Submit to Orion’s Belt.

GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Each writer may submit in only ONE of the following genres:

• MICRO FICTION

• FLASH FICTION

• POETRY

We also accept REVIEWS, TRANSLATIONS, and ART submissions.

We are accepting free submissions via DUOSUMA, our submission manager. (Duosuma is free to use, you do not need to purchase an account.) Only art submissions must be sent via email. Please see the guidelines below for each genre.

You may submit in only one genre: Flash, Micro, or Poetry. However, you may submit Reviews and Translations in addition.

Only multiple submissions across Fiction (flash and micro) and Poetry will not be read, and all stories over 1000 words will be rejected automatically.

If Orion’s Belt rejects a story, please do not resubmit it, even if you revise it. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please withdraw your work via our submission manager if it is accepted elsewhere.

All prose 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.

All forms and styles of poetry are welcome. We encourage boundary-pushing, experimental poetry. What we care about is subject matter. Speculative elements must be significant. What “literary” means in the context of poetry is more difficult to define than in prose, but the focus of submissions should be on emotion and experience, not explaining scientific formulas or displaying complex worldbuilding.

When to Submit

Orion’s Belt has now TWO submission windows:

Spring

1 March – 15 May

(Publishing in July)

Autumn

15 August – 31 October

(Publishing in December)

Microfiction Guidelines

A maximum of three submissions is allowed. Each submission may include only one story.

You can send a submission at anytime, you don’t have to wait for a reply to a previous submission.

Each story must be up to 400 words (not including the title and byline).

Please send your piece as an attachment in any standard document format (.doc, .docx, .rtf, etc.)

Fiction Pay Rate: 8 US cents per word.

Submit here via DUOSUMA, our submission manager:

Flash Fiction Guidelines

A maximum of two submissions is allowed. Each submission may include only one story.

You can send a submission at anytime, you don’t have to wait for a reply to a previous submission.

Each story must be between 401 and 1,000 words (not including the title and byline).

Fiction Pay Rate: 8 US cents per word.

Submit here via DUOSUMA, our submission manager:

Poetry Guidelines

Only ONE submission is allowed for this call.

Please submit up to FIVE poems (no more than 10 pages total) in the same submission.

Each poem should be submitted as a separate file. Please send your poem as an attachment in any standard document format (.doc, .docx, .pdf, .odt, .rtf, etc.)

Poetry Pay Rate: US$40 flat per poem.

Submit here via DUOSUMA, our submission manager:

Translations Guidelines

We are now accepting translations of both fiction (flash and micro) and poetry. We also accept reprints of both translated stories and poems. We welcome translations of works from all languages, and we also encourage translations of works that have already been published in another language.

Translations should be submitted according to the guidelines of the work’s genre (micro, flash, or poetry). Translators must acquire permission from the author or copyright holder and provide their contact information. A copy of the original work must be included in the submission and will be featured alongside the translation in the issue.

We pay both the translator and the author based on the word count of the English translated work.

Orion’s Belt pays for first worldwide electronic, print, and non-exclusive reprint rights for English-language and non-exclusive original-language rights (including audio rights for both languages) for a period of six months.

For reprints, Orion’s Belt pays for non-exclusive English-language and original-language rights (including audio rights for both languages) for a period of six months.

Translation Pay Rates: 8 US Cents per word for prose and US$40 flat per poem, paid to both author and translator.

FOR REPRINTS of translated stories and poems, we pay a flat US$40 for stories and a flat US$20 for poems, paid to both author and translator.

 Submit here via DUOSUMA, our submission manager:

Reviews Guidelines

Editor: Jenna Hanchey

We are now accepting completed book reviews of up to 1,000 words. We are interested in reviews of speculative works, encompassing not only science fiction and fantasy, but also slipstream, horror, magic realism, myth retellings, surrealism, superhero stories, and all other fantastical genres and subgenres.

Note that rather than overviews, our reviews editor prefers analyses that add an interesting perspective on the work. While we prefer reviews of newly or recently published books, we do not automatically reject reviews on older works. We will be publishing only one review per issue.

Reviews Pay Rate: $45 flat per review.

Please include in the body of the email a brief cover letter listing the title of the work you are reviewing and all its relevant information, the word-count of the review. We require electronic rights for a period of six months.

Submit here via Duosuma, our submission manager:

Art Guidelines

Art submissions are always open. We are looking for cover art for issues of our magazine.

We pay a flat rate of US$100 for selected artwork.

The artwork should feature speculative elements and should reflect the ethos of Orion’s Belt. There are no major restrictions on what we’re looking for, though we lean toward color artwork compared to B&W art or photography. We very much appreciate artwork that has a storytelling quality.

All art submissions should be directed to orionsbelt.submissions@gmail.com

Please submit only unpublished artwork and type the subject line as follows:

“Art Submission - Artwork Name (Artist’s Name).” All art submissions should be JPGs, JPEGs, or PNGs, and have a high resolution format. Include a cover letter with a brief statement of your artwork and an artist bio. Note that we are happy to include the statement of the selected artwork in the issue.

Response Times and Payment

We at Orion’s Belt try to answer the majority of fiction or poetry queries within one month. 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 three months before querying us. If three months have passed, and you still haven’t received a decision regarding your submission, don’t hesitate to query the magazine at orionsbelt.submissions@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 for prose for both original work and translations. This is the industry-standard, SFWA-approved professional rate. Thus, if your story is 800 words (not counting title, byline, etc.), you will receive $64 after publication. We pay a flat rate of US$40 per poem, US$45 per review, and US$100 for artwork. For reprints of translated works, we pay US$40 per story, and US$20 per poem.

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:

• 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.

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.

• 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.

Hard Sells

There are certain types of stories we see too often. There are other types that don’t tend to incline themselves to the emotionally grounded literary-speculative storytelling we seek at Orion’s Belt. This section is about such stories.

These are guidelines, not rules. We’ve published stories that fit one or more of these classifications. This is emphatically not a “don’t submit stories like this” list. Rather, it is a service to writers seeking to submit to Orion’s Belt, allowing you to know what types of stories might be less likely to capture our attention:

• Robots or other artificially intelligent beings trying to understand human society.

• Simplistic quest narratives wherein pure good triumphs over pure evil.

• Stories with no easily definable source of conflict.

• Stories that spend more time describing cool gadgets than focusing on character relationships.

• “Ripped from the headlines” stories that will become dated quickly.

• “It was all just a dream” twist endings. (Other kinds of twist endings are encouraged, however.)

Legalese

Orion’s Belt pays for first worldwide electronic, print, audio rights and for non-exclusive reprint rights. By submitting a story to us, you understand and agree with the following:

• You are the original creator of the work you’re submitting.

• You are the copyright holder of the work you’re submitting.

• You are over eighteen years old.

• All personal information you submit is accurate and truthful.

• You accept the sole responsibility for any false statements made and any rights infringed upon.

• You have not published this work elsewhere, nor are you otherwise prohibited via prior agreement from transferring the rights of your work to Orion’s Belt.

Once we publish a story in Orion’s Belt, you can no longer publish it as a first-run or “new” story. You cannot have it appear anywhere else in print or online for six months after it appears in Orion’s Belt. After six months, you can have it reprinted in print or online; e.g., in a reprint anthology, like a collection of the year’s best speculative fiction.

Editing

Orion’s Belt will line-edit accepted stories for the purpose of ensuring clarity and comprehension. This editing will be light. If we didn’t already love your story, we wouldn’t have accepted it. Please treat the editor with the same level of respect shown to you as the writer.

Final Notes

This magazine receives far more thoughtful and incisive stories from talented writers than we can publish. Please do not construe a rejection as a judgment on you as a writer, or even necessarily as a judgment on the story’s quality. It is an unfortunate but inevitable fact of this business that we can only accept a very small percentage of the stories we receive. Don’t let this discourage you from submitting to us the strangest and most experimental products of your creative mind.

Orion’s Belt is open to all writers of all backgrounds, regardless of your level of writing experience. Prior publications are not a prerequisite for publication in Orion’s Belt. Most importantly, don’t self-reject. If you’re unsure whether a story is right for Orion’s Belt, send it to us.

If you have any pressing questions about the submissions process, please contact us at orionsbelt.submissions@gmail.com.

We can’t wait to read your stories!

Make it stand out

If you’re interested in advertising with Orion’s Belt, please contact us at orionsbelt.submissions@gmail.com.