Fund Drive Update

In the first ten days of our annual fund drive on Kickstarter, almost ten thousand dollars have been pledged by nearly two hundred backers. You can read the stories and poems they've already unlocked in our ongoing 2022 Fund Drive Special Issue. If you want to help us unlock the rest of the issue, or reach for our stretch goals for 2023—including a Caribbean special issue, a Wuxia and Xianxia special issue, and additional artwork—please head over to the Kickstarter page, where you can get rewards including ebooks, digital wallpapers, developmental edits, and signed books, or personally sponsor a poem, a book review, or an entire issue.

Meanwhile, if you're more able to volunteer your time than your money, we invite you to consider applying to become a Poetry Editor or an Assistant Poetry Podcast Editor. Details are as follows:

[Editor's Note: We are now closed to applications for this particular volunteer call. This post is archival. You can check for current openings here.]

Poetry Editor Volunteer Call

We're looking for a poetry editor to join the existing poetry staff. In this role, you'll be responsible for reading three non-consecutive months per year of poetry submissions, selecting and accepting what we publish. You will also participate in the administrative process of contracts, galleying, and setting the schedule. In an average month, we receive about two hundred submissions—approximately four hundred seventy five poems in total.

We hope to find someone who can commit at least two years to the magazine (although unexpected circumstances could occur). If you know you will only be available for a shorter time, we won't necessarily say no, but please warn us when you apply.

As with all editorial positions at our nonprofit, this role is unpaid. As for why you would choose to do this, you will share in any accolades the magazine receives, and have a significant role in shaping and sustaining our genre. You may also receive invitations to participate on panels at SF conferences. You will join a large international community of writers and editors from many backgrounds, in many stages of their careers, and can probably be introduced to nearly anyone you'd want to meet.

And reading the poems is fun! The quality of the work we are sent is very high. You'll get to lay eyes on a lot of great writing before it's published—a lot of the poems we have to pass on due to limited space and limited budget are great, and you get to read them.

Also, poetry editor Romie Stott will show you a lot of HTML tricks to get poems with unusual text layouts to publish properly on the web and in ebooks. As you can imagine, this is not the focus of most HTML tutorials.

If you are interested, please email poetry@strangehorizons.com and put POETRY EDITOR APPLICATION in the subject line (along with whatever else you'd like). Tell us why you think you'd do well in the role. Maybe that's an extensive resume; maybe it's pure enthusiasm and willingness to strive. Our staff at the magazine is international and includes a broad range of genders, religions, sexual orientations, ethnicities, ages, and experience levels; please don't self-reject or assume you're not what we're looking for.

Assistant Poetry Podcast Editor

We're looking for someone who can assist Poetry Podcast Editor Ciro Faienza in the weekly task of producing the poetry podcast. This role does not require special software or a background in sound editing (although that could be a plus, if you're interested). The assistant poetry podcast editor will coordinate with poets and the poetry editors, keep track of the upcoming schedule, and potentially work with Ciro to expand the podcast to include interviews with transcripts.

As with all editorial positions at the magazine, this is an unpaid volunteer position. Although this role does not require a background in sound editing, if you are looking to start your own podcast or learn how to self record, Ciro will be able to provide mentoring and advice, and the magazine may be willing to help cover software licenses (context dependent).

If you are interested, please email poetry@strangehorizons.com and put PODCAST APPLICATION in the subject line. If you do have experience self-recording, tell us! If you have never recorded a thing but are a master at juggling your calendar, tell us that. You will be originating this role and will have significant latitude to shape it.