Orion's Belt

Speculative fiction for us encompasses a wide range of fiction that includes non-realist elements. While we focus on science-fiction and fantasy, we’re open to slipstream, horror, magic realism, myth retellings, surrealism, superhero stories, and all other fantastical genres and subgenres.

The “literary” qualifier simply means we like stories focusing on internal and interpersonal conflicts. Don’t give us people saving the world unless you can make us care about the people doing the saving. It also means we want stories that are sharply, intelligently written. We highly prize the craft of writing. This doesn’t mean you have to be Faulkner or Shakespeare, and it certainly doesn’t mean we want stories peppered with purple prose and thesaurus-words. It does mean that we care as much about form as we do about content. How a story is told is as important to us as what it is about.

Speculative fiction gives us the opportunity to imagine other worlds, but we can also use it to help us better understand our own little blue marble floating through the depths of space. We follow in the tradition of science-fiction pioneer Darko Suvin and his concept of “cognitive estrangement,” in which the strangeness of different worlds provides readers with a lens through which to observe the strangeness in our own worlds. This is more than mere allegory. It’s an awakening to a higher level of awareness. In our view, the best speculative fiction does more than offer escapism. It facilitates a better understanding of the self and the other.

Orion’s Belt began as a prose magazine, but it expanded into poetry. All forms and styles of poetry are welcome. We encourage boundary-pushing, experimental poetry. What we care about is subject matter. Speculative elements must be significant. A non-speculative poem does not become speculative if you just add in a line or two about rockets and outer space. What “literary” means in the context of poetry is more difficult to define than in prose, but the focus of submissions should be on emotion and experience, not explaining scientific formulas or displaying complex worldbuilding.

The art should fit the ethos of this magazine and thus should feature speculative elements, but there are otherwise no major restrictions on what we’re looking for.