We are now accepting fiction submissions for our Southeastern USA Special issue, guest edited by me and a co-editor to be selected from among the many wonderful applications we received!

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.



Sheree Renée Thomas creates art inspired by myth and folklore, natural science and the genius culture of the Mississippi Delta. Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, May 26, 2020) is her first fiction collection. Two multigenre/hybrid fiction and poetry collections, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life, longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award and Shotgun Lullabies were published by Aqueduct Press. She edited the Dark Matter volumes (World Fantasy Award 2001, 2005) that first introduced W.E.B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction, and she was the first black author to be honored with the World Fantasy Award since its inception in 1975. Her work is widely anthologized and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and received honorable mention in the Year's Best volumes. A Cave Canem Fellow, her poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times and other publications. She serves as the Associate Editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora (Illinois State University, Normal). She lives in Memphis, Tennessee. Find her on Instagram/Facebook @shereereneethomas and on Twitter @blackpotmojo.
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