In this special episode of Strange Horizons at 25, Senior Podcast Editor Kat Kourbeti and Editor Michael Ireland welcome current members of the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective for a series of interviews to give you a glimpse behind the curtain of each department and to celebrate 25 years of this pioneering speculative fiction magazine.
A big thank you to Arturo Serrano, Proofreader; Dan Hartland and Aisha Subramanian, Senior Reviews Editors and hosts of Critical Friends; Hebe Stanton, Senior Fiction Editor; Romie Stott, Administrative Editor and Senior Poetry Editor; and Gautam Bhatia, Co-Ordinating Editor and Senior Articles Editor, for joining us for these interviews. Happy 25 years, one and all, and here's to many more!
Transcript
Kat Kourbeti: Hello Strangers, and welcome to Strange Horizons at 25, a 25th anniversary celebration of Strange Horizons. I'm Kat Kourbeti.
Michael Ireland: And I'm Michael Ireland.
Kat Kourbeti: And it is our privilege today to welcome you to another episode that looks back at the history and impact of Strange Horizons on the speculative genres.
In fact, today is our official 25th anniversary issue. So it's a bit of a special episode, actually.
Michael Ireland: Did you bring the cake?
Kat Kourbeti: I forgot the cake. Ah, I knew I was supposed to bring something to this recording so that I offer you cake virtually! Let's pretend I have cake and let's pretend it smells amazing.
So, yeah, so today is our 25th anniversary issue on the Strange Horizons website. Every department's doing a little something to celebrate, and this is our contribution. What a year it's been.
Michael Ireland: It has been a long one, but also very, very quick.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, it's surprising. We launched this particular bit of the podcast about a year ago, and I'm kind of astounded that we've only made it to 15 episodes of just this, because we're also doing so much else. So it's just been really difficult to cram it all in.
Michael Ireland: Yeah, no, we've implemented obviously bringing the fiction podcast back as well as this, and the Critical Friends episodes are coming out fast— uh, and I was gonna say Fast and Furious, but it's not Fast and Furious.
Kat Kourbeti: They're not so furious.
Michael Ireland: And then we've also got the Writing While Disabled episodes as well. So the feed has absolutely kicked off this year, and there's gonna be much more to come as well.
Kat Kourbeti: Indeed. Yeah. What's it been like for you? Like you joined us right before it all just kind of kicked off, actually, so how's this year been for you?
Michael Ireland: Yeah, so I joined, what, two years ago at this point? I'd say the last 14 months have been a bit of a wild ride for myself personally, because I think we first met at Worldcon, is that the first time we met?
Kat Kourbeti: In real life? Yeah.
Michael Ireland: In person? Yeah. And then since then, I think you're getting sick of my face because we have spent a lot of time together and that's been great. That's been one of the motivators for me as well, is that we spend a lot of time outside of Strange Horizons doing fun stuff together, a lot of experiences all around the world at this point. It's really nice to have that connection with you. I'm not sure if any of the other departments get the amount of fun that we do, especially with the amount of in-person events that we go to as well, but that's been a good motivator for me because I like to have that connection, to be able to stream ideas with you of things I want to do on the podcast, things that are going on outside of our (working) lives. And it's like I've gained a friend, as well as just a colleague within here, and that's been just, yeah, a lot of fun for me.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah!
Michael Ireland: Well, a lot of reflective things there, because it's changed my kind of perspective on what the space is, what the genre is, because I've always been more of a consumer, but since joining Strange Horizons and becoming a peer with a lot of my favorite writers and just getting to talk shop with them and understand what those are— like even the Strange Horizons at 25 episodes, I've listened to all these cheats that they've got, like a master class.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, thank you! That's what I've been saying. It's like it's a little masterclass, a little hidden lesson within each episode of just like, how all these people do what they do best and what we love them for.
But I'm right there with you in that this has been a fun year because of this great working relationship. You've helped bring the podcast to what I always thought it could be, but I needed someone to tell me it was possible. And so you just came in and you were like, "all right, well, what do you want?" And I was like, "well, I kind of want all these things." And you're like, "all right, so let's do it." "Okay, great!"
And we've been to conventions together, we've met all of these people, and yeah, at this point it is a little worldwide: we went to Seattle, we went to Belfast, which is in our country technically 'cause we're both based in the UK, and then a couple of other UK based things, Easter Con and whatnot.
So yeah, it's been a really great time, just having someone in the department that I'm not just texting across a time zone, you know. Being able to chat together and being able to reach you and being able to meet up in real life and just talk shop has been really good.
Michael Ireland: Yeah, with the way that we do things as well, I think it's the neurodivergence for both of us, is that we'll be having a conversation on Slack, a conversation on Discord, a conversation on WhatsApp, all at the same time, about different things.
Kat Kourbeti: The chat is across all of the apps and somehow it makes sense. Don't ask me how.
Michael Ireland: Yeah. But it's nice to have that, if there is something that crosses my mind, and the same with yourself, we've got the accessibility with each other to be like, "here's an idea, or here's a thing, or is this a problem?" And then we're there for each other immediately, and it's really nice to have that reassurance, to know that we're not just going through this...
Kat Kourbeti: In a void. Yeah. That often happens, I think, and I've had experiences like that even in my time on this mag, just because of everybody being like really disparate, where it's like, "all right, so we wanna do this... yes?" And then it can be crickets for a while, and then it's like, "yeah, okay, cool." "...Okay, great!"
It is a strength of this magazine that we are from all over, but there are challenges, and sometimes they're really felt, especially because in a department such as this, which is quite in flux and there's just a lot going on, not really being able to coordinate in real time as much was definitely harder, I will say.
But yeah, we've got a lot of really fun things on this feed now, and that's thanks to you arriving and pulling up your sleeves and being like, "all right, I'm ready, let's go."
Michael Ireland: Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: So thank you for that. It's been a joy to listen to all of these new voices on the podcast, the narrators who have come in and are helping us bring all these stories to life that we haven't been able to in the last little bit, and then also just having all of the other stuff. The variable feed has been really fun and new, and not many podcasts really do that.
Michael Ireland: Yeah. I enjoy the fact that it does work, because I would challenge myself to try and see how we can make things work, that it does become enjoyable for us, because we get to do so many different creative things now where it feels like the podcast department is a (real) department. Even internally, it feels like we've had a voice over the last year, which is really nice, and people are engaging with us outside of our own department. Because obviously if you're just dealing with your own stuff within there, it's hard to bridge that gap between departments sometimes. But it feels like that has been a big strength of ours over the last year, just getting the ideas and things like that from the other departments, and I feel like that's just gonna keep growing stronger as we celebrate that 25th anniversary.
Yeah, it's been nice having that challenge for myself, you know? I never know if I'm gonna be able to do it or not, but the fact that I'm like, it's on the table, like, here's the things that you want to do, here's my ways of trying to work them out, that constant collaboration that we've got— because there's things that you will take charge on, there's things I'll take charge on— but we're never out of sync in that sense. Always checking up, making sure either of us needs a hand in either way, of being able to push and pull in the directions that we need each other, to make sure that we are keeping happy as well as getting nice new episodes out.
Kat Kourbeti: Busy, but also happy. Like, it's very important to enjoy what we're doing, A, 'cause it's a volunteer job and if it's not fun, why are we doing it? But I think that also translates to what the listeners are getting and hopefully it all comes through.
We've got some really nice interviews with current staff for you today, so instead of looking back at the contributors side, we've spoken to some people who are on the team right now, from all different departments, to see A, how does it all work and come together? B, how are all these people feeling about their time on the magazine and especially now celebrating 25 years, and just for readers and listeners to get a glimpse into what it takes to put this magazine together. Because there are so many of us, we are from all over, and that's what makes Strange Horizons what it is.
So we'll cue up some of those interviews for you now and we'll be back with you once they're done. Enjoy.
Arturo Serrano, Proofreader
Arturo Serrano: I am Arturo Serrano and I'm a proofreader at Strange Horizons.
Kat Kourbeti: And how long have you been on the Strange Horizons team?
Arturo Serrano: About a couple years.
Kat Kourbeti: That's cool. What's it been like being part of the team thus far?
Arturo Serrano: It is frankly an honor. During my interactions with the team, I have noticed that we have people from literally everywhere. And it is one of the few occasions when I have been part of collaborative efforts where I don't feel strange being the one from my country. Because I have been part of other editorial teams, and most of the times it has been mostly American people or British people, and I always felt like the one weird kid in the cool kids group. But at Strange Horizons, I can feel more relaxed, because the team is truly global and there is an atmosphere of true welcoming and acceptance of people from all origins.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same way. We all get to work together and see what everybody thinks and what we wanna build together. It's really special and really fun.
So what do you do as a proofreader?
Arturo Serrano: Each month, the team of proofreaders receives a series of assignments. The team of proofreaders is about half a dozen people, and we are split in groups. Each month, a number of proofreaders is put in charge of the stories, another is put in charge of proofreading the poetry, another team handles reviews, and it cycles every month. There is a style manual: we take as reference the Merriam Webster dictionary, we take as reference the Chicago Manual of Style, and we have developed a very structured process for marking the bits that need to be corrected, escalating that to the next highest person in the team. And it is also very structured in terms of deadlines, because all the articles and stories have a set deadline. We already know in advance when each article is set to be published, so that helps us distribute our workload over the month.
Kat Kourbeti: And do you have a favorite thing, a favorite sort of section to proofread?
Arturo Serrano: I like reviews, because when we review poetry, for example, it takes more effort to identify which variations in punctuation or spelling are part of the poetic intention instead of a mistake. Sometimes that happens with stories too, but with reviews, which are basically nonfiction in normal prose, it is clearer to identify when a mistake is a mistake.
Kat Kourbeti: I hadn't thought about it that way. That does present a challenge. Do you have to then communicate with the poetry editors or the poet directly, when that happens?
Arturo Serrano: We mark the article, the pieces that we consider might perhaps need to be corrected, and we escalate that to the supervisor of proofreaders. I don't know how often on their end they end up contacting the author, but I suppose it must happen on occasion.
Kat Kourbeti: I can imagine. Yeah. Just kinda like, did you mean this, is this intentional?
And what has your experience been like? The last couple of years on Strange Horizons have been quite eventful. We won a Hugo last year, we were up for another one this year, and to be part of that, has that kind of put a pep in your step? What has that felt like to you, to be part of this team right now?
Arturo Serrano: I think the practice that Strange Horizons has adopted and persisted in adopting, in naming the entire team in lists of eligibility and lists of finalists for awards, creates a stronger sense of belonging. When Strange Horizons is nominated, or is mentioned for any purpose, I inevitably get the feeling that some of that was caused by my effort. And I'm sure every one of the other departments gets that same feeling, because the magazine goes out of its way to recognize every single person who participates.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, I think we blazed the trail for that, for sure, and I'm glad to see other teams do that too now because it does take all of these people to do all this. It's a lot of work.
Arturo Serrano: It takes a global village.
Kat Kourbeti: It really does take a global village. Yeah. So I suppose the work carries on— are you working on anything this month?
Arturo Serrano: This month in particular, we are assigned reviews. I have already checked the posts for this week, so that basically leaves me free to do my other stuff until next week.
Kat Kourbeti: Okay. And what is your other stuff? What are you working on right now?
Arturo Serrano: I am a reviewer and editor for Nerds of a Feather. I am also part of the team at the Galactic Journey, I am finishing my degree in creative writing, I have recently joined the team of volunteer translators for Global Voices, and I am in the initial stages of planning my second novel.
Kat Kourbeti: That does sound like a lot of work, but it's all fun though. It all sounds like fun stuff. What are you working on in terms of the reviewing and writing about science fiction and fantasy?
Arturo Serrano: You mean at Nerds of a Feather?
Kat Kourbeti: Yes.
Arturo Serrano: There is mostly a degree of freedom that we give all the contributors in deciding what they want to review. Sometimes I browse lists of upcoming books and suggest them to the team, but it is never mandatory. Each member has their own specialties and their own obsessions, and we like to celebrate each one's obsessions because that way we get to hear about movies and books and games that are usually not mentioned.
Kat Kourbeti: And can you tell me what your novel is about? Is it in any way related to your first novel or is this a completely new project?
Arturo Serrano: Oh, it is different. My first novel was an alternate history. The second one, I'm planning a time travel story. I have this idea of a sort of "congress of centuries", a place where representatives of each century meet to debate how time travel is to be used, because in many stories of time travel one finds the problem that time travel messes up more than it fixes, and the story becomes the story of how to clean up the mess.
Kat Kourbeti: Yes.
Arturo Serrano: So in the one that I'm planning, there is this whole process of deliberation to try to use time travel responsibly, and to see whether it is at all possible to use time travel in a way that messes up as little as possible.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah.
Arturo Serrano: I am still trying to figure out how to handle the complication that the characters are going to be replaced every time they do something. So how does one maintain a cohesive narrative?
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, the format will have to be, the structure even, less dependent on a specific character's journey and more the collective journey. It sounds like fun. I will read this when it's out.
Is there anything you'd like to say to the team of Strange Horizons and to the readers and the listeners? For our 25th anniversary.
Arturo Serrano: I love that this era of science fiction has been called the Rainbow Age of science fiction, and I especially love that Strange Horizons has positioned itself as one of the showcase examples of what makes the Rainbow Age what it is.
Kat Kourbeti: Thank you, that's beautiful. And yeah, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to give us a little message. Really excited to talk to one of the proofreaders finally, and to meet you, even though it's from very far away.
Arturo Serrano: Thank you for having me.
Kat Kourbeti: My pleasure.
[You can find Arturo's website, and ways to follow him, here.]
Dan Hartland & Aishwarya Subramanian, Reviews Editors & Hosts of Critical Friends podcast
And here I am joined by the lovely Reviews team, who you might also know as the Critical Friends team. Hello friends.
Dan Hartland: Hello.
Aisha Subramanian: Hello.
Kat Kourbeti: Do you mind introducing yourselves and telling us a bit about what you do at Strange Horizons?
Aisha Subramanian: Do you wanna go first?
Dan Hartland: We always do this. I knew that was gonna happen. Like, we just defer to each other. Yeah, I can go first, but would you like to go first instead?
Aisha Subramanian: I could, but what about you? (both laugh)
Dan Hartland: I'm Dan Hartland, and I'm one of the Reviews editors here at Strange Horizons.
Aisha Subramanian: I'm Aisha Subramanian, I am also one of the Reviews editors at Strange Horizons.
Kat Kourbeti: And how long have you guys been with the magazine? A while, I think, right?
Dan Hartland: Yeah, I think it's 10 years. Is it? I think it is. I think we started in January 2015.
Aisha Subramanian: Yeah. 2015.
Kat Kourbeti: Wow.
Aisha Subramanian: Yeah. That's terrifying.
Kat Kourbeti: What's that been like?
Dan Hartland: Yeah... (both laugh)
Kat Kourbeti: Giggles.
Dan Hartland: The only viable response to that is laughter.
Well, of course we started in January 2015 with our late friend Maureen Kincaid Speller. So we were originally a trio, and Maureen was the senior one of the three, so she just told us what to do really, and we did it. And of course, with her passing, we kind of wanted to carry on in order to do the work that we think she would've wanted us to do, although I would not wish to presume that we've achieved that aim. She's probably like somewhere going, "oh, these guys!"
But yeah, so it's been, I dunno what your experience is, Aisha, but it does feel as if it's been a kind of, there was "with Maureen" and then there was... "not with Maureen."
Aisha Subramanian: Yeah, I think the dynamic obviously shifted quite a lot. As you've already seen, Dan and I both take being told what to do very well, and telling each other what to do is complicated. But yeah, I think I possibly felt more involved in some ways in like, the adminy decisions when Maureen was around. Now I defer to Dan for a lot of things, which is a bit unfair to Dan.
Dan Hartland: Yeah. I don't know why!
Aisha Subramanian: But it has changed a lot.
Dan Hartland: Yeah. I think it has. I think we had a plan when we started, which I think we followed through on. But because it was a plan that the three of us put together, it's then taken sort of some thought to fill in, and you can't—
Aisha Subramanian: Yeah.
Dan Hartland: —fill in the gap. The things we wanted to achieve, you probably remember them completely different. And if Maureen was able to answer the question, she'd remember them differently too. But I think we wanted to diversify the reviewer base even further. Like our predecessors, Niall Harrison and Abigail Nussbaum, had done great work in that, foundational work, really. Like we would've been nowhere if they hadn't done that stuff. But we sort of pushed that further.
We also wanted to diversify what was reviewed, and that is in terms of who wrote it, but also what they are writing. I dunno, did it get weirder? I would say that we're quite interested in the literary edges of all this stuff. We do a lot of core genre, but we'll also do kind of stuff that's really, not just curling the edges, it's just a screwed up ball at this point.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, but that's been fun though. I think as a reader myself of the reviews, it's been great to have that diversity of, not everything is the traditionally published novels that you will find in bookstores. There will be reviews of Japanese light novels and manga and even films. Like we're taking it to just like the story level of "everything is valid and your opinions are valid, and I wanna hear about them". And by extension, like, for me, I'm like, this is great because a lot of this stuff either I wouldn't have heard of, or it's perspectives I hadn't heard or seen before, and it's been really great to just have that, and have a market for it. It's been lovely to see that expansion actually.
Aisha Subramanian: I think part of the sort of commitment to weirdness and diversifying what we're publishing is also the literary edges of the genre, but also the literary edges of what you can do with a review sometimes. So if you're doing something formally very weird, or unexpected or just full of footnotes— because we do love a footnote— we're interested in playing around with that, and playing around with the forms, and seeing what we can do there. And that feels like that's something that Maureen really encouraged and that we tried to continue, and sort of play along with.
Dan Hartland: Yeah, I think so, I hope so. The form question is really important, I think, and as Aisha and I have hopefully already demonstrated humorously, I think if you pushed me to name our approach, it would be "consensual". Like we're trying to reflect a community as broad as possible within a department, and what we want is not to set a Strange Horizons review format. I'm sure there is— like, we are quite long, so we tend towards longer than shorter; we tend towards analytical more than we do summary. So there are sort of characteristics of the SH review, but on the other hand, if you wanna come and you write a review purely in footnotes, you can; if you wanna do choose your own adventure, please do; if you wanna do a "proper academic thing", you can; if you want to do something almost essayistic, please do. And we also publish almost reader report-y reviews too.
So hopefully what comes out of that is as polyvocal a blend as two editors can achieve, 'cause we're obviously bound by our own interests. We get loads of emails in saying, "can you please cover this book and can you please cover that book?" And we will offer books out that appeal to us to some extent, although hopefully also trying to think outside the box, but we also invite our reviewers to tell us what books they've been reading and what books they think we should be covering. So again, we try to plug the gaps. We try to be open.
Kat Kourbeti: And you've been doing criticism specials as well, which kind of really expand that just by sheer volume of words, which is great as well. Have those been fun to put together, stressful to put together, a bit of both?
Aisha Subramanian: Yes (laughs). Fun, stressful, both.
Dan Hartland: I would go as far as to say, I don't think it was our idea. So I think I'm right in saying we were just told by Gautam (Bhatia), "you're gonna be doing a criticism special now". And like just the one, like "you'll just do it one year, see how it goes. Like we'll just do that one special, like we do other themed specials". And we're like, okay. And then we did that one and it was like... "it's gonna be annual now."
Aisha Subramanian: Everyone kept sending us pitches for the next one, before we'd said that there would be a next one. So... kind of had to.
Kat Kourbeti: At least your work's done there at that point.
Dan Hartland: I will say that like, it's great because there is a kind of mini —and very mini— but there is a mini boom of spec fic criticism at the moment. So it's nice to be able to provide a platform for that, and also our reviews are, as I mentioned, they do tend analytical, so it's nice to have one issue a year where we can give people even more room than we usually give them to do that thing.
We've also tried to use the issue as a way of bringing new people in, giving that extra space, or using that extra space to persuade people to come and write for us. It's a bigger hook to catch people on. So yeah, it's been a really great way I think of affirming the reviews department whilst also expanding it at the same time. It feels like both, it feels like just an extension of what we do anyway. And also, something else.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, just kind of like a natural little annex, if you will. But yeah, no, I think they have been fun. Sorry to hear that there has been stress involved, but special issues will do that (laughs). I feel like every time I've worked on one, there's always just a lot going on at the same time. They are fun when the work is done, for sure. So we'll look forward to the next one, which I think is in January of '26, if I recall.
Dan Hartland: Yeah. We're trying to forget that, but I think so. Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: And what about Critical Friends, which you guys started as a new podcast on the main feed. It was the first step in diversifying our podcast feed, which now has four different shows on it, which is really fun. But how did that come about and what's it been like for you guys?
Aisha Subramanian: I can't remember why that came about really. I think it was just that we spent a lot of time, the three of us, talking about criticism and... why not have an audience?
Dan Hartland: Yeah, I think that's right. I think 'cause we just had an ongoing chat, where sometimes we talked about Strange Horizons, but most of the time we just didn't, and talked about other stuff. And at one point, I think one of us just said, "podcast?" And then someone else said, "podcast!", and that was it. I think Maureen was really keen to do it, especially keen to do it. Any opportunity to talk about books, she would just jump on.
The thing that always surprises me, I dunno about you Aisha, is when I get an email and I get them often, saying, "ah, I really enjoyed listening to that episode. That was great. Please do more." And I'm like, "Really? Are you sure?"
Aisha Subramanian: The one that weirds me out is when people who you know in real life listen to it. It's very concerning. I found out that my friend's nephew is a fan of the podcast and I was just... I remember your first birthday. That's ridiculous.
Dan Hartland: And it's nice to be able to, again, to talk about the different formats, like Critical Friends has had many different kind of models. It started as a three-way conversation, we've then had kind of interview episodes, we've then had guests, we've had themes, we've had just Aisha and I talking about a thing we've just read. And then the last couple have been, like the one we did on SF in translation, where I just get two reviewers to come in and talk to me about the things that they're thinking about. So it's just a really nice way of hopefully reflecting a little bit the kinds of conversation that the reviews we hope can start.
Because the review isn't— this is how I see it: a review is not the end of a conversation, it doesn't put the full stop on the reading. "Okay, that's what that book means. Next!" It's much more, "what do you think?" And so in a way, the podcast is a way for us to try and give the reviews some legs, to let them fly a little bit further. I dunno whether it works, but that's the idea.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, I think it definitely works. I was very pleasantly surprised by adding a new thing to the existing feed. At the beginning, I wasn't sure. "Oh, do we maybe make a new feed? We could create like a new account? Like, what should that be?" And then it was like well, I'm sure that the people who listen to the fiction and the poetry would be keen on this, and if they're not, they can skip that episode, whatever.
And actually it's helped to keep the feed going a lot of the time and B, like you say, brought new people in, because having those conversations where it's a little more loose and a little more casual and perhaps a little more approachable, and it's less of a scary thing of "let's talk about analyzing literature", you know, where a lot of people won't necessarily wanna do that and like, read a whole thing 'cause they maybe think they're not capable of understanding, or whatever.
It actually expands barriers, just kind of knocks them down and goes like, "we're just talking here, just talking about this thing that we read." And in fact, your first episode that was just like, "what even is SF criticism?" It's like, "well, yeah, actually, what is it? Great question!"
Dan Hartland: I feel like that's the question of every episode, we still don't know!
I'm really glad you say that thing about approachable though, thank you. Because I really hope that it is, because it can and should, in places and parts, be quite a high minded discussion, but I also think if it can be fun and accessible, then that is I think quite important, to use a word that does also sound forbidding.
Especially in some of the more recent episodes, I felt my role is "ask the stupid question", and see what comes back, because don't assume anything. Keep it at that kind of initial, "let's just poke around, let's poke this thing and see what happens." So yeah, that's great, thank you.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, no, thank you. And I'm glad it's going strong and more regular, and those new formats are fun. If anything, it's opened up my sort of, not expectations, but possibilities for what the podcast could be.
'Cause when I inherited the department, it was very much, "we just do the fiction, poetry, the way it is on the page, no frills, day and date, go". And after a certain point it was like— first of all the rhythm was relentless and very hard to keep up, but then also there was a sense of like, "is that interesting?" And not just for listeners, but also for the folks who work on the podcast, it's just doing that same thing.
And by injecting Critical Friends into that, it was like, that just means the podcast doesn't have to be what it's always been. We can think outside the box. And that gave us the opportunity to think about things like Strange Horizons at 25, which this interview is a part of, and once that project is over... new things. The sky's the limit really, and that reflects Strange Horizons, I think. We just kind of do whatever we feel, and sometimes that means we break new ground.
Aisha Subramanian: I think that is part of the whole— we occasionally call ourselves an anarchist collective, when people ask about the organization of the magazine, and that is how this works. And sometimes it does seem to work in ways that are surprisingly harmonious. I know when it comes to controversial moments in science fiction, most of us are pretty much on the same side of things. We mostly have the same broad politics, the same broad tastes, the same broad interests. So it's never quite chaotic, even though it is. It's conversational.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. It's very interesting, in fact, how the magazine seems to attract folks with the same kind of ethos without like explicitly necessarily asking for that. Like it's never in the volunteer calls, it's never, you know, "you must be of a certain persuasion or have a certain sensitivity to these issues in order to be a part of this team", but the people who say, "yes, I would like to be on this team" are people who see the work and they go, "I wanna be part of that, that sounds great."
And yeah, we don't always coordinate with each other, in fact the departments can be a little siloed— you know, we're all, like you say, anarchic, we all just do our work and we hope that we're building a similar or the same thing— but when we do, we all just seem to come together and be like, "I like what you're doing. I like what you're doing. Oh, that's great." It's really cool.
And what has this last year been like for you? We won a Hugo on the eve of our 25th anniversary year, and now it's been a full year of work since then. What has that felt like and been like for the Reviews department?
Dan Hartland: I think, especially when you're running the Reviews department, I'm very conscious that reviews aren't necessarily a weather making thing, right? So we help conversations happen, I hope, and we provide hooks for conversations to begin, I hope. But we're not like the Fiction department, right? We're not like the Poetry department. These are the places where the artists go to do their art, and then we're over on the other side throwing stones at it, right? On that level, I think any given year in the Reviews department is shaped by what stuff are you getting in, and what are you gonna make of that?
And I've found this year really interesting, because it has been so multiplicitous. There hasn't been— and someone will write in or whatever, but here's my thesis so far— there hasn't been a single book or text that you can say "that's 2025 right there, that's the thing that we will all remember this year for". There hasn't been really a single theme necessarily. I tend to think that themes last for longer than a year, but there hasn't been a trend or anything that you can say "that's 2025". And so what we've resulted in is a year of real kind of breadth of stuff, which has been great. We've had reviews of Jurassic World, and we've had reviews of obscure —that shouldn't be obscure— texts in translation that are really challenging.
So what it's felt like in the Reviews department is, "oh my God, we have to get three reviews of 2000 each out every week, wah!" But it always feels like that, so the other side of it is, I'd like to think that it's been quite a polyvocal year again.
Aisha Subramanian: Someone would need to sit down and actually count things, which probably won't be me, but I don't know if people are writing to us more or submitting more, but I get the impression that they really are. And I don't know if that's something that's come about around the Hugo as well, that there's possibly an audience of people who wanted criticism and saw us win the Hugo and were like, "oh, okay, this exists, maybe there is somewhere I would send work".
But I remember when we first took over Reviews, there were weeks when we were scrambling, and sending out emails to people who had reviews due to make sure that they got things in on time, so that we would have those three reviews. And I don't think that's happened for months.
Dan Hartland: Yeah, that's right. I mean, just to sort of peel the curtain back, we are scheduled a month in advance now, which is just, as Aisha says, that was unknown like—
Aisha Subramanian: It was such a luxury to even be a week in advance.
Dan Hartland: Yeah. Yeah. And for a lot of literary magazines, they're already six months in advance. Maybe it feels like, "oh a month? Really, they're running at that pace?" But for us it feels like, "oh yeah, we can sit back here." Because genuinely, Aisha is right, early years it was not just chasing people for outstanding reviews, but chasing people saying, "you don't happen to have a review, do you? Like, just like lying around, that you could give us...?"
Aisha Subramanian: "I know we gave you till like next week, but by any chance..."
Dan Hartland: Yeah, yeah. And so I do think, again, maybe it's partly to do with the mini boom. There are other places as well, there's like Ancillary Review of course, there's Typebar, there's Speculative Insight. So you get a critical mass and then the writers are thinking, "oh, I can write this stuff", and then they're looking for the platforms for it. Maybe that's part of it.
I'd like to think as well, as Aisha says that it's something to do with what we've been doing and people think, "oh, actually they seem cool". But who knows? All I can say is, yeah, we are really lucky, and we've always been lucky with the writers that we get. We wouldn't be here without them.
But yeah, the fact that we have more of them than ever as well is just, yeah, super double-plus good.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, no, it's been great. I'm glad that the Venn diagram of all of the factors has conspired to give you a lot to work with. It's probably all of the things, and that's great. Being able to see, say, someone's voice in a review that they might think, "oh, maybe I could also write a review, because if they can do it, maybe I could do it".
Reviewing obscure things that it's like— you know, I interviewed someone very early at Strange Horizons at 25 who wrote reviews of light novels because, and I quote, she "enjoys trash". And it's like, well, yeah, but trash is great though!
Dan Hartland: Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: It's a big part of our media diet, and I think that it deserves a critical look, and it's great that we don't discriminate in that regard. And so yeah, a reviewer might see that and go, "yeah, you know what, I also like this other thing. Maybe I could send in something." And so I hope that keeps happening, because it's awesome.
It's awesome to see just what people think about stuff. A lot of the time it helps me personally like, pick out things to read I might not have thought about. Or, you know, looking at my TBR not really feeling inspired, and then I'll see a review and I'll be like, "oh yeah, actually, do you know what? I already own that, I'm gonna read that next." So great, and I hope that it keeps going.
Dan Hartland: I would really like to say one thing, and I think this was something that Maureen felt. Like, if you'd have asked Maureen what were the plans, I think she might have said way back in January 2015, in a way that Aisha and I might not have done at that time, but do now— she would've said, "I want to create the next generation of reviewers". I want to use and abuse Strange Horizons as a guerilla operation for breeding new reviewers, right? Just for growing them in vats.
I really think anyone that wants to write a review can email us. We really want new writers, and we take the time if they want help, or just publish the thing if it's perfect first thing. Whatever you are reading, we want to see it, because the whole point of this is that we need reviews always, and we will only have a sustainable reviewing culture if we have reviewers all the time. And I would say that's probably the other mission of the department. Yeah, we've still got the vats, they're still bubbling away.
Aisha Subramanian: But also criticality is a moral and ethical mission as well as a way of sustaining the reviews department. Which obviously is the main goal of creating more reviewers, but still, there's also an ethical component to it.
Dan Hartland: Yeah, exactly. I would say that the Strange Horizons Reviews Department is part of the wider Strange Horizons family, first and foremost— although absolutely 'cause we're this anarchist collective, our departments are semi-autonomous, they do their own thing, but I'm glad we all feel that we're also part of the family— but also it's then part of a wider, not science fiction, but literary critical community, and it's just part of that. And we would not demur from being a small part of it, but hopefully as Aisha says, the purpose is not just that we keep having three reviews a week, but that there is something underpinning that which is of wider value and gets wider audiences.
Kat Kourbeti: Well, thank you guys so much for taking the time and chat to me today, and really look forward to seeing all the lovely things coming from your team and the podcast, of course.
Dan Hartland: Thanks, Kat.
Aisha Subramanian: Thanks, Kat!
Hebe Stanton, Fiction Editor
Kat Kourbeti: I'm here with Hebe from the Fiction department. Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do at Strange Horizons?
Hebe Stanton: Yeah. Hello, I'm Hebe Stanton. My pronouns are they/them. As Kat said, I'm one of the Fiction editors at Strange Horizons, so I acquire stories for the magazine, I edit stories, work with authors, and do all that good stuff between receiving fiction submissions and getting them onto the website.
Kat Kourbeti: And how long have you been at Strange Horizons?
Hebe Stanton: Okay, so there were two parts to this. So I started up for Strange Horizons as a first reader in I think either 2020 or 2021. I did that for about a year, I think, so that was doing the first pass over the submissions that we get. And the editing team at that point promoted several of the first readers, and I was one of those first readers, so I've been doing this for— again, what is time? Time is a flat circle. Part of this was during the pandemic, so like when time did not pass— so, three or four years, I wanna say. Maybe. That sounds too long. Yeah, something like that.
Kat Kourbeti: In a relative sort of way, I agree with you. I think I joined the team in 2020 and... yeah, I don't know, man, it feels at the same time like a century and also like no time has passed at all. So who's to say? But yeah, you've had the experience of being a first reader as well, which is very interesting to jump from that to being one of the people who makes the decisions.
What was it like, first of all, joining as a first reader and learning what the process is and how to pick stories really, to send up?
Hebe Stanton: That's a good question. I had obviously been reading the magazine for about five years. So I feel like I already had a decent handle what a Strange Horizons story looks like. And obviously there's a lot of variation in what a Strange Horizons story looks like, but there's a vibe that you can sort of navigate by. Reading submitted short stories can be quite different to reading published short stories for a number of reasons; there's also the difference between what you like as a reader and what would be a good fit for the magazine, so there was that to refine through.
But really, yeah, it is just experience, just getting to know what you see a lot, very common sort of story shapes or story concepts, and refining as you go along. And of course, stepping up and being able to be like, "oh I can actually take the stories that I really like and... make them published!" That's a sentence. That has also been a joy as well, but I've enjoyed it all the way through. I wouldn't say that being a first reader was less of a meaningful thing to do than being editor. Like, they're just different.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, for sure. And we need those first eyes, because my goodness, we get a lot of submissions. I think it's great to have that bigger a team to be able to do all of that. And I can see a lot of the time, in the credits that we started to do in the fiction, that you are also the first reader. So do you go through the slush still yourself?
Hebe Stanton: Yeah, all of the editors obviously read the stories that the first readers pass up, but we also read from the general submissions, just to help out and, yeah. We all read all the things.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. So I know that we open up submissions just a few times a year, it's not always going. But what is that like, when the submissions are open and everything comes flooding in?
Hebe Stanton: Firstly we're usually only open for a very short period of time. We have a story cap, which for general submissions, it's usually a thousand. We've been playing a bit with what kind of stories get submitted this year, and the caps have been a bit different, but yeah, generally for general submissions anyone can submit to, it's a thousand. And yeah, it doesn't take us very long nowadays to hit that cap. Like, it used to be that you could count about three days of being open, now I think last time it was less than 24 hours.
I guess it feels quite intense, just because there is often a lot of people asking questions during that period that you sort of have to answer straight away because there's a time limit. But like also it's not a long enough period to feel like really overwhelming. You know, there's one day when we want to make sure that people are answering emails like, regularly and reasonably quickly, but apart from that I wouldn't say it feels that different to sort of normal business.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, okay, well that's good at least. And maybe that's the secret that we've figured out as a market, 'cause you hear some horror stories out there from other markets that I'm glad that we don't have that much of, like, say AI submissions and things like that, where it's like actually quite reasonable, maybe because of all this.
Hebe Stanton: I think I've said this in various places before, but because we have very short opening periods and we have that submission cap, and we're only open a couple of times a year, we're not a very good target for AI spammers, just because the return on investment doesn't make sense, you know? Like, you have to target really closely to know when we're open and that's just not the model that these people are operating on.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah.
Hebe Stanton: Yeah, luckily we have avoided most of the onslaught.
Kat Kourbeti: So there's quite a few Fiction editors in your team. What's it like working with everybody across time zones and all of that? How does the cake come together, if you will?
Hebe Stanton: Firstly, time zone's always fun. We are quite distributed. There are some challenges that come with that, but like generally, I think certainly I've got used to thinking, "oh this person's on PST and this person's on ET, when can I expect them to be around and see stuff?"
I think the most interesting thing, in terms of having a range of people on the staff, is just to see what the different things that people prioritize or, what each of us is looking for in a story. And that's slightly different. I know Kat Weaver for instance, and also Aigner (Loren Wilson) I think, they're both very much looking at precise, elegant, streamlined language. And I can definitely admire that and I can go, "oh, this is a very tightly constructed story", but I generally lean more lush or ornate prose style than they do, and obviously we have different focuses in terms of what we like thematically.
Like I was saying earlier, there's an SH range, like, it's all in the sort of Strange Horizons range, but it's just interesting. You have to put yourself a little bit in other people's heads to be like, "this story isn't for me necessarily, but it might be for someone else. I should pass this up for someone else to look at."
Kat Kourbeti: So do you get to know each other's tastes only through seeing what they choose to publish, or is there a process through which you guys get to know each other to say like, "usually I look at this or my preference is this, so if you see anything like that, send it to me"? Is there anything that specific for you guys?
Hebe Stanton: So I think it's a combination. Obviously, we do see what each other publishes to some extent—we'll have at least two editors agree on a story that it should be published. We also have conversations about the stories that we're taking and the stories that we're considering. We'll often say "I don't like this because this particular thing bugs me in stories generally", or you know, "I enjoy this about this story".
And sometimes we have larger like, policy discussions? Like, what particular themes are we interested in seeing in the next year? Are there any specific things that we don't see very often in spec fic that we are looking out for, or are particularly interested in publishing?
So yeah, there isn't like a specific structural process. It's not like we have a little questionnaire that's like, "what do you like in your stories?" It's more just a process of working together, seeing what we all say about things, and having those conversations organically throughout the year.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, that's really cool. And what has this year been like for you? Especially since you were at Glasgow when we won the Hugo. And what has followed in terms of the attention to the magazine and perhaps the fiction that's being sent our way? Have you noticed perhaps a difference, or the same?
Hebe Stanton: I would not say actually I've noticed a big difference, because of those very short submission windows.
Kat Kourbeti: Hmm.
Hebe Stanton: Yeah. I mean, it was wonderful to be at Glasgow when we won our Hugo after, what was it, 10 years? And the energy at the con was just wonderful. Like, you know, so many people came up to me and said, "we've been rooting for you, we're really happy that the magazine has won." That was delightful, and it was delightful to see all this outpouring of love from the community.
I don't know that I've seen a huge difference in the year since in the quality of the attention the magazine is getting, because I think we've always had that kind of quality of attention, and people have always rooted for us in the community, I think. But yeah, it's always lovely to get recognition of the work that you do and similarly, I've seen quite a few of the stories I've edited and also stories that we have taken as a team, have been getting recognition of various kinds. It's really nice to see that you've helped shepherd something into the world, and get that attention on it.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, I think that's the most rewarding thing, when I've seen someone come through here, and maybe it's their first sale or among their first, and then you hear about them getting a book deal and it's like, "hey, that's great! I just read you here like, last year! That's amazing."
Hebe Stanton: One of the things that I really love most about doing this with Strange Horizons is the number of new authors we work with. It is always a delight to be able to accept somebody's first story, or first pro story, because I think new authors are often doing very interesting and exciting things that we might not have seen before, and it's just nice to be able to shepherd something great into the world that might not have had the same opportunity elsewhere.
Kat Kourbeti: Exactly. And like you say, the spectrum of what is a Strange Horizons story is quite wide, so a lot of things fit in there very nicely.
Can you tell us anything about the novelette period that just ended? 'Cause we don't often do longer pieces of work. So what led to that decision?
Hebe Stanton: I think we wanted to run a submission period rather than solicit, because that kind of seems like a nicer way to do things, and it's quite hard to place a novelette, so I guess offering that opportunity in a way that more people could access, I think was the goal behind that. But yeah, I'm really enjoying diving into the novelettes, it's a length that I vibe with. I think it's still got the sort of clarity and focus of the short story, you can still do some very striking images in a novelette, but there's a bit more space to expand on the characters, on the narrative, to tell a more developed arc. A short story's a moment, or very crystallized, very stripped down sort of form. Having a little bit more meat on the bones is also fun to work with.
I'm also excited for our Indigenous submissions period, which is coming up in November, just because I personally would like to see more indigenous stories, and also just in the world generally. I think that would be good, so I'm hoping to get some really interesting submissions.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. That's exciting. Since this episode is in fact being recorded the week before it goes out, I will put a link to the page with the information for folks to have a look at that. But I'm excited to see the fruits of your labor in the special issues, but also just in general. You guys do the core work that we are known for, and you're all great, so thank you so much for everything you do at Strange Horizons.
Hebe Stanton: Thank you for what you do on the podcast. I think the Strange Horizons at 25 podcast has been a really good way of highlighting what we all do.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, it's been a fun little look back. It's not gonna go on forever so it is, you know, just capturing the moment and looking back a little bit. But I'm glad that we get to do these for this little anniversary issue, and we'll see where time will take us.
But yeah, are you working on anything yourself outside of the magazine, like your own writing perhaps?
Hebe Stanton: Sporadically, I would say. I have a personal blog of reviews and science fiction criticism, so I'm exploring ways to get back into that and reenergize that.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, I do enjoy your reviews actually. They can be very cutting, which I appreciate. Honestly, I like a reviewer who doesn't mince their words.
Hebe Stanton: Thank you.
Kat Kourbeti: So everyone go check out Hebe's blog, and thank you so much for taking the time to chat to me, and all the best for the anniversary and beyond.
Hebe Stanton: Thank you very much.
Romie Stott, Administrative Editor & Senior Poetry Editor
Kat Kourbeti: And I am here with Romie Stott, who is a Poetry editor and our Managing editor. Hello!
Romie Stott: Hi. Although actually the title we came up with is Administrative Editor. I think it overlaps a lot with Managing Editor, but kind of at the same time that we got rid of the Editor in Chief role, we were like, we'll just kind of make our own titles.
And so Gautam was like, "I'll be the Coordinating Editor since what I do is figure out how the departments are going to work together", and I was like "I'll be the Administrative Editor since what I'm doing is a lot of paperwork."
Kat Kourbeti: Fair enough. I've always been a little confused by it because it's like, in essence, there isn't an Editor in Chief, but the responsibility is kind of like divvied.
Romie Stott: Yeah, and we've done that before as a magazine. There was a time when we ran with two Editors in Chief simultaneously. I actually wasn't there for that, that kind of perfectly overlaps with my little hiatus, where I was off in Italy doing all kinds of stuff, and then I came back and so, it actually works really well.
I mean, kind of in the same way with the rest of the magazine that since it's volunteers and since we're 25, we like to have everything happen in depth and with backup people, because sometimes you wind up having several months where you're, I don't know, working on a dissertation or doing caretaking for a sick relative or working on a novel that you have coming out. So as much as possible, we try and make sure that no one is indispensable.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, you've been with the magazine like a long time now, haven't you?
Romie Stott: Yeah, it has been a long time. I think I've been with the magazine for about half of the time that it's existed.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. On and off, and with gaps and all that, but still, big chunk of your life.
Romie Stott: I had time to be published by the magazine one time before I was on staff and could not submit anything.
Kat Kourbeti: Such is the fate of the volunteer, unfortunately. What has that journey been like for you? From joining in and seeing the magazine kind of change and evolve through this time?
Romie Stott: Well, you know, I've spent most of my time in the Poetry department, so more of what I've watched that's been interesting to me has been to see how things outside of Strange Horizons have changed. Strange Horizons was one of the first kind of web-first publications, where it wasn't like we were publishing print, then have a website on the side. The website's always been our real thing and our focus, and 25 years ago there really weren't very many places doing that at all. There were a few, and pretty much all of them have folded at this point. So it's more like when I look back, I think some of the other magazines that I thought of as really our peers that kind of peeled away, and then I think of the magazines that I think of as our peers now, which didn't exist then and kind of rose up.
Since I, at this point, I'm doing a lot of the logistics, when I'm talking with the editors of those magazines when we run into each other at conventions to be like, "oh, how are you handling this internally?" And it's kind of interesting because a number of them will quite openly be like, "oh, well we copied your model". I'll be like, "well, but you do it really differently than us." And they're like, "oh yeah, like we changed it in this way and this way and this way". And so I find that I'm often trying to bring in innovations that have come from them where they're like, "but we got it from you." And I'm like, "but we don't do that." And they're like, "but we perceived that you were moving in the direction of doing that". So that's more what I've seen is, those kinds of shifts in the landscape.
For example, when Strange Horizons started, having a big volunteer staff was pretty innovative, and it still is somewhat. But the model of "we're not gonna pay the editors" was a real political statement at the time, because we were just coming out of— you know, again, 25 years ago— we were just coming out of seeing over and over these scandals, where there were magazines or writing contests or things with submission fees where the editor was getting paid and the writers weren't. So it was just this vampire kind of publishing industry of, you're doing it for the exposure and you're lining the pocket of the person who's reading the submissions. And Strange Horizons was like, we're doing the opposite. Like we don't pay editors, period. We always pay writers.
And now it's kind of circling back around to, 'well, but it's not equitable, we need to be paying the editors because now you're privileging the viewpoints of the kinds of people who can afford to be volunteer editors". And that's been a big push from Clarkesworld and from Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and I really admire what they're doing in that space, but then also being somebody who's been around for this long being like, "yeah, but I know why we did it the other way", and I don't know that we're ready to abandon that.
Similarly, in poetry specifically, I think back to a lot of the magazines that I really miss that were doing only speculative poetry. I mean, Goblin Fruit, I miss so much, or like inkscrawl, I miss, like— there were a number of them that I read that are just not around anymore, 'cause the editors moved on to other things, and because it is still financially difficult to do this, and that was before you had Patreon and things like that. Being a donation funded magazine was really difficult before you had the infrastructure of Patreons and Kickstarters and that kind of thing. It's still difficult, but it was even more so.
It's also been interesting to see, like— I don't know, about 10, 15 years ago, we were still standing up for the idea that speculative poetry counted as literary poetry, that it didn't need to be just kind of doggerel. I know that there are people who really love the poems in the Lord of the Rings, but I know that most people just skip them, and I am one of those most people. And there was kind of this history of thinking of science fiction and fantasy poetry as being that, when what I and the other poetry editors at the time and still were seeing was, "oh, but the internet is so much a part of people's lives now, science is so much a part of people's lives now, but also, what are the mythic figures they're drawing on?" Mythology in itself we're willing to say is speculative poetry, but people are writing poems about Superman, and we all understand that that's culturally significant.
And so we were having to constantly stand up for the idea of "this is valid as literature, even though it has these science fiction and fantasy elements", and then there was the much harder fight of actually going to science fiction and fantasy readers and being like, "you should be reading poetry; it's not bad in the way that you maybe thought it was. There's a space for you and it's doing a different thing, and it can be opening kind of the emotional fantastical out to you." And I think we've been really successful about that, and it's the thing that I am most personally proud of Strange Horizons for, is the fact that we are publishing fiction and poetry and essays and book reviews.
So you might be showing up at the page to read a short story, but then you're like, "oh, okay, I'll take a chance on this even though it doesn't seem like my thing, because I'm excited by the little hook that's on the menu". And I think that in the same way that we help readers discover new writers and new voices— which is, again, so much a part of what we care about— I also feel like we're letting people expand into sort of sub genres and side alleys that they're like, "I'm not usually this kind of reader, but I'll check it out".
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, I mean it's a big part of what sets Strange Horizons apart from a lot of other speculative markets, because poetry is so much at the forefront of what we do. I certainly hadn't considered speculative poetry, like as a writer, as something that I could potentially branch out to or even try, really, 'cause I hadn't written poetry in a long time until I read some in Strange Horizons and I was like, "wow, that's so simple and so effective, look at all this stuff that people are doing!" Especially the stuff with the strange formatting and the strange interactive web elements. There's a lot of stuff that Strange Horizons really pushes the boundary of what you even think poetry might be, which is great.
And then to see things like the Speculative Poetry Hugo this year is just a great part of that journey of speculative poetry being really recognized, and I think there's even a bit of a boom in it right now.
Romie Stott: Yeah, and I mean, props to our web team and also to the poets who think it's possible, because yeah, sometimes we're publishing stuff that's in formats that we could not be doing in print. We've published poems where it's a spreadsheet that you can reorganize. We've published poems that you click and it animates and transforms.
And— hopping over to the administrative editor side, that's been a kind of continuing conversation, of how do we deal with the fact that we are technology forward and technology moves along. Like we've had to make some kind of internal rules about how long we'll support something, because it might be in a version of Java that we can't run anymore and it breaks. And like, how many attempts are we gonna make to repair it? Versus at what point do we say, "okay, this is just an archived piece and we'll describe what it was like, but we can't host it anymore". Because, you know, ideally we would have a permanent archive, but in some cases we run into kind of a technological limitation there.
And I'll say there are also some styles of poem that are harder for us to do than a print magazine. Something that I run into is, if there's a poem that requires very intense visual formatting, you know, the sorts of poems where it's like, "oh, it matters that it's forming the shape of a keyhole. Oh, it matters that it's forming the shape of a balloon", that is quite challenging to do on HTML because again, we are looking for maximum accessibility and people are reading on different size screens, and we are a volunteer staff and we're not running multiple versions of the website that like check, this is the version for iPhone and this is the— we have one version, 'cause we don't have time to make a bunch of versions and we just have to kind of do the best fit. We're also concerned about, is this still compatible with a screen reader?
So yeah, sometimes there are some poems that people send me that it's like, are you sure that you've thought about who's gonna be publishing this? 'Cause it's not gonna look like what you sent us. And people have been very like, "oh yeah, of course we know". It's like, "okay, just we might have to change some line breaks." Not because you were wrong, but because it's gonna run off the page.
Kat Kourbeti: I am fascinated by that, by the formats that might break because technology moves, because I certainly have been guilty of this where I've thought, "this will be here forever, right? Like, why would this not work after a while?" And then you see websites break because stuff needs to keep updating. So that's really fascinating and a little sad, but... what do you do right?
Romie Stott: Yeah, I mean, shout out to the Internet Archive. Like, there have definitely been websites that I've had to go back and be like, can you show me what it looked like in 2007, maybe?
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And for yourself, poetry has been your love, and the thing that you still do for the magazine. What was it like taking up more of the logistics stuff as your journey brought you this way? Was that quite a challenge?
Romie Stott: Well, that was always a natural fit for me, like in my life outside the magazine, my graduate degree is in film, I'm a film producer. All of that stuff is actually closer to really what my aptitude is most of the time, and I sort of wound up stepping into it in a backup capacity with our previous Editor in Chief, Ness (Phin Rose), which is kind of why I was able to then bridge it when Ness stepped down, because I was already getting called in as a backup, I'll say partially by virtue of being based in the US. Like, we have such an international editorial staff, but legally the magazine is based in the US, the bank accounts are in the US, so you need to always have somebody in the US who can do things like physically show up in a bank if need be. Ness was also US based, but I was the backup, and it was partially because of having worked in the international film scene. I was normally pretty able to troubleshoot getting money to somebody in a country that we didn't usually get money into.
Some of the more exciting logistical times for that have been— there was one time I needed to get money to someone in Cameroon and we could not get money into Cameroon, but I could at that time get money into Nigeria, and I knew somebody who lived on the border of Cameroon who just like drove it in. There was another time that we needed, after a fund drive, somebody had just gotten some postcards from us, and the postcards were physically in like Washington, DC area, and we needed to get it into Australia, but it was during COVID and Australia had completely locked down international mail. You could not get mail into Australia for a while. But my cousin's brother-in-law was in the Australian government and was visiting him in Texas for Christmas, so I got the postcards to Texas, which were then handed off and hand couriered in the luggage of an Australian government worker back into Australia, who then put them into the internal Australian Post.
So it's a lot of logistics behind the scene like that, that I actually find really interesting. Like on a simpler note, one of the rewards that we delivered this year was a book that we did need to get into a war zone in Ukraine. But that just meant the postage was expensive, that wasn't actually that complicated. I'm trying to think of any other— oh yeah, there was a time when we had a reviewer who was based in Libya, and again, with international sanctions, I was not gonna be able to send any dollars into Libya. So we just had to kind of hold it in escrow until he was, I think in Germany, and then we could say like— it's stuff like that.
Kat Kourbeti: Wow. But it does sound like your background as a producer helped you troubleshoot there, 'cause that's a lot of what producers do.
Romie Stott: Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: Oh, but that's kind of fun in its own way, right?
Romie Stott: It's actually my favorite part, like, it's not speculative, it goes into more like espionage thriller—
Kat Kourbeti: A little bit!
Romie Stott: —but it's like, it's pretty fun.
Kat Kourbeti: That is pretty fun. Oh, that's so cool.
So you've taken the helm of being the signature person now, but it's kind of a tandem role, right? Like the poetry still is something that you get to do.
Romie Stott: Yeah, with the rest of the Poetry department.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah.
Romie Stott: We really are an even-handed staff within the Poetry department. I mean, all four of us are doing the same amount of reading and accepting and deciding how things run so, about three months of the year I'm very intensively being the Poetry editor, and the rest of the time I feel very, very confident about the decisions of everybody else. I mean, we're all around all of the time, but we make sure that it's something that gives us a lot of breathing room to pursue our own, other projects.
Kat Kourbeti: Which is great, and it also kind of gives the Poetry department its own personality— like we all, every department kind of does that, because it's all quite a equitable sort of thing and every editor gets to pick their own things, but it's really nice to know that you can count on your team.
Do you guys get together very much, virtually or otherwise? Or is it just kind of like texting, emails?
Romie Stott: I mean, I think we're all actually like very sociable and pleasant people, but like there, there is that sort of quiet bookish, scribbling in an attic, lowering down muffins in like a hand basket aspects to like being a poet. So we all, I think, are pretty comfortable with taking care of our own work, like the, a lot of the peace of it is just basically being like, I'm gonna leave you alone, you're gonna leave me alone. We actually like each other, but we also like that we are sitting quietly in separate rooms.
Kat Kourbeti: That is the quintessential image of the poet right there.
Romie Stott: Yeah, unfortunately we are completely that. Again, we're each pretty fabulous and fascinating in person. But I dunno, there is something nice about having a really quiet space, and also, again, not second guessing each other. If an editor accepts something, they've just accepted it and that's it. So knowing that you can say, "I like this kind of poem, send it to me", it's gonna go through. Nobody's gonna say, "well, but that's not my favorite". Doesn't matter.
And I think that's a lot of what I find exciting about it, is not just the fact of having less workload, it's being able to also enjoy the poetry in the magazine as a reader, because it's not stuff that I've fought over or worked over or had to like pick. It's somebody else whose taste I really respect a lot, said, "hey, read this". I'm gonna read that.
Kat Kourbeti: And then I suppose the other question is, what has this last year been like for the Poetry department, and perhaps you can tell us a little bit about the general attention the magazine has gotten in the last year, 'cause certainly since the Hugo win, but just, you know, also because it's our 25th anniversary and it's quite a long time we've been around... what has this last year been like for you?
Romie Stott: I definitely can't speak for the Poetry department as a whole on this, because again, we're very head down, get your work done, independent study, like as a team. I felt really glad to see the Poetry Hugo happen. It was fairly personally affirming because it was a poem I accepted, that won. So it's like, ha ha! The industry at large agrees that I am making choices that please the industry at large!
But it also, like, yeah, I already knew that was a good poem. They were all such good poems. It's like it's my job to pick favorites, but it's also so hard to pick favorites because there's so much exciting stuff that's out there, including a lot of the stuff I reject, 'cause we can only take so many poems. So it's also exciting to see those things then publish somewhere else where it's like, yeah, I knew that was good. Like we couldn't take it, but that poet's great. I think I would've been thrilled for anybody winning, because there's so much exciting writing going on, and it's also so encouraging to see people deciding to start writing poetry that didn't really think of that as possible for them.
And I think social media has been very good for poetry because it's so easy to share a poem, or to just like read your daily poem, like as a way to like pep yourself up. So I think poetry reading is really at a high right now, and I've been glad to see it because it's fun to play with language, and it's fun to think about how to intensify the way that you're expressing something, or how to say it in a way that's vivid, that's not a cliche, that gets to the heart of it. And I think a lot of those skills then translate back into prose writing very well, so it's really a virtuous circle. I think a lot of the writers that I like do both. There are some that do one or the other, but I think it's really common, so it actually feels much less siloed. It doesn't feel like, "oh, and here are the poets". It's like, "oh, and here are the poets who are, in many cases, the same people who are the fiction writers".
And I also like funny poetry quite a bit. This has been a year that I've felt that that's really been needed. When I see something that makes me laugh, it's such a relief. And being able to still have all the connections, just knowing that people are still writing and are still sending things in, and are still to see and treasure little moments. I think that's a very sustaining thing, as it was during COVID, and as it is kind of anytime we have political turmoil. Even if it is a sadder, angry poem, you know, the fact that you're responding with a poem is itself, I think, really beautiful.
Meanwhile I'll say in my personal life, it's just been a really hectic year. I've had a lot going on, but then I also— my first novel came out, Nothing in the Basement, and I've also been back and forth to New York a lot in development on a couple of stage musicals. One of them went up briefly in May, and then the other one, I'm actually about to head down on Monday to do another kind of preview of. So it's been a little bit of fitting Strange Horizons in around that, and my day job, and my family.
Kat Kourbeti: And all the creative stuff, but it's great that it's all going well. Very excited to hear about the musicals. Are they speculative in any way?
Romie Stott: They are, they're both speculative and I'm not the music writer and I'm actually not the lyricist, I'm just the book writer. So one of 'em is a 10 minute musical that went up in May that is called First, Contact, and it is about, that NASA has received a signal that they think might be alien, they haven't actually confirmed it yet. And they're like, "so everybody be calm, we're reporting that this has happened". But of course people are not calm, so it's about kind of a conversation that happens in a bar after that.
And then the full length musical, which is the one that I'm heading down on Monday to work on some more, is called The Lady Takes The Mic, and it's a musical that's actually about a failed musical from like 30 years ago that everybody's kind of reminiscing about in a piano bar. We just like setting things in bars! But Death and Cupid are also there, and everybody just kind of accepts that they're just bar patrons who are dressed like this essentially, but they do have supernatural powers and are able to do things like take us back and forward in time, or take us into what people are thinking.
Kat Kourbeti: Are we talking togas or?
Romie Stott: We're, we are! We're talking Death in like a, a big old—
Kat Kourbeti: Robe?
Romie Stott: Huge robe with a scythe that he does have to like, check at the coat check. We are talking Cupid with wings and little underpants, and like a little tiny gold bow that he treats like a purse.
Kat Kourbeti: Excellent. Oh, I hope I get to see that someday. That sounds delightful, and congrats on the novel also. It's a lot of work to get to that point.
Romie Stott: Yeah, it is a shorter novel, so it's a very easy, comfortable read. I kind of tell people, if you're looking for something for your book group, that they will actually finish in time, it's a shorter little novel.
Kat Kourbeti: I love a short novel personally, the same way that I love novellas— excellent length, 10/10.
Romie Stott: Absolutely. I think especially when you're kind of writing horror, and this is horror— it's nice because filler is not scary. No disrespect to Stephen King, who I love and who writes huge door stops. He could do it; I don't know that I could write something that stays scary for that long.
Kat Kourbeti: Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean— 25 years, uh, long may we reign?
Romie Stott: Yeah!
Kat Kourbeti: Do you have any hopes or wishes as we go into year 26?
Romie Stott: As administrative editor, what I'm always really looking at is just sustainability. So I'm just always trying to get revenue regularized, trying to make sure that we stay— I want us to keep the balance of being idealistic and being ambitious, but also not getting burned out. Because we could very easily churn through people because we can just say, "oh, well, but it's constantly evolving, we're constantly changing" and it's like, yeah, but we've made some great stuff that has then caused like mass resignations 'cause everybody's too tired. So unfortunately it's my job to kind of always push for the boring stuff, to be like, "let's just keep moving forward in a very smooth and predictable way."
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, I think I've been guilty of coming up with some great ideas, and then you're like, "yeah, but can you do that though?" And then I'm like, "hmm, she's right. No, I couldn't." I'm definitely the very excitable, you know, "shiny new idea, must explore it" kind of person, and then I don't think about future me who's gonna have to deal with the actual logistics of putting all that stuff together until it's all happening. And then I'm like, "oh no, I don't have the time for this."
Romie Stott: Yeah, I mean, same. So do we all, which is why there has to be somebody at the magazine to be like—
Kat Kourbeti: "Guys!" And I thank you for that. I think it's crucial to strike that balance and I do think that we're all working on some cool stuff going forward, but it is important to just keep in mind like that it is real people doing this stuff, and it does take time and effort and all of that.
Romie Stott: Yeah I think if I was picking my title again, it would just be Wet Blanket Editor. Wet Blanket editor, that's me!
Kat Kourbeti: "Will not blanket say yes to everything," and I respect that.
So thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to talk to me and to share a little bit about your experience of Strange Horizons, and look forward to seeing more of your edited poetry and all of the good stuff.
Romie Stott: Yeah, we have so many cool poems lined up. I'm so excited by everything that we have coming up. It's some really good things.
[You can find Romie's website here.]
Gautam Bhatia, Coordinating Editor
Kat Kourbeti: And I am here with Gautam, who is our Coordinating Editor, which is an unusual title. Is that your favorite title?
Gautam Bhatia: It is the title.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah.
Gautam Bhatia: And just to give some background on that: when our last editor in chief, Ness, moved on a few years ago, we decided that it was more in keeping with the anarchic flat structure of the magazine to not have an Editor in Chief, but to divide up some of the administrative roles among ourselves.
So mine was that of Coordinating Editor, which means that the primary task is to make sure that the weekly issue is published, which is actually quite easy because the work is done by all the departments. I just have to read it once at the backend, make sure that there is nothing egregiously off somewhere, which has never been the case, and then just hit publish.
So that's about it. Other than that, the work involves doing the magazine's public facing tasks, liaising with award committees, getting into fights with the Hugo committee every year about the masthead, and just doing all of that correspondence. And in a certain way also, just mediating internal conflicts within the magazine, which again have been very few. It's not really been required, just a couple of times perhaps. And finally, to oversee the Fund Drive, to ensure that it's working and again coordinating basically, in the classic anarchist formulations, administration of things, and not a government of people. Just like that.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, someone has to pull the strings together, because there's so many of us.
Gautam Bhatia: But someone has to hit publish basically. Just think of it that way.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. Someone has to hit the big red button!
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: And that's not all that you do, because you never gave up your original position at the magazine, right?
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, I joined the magazine in 2016 as one of the four new Articles editors, and then three or four years later, when at that time Ness was the head of the Articles department and Ness became the EIC, then I became, I guess we called it "Senior Articles Editor", just overseeing the department. And then when Ness moved on, I became Coordinating Editor, but I stayed on as an Articles Editor as well. So that's been nine years in that position.
Kat Kourbeti: Wow. Nine years is such a long time. It's almost half the life of the magazine, like, getting there. I think both you and Romie are among the longest serving folks, and so it makes sense that you're also overseeing things, because you've just seen it all basically.
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, it's been a while. (laughs)
Kat Kourbeti: What's it like sharing that kind of managing, coordinating position with someone? I'm assuming it's a good thing to be able to share that load.
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, for sure, because Romie handles the finances and I have no head for finances at all. I just know that we have a budget and that you have to stick to it, and that we need to raise money every year in the Fund Drive. That's about it, but the banking stuff is handled by Romie. And it's fluid, so if for whatever reason I'm not around on a Monday, Romie can publish, and does publish the issues. Sometimes, we correspond together in certain contexts. Like right now we are corresponding on a Japanese special issue with the Japanese editors, so Romie is telling them about the funding, finances, answering them about structure of the issue, things like that. So it's a very good thing to share that load.
I will say, I think that Romie's role is far more strenuous than mine, because handling the accounts I think is a lot more effort than hitting publish.
Kat Kourbeti: There is no hierarchy here—
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: And I feel like that's the point. It's just different. It's different stuff.
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: So in this nine year tenure, how has the magazine changed? Has there been a journey? Do you feel like you've seen things come and go?
Gautam Bhatia: One is when the staff keeps changing, because of course we have volunteer roles, right? Attrition is quite high, and understandably people have lives to live and capitalism, you never know when something comes along. But the magazine's core values have always, I think, remained constant.
I think our biggest point of pride's always been that we have been and continue to be many writers' first sale. So in that way, doing what we can to mitigate some of the gatekeeping that really, I think, taints this genre. So I think that's continued, and just making sure that we are progressive as a magazine and that we have no tolerance for racism, misogyny, any kind of anti trans behavior, any of that. Anti genocide, of course, it's also very important. So I think we've remained that and we've done that, and you know, (at the) last Hugo Awards spoke for Palestine from the stage.
So yeah, I think that's just been our consistent stand throughout, and the people in the magazine have always reflected that. I think the new thing that's happened during my time has been our geographic special issues. So from Palestine, to Mexico, to Brazil, to Nigeria, to Southeast Asia and so on. I think they do two things: one is that they let us spotlight to the English speaking genre world, areas, places, people that otherwise might not be spotlit, and then introduce new writers to people, but also they help us take stands on issues. A science fiction magazine has a very tiny scope for actually meaningfully intervening in the world, but when we can do something like a Palestine special issue at this time, that is something we can do. And so this geographic special issue lets us do something with respect to what's happening around us.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. It's been certainly a point of pride for me, since my joining the team in 2020, you know, putting a little bit of something towards the podcast part of it has been so much fun. And just, yeah, like you say, taking a stand in the current climate and especially watching others kind of not do that, it's been great to be part of a magazine where we all really care about this stuff here.
How do those ideas happen, for the special issues? Have you spearheaded any of them? Or do they come from other places?
Gautam Bhatia: So it really depends. For example, the Palestine special issue, one of our former editors, Rasha, was just lamenting, and rightly, the absence of focus on Palestine in genre space. And I said, why don't we do a Palestine special issue? And that's how it happened.
And one issue that I spearheaded myself and conceptualized was the extractivism special issue, Science Fiction and Extractivism. In fact, there's a personal story there that the person who is now the person I'm with, who at that time was not the person I was with, was the one who suggested Extractivism and gave me a bunch of readings, and the entire issue was actually conceptualized around the readings that she gave to me. So I acknowledge her in the introduction.
But otherwise, it was a democratic process, right? We solicit suggestions on the Slack for next year's special issues, because we have to fund them using the Fund Drive, the stretch goals, and then we just pick three or four and we go with them. So it's just a crowd-sourced set of ideas.
Kat Kourbeti: In which case the geographical diversity of the staff—
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: Helped with that, which is great. Super cute to hear that there's a little like, romance story hidden in the Extractivism special issue!
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, actually, we had fallen out of touch for a few months for external reasons, and the day the issue came out, I emailed her and I said, "look, this is all inspired by our readings". And so we began talking again and we have never stopped talking after that.
Kat Kourbeti: I love hearing stories like this, and I love that this isn't the first or only time that Strange Horizons has fostered love in some capacity. I think one of the next episodes that will air in the Strange Horizons at 25 series is an interview with Tim Pratt, who met their wife because of a Strange Horizons party. I love hearing stories like this because it's just the meeting of people with similar ideas, and just how that can blossom into the real world. How lovely.
And also, yeah, I mean, I really liked that essay about the Expanse in that issue.
Gautam Bhatia: Yes!
Kat Kourbeti: Which is one of my favorite science fiction series ever, and just to see that kind of analysis on it? Fantastic. Highly recommend to anyone who hasn't read it. We'll link that in the description there.
Watching all of that happen over nine years and you've still been doing the articles editing stuff... What has that journey been like for you, going from volunteering as a writer to taking up more responsibility as an editor and then now, just adding on top of that plate?
Gautam Bhatia: I think it's been good. It's been so incremental. So I began by reviewing, just being a reviewer, 2014. So it's now been, I think 11 years since the time I submitted my first review to Strange Horizons. Abigail Nussbaum was the editor back then. And then I was added to the Reviews pool and I began to review more frequently.
In 2016, they opened up for Articles positions. I applied because I really enjoyed working with the Reviews department and just felt that this was the right place for me to be at. And then I spent three years in the Articles department, then two or three years as Senior Articles Editor, and then Coordinating Editor.
So it's just been this very slow process where I just learn more and more about the magazine and as my roles change, so it's never felt as if anything is rushed. It's always been very nicely paced.
Kat Kourbeti: That's great. And of course it's not just you running the whole Articles department either. You're sharing the load with more Articles Editors.
First of all, I mean, I love the stuff that you guys do in the Articles team. How does it complement and/or juxtapose what happens through the work of the Reviews team?
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, I think on many occasions, Reviews and Articles deal with the same subject matter, but from a different lens and on a different scale. So one of my favorite articles that I edited was a cold pitch about Orientalism in the works of Guy Gavriel Kay, and for me that was very important because as a teenager, as a child, Guy Gavriel Kay was a foundational influence on me, and epic fantasy works.
Then at some point, unfor— this is why you should not follow your favorites on Twitter, because then you find out about their politics and this ruins the whole thing— so unfortunately, he turned out to be, have quite bad views on— and this is far before genocide, this is the mid 2010s, but of course at that time there was still like violence and there was still massacres that Israel was committing regularly in Gaza and in the West Bank. And his views were basically repugnant to me, and so I stopped reading him because... you can't do it. But then actually this essay really made me understand all the latent, not just Oriental, but anti-Arab undercurrents of Guy Gavriel Kay's work, which made so much more sense after that.
So while Reviews would be, you know, reviewing specific works, and sometimes of course Reviews also does more big picture things, we compliment each other in that Reviews is the focus, and then we are like the wide lens.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. I've really enjoyed seeing the analyses that come out of the articles and the kind of broader picture looks at genre, from all different perspectives and in all different kinds of situations. It's been great.
And how does the Articles department work? Like how do you divide the work amongst yourselves as editors?
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, there are three of us right now. So what we do is that at the beginning of the year we divide up months amongst ourselves based on who is free when, and we take one month slot each in the Fund Drive, because we have no December issue. And then Samovar, the translated magazine, takes up three of the slots.
It ends up being roughly three to four articles a year for each of us, and then the columns, which come in regularly, and then it's up to us. So we can commission, we can take it from the cold pitch, that's up to us, each of us.
When I joined there was a mix of articles, conversations, round tables and interviews. Over the years, I think we have moved more towards an article focus, essay focus, and I personally like that. I think it gives you the scope to explore ideas in depth. And of course we still do interviews, we still do conversations. I personally enjoy articles and essays the most, so yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: And how would, like, a new person who would like to get in touch with you to perhaps pitch something, what's that process like for new folks entering fray?
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, unfortunately our email addresses have been down for the longest time now, but they can always pitch us individually. My email address is on the masthead, it's just my name, Gautam dot Strange Horizons @gmail.com. I know that because I just had to disclose that for a US Visa application, so I had to write down the email address. So if they email me with a pitch, that's how they find us.
Kat Kourbeti: So with all of that said, you've watched the magazine's sort of both stay the same and also evolve over this time— what has this last year been like for you, as we celebrate 25 years, and you know, with a recent Hugo win and all of this stuff, what feelings does that evoke in you?
Gautam Bhatia: I think the longevity of the magazine is incredible, especially because our funding is entirely crowdsourced every single year. And when I joined, I think that we were already at that time one of the longest running online magazines, and now of course we still are because it's been nine years since then. So I'm just very thankful for just how long we've been around, and doing what we are doing and the way we're doing it. I think it's something that we never take for granted because in this world, in capitalism, like when the money will dry up, who knows, right? So just grateful for every single year and 25 years is, you know... yeah, hopefully 25 more and then 25 more, until the heat death of the universe, you know? (laughs)
But yeah, the thing again is that as the Coordinating Editor, it's pretty much the same thing year on year, so it's just like, you're grateful for surviving and thriving one more year. And of course doing new things and planning new things, and hopefully we'll have a book out at some point, things like that. So you know, tallying all those things is always a highlight.
Kat Kourbeti: It's been really fun seeing the response from people to stuff that we do, the whole time I've been here, but especially this year, I guess because you don't think about time until it just hits a milestone.
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah, yeah. It creeps up on you. Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: So it's just been really great to see how much what we do has meant to people.
Gautam Bhatia: Yeah.
Kat Kourbeti: And as a closing thing, we were recording this, I think a couple of days after your actual birthday, so—
Gautam Bhatia: Ah, yes. Yes.
Kat Kourbeti: Happy belated birthday!
Gautam Bhatia: Thank you! Thank you.
Kat Kourbeti: And so as we go into year 26 and beyond, what would you like to say to the team at Strange Horizons and to the readers and listeners who are reading and/or listening to this interview?
Gautam Bhatia: I think it's been a great journey, and I think it's important to just hold on to the really core principles and values that make us who we are, both for the team and for those who read us. And we'll always try and do that, as long as we're around, we always try and make sure that we hold fast to these principles in a world which seems to value them less and less, especially with the genocide on, something that you really feel that you're powerless to really stop. But at least in your own little sphere, it's even more important to make sure that we are continuing to articulate those principles and values.
Kat Kourbeti: Absolutely. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat to me today. It's been a pleasure.
Gautam Bhatia: My pleasure as well. Thank you.
[You can find Gautam's website here.]
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, so that was all of the interviews that I recorded over the last week or so, just in advance of this issue. And it's been really fun to get to talk to everybody from all of these different departments, some of whom I'd never actually had a conversation with before. It was really lovely.
It's really fun to meet people from all over the world who are part of what you do. It's a strange experience, I think, for most people.
Michael Ireland: It is, it's a very strange place, but it is really nice that we do get to speak to the other teams, and get to see the faces and all the things that they enjoy as well, because we get to see all the amazing work that they put out. But it's really nice to just sit back and have a chat, and let them talk about how they've been doing it, and how they're doing.
Kat Kourbeti: And some of them for a very long time too. It's kind of astounding to me, how long each of them has kept going and then just how all of that feeds into this, which I hope that readers and listeners have also appreciated and enjoyed. And then, yeah, we have plans also going forward, both for this podcast and the podcast in general, and... outside the podcast, question mark? So tell the listeners where we're gonna be pretty soon.
Michael Ireland: So we have World Fantasy Con around the corner at the end of October, in the town of Brighton in the UK, and Kat and myself will be in attendance along with some other team members of Strange Horizons, and we may have an age old tradition coming back, which is... get your cups at the ready, get your kettles on your back (?), and fill a cup up, 'cause the Tea Party's back!
Kat Kourbeti: We're bringing the Tea Party back, that's right. A lot of writers that we've interviewed on Strange Horizons at 25 have said how big a part of their connection to Strange Horizons was, in the early days at least, of the Tea Party usually held at WisCon. And we thought, wouldn't it be fun to bring the Tea Party back?
And so with World Fantasy Con happening in our backyard this time in the UK, we thought we could do that. And so we're doing it, we're gonna have a lovely little social meetup, basically, it won't be structured like a panel or anything like that, but those of us from Strange Horizons who are going will be in attendance. We'll bring some lovely, delicious tea and maybe cake? I don't know, whatever I can find around Brighton, probably.
Michael Ireland: We'll bring the cake.
Kat Kourbeti: And so, yeah, so if you're coming to World Fantasy Con and you wanna meet us and also the rest of the team, I think Vanessa Jae from Poetry is coming, and Joyce Ch'ng from Articles is coming— and they're also gonna be in Fiction, I think, starting next year.
So please come and meet us and have a cup of tea and we'll have a lovely time. It's gonna be great.
Michael Ireland: It's gonna be a lot of fun. You'll get to see the chaos that me and Kat usually bring to these conventions.
Kat Kourbeti: Quite a bit of chaos. Organized, lovely, delicious chaos, but chaos nonetheless.
Michael Ireland: Yeah. I'm trying to put some of that on you, 'cause I know I bring the chaos and I'm like, "but Kat can't hold me accountable."
Kat Kourbeti: I will bring the tea this time. In fact, there's a lovely tea company that's Brighton-based that's my absolute favorite, and they have a big store opposite the convention hotel, and that is just destiny. It's just fate. I'll bring an assortment and it's gonna be delightful.
Michael Ireland: Perfect. And what does the future hold for the Strange Horizons podcast?
Kat Kourbeti: I mean, a lot of the same lovely stuff that we've been doing. The fiction will continue as it has, and hopefully with even more aplomb. We have new voices joining us, there's gonna be lots of lovely stuff happening. And we're not stopping this, even though I know I said initially September to September, but the fact is this wasn't enough, and I already have way more episodes recorded than I know what to do with, so we will do 25 episodes for 25 years, of Strange Horizons at 25.
So we'll finish that, wrap it up lovely in a bow and then— because this has been fun and because I've had a lot of authors say that this has been fun to listen to and that they'd love to come on, you know, people who were part of just the great big Strange Horizons family— I don't think we're stopping the interviews, it's just that we'll have to re-frame them, 'cause it will no longer be the 25th anniversary, you know, we have to let the podcast move along as well.
But there will be fun interview stuff as well, going forward. We're still looking for a new name for the podcast, so if anybody has ideas, send them to us. We're open to your suggestions.
And then we have some plans, which we're not fully ready to make announcements yet, because we have to figure out the timings and things... But I suppose suffice it to say that those of you who have been missing the poetry podcast can have something to look forward to in 2026. Vague announcement in the ether. Not announcement. Vague... just vague.
Michael Ireland: That's a teaser.
Kat Kourbeti: Vague teaser in the air.
Michael Ireland: We should have done it in rhyme.
Kat Kourbeti: Oh, no, God! I mean, can you tell I'm not really a practiced poet? We should have had Brandon (O'Brien)!
Michael Ireland: Yeah, I was gonna say, get Brandon on the phone.
Kat Kourbeti: Should have had Brandon write us a little something.
By the way, if you're listening to this and you were not present at the Hugos, watch the fantastic poem that Brandon used to introduce the Poetry Hugo with, because it's a delight and I really genuinely think he should be nominated for a Best Related Work Hugo next year, because oh my goodness, I cannot stress this enough, it was a thing of beauty.
Michael Ireland: So good. And he also— that was the introduction to (a poem from) Strange Horizons winning the Poetry Hugo.
Kat Kourbeti: We could not have known that, but yeah.
Michael Ireland: A nice little bonus for the 25th year.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. It really truly cemented Strange Horizons as one of the markets— speculative poetry has loads of homes for it, but we've been here for a very long time and championing this particular format, and what an amazing recognition that was. Just truly made me very happy.
So thank you for joining me today. As you like to say, "it's been emotional".
Michael Ireland: It has been.
Kat Kourbeti: And yeah, I look forward to everything else we're working on. It's been and continues to be a blast.
Michael Ireland: There's gonna be many more (things) to come from us, and the rest of Strange Horizons as we fly off into the future. Is that what we're doing? We're flying off?
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. To 26 and beyond.
Michael Ireland: To 26 and beyond. 26 is gonna be a good year, you know that?
Kat Kourbeti: I hope so. Yeah, I think so.
Michael Ireland: I mean that for 2026 and the 26th year for Strange Horizons, both of them. It feels like it's just still starting.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah. It absolutely is only the beginning of, at the very least, what we are trying to do on this podcast. But we're also just on the general journey of the magazine, which continues to do great work all across the board. We have some great special issues coming next year. There's all sorts of fun stuff being planned that we just got funding for through the Fund Drive, so it's just gonna be a great year.
Michael Ireland: And yeah, if you're ever at any of the events or you ever want to talk to us, we make it fairly easy for us, where we're usually at all the conventions, at least myself and Kat. And we're on Blue Sky, I think that's one of the main ones as well as Instagram, that you're really gonna get all the updates about what's happening throughout the next year from Strange Horizons.
Kat Kourbeti: Yeah, you can obviously follow the magazine on both of those, those are our two main platforms. You can find Michael and me on there as well, and as he said, usually, the two of us will be at— not all the conventions, but possibly the big ones, you know, like, if it's UK based, we're probably there. If it's Worldcon and it's attainable, we're probably there. And if it's not us, someone from the team probably is. The good thing about being so global is that we're spread everywhere, and chances are someone from Strange Horizons is at your local con.
Michael Ireland: That's not, that's not a threat.
Kat Kourbeti: We are numerous and mysterious and you can't know which one of us are from Strange Horizons, but we are among you and, uh, you should know that.
And a big thanks, in fact, to everyone who's come out to talk to us at Seattle and other cons, who came to say hello, thank you and hey back, and it's been great to meet everybody. So we look forward to meeting even more of you. If you're coming to World Fantasy, please come say hi, and next year at other cons and stuff. And if not, on social media. Come say hey, tell us about your favorite episode. We'd love to hear about it.
Kat Kourbeti: Thank you so much for listening, and to all of our colleagues for taking the time to chat to us. A full transcript of this episode can be found on our website, Strange Horizons dot com.
Michael Ireland: Strange Horizons at 25 is a project helmed by Kat Kourbeti and Michael Ireland in collaboration with the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast was composed by Michael Ireland and Andrew Gorman.
Kat Kourbeti: Until next time,
Michael Ireland: —stay strange. (quietly)
Kat Kourbeti: Silly goose.
Michael Ireland: Yeah.