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.

Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arowolo

Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arowolo is a writer from Nigeria. He won the 1st Edition of Wanjohi Prize for African Poetry, received a honourable mention in 2024 Bacopa Literary Review Poetry Contest, and was a finalist for Folorunsho Editor's Poetry Prize. His works have appeared—or are forthcoming—in 2024 Small Fictions anthology, Bacopa Literary Review, FIYAH, Astrolabe, Asterlit, 4faced Liar, Weganda Review, The Republic, ANMLY, Nigeria Review, Yarnz Magazine, Breath and Shadow, 20:35 Africa, and elsewhere. Find him on X at @eniola_abdulroq.

Naomi Simone Borwein

Naomi Simone Borwein is a Canadian writer and academic. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Newcastle. Some creative work appears in The Future Fire, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Space & Time Magazine, HWA Poetry Showcase Volume IX (one of three featured poets), Lovecraftiana, Ghost City Review, HellBound Books, Superpresent Magazine, Ghostlight, and elsewhere. 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 Swamp writing. She curated the critical volume, Global Indigenous Horror (University Press of Mississippi 2025), and co-edited From Analysis to Visualization (Springer 2020). You can find her on Bluesky @nsborwein.bsky.social | Instagram @nsborwein | X @borwein_ns.

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.

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:

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, and Megan Mealor.