Orion's Belt
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 submission window has been open since March 1st. This submission window will close on August 31st.
Submission Details
All submissions should be directed to:
orionsbelt.submissions@gmail.com
The subject line of your email should be a variation of “Submission - Story Name (Author Name, Fiction/Poetry).” There is no need for submissions to be anonymous. Stories need not necessarily follow Standard Manuscript Format, but it is preferred. The font should be 12-point Times New Roman.
There is no hard limit to the number of times one can submit to Orion’s Belt, but we ask that you not submit more than twice in one month. Each submission should be sent in a separate email, though there is no need to wait to receive a response to the first submission before sending the second.
If Orion’s Belt rejects a story, please do not resubmit it, even if you revise it. Submitting a story simultaneously to Orion’s Belt and another publication is acceptable, but please contact us if another publication accepts the story first.
We only accept stories that have not already been published elsewhere.
A cover letter is expected. This needn’t be long or detailed. Attach the story to your email as a Word file or PDF. In the body of the letter, include your name, the title of your story, its length, its genre or subgenre, up to three previous publications, and any other information you deem relevant.
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.
What We Don’t Want
Orion’s Belt is an open-minded literary magazine. There are very few well-written, well-crafted stories we won’t consider so long as they abide by our guidelines, but there are a few exceptions:
- Stories using non-original copyrighted characters; e.g., fanfiction. There’s nothing wrong with these stories, but for legal reasons, we can’t publish them. Stories using public domain characters—Achilles, Captain Ahab, and the like—are fine, but there should be a good narrative reason why the story uses these characters.
- Extreme sex and violence. While “extreme” is a subjective term, and we err on the side of being more lenient and accepting, we’re unlikely to publish stories that contain a level of sex and violence beyond that which would be typical for an R-rated film.
- To reiterate, Orion’s Belt is a market for English-language speculative flash-fiction. We thus do not accept non-fiction or reporting, though fiction that incorporates elements of non-fiction and reporting is not only acceptable but encouraged.
- Stories generated using AI. That the banality of such stories is not self-evident to all is rather disappointing. In the most unambiguous terms possible, we decry the proliferation of such a zombie-like perversion of the writing process. AI-generated stories will be deleted. The accounts sending these stories will be permanently blocked.
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