Editorial Team

  • Gessica Sakamoto Martini

    Editor-in-Chief

    Gessica Sakamoto Martini is a writer and poet from Italy. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and appear or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast Journal, Whale Road Review, HAD, DMQ Review, South Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo), Hex Literary, Bending Genres, Red Ogre Review, and elsewhere. Her short fiction has appeared in Shoreline of Infinity, Seize the Press, FlashFlood (National Flash Fiction Day), Alternative Stories & Fake Realities podcast, among others. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Durham University (UK). Find her on Instagram and Bluesky at @gessicasakamoto, or via her website, www.gessicasakamoto.com.

  • Lindsey Ragsdale

    Fiction Editor

    Lindsey Ragsdale (she/her) is a writer from Chicago, Illinois. Two of her stories appear in the anthologies Howls from Hell and Howls From The Dark Ages. She loves reading, writing, cooking, and long walks by the lake. On Twitter, find her @Leviathan15.

  • Lyndsey Croal

    Fiction Editor

    Lyndsey Croal is a Scottish author of strange and speculative fiction published in over 100 magazines and anthologies, including Apex, Analog, Weird Tales, and Mslexia’s Best Women’s Short Fiction. She’s a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award Finalist, and former Hawthornden Fellow. Her longer works include Limelight and Other Stories (Shortwave) and Dark Crescent (Luna Press). She has also guest-edited and read for magazines including Shoreline of Infinity, Hexagon, BFS Horizons, and for the podcast Alternative Stories & Fake Realities. Find her on Bsky and Instagram as @lyndseycroal and via her website www.lyndseycroal.co.uk.

  • Ash Huang

    Fiction Editor, Web & Art Editor

    Ash Huang is a Chinese American writer. Her fiction appears in Nightmare, Lightspeed, Ecotone, Apparition Literary Magazine, here in Orion’s Belt, and elsewhere. She won the 2022 Diverse Worlds Grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation. Find her online at ashsmash.com.

  • Yanrong Tan

    Fiction Editor

    Yanrong is a long-time speculative fiction fan, with a background in nineteenth-century literature (that significant moment for much early science fiction!), and a particular interest in how fiction expands the capacities of human imagination. They are especially fond of space opera, silkpunk, and first contact stories.

  • Naomi Simone Borwein

    Poetry Editor

    A Bram Stoker Award Finalist, Naomi Simone Borwein is a writer and academic. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Newcastle. Some creative work appears or is forthcoming in Star*Line, Penumbric Speculative Fiction, The Future Fire, Utopia Science Fiction, Space & Time, HWA Poetry Showcase IX (featured poet), HellBound Books, Lovecraftiana, and elsewhere. Naomi is The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association’s 2026 Annual Poetry Contest Judge and has served on British Fantasy Award and Bram Stoker Award Juries. She is an editor in various guises: Co-EIC at Angry Gable Press and EIC of the annual speculative poetry anthology, Katabatic Circus. Naomi is a past Head Poetry Editor at the journal SWAMP and was a reader for Space & Time. She curated the critical volume, Global Indigenous Horror (University Press of Mississippi 2025) and co-edited From Analysis to Visualization (Springer 2020), as well as numerous speculative anthologies. You can find her on Bluesky @nsborwein.bsky.social | Instagram @nsborwein | X @borwein_ns

  • Ian Li

    Poetry Editor

    Ian Li is a Chinese-Canadian economist, developer, writer, and poet, who started writing in late 2023 after a lifetime of believing he could never be creative. He also enjoys spreadsheets, statistical curiosities, and brain teasers. His poetry is published in Nightmare Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, among other venues, and will be featured on the Toronto subway. Learn more at https://ian-li.com.

  • Linlang Zhao

    Interview Editor

    Linlang Zhao is a writer and poet who loves cats. She enjoys baking pancakes and cookies at home. She especially loves Jpop and Vocaloid. Her work can be found at Tar River Poetry, Midway Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, Tap into Poetry, Cetera Magazine, and others. She can be found at @thisissobad1.

First Readers

To neglect the help provided by First Readers would be the height of arrogance. They are the backbone of our magazine. Their patience, passion, and thoughtfulness will not be underestimated or underappreciated. Without them, Orion’s Belt would be only a shadow of what it is.

Our current First Readers are:

Ruth Fishman

Ruth Fishman is an undergrad studying creative writing. She loves reading and attempting to write unusual fiction. She currently lives with two cats she is mildly allergic to.

Elaine Omwango

Elaine (she/her) is a writer who has spent the last few years reading and writing speculative fiction stories. She is a lover of hot tea, sunny days, and dancing. When not battling mystical creatures and journeying across mythical lands, Elaine enjoys travelling off the beaten path, paints very badly, and occasionally dusts off her violin only to put it back in its case without playing a single note.

Emma Foster

Emma Foster is a writer and graduate student at the University of Cambridge. Her work has appeared in multiple literary journals, including Ghost City Press (2023). She also reads for Utopia Science Fiction and is the reprint editor for MetaStellar. Find out more about her work at E. S. Foster.

Hakim Lewis

Hakim is writer and editor based in Austin, Texas, where they're known for keeping it weird. He is a purveyor of all the wicked, wild, and whimsical places where humanity can be found. He has interned for The Los Angeles Review of Books, Bat City Review, and The University of Texas press. In his free-time, he's working on the early stages of his first book.

Liam Tait

Liam Tait is a writer, mathematician, and circus artist living near Boston. Between writing, office work, and circus, he sometimes draws hands. His work has appeared in FlashPoint SF, Allium, and Toasted Cheese.

Joe Pearson

Joe Pearson is a British fiction writer living in Paris, France. He writes mostly speculative fiction about climate change, cultural displacement, masculinity and fatherhood. You can find out more about his work on his website, www.joepearsonwriter.com.

Nathan Edmunds

Nathan Edmunds is a devoted father and electric utility worker who writes and lives in Akron, Ohio. He was raised in underserved communities across Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Ohio where he gained a unique perspective on the American experience. This background fostered an appreciation for tolerance and human resilience, instilling an unwavering sense of hope and purpose; elements that are reflected in his writing.

Emily Cline

Emily Cline is an academic researcher and writer who holds a PhD in English from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She studies Victorian literature and culture, and her research on nineteenth-century genre fiction has appeared in scholarly journals.

Debra Brian

Debra Brian is a fiction writer, photographer, and filmmaker from Maine. She loves sitting on a foggy English dock reading, taking late-night thunderstorm walks, watching rain from the porch, spending time with her familiars, and creating something from a seemingly impossible idea. She and her husband and writing partner are currently working on the second book in their Swallowed Souls series.

Chelsea Chung

Chelsea Chung is a graduate student at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a lifelong reader. When she’s not buried in a book, she dabbles in dancing, baking, cooking, and writing her Substack, “theosmanthushedgehog”. Her other interests include petting cats, maintaining an ongoing feud with the English weather, and turning on TV shows only to switch them off five minutes later because she can’t focus.

JD Devine

JD Devine writes adult romantasy about the bonds we don't choose and the ones we fight for anyway. She's currently writing the Vieux Sang Trilogy, beginning with Bond of Fire and Ice, and is finishing her MFA in Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University. She lives in Panama City Beach, Florida.




 

Past Cosmonauts

Though cosmonauts leave our team, their efforts are not forgotten. They are thus memorialized here.

We would especially like to celebrate our Founder and first Editor-in-Chief, who constructed this starship and piloted it from 2021 to 2025, making it a haven for bold, cosmically daring speculative fiction and poetry, grounded in the lyrical intimacy of individual yearning and interpersonal connection:

Joshua Fagan

Joshua Fagan is a writer and academic currently residing in Seattle. His creative work has previously been published in venues including Daily Science Fiction, Columbia’s Quarto, and Star*Line. He founded Orion’s Belt in 2021, wanting to build a place where experimental and literary pieces of speculative fiction could prosper.

Our other past Editors are:

Emma Cole, Poetry Editor; 2022 -2026

Jenna Hanchey, First reader 2023; Poetry Editor, 2024-2025

Elise LeBihan, Poetry Editor, 2023; Fiction Editor, 2024-25

December Cuccaro, Fiction Editor, 2023-24

Sara Omer, First Reader, 2023; Associate Fiction Editor, 2024

Tom Kelly, Poetry Editor, 2024

Jenelle DeCosta, Fiction Editor, 2023

Noah Codega, First Reader, 2022; Associate Fiction Editor, 2023

JD Harlock, Poetry Editor, 2022

Rhonda Schlumpberger, Fiction Editor, 2022

Ai Jiang, Fiction Editor, 2022

Our past First Readers are:

Philip Clapper, Vivian Chou, Jesse Anderson, Rick Danford, Dan Peacock, S.A. Cole, Jacob Laba, Susan Wu, Megan Mealor, Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arowolo.