Fiyah calling
US-based Fiyah: Magazine of Speculative Black Fiction recently received the $1,000 Asteroid Best Science Fiction award for ‘excellence in publications and authors working to expand the boundaries of science fiction’.
Now fifteen digital quarterly issues (pdf, mobi, epub) strong, Fiyah positions itself as ‘the future of Black SFF’ and a ‘speculative fiction magazine that features stories by and about Black people of the African diaspora.’
The editorial team, headed by executive editor DaVaun Sanders, says, ‘We aren’t here for respectability. We’re here to ask what it means to be Black and extraordinary.’
Fiyah is ‘intersectional and welcomes our disabled, LGBTQIA, and neurodivergent brothers and sisters’. Submissions can come from anywhere in the world. The editors are accepting submissions for the January and April 2021 issues, which are un-themed, until 31 December.
Submissions should be 2,000-7,000 words, or novelettes up to 15,000 words. Stories must be speculative fiction, well-written and of high quality. Avoid regressive ideas of blackness, stereotypes and respectability politics. Instead, submit your bravest, blackest, most difficult to sell stories.
Speculative poetry is also required. The editors ‘are looking for weird, complex, honest and challenging work with a clear speculative element from Black authors.’
No multiple or simultaneous submissions, reprints or fan fiction. To submit you must be either a writer from the African continent or the African diaspora. Submissions should be made using the form at
https://airtable.com/shrtoN6661Y2Pcbly
If you require an alternative means of submission for your work, contact the editorial team at team@fiyahlitmag.com.
Payment is 8¢ per word for fiction, $50 flat rate for poems, for first world electronic rights, nonexclusive archival rights, and nonexclusive anthology rights. Response time is around 45 days.
From 1 March-30 April, Fiyah will accept submissions on the theme of ‘Sound and Color’ for the July 2021 issue, and from 1 June-31 July on ‘Love, Death and Androids’ for the October 2021 issue.
Website: www.fiyahlitmag.com/submissions/