For the past ten years, the Strange Horizons Articles Department has been bringing readers interviews with some of the industry's top authors (Clive Barker, Terry Brooks, Jeff VanderMeer, Chuck Palahniuk, Takashi Ogawa and Christopher Barzak, Kelly Link, Daniel Wallace, Nnedi Okorafor) written by top contributors (Heather Shaw, Cheryl Morgan, Ursula K. LeGuin, Lucy A. Snyder, George R.R. Martin, Gavin J. Grant, Benjamin Rosenbaum and Aimee Bender, Lavie Tidar—the list goes on and on), as well as fascinating articles of popular science, history, and literary criticism ranging across the speculative fiction strata—so many that it would take another ten years to list them all.
We're proud of this tradition, and to celebrate SH's 10th anniversary this month we'll be reprinting some of our favorite pieces published over the past decade.
But that's not all we're doing to celebrate here in the Articles Department. Conspicuously absent from the type of work we ask for in the guidelines are pieces that might be called creative non-fiction. It's not that we're averse to experimental styles of writing. Heck, we're editors at Strange Horizons, one of the most genre-defying literary magazines in the market today. But here in Articles, we feared advertising for creative non-fiction might lead to an influx of hokey memoirs and strident spec fic punditry. Even so, we've been getting more and more well-written submissions that don't conform to our stated guidelines—such as musings on monster taxonomy and an interview with a (small) band of zombies (no, really, they're a rock band).
With this in mind, we announce that SH Articles will now be accepting submissions for creative and experimental non-fiction that engages the themes, genres, and concerns of speculative fiction. We are looking for intelligent, experimental pieces with critical content enhanced by personal experiences or reactions from the writer. Much like "new journalism" in the 60s and 70s, we want pieces that actively engage speculative fiction from the perspective of an insider and participant. We are not looking for memoirs or even pundit pieces, but pieces that are objective while still being personal and personable enough to open up dialogue with our readers, and illustrate how speculative fiction relates to the world. We also hope to publish interviews in this vein—interviews that transform the basic Q & A into an intimate encounter with the interviewee.
Having said that, the Articles editors would like to thank all the wonderful writers and readers who have made the past ten years at Strange Horizons engaging, stimulating, and constantly interesting, and we look forward to many more years of the same.
Three cheers for ten years,
S.J., Dave, Pam, and Jo