About Orion’s Belt

Orion’s Belt is a literary speculative-fiction online magazine. We specialize in the strange and poignant and awe-inspiring, stories that have a cosmic scale and intimate personal stakes. Currently, we publish fiction and poetry, one story and one poem per month. All submissions must be 1200 words or less.

Speculative fiction for us encompasses a wide range of fiction that includes non-realist elements. While we focus on science-fiction and fantasy, we’re open to slipstream, horror, magic realism, myth retellings, surrealism, superhero stories, and all other fantastical genres and subgenres.

The “literary” qualifier simply means we like stories focusing on internal and interpersonal conflicts. Don’t give us people saving the world unless you can make us care about the people doing the saving. It also means we want stories that are sharply, intelligently written. We highly prize the craft of writing. This doesn’t mean you have to be Faulkner or Shakespeare, and it certainly doesn’t mean we want stories peppered with purple prose and thesaurus-words. It does mean that we care as much about form as we do about content. How a story is told is as important to us as what it is about.

Speculative fiction gives us the opportunity to imagine other worlds, but we can also use it to help us better understand our own little blue marble floating through the depths of space. We follow in the tradition of science-fiction pioneer Darko Suvin and his concept of “cognitive estrangement,” in which the strangeness of different worlds provides readers with a lens through which to observe the strangeness in our own worlds. This is more than mere allegory. It’s an awakening to a higher level of awareness. In our view, the best speculative fiction does more than offer escapism. It facilitates a better understanding of the self and the other.

Our founder and editor-in-chief is Joshua Fagan, who founded the magazine in 2021 while at Columbia University. Contact him at joshuafagan14@gmail.com or on Twitter using @TheJoshuaAFagan.

All photos used in Orion’s Belt, other than our logo, are from NASA. We follow NASA’s use guidelines.

We hope the stories in this magazine delight and inspire and challenge you. If you’re a writer, please send us stories that will delight and inspire and challenge us.