All our stories are collected here in these beautiful issues. Fellow cosmonauts, these are portals to the worlds our writers create.
Orion’s Belt 2023 Year-End Anthology (21)
The lyrical and ethereal works we published in 2023 synthesize intimate examinations of individuals and relationships with expansive and philosophical scenarios. With a literary focus on the specific and subtle details of life, they reach toward wonder and strangeness. Comfort and complacency disintegrate to reveal mysterious worlds and latent passions, while nightmares can be unexpectedly serene and regenerative. Once again, board the Orion’s Belt starship and navigate across space-time to the most uncanny and otherworldly corners of the speculative-fiction universe.
Our enchanting, futuristic cover is “Moon Dimension 9,” crafted by the thoughtfully imaginative Amanda Bergloff.
Amanda Bergloff is a graphic designer and digital/mixed media artist whose art has graced the covers of the Jules Verne Society's Extraordinary Visions Anthology, Utopia Science Fiction, Tiny Spoon Literary Magazine, Mud Season Review, The Fairy Tale Magazine, 200 CCs, and Backchannels Journal, as well as interior illustrations for The Sprawl Magazine, The Horror Zine,, Enchanted Conversation, and other publications. She lives in Denver, Colorado and is a shameless collector of books, toys, and comics. Follow her on Twitter @AmandaBergloff
September 2024 (27)
Stories do not teach in the same way as a moralistic sermon or droning lecture. The way they teach is more subtle and more effective, revealing vividly the tensions and passions and laments that always exist outside the confines of rigid rules of behavior. Storytelling at its best illuminates how people think and feel in ways that do not fade or erode, that remain relevant and meaningful. This month’s essay focuses on how storytelling teaches, and our poem and story this month demonstrate how storytelling uses hyper-specific situations to viscerally portray widely relevant emotional and psychological truths.
The Chinese Dragon in Our Pond by Lu Xu
The Writing Process of a Fantasy Bard by Eoin Dooley
Every Story is a Teacher by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
August 2024 (26)
The kinds of adventure stories that last and endure are those that create an intensified, heightened image of life. In the past, these stories were called “romances”; H.G. Wells famously called his stories “scientific romances.” They are not quite mundane depictions of ordinary life, and they are not quite ideal fantasies; they are somewhere in between, soaked with the kind of vividness and mystery that is rare and fleeting in everyday existence. The world of adventure romance is not happier or more prosperous, necessarily, but it does exude more meaning and wonder and vitality. Both the story and poem of the month evoke the same mix of fear and exhilaration that defines the best adventure stories past and present, and the essay of the month discusses the enduring value of adventure fiction.
The Impermanent Surface of Lake Scintillate by Marie Croke
rookery by D.A. Xiaolin Spires
The Importance of Adventure Fiction by Joshua Fagan
Cover art and design by Joshua Fagan
July 2024 (25)
Art does not just copy life, nor should it. Simply repeating the sensations and images of society, without adding insight or clarity, is meaningless. Great art depicts the emotions and tensions of life, but often in unexpected ways, and always with a vividness and intensity that the diffuseness of ordinary life lacks. This month’s essay discusses the ways in which art does and does not reflect life, and this month’s poem and story demonstrate how speculative fiction is uniquely capable to unsettle ordinary assumptions and expectations of life. Pre-existing beliefs are revealed to be too insular and reductive, and the seemingly strange and bizarre are revealed to be surprisingly familiar and poignant.
Five Stages of Shedding a Skin by Audrey Zhou
The Skeleton Cafe by Eleanor Ball
Clarity, Art, and Life by Joshua Fagan
Cover design by Joshua Fagan
Cover art is “Out of Reach” by Jacelyn Yap
Jacelyn Yap (she/her) is a self-taught visual artist who ditched engineering to make art because of a comic she read. Her artworks and photography have been published by the Commonwealth Foundation's adda, Chestnut Review, The Lumiere Review, and more. She can be found at https://jacelyn.myportfolio.com/ and on Instagram at @jacelyn.makes.stuff.
June 2024 (24)
What makes a narrative more than a collection of ideas and plot points is the sense of experience it cultivates: the vivid impressions felt by particular individuals in a particular place. Stories deal purely and directly with life, not disembodied abstractions. Context and environment make themes more than dry platitudes and characters more than outlines. The difference between life and sterile abstractions is the amorphous and unpredictable nature of interactions: between individuals, and between individuals and their expectations. Our month’s essay discusses the need to create a vivid environment, and both the story and the poem of the month excel at articulating a sense of place. The use of vibrant and specific details breathes life into an empty form.
Oak for Her Bones, Alder for Her Limbs by Anne Leonard
The Necessity of Writing Place by Joshua Fagan
Cover art and design by Joshua Fagan
May 2024 (23)
Making a work of art feel truly new is not about narrative gimmicks or experimental structures. There is no completely original idea; everything has been done before. Art is fundamentally about human experiences, which remain similar throughout different cultures and time periods. Great art feels original because it combines past ideas and techniques into a specific and detail-rich vision that transcends the detritus of superficial observations and inert routines that can make everyday life so distracting. No storytellers do this better than Ghibli, so this month’s essay demonstrates what writers can learn from them. The poem and story of the month exude that crispness and intensity of experience that makes art feel new, escaping the bondage of platitudes and sentimental clichés.
With the City on Her Shoulders by Carol Scheina
We’re All Mad Here by Marisca Pichette
Lessons from Ghibli by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
April 2024 (22)
The start of a new Orion’s Belt year means the exploration of stranger and more enigmatically ethereal worlds that are nonetheless grounded in the passions and yearnings of the psyche. Our story and poem this month both revisit fantastical and fabulist scenarios from unusual perspectives, revealing suppressed and half-felt impressions. The month’s essay continues the focus on fairy tales, contemplating how successive generations find meaning and connection in the oft-told tales of the distant past.
Beautiful Dreamer by Jennifer Skogen
Apologia, on Forked Tongue by Lindsay King-Miller
The Ongoing Relevance of Fairy Tales by Joshua Fagan
Cover design by Joshua Fagan
Cover art by Ruchi Acharya, “Guided by Polaris”
Ruchi Acharya, an Indian-born writer born in 1995, is the Founder and CEO of Wingless Dreamer Publisher, a global platform dedicated to uplifting writers and artists. Holding a summer graduation in English Literature from the University of Oxford, Ruchi's poetic prowess shines through her acclaimed work, including the poetry book "Off the Cliff," available on Amazon.
September 2023 (20)
Speculative fiction in its early, pulp days carried the reputation of being tawdry and shallow, but the best of it has always resisted the binary between vulgar populism and effete snobbery. The old critics were correct in championing art that resists superficial pleasures and easy platitudes, that challenges and surprises the audience instead of placating their crassest impulses. Yet they were wrong in their dismissals of science fiction and other “popular” genres, which in their distance from the repetitive habits of ordinary life can more explicitly reveal the strangeness lurking beneath those habits. The sphinx-like poem and eerie fable of this issue express these revelatory capacities innate to speculative fiction, and this year’s final essay discusses the history of science fiction in particular and the obligation it has to its readers.
Blood, Bone, and Water by Ash Huang
Democracy and Science Fiction by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
August 2023 (19)
Rejecting simplistic platitudes is an easy step and an important one. Reductive ideas about the self and others inevitably fail when confronted with unexpected and uncertain occurrences. Still, what comes after this rejection? Resisting nihilism means examining the world closely, looking beneath the surfaces of experiences at secret details and impressions. This month’s essay discusses moral complexity in narrative. our poem and story for the month, both about longing for warmth and assurance in a fragmentary and diffuse world, exemplify this careful, contemplative observation needed in a murky and mysterious world where platitudes are not sufficient.
But First It Is Sung by Aimee Ogden
The Fox’s Lover by Ada Hoffmann
Toward True Moral Complexity by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
July 2023 (18)
A fantastical setting is not enough to make a work feel magical. True magic comes from the invocation of the wondrous and immense, that which undermines the routines and habits of everyday life. Enchantment transcends the utilitarian and commercialist, reveling in the strange and unexpected. Magic cannot be reduced to data points or lessons; it exists everywhere, even if the distractions of obligations and responsibilities obscure it. This month’s essay discusses what magic in speculative fiction means, and our dazzling poem and story this month exemplify that magic. Though it can be bizarre and alienating, magic can also heal.
Dream, Wish, Kaleidoscope by Victor Forna
Reviving Magic in Speculative Fiction by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
June 2023 (17)
At the core of any worthwhile story or poem is a perspective and a worldview. While speculative fiction flies into the fantastical, it remains grounded in an idea of what the author believes to be true. This month’s essay considers different genres of speculative fiction not only as expressions of imagination, but as contrasting what honestly envisioning the future means. A glistening, hopeful poem about the aftermath of climate change and a ghostly tale of loss and connection offer two different but compelling images of yearning for the future.
The Lighthouse by Marianne Xenos
Hands Like Wings, Dancing Upon the Air by Goran Lowie
Cyberpunk, Hopepunk, and Beyond by Joshua Fagan
Cover design by Joshua Fagan
Cover art by Lizy J. Campbell, “Another World.”
Lizy J. Campbell is from Canada, Ontario. A book illustrator, author, painter, and publisher. She is a single mom of 2 teens and loves helping others.
May 2023 (16)
Speculative fiction depends on the discrepancy between external appearances and symbolic, latent significances. It departs from the observable, superficial details of everyday life to create a vast, estranging world that nonetheless has metaphorical significance, reawakening understanding and insight from the paralysis of custom and routine, as this month’s essay discusses. Both the story and the poem we publish this month deal with knowledge and its aftermath, how to respond to an unexpected, ethereal expansion of awareness.
Prometheus, at the End by Lia Swope Mitchell
Walking in the Starry World by John P. Johnson
Metaphor and Speculative Fiction by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
April 2023 (15)
Artistic creation cannot be faked. AI generation is nothing but a grotesque parody of a process that expresses the imagination and perspective of a curious individual and in doing so illuminates the sorrows and longings of the world. The poem of rebirth and the story of fractured wandering we publish this month testify to the vitality of artistic creation, and our essay this month demands that we reaffirm our commitment to that creative process.
The Fire Will Come in Waves by R.L. Summerling
Escaping the AI Wasteland by Joshua Fagan
Cover design by Joshua Fagan
Cover art by Barbara Candiotti, “Locked.”
Barbara Candiotti is a former High Tech Worker who now focuses on photography, art, and writing.
She is inspired by the little details of everyday life, which spur her creative endeavors.
Her digital art pieces have been accepted by Phantom Kangaroo, Zoetic Press, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Invisible City, Star*Line, Evocations Review Electricspec, and The Good Life Review.
Orion’s Belt Year-End 2022 Anthology (14)
The enigmatic, lyrically poignant works we published in 2022 ground themselves in the trembling and intimate while reaching toward the mythic and infinite. They are works of acute feeling and dazzling imagination, looking out of tear-specked eyes at worlds much more haunting and more strange than they at first appear. Existential suffering conceals itself in the mundane, while the unsettling darkness can provide unexpected grace. Climb aboard our starship and depart for these mystifying worlds.
Our wonderful, spectral cover is “Dreams of an Astrophile,” crafted by the wondrous and inventive Aahana Tripathi.
Aahana Tripathi is an Indian student who loves to read books and is a big astrophile. This love for the stars inspires all her artwork and drawings. She is also a poet and has her own poetry blog called "Madhavpoetryandstoriesblog "where she loves expressing herself through her poems and most of these poems revolve around the heavenly bodies.
August 2022 (13)
In the final issue of our second year, we consider the ambiguous, amorphous experiences and connections that exist outside the didactic bombast of mainstream speculative fiction. Elusive dreams of an idealized kingdom haunt a tempestuous mind. The boundaries between life and death blur in a solemn, elegiac nocturne. This month’s essay considers the value of works like these in a fraught, uncertain literary landscape.
Suddenly, I Remember Camelot by Dafydd McKimm
The Whispering Bones by Lyndsey Croal
A Cosmonaut’s Prospectus by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
July 2022 (12)
Mythologies are not simply collections of old, dusty stories. They provide a window for appreciating the strange, the ambiguous, and the wondrous. Breaking from the desiccating malaise of mundane reality, they provide us with psychological and philosophical insight. This month’s essay contemplates how we should think about myth in our fractured, alienated age. Both our poem and our story for this month demonstrate the weight of the mythic past, cosmic yet intimate and passionate, bearing upon the ambitions and routines of the present.
This Body is a Grave by H. Pueyo
La Tulipe by Rose Jean Bostwick
Why We Need Myth by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
June 2022 (11)
The strange deserves to be praised. It is an antidote for complacency and materialism, a reminder that statistics and logic provide only a pale, abstract picture of our wild, amorphous reality. This month’s essay is a tribute to strangeness, and both works published this month exude it. Be immersed in two bleak, violent worlds that nonetheless latently possess beauty and clarity.
Caring for a Picky Eater During the Apocalypse by Richie Narvaez
Demystifying the Science Behind Boys in My Country Evaporating into Mist at Every Shutter Click. by Abdulkareem Abdulkareem
The Necessity of Strangeness by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
May 2022 (10)
Contrary to the consumerist ethos that sees stories merely as a delivery for plot information, a disposable resource, this issue focuses on the importance of re-reading. When we return to great works, we find that they and we have both changed. This issue features an essay on re-reading as well as two works that deserve to be re-read: a poem that blurs together magic and natural observation, and a plaintive story about honor, regret, and connection.
The Ramparts, as Cold and Implacable as Love by Jess Hyslop
The Importance of Re-Reading by Joshua Fagan
Cover design by Joshua Fagan
Cover art by Karin Murray-Bergquist, “Whale.”
Karin Murray-Bergquist is a writer, actor, and stained glass and watercolour artist who has lived in various parts of Canada, Denmark, and Iceland for studies and work. These travels led to an interest in plein air sketching, though often with a fantastical lens on the places in question. Along with various academic pursuits, Karin is the co-creator of the radio play Corentin in Quarantine, as one half of the Practical Fantasists creative team.
April 2022 (9)
Literature should challenge, shaking us out of our complacency instead of providing easy messages and morals. This month’s essay analyzes the value of difficult literature in an era of echo chambers and superficial moralizing. These two fictional pieces embody that ideal of challenging the facile and reductionist, encouraging us to contemplate moral uncertainty and difficult decisions. A folkloric figure laments the label assigned to him, and an existentially confused woman laments the difficulty of fitting one’s life into simple archetypes.
A Catalog for the End of Humanity by Tim Hickson
Rumpelstiltskin, If by Lora Gray
In Praise of Difficult Literature by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
March 2022 (8)
Our second year begins, and we explore the dreamlike and poignant. Contemplations of food and charity exist alongside fantastical nocturnal flights through the enigmatic cosmos and a lyrical meditation on poetic practice.
An Open Letter to Bakers by Teresa Milbrodt
architect of night-bridges by Crystal Sidell
The Star-Dappled Puddle by Joshua Fagan
Cover design by Joshua Fagan
Cover art by Stephanie Johnson, “Stars and Astronomers.”
Stephanie Johnson has spent most of her adult life overseas teaching English literature, ESL and Spanish at universities and adult education settings around the world. She has most recently been published in Authora Australis and force/fields, an anthology published by Perennial Press. She is an associate editor at Novel Slices, and is also a judge for NYC Midnight. While she is originally from Toledo, Ohio, USA, she is currently based in Sydney, Australia. Find her on Instagram at @stephaniejohnsonpoetry and Twitter at @stephan64833622
Orio'n’s Belt Year-End 2021 Anthology (7)
An accumulation of the voyages our writers have brought to life throughout 2021. The premises are captivating, ranging from mermaids to enigmatic doors to crowns of fire, but the true heart of these stories is in their depiction of longing and hope and fear, how people can both harm and heal each other.
Our wonderful, spectral cover is “The End,” a cut-paper collage created by the multitalented Sherry Shahan.
Sherry Shahan lives in a laid-back beach town in California where she grows carrot tops in ice cube trays for pesto. Her art has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Gargoyle, Cleaver (featured artist), Invisible City, Abstract: Contemporary Expressions and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
August 2021 (6)
The end of our first year. A lonely voyager contemplates the limits of practicality. A mythic spirit tries to escape a mire of cynical malaise.
Garden of the Gods by Anna Madden
Root to Sapling, Sapling to Stem by Wendy Nikel
Reflections on Orion’s Belt by Joshua Fagan
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
July 2021 (5)
What is the price of connection? One story about family, the other about romantic love. There is a tenderness in close bonds that is not altogether dissimilar from anguish.
A Generation of Darkness by Lynne Sargent
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
June 2021 (4)
Two yearning stories of the tenuous and liminal. One about the choices made, the other about the choices not made.
You Do Not Need to Open the Door by Alex Penland
Crown of Fire by Reuben Dendringer
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
May 2021 (3)
Two stories of salvaging the ruins of broken connections. Listen to the ethereal cries of the sea. Soar through the lonely stars.
The Songs of the Siren by Evergreen Lee
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
April 2021 (2)
Our second issue. There’s dark magic and Machiavellian scheming, but there’s also wistful yearning at the loss of a loved one.
Joanna West’s Final Five Reviews on the Day of Apocalypse by Kelly Sandoval
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
March 2021 (1)
Our introductory issue. Joshua Fagan welcomes you to the magazine, then we venture into a mysterious, shadowy world.
Welcome to Orion’s Belt by Joshua Fagan
The Truth About Woopy by Liviu Surugiu
Cover design and art by Joshua Fagan
