Ominvoracious interviews black Canadian science fiction writer Minister Faust:
I was born and have spent my whole life in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My mother’s family came to Alberta in 1910 when the province was only five years old.
Magazines and Editors Who Want More Diversity in Their Slushpiles
As I continue posting lists of POC short fiction, you may start to notice a trend in the markets you see attached to the stories. The same ones come up more than once while others never appear at all. Sometimes that’s due to the editor/s, but often it’s also due to writers not sending their stories to particular markets.
As a writer I can be a bit picky about which markets I’ll submit to and which I won’t. I have a list in my head of places I feel aren’t worth my time or postage because the editor doesn’t seem interested in fiction with a POC perspective at all. But markets change, editors change (or move on, allowing for new editors), and sometimes editors actually want to publish more POC but just aren’t getting a lot of submissions from them.
Last year I make a list of magazines I knew wanted more diversity and asked editors to let me know if they wanted their markets added to the list. Here it is again (minus those markets that no longer exist):
- Fantasy Magazine
- Sybil’s Garage
- PodCastle
- Asimov’s
- Electric Velocipede
- Clarkesworld Magazine
- Strange Horizons
- Southern Fried Weirdness
- Dog Versus Sandwich
- Ideomancer
- Weird Tales
- Greatest Uncommon Denominator (GUD) Magazine
- Brain Harvest
- Three-lobed Burning Eye
Anthologists
- Delia Sherman
Editors, if you want your market or name added to the list, say so in comments.
Hopefully this list will be useful to readers as well. It’s not always easy to know which magazines are more likely to have stories written by POC or even including POC characters. This is a good place to start.
First Order of Business: May, June & July Short Fiction
Thanks to the Carl Brandon Society for having me as a guest blogger this month! I’m very excited about contributing and will hopefully institute a few regular features. The first one I’ve already talked about a bit on my other blog, The Angry Black Woman — each month we’re going to list the short fiction that’s been published by POC in magazines and anthologies. Part of the CBS mission is to bring attention to our fiction and I’m happy to facilitate that. Plus, I like having a handy reading list each month of stories I’m likely to be interested in.
Since it’s already July I’m going to spend the month playing catch up. So for today here are all the short stories published by POC in magazines in May, June and July that I know about. Want to be included in this or future lists? Check out the verbiage below the stories.
May 2009
- Change of Life by K. Tempest Bradford — PodCastle
- Élan Vital by K. Tempest Bradford — Sybil’s Garage No. 6
- Enmity by K. Tempest Bradford — Electric Velocipede issue #17/18
- The Death of Sugar Daddy by Toiya Kristen Finley — Electric Velocipede issue #17/18
- Eating Ritual by Toiya Kristen Finley — Sybil’s Garage No. 6
- Enzyme by Lee Gimenez — Ascent Aspirations Magazine
- On Sale Now by Lee Gimenez — Dark Fire Magazine
- Paper or Plastic by Lee Gimenez — Sonar 4 Magazine
- Unhistory by Lee Gimenez — Orion’s Child Magazine
- The Fourth Horseman by Yoon Ha Lee — Electric Velocipede issue #17/18
- From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7 by Nnedi Okorafor — Clarkesworld Magazine
- Good for the Gander by Don Pizarro — Fantasy Magazine
- Down in the Flood by Nisi Shawl — Podcastle
June 2009
- Another Beautiful Day by Lee Gimenez — Skive Magazine
- September 12 by Lee Gimenez — Aphelion Magazine
- Shard of Glass by Alaya Dawn Johnson — PodCastle
- Homecoming by E.C. Myers in A Thousand Faces
July 2009
- Placa del Fuego by Tobias S. Buckell — Clarkesworld Magazine
- 20% Off Designer Genes by Lee Gimenez — Static Movement Magazine
- A Small Sacrifice by Lee Gimenez — Morpheus Tales Magazine
- Daniel 7 by Lee Gimenez — M-Brane Magazine
- The United States of Generica by Lee Gimenez
- Tough Love by Don Pizarro — Reflection’s Edge
Should your story be on this list? If it was published anytime in 2009, then: yes. Please let me know! I’m also going to add stories to the Carl Brandon wiki and I don’t want to miss any. If you’re a POC author and had a spec fic story published in a magazine or anthology, be it online or print, in 2009, please fill out this form.
Editors are welcome to alert me of stories I missed as well. I hope that editors and authors will give me a heads up every month!