#SFWAPro
I realize that I’ve been lucky to know some incredibly talented people in publishing, at all stages of their careers. People that you should be familiar with, too. For at least the next few months, I’ve set up regular posts to go out on Fridays (coinciding the with the popular #FollowFriday movement on Twitter) to highlight people and projects I want you to know more about.
Last week, I recommended: Barbara Jane Reyes, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Dr. Adrienne Keene, Alice Wong, and the Gay YA project.
This week? Magazines!
LONTAR Journal is a biannual literary journal produced in English by EpigramBooks in Singapore. Their focus is entirely on Southeast Asian speculative fiction. They publish a mix of established and new authors, and they are open for submissions on a rolling basis:
The editors of LONTAR are looking for quality literary writing with elements of the fantastic, which is in some way connected with the cultures, traditions, mythologies, folk religions, and/or daily life in Southeast Asia*. While we are happy to look at works by writers outside of the region, we want to actively encourage Southeast Asian writers to submit your work.
They’ve had fiction from Geoff Ryman, Ken Liu, Paolo Bacigalupi, Sabrina Huang, E.C. Myers, Eka Kurniawan, Dean Francis Alfar, John Burdett, Nikki Alfar, Ng Yi-Sheng, Kate Osias, Zen Cho, and Eliza Victoria in their pages, along with poetry from Bryan Thao Worra, Chris Mooney-Singh, Ang Si Min, Jerrold Yam, Tse Hao Guang, Shelly Bryant, Anne Carly Abad, Arlene Ang, David Wong Hsien Ming, Daryl Yam, Michael Gray, Joses Ho, and Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé. They also publish non-fiction and the occasional comic.
Their print issues are hefty, lovely, tomes, and their editorial eye is locked onto a part of Asia that doesn’t get as much love from American SFF readers as, say, China. Read them to get a broader view of the world than you have now, and to support the idea that SFF really is a global community.
You can find them online at lontarjournal.com and on Twitter @lontarjournal
Nature magazine publishes flash science fiction under the collective title “Futures“. They accept unagented submissions, pay a pro rate, and have an interesting target word count: 850-950 firm. I love their focus on hard science, and they publish a wide range essays, interviews, and even podcasts as well. The editorial team is thinking globally now; recent offerings include interviews with Ken Liu and Liu Cixin, talking about Chinese translations, and an essay by Ben Peek talking about Australian SF.
Their fiction has been hit or miss for me in terms of originality — it’s all good, but sometimes I feel as if I’ve read the themes a hundred times before. When they do something novel, though, it’s wonderful. Check out “Mortar flowers” by Jessica May Lin, “The Plague” by Ken Liu, for example.
You can find them online at nature.com/futures and on Twitter @NatureFutures
Gamut is a digital magazine that bills itself at actively seeking diversity in neo-noir and speculative fiction. (You can read a sample here.) Their Editor-In-Chief, Richard Thomas, says:
I want to support the voices that aren’t getting enough recognition, and pay a great rate (at ten cents a word we are twice the going professional rate). I want to surround myself with talented authors and artists that inspire me. We need more markets like this, publishing edgy fiction that straddles the line between genre and literary fiction, and based on the four anthologies I’ve edited, the books I’ve published at Dark House Press, and my own writing—I feel like we’re in a golden age of dark fiction, and there is a demand for it.
They’re new, launching in January 2017 after a very successful kickstarter, and they’ve already got a staff of 15 people, which means they’ll either be ready for a long and well-organized run, or they’ve got too many cooks in the kitchen; time will tell. I think they’re worth keeping an eye on, though.
You can find them online at gamut.online and on Twitter @gamutmagazine
Reckoning is another new magazine, an annual journal of creative writing on environmental justice. According to editor Michael J. DeLuca, “environmental justice” is:
the notion that the people (and other living things) saddled with the consequences of humanity’s poor environmental choices and the imperative to remedy those choices are not the ones responsible for them.
He created the magazine after guest editing an issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet,
Reckoning is open for submissions (as long as you send in work that shows “your searingly personal, visceral, idiosyncratic understanding of the world and the people in it as it has been, as it is, as it will be, as it could be, as a consequence of humanity’s relationship with the earth”), and their first issue is out this winter.
I’ve know DeLuca for several years now, and he’s the kind of editor who doesn’t let his singular vision force him into accepting anything but the best work. I can’t wait to read this magazine.
You can find them online at reckoning.press and on Twitter @reckoningmag
GlitterShip is a podcast-only magazine creating audio versions of LGBTQ stories from authors of all backgrounds, twice a month. Edited by Keffy R. M. Kehrli, GlitterShip records (mostly) previously-printed genre fiction, so there’s a chance you may have read these stories before, but you won’t have heard them like this. Plus, all 29 of their episodes are available to read in text format on the website for anyone who can’t (or prefers not to) listen to the podcast.
If you’re looking for a new way to get your speculative fiction, podcasts are easy to access and great for listening during long commutes or your morning walk. I put them on when I’m cleaning the house, or driving, or when I’m too tired to read and I want to lie on the couch, eyes closed, absorbing fiction by the least amount of effort possible.
Try it. You’ll like it.
You can find GlitterShip online at glittership.com and on Twitter @GlitterShipSF
Carrie Cuinn 