Last Updated: 24 March 2026

What We Publish

We publish poems with a science fiction, fantasy, horror, mythology, supernatural, or science/technology element.

You can read nearly every poem Strange Horizons has published since 2000 in our archives.

Pay Rate

Our pay rate for new poetry is $50 (U.S.) per poem, regardless of length or complexity. We buy first-English-language worldwide exclusive print rights for six months.

How to Submit

Please use our Moksha submissions system to send us your poems.

We accept the following file types: Text files (.txt), RTF files (.rtf), Word 97–2003 Documents (.doc), Word Documents (.docx), PDF file types (.pdf)

• No more than six (6) poems at a time. All in one file is fine. Separate files are also fine.
• Don’t worry about the cover letter or word count fields. They will almost never influence our decisions. However, if your poem draws substantially on another work (centos, golden shovels, erasures; riffs on fairy tales, tv shows, books) please identify the relevant works in the cover letter.
• Previously unpublished work only. We don’t run unsolicited reprints. If it was previously in print and available to readers, offline or online, including on personal websites or message boards, then it’s been published, regardless of whether or not you were paid for it. We will consider previously unpublished English language translations of work that has been published in another language than English, if the original author is on board.
• We accept simultaneous submissions. If your poem is acquired by another publisher before we reply to you, then please withdraw your poem using the Moksha system. If you submitted the poem in a file with other poems and can’t withdraw it without withdrawing all of them, then please email us about it.
• No auto-generated text. We expect you to actively select each word you use in your poem.
• We reply within four months. If you haven’t heard from us by the time the four-month mark passes, please email us, because that means your reply was probably lost in our spam filter.

Reading Periods

The Poetry Department is open to submissions year-round, including at times when Strange Horizons is closed to fiction submissions. The editors operate on a rotation system, so the person who reads and replies to your poem will depend on when you send it.

December 2025: Romie Stott (she/he)

January 2026: Vanessa Jae (she/her/hers)

February 2026: Lisa M. Bradley (she/her/hers)

March 2026: AJ Odasso (they/them/theirs)

April 2026: Romie Stott (she/he)

May 2026: Vanessa Jae (she/her/hers)

June 2026: Lisa M. Bradley (she/her/hers)

July 2026: AJ Odasso (they/them/theirs)

Each editor has jurisdiction over work submitted in their reading periods. Romie and AJ are only senior editors in length of tenure. They do not review or overrule decisions made by Lisa or Vanessa. Please note that AJ’s name is AJ, not the initials A and J with periods after them. You can always address a submission “Dear Editors” instead of to a specific name.

Statements From Individual Editors

If an individual poetry editor is seeking a particular type of poem (or actively repelled by a particular type of poem), then they can clarify that here.

AJ Odasso: Please don’t send me poems generated or translated by AI tools, chat bots, LLMs, or similar. What I do want to see is verse that’s drawn from what drives you, fascinates you, excites you, obsesses you, grieves you—what you absolutely need to put on the page.

Lisa M. Bradley: I do not want submissions written or translated by, or with the assistance of, AI/LLMs/chat bots/etc. Also, I receive lots of mermaid, mushroom, and Little Red Riding Hood poems, so those are a hard sell now.

Romie Stott: I’m probably the slowest to respond of all the editors. It’s not personal.

Vanessa Jae: I’m looking for intensely human poetry: raw emotions with experimental structures, beautiful words describing unspoken experiences. Be ruthlessly you and share it with me (and the world). I also never get enough science fiction poems.