Size / / /

We're pleased to publish the first in a series of personal essays by Strange Horizons authors discussing what the magazine has meant to them. Enjoy!

***

Strange Horizons was the first online speculative fiction magazine I read, back in the early days of 2001. From the get-go I knew I wanted to be published here. I wanted to be a part of something  that was from its inception open to the idea of diverse voices and viewpoints from around the world.

Over the years, I have watched as the editorial board grew from strength to strength, always willing to consider new viewpoints, to give a fresh start to authors who have become world-renowned, such as Ken Liu and NK Jemisin. They are not afraid to push the envelope when it comes to exploring different ways and formats of presenting storytelling – one of my favourite poems published by them is Bogi Takács' "You Are Here" and one of my best-loved stories is the disturbing and lyrically lovely "The Wives of Azhar" by Roshani Chokshi.

Then, in 2015, my own short story, "Tower of the Rosewater Goblet" was accepted by them. I was asked to revise – and to my surprise, the revisions they wanted didn’t require the story to be made more traditional narrative-wise, but to challenge further the structures of accepted SFnal storytelling. I was delighted because it allowed me to spread my writing wings and take risks I had been too afraid to take.

"Tower of the Rosewater Goblet" is one of the stories I hold dearest to my heart because it’s about silencing, and in a way it’s about the impact of cultural appropriation but above all this – it is a story about the various ways resistance and quiet revolutions can happen within diseased regimes. Because heroes are not always obvious, nor are villains. Because Strange Horizons is such a place in which the lavish vistas of our SFnal imaginings can co-exist with a social conscience, and with the other imperative of all art – not just to delight, or to instruct, but to empower other minds and souls into envisioning their own bright futures.



Nin Harris is an author, poet, and tenured postcolonial Gothic scholar who exists in a perpetual state of unheimlich. Nin writes Gothic fiction, cyberpunk, nerdcore post-apocalyptic fiction, planetary romance, and various other forms of hyphenated weird fiction. Nin’s publishing credits include Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and The Dark.
Current Issue
4 Nov 2024

“Did you know,” the witch says, “that a witch has no heart of her own?”
Outsiders, Off-worlders {how quickly one carves out a corner of the cosmos, / claims a singular celestial body as [o u r s] in the scope of infinity}
Lunar enby folks across here
Wednesday: The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part Two 
Friday: A Place Between Waking and Forgetting by Eugen Bacon 
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Issue 2 Sep 2024
Issue 26 Aug 2024
Load More