The Basics
Stories should be submitted to:
orionsbelt.submissions@gmail.com
All stories must be under 1200 words (not including the title and byline). All stories over 1200 words will sadly be rejected automatically. All stories must contain significant speculative elements. This does not mean all sci-fi stories must have lasers and rockets. It just means a non-speculative story doesn’t become speculative if you include a single line clarifying the story takes place on Mars.
When to Submit
Because of the time needed to evaluate submissions and prepare stories for publication, Orion’s Belt has a limited submission window. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause to you. Stories submitted outside the submission window will not be deleted, but they will not be read until the submission window re-opens.
Our current submission window opened March 1st.
This submission window will be open until September 1st.
Response Times and Payment
We at Orion’s Belt try to answer the majority of fiction or poetry queries within a week. If we take longer, this typically means we’re seriously considering your story for publication. Because of our relatively brief response times, we unfortunately cannot always provide personalized feedback to writers.
While we appreciate the enthusiasm of authors asking about their stories, we must ask that you wait approximately two months before querying us. If two months have passed, and you still haven’t received a decision regarding your story, don’t hesitate to query the magazine at:
joshuafagan14@gmail.com
If we accept your story, we will send you a contract in the form of a Word document. Send us back the contract with your name typed at the bottom, agreeing to the terms and conditions specified, and we will publish your story. After publication, you will receive payment via PayPal. Sadly, we cannot currently pay authors except through PayPal. If you cannot use PayPal or a like service, we recommend you not submit to Orion’s Belt.
We pay a flat 8 cents USD ($.08) per word. This is the industry-standard, SFWA-approved professional rate. Thus, if your story is 1000 words (not counting title, byline, etc.), you will receive $80 after publication. If your story is 500 words, you will receive $40. We treat poetry and prose as functionally identical for the purposes of payment. The pay for a 200-word poem will be the same as for a 200-word story.
What We Want
Literature is a matter of the heart, not just of the intellect. As such, conveying exactly what kinds of stories will delight us is impossible. A story that sounds banal and cliche-ridden in concept can be philosophical and achingly beautiful in execution. Conversely, a story that sounds lovely in concept can fail to move us in execution. Additionally, while we prize elegant, vibrant writing, not every well-written story will appeal to us.
The best way to know what we like is to read what we’ve published in the past. Our past issues are free to read under our “Issues” tab. If you’re only looking for individual stories, check our “Archives” tab. Reading stories published in Strange Horizons and Beneath Ceaseless Skies will also help, as they are the two most popular literary speculative magazines here at Orion’s Belt.
Nonetheless, there are tendencies, formats, and ideas we tend to appreciate. A complete list of these would be too long and granular to be of any real use, but here is an adequate summary:
- Stories told through another medium; i.e., journal articles, mission reports, diary entries, etc. The more idiosyncratic and experimental a medium you use, the more likely we are to appreciate it.
- Characters who are rogues or tricksters working outside oppressive bureaucratic systems.
- Characters forced to make difficult decisions that may conflict with their moral codes.
- Hard-won optimism, not to be confused with saccharine sentimentality.
- Ecological storytelling that avoids clear answers or easy moralizing.
- The blurring of lines between poetry and prose.
- Extensive allusions to mythology or classic literature.
- Non-linear stories, or other stories that play with our perception of time. Bringing in special or general relativity or quantum physics is a plus, though the focus should still be on the narrative, not on the science.
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