The Strange Horizons fund drive is live, and will be going on through the month of June.
That we feel conflicted about running this drive now is an understatement. We had, through careful planning, made sure not to overlap with other magazines’ drives this summer. Delaying isn’t an option, unless we want to harm other zines in our own industry. At the same time, many of us are active participants in global uprisings, including the marches against systemic racism and police brutality in my own city of Baltimore. Many of us are experiencing financial difficulty, unemployment, just as many of you are—how could we ask for folks to help a magazine thrive when so many need basic supplies?
We can’t. If you have the means, and haven't yet donated to a cause working to end systemic injustice or aid people impacted by the novel coronavirus, please do that first.
If you have anything you can spare after this, consider:
This is our 20th year. We were founded with the idea that SFF needs to be open to new and global voices. In the year since I became EIC, we have run special issues on the speculative fiction of Nigeria, Brazil, and this fall, Mexico. We hope to be able to focus an issue on Southeast Asian writers next year. We also fund, from this drive, our sibling zine, Samovar, a translation initiative which works to expand that global scope further.
The world is in crisis, and with hope and social action, we will be remaking ourselves for the better. Speculative fiction has had a long tradition of thinking through what it means to change. How to interpret our past. What the future could hold. I have seen so many writers hoping to channel their rage and despair into creative efforts, the stories the world so desperately needs. Our editors have seen a massive increase in submissions from writers since the Covid-19 crisis, and we want to be able to read and publish that work. We have to have funding for that to happen.
Dear readers, contributors, and family, please help us continue to be a part of the global SFF community.