this issue. Further thanks are due to our fabulous translators, Alexander Hong and Robin Moger, who, frankly, pulled off the miraculous.

This issue was made possible thanks to the overwhelming response to our 2017 fund drive, and features two stories presented both in English and the original Arabic, four poems and non-fiction content. A huge thank you goes out to all our patrons and donors who made this possible.

Ten Years Ago - Fiction by Jason Stoddard, poetry by Robert Borski, and reviews.

Fifteen Years Ago - Fiction by Kenneth Brady, an article by Clare Sainsbury, poetry by Mike Allen and Ian Watson, and a review.