In other words: We, Expanded Horizons, do not care if you have your story in another magazine concurrent with publication here. We do not care if you have published your story elsewhere before. But if your other publishers do care, and they don’t like that you published with us first or simultaneously, or even perhaps they prohibit you from submitting to or publishing with us at all, then you submit to us at your own peril.

Simultaneous submissions are allowed (please follow proper simultaneous submission etiquette), and multiple submissions are also allowed. We accept both unpublished works and reprints, as long as republishing your work in Expanded Horizons does not violate any contracts you signed with prior or concurrent publishers or infringe on their legal rights in any way. We will have to remove your story if contacted by another publisher about such a violation.

We are non-proprietary in our philosophy. We do not believe in any legal, financial, or reputational distinction between first printing and subsequent printings. Authors retain all rights to their works and need not ask our permission to do whatever it is with those works that they wish to do. We explicitly do not include in our contract that we are purchasing “First Electronic Rights” and we will take no action against an author who sells these rights, or any other rights, to any other venue after a work has appeared in our magazine . Your story is your own. We buy only the right to keep your work on our site for one month, and to include it in the downloadable version for that month. If you ask us to remove your work at any point after one month, we will remove it and modify the downloadable version on our site accordingly.

We buy the right to publish your story, essay or poem on our website for the duration of one issue. Publication on our website is not, in our eyes, preclusive of any prior, concurrent or subsequent publication online or in print. We simply buy the right to publish your work on Expanded Horizons for the duration of one issue and to include your work in our downloadable version for that month. We hope, but do not require, that you allow us to continue to post your work in our archives, but you may remove your work from the archives at any point.

We are also looking for essays of about 6,000 words or fewer. As with stories, there is no hard minimum length. Longer essays may be accepted on a case by case basis — please contact us first.

We are looking for stories of about 6,000 words or fewer. There is no hard minimum length. We will not consider novels published in serial. Stories must be completed at the time of submission. We will NOT accept erotica.

We encourage these authors to write about their own experiences in the form of fiction, or to write about characters who are like them and other psi/intuitive folks they know.

Note: We have a very strong preference for authors who are themselves sensitive and aware in these ways. We encourage these authors to write about their own experiences in the form of fiction, or to write about characters who are like them and other psi/intuitive folks they know. Please see the note below in the “What We Don’t Want” section before submitting a story to us with this theme.

Simply having a strong female protagonist in your story is not enough, by itself, to get your story published with us- your story must also directly further our mission of diversifying speculative fiction (by its author or its characters) in some way.

, especially stories which use the flexibility of the speculative medium to create new, powerful, post-colonial narratives about Native people in the future, present, and past. We look for stories which move beyond romanticization and “multiculturalism,” and beyond tropes of Native peoples as symbols of pristine ecosystems (not naming names, of course).

We want to promote speculative fiction by Native/indigenous authors , especially stories which use the flexibility of the speculative medium to create new, powerful, post-colonial narratives about Native people in the future, present, and past. We look for stories which move beyond romanticization and “multiculturalism,” and beyond tropes of Native peoples as symbols of pristine ecosystems (not naming names, of course).

We publish not only stories and poetry, but also essays and reflections on speculative fiction and fandom that challenge the established biases of the field/genre. We created Expanded Horizons so that those whose points of view tend to be under-represented, or represented unrealistically or negatively in most speculative fiction may speak out in their own voice.

We aim to be a venue where people of under-represented backgrounds can tell their stories in their own voices, and where authors not of those backgrounds can help increase the authentic representation of under-represented people through both carefully researched stories, and the creation of characters whom people of those same backgrounds would still, upon reading the story, recognize as “of their own.”

We accept stories from all over the world (or off-world, if you can manage it!). We only publish in English. Publication will be digital, in standards-compliant XHTML format rather than Adobe PDF for maximum compatibility and accessibility.

We do not publish any stories in which some subset of people (mutants, etc.) is the “new evolution” of humanity. This trope is simply far too over-used. Examples: Mutants/people with special powers are (or may be) the “new evolution,” or autistic people turn out to be the “new evolution.” We’re also not interested in stories where the the members of this new group release a plot to kill/enslave all the “normal” people, or those in the dominant group (ex. mutants rise up to kill all “normals,” androids/cyborgs rise up to kill all organics, women rise up to kill/enslave all the men, telepaths rise up to kill all those who are not similarly gifted… gelatin becomes sentient and eats all the people, you get the picture).

We do not publish “reverse discrimination” stories. “Reverse discrimination” stories are single issue stories that follow a predictable premise: what if [privileged real life group] was actually discriminated against/oppressed/un-privileged? Examples: what if most of society was gay, and straight people were the discriminated minority? What if most male babies were killed and men were kept just for breeding? What if everyone was intersex, and cis-sexual people were considered “freaks”? Etc. Not only are these “single issue” stories about discrimination (usually by authors with no real life experience with the forms of discrimination described, it’s just made up), these stories do not further our mission of promoting the inclusion and representation of real life minorities in spec fic. In fact, these stories do exact the opposite — they pretend that privileged, majority authors can understand and write about the dis-privileged/minority/oppressed perspective if they just turn the tables in a simplistic, linear thought experiment. These stories also often frame the real-life oppressed people as the new oppressors: violent, insensitive, bigoted, etc. We believe the spec fic world does not need more “Poor oppressed men! Poor oppressed straight people! etc.” stories. These stories only marginalize already marginalized people even more. Please let minority/dis-privileged authors speak for themselves.

We do not publish “my privileged character saves the whole world” stories. These stories all follow the same basic formula: 1) Our narrator, who is not in the fictional oppressed group, becomes aware that oppression is going on, such as by befriending an oppressed character; 2) this friendship teaches our privileged narrator a Valuable Life Lesson of Equality; 3) OH NOES, the Big Bad Bigots (in the same privileged group as our narrator) are trying to hurt the Poor Oppressed People (or character); so 4) our protagonist takes matters into his/her own hands and not only saves the oppressed character, but totally dismantles the entire system of oppression in his/her society overnight (in some hand-wavey way, such as by blowing up the city, releasing a virus that makes everyone have the same disease, convincing everyone to give up their genetic modifications or cybernetic implants, etc., invoking the Valuable Life Lesson of Equality that he/she just learned from his/her Oppressed Friend). Then all is happy, the end! We are not interested.

Stories about Muslim characters does not mean stories about terrorists. Even if your protagonists are the GOOD Muslims who are against terrorism and spend the whole story playing that role, as a counterpart to the “bad Muslim” terrorists. There are stories one can tell about Muslim characters which do not involve the theme of “terrorism” at all. Send us those.

We are serious about combatting racial/ethnic stereotypes in spec fic. If the sole purpose for having a character in your story from a certain racial/ethnic group, or for making your character be from a certain racial/ethnic group, is so that character can do [racial/ethnic stereotype], your story will be rejected. Example: Having a Romani/Gypsy character in your story (or a character of a racial/ethnic background which is being used as “code” for Romani/Gypsy), just so he or she can curse the protagonist.

We do not publish stories about poverty, slavery, colonialism, sex-trafficking, racism, sexism, homophobia, able-ism or other forms of oppression that do not realistically reflect a deep personal sense and understanding of what it is like to endure and survive these hardships, or reflect a grasp of the complexities and nuances of the systems which support and underlie these prejudices on both social and institutional levels. If your story addresses or deals with these themes, please carefully consider whether your story is written from direct personal experience with that form of oppression before submitting to us.

Not all stories that feature protagonists from under-represented groups involve discussion of oppression or discrimination. Please utilize our “stories by topic” feature on our main page to read what we have previously published on your topic before submitting a work to us.

We do not publish “single issue” stories. “Single issue” stories usually take place in the future, and involve speculation about what would happen if one thing were different, usually (but not always) involving technology. A story is “single issue” if all plot, character development, conversation and interaction concerns this and only this issue, which makes the story very linear, and the world feel very simplistic and flat.

We do not publish material which does not fit with the mission of our magazine (see above). Please do not send us a story until you have thoroughly proofread it.

We do not accept stories that use extraterrestrials “allegorically” or metaphorically to tell a story or make a point about race, oppression or diversity among humans, unless the story otherwise fits very closely with our mission. Don’t get us wrong, we’ve seen stories that use extraterrestrials allegorically really well, and those stories can be a lot of fun, they’re just not what we’re looking for in this magazine (without more). Our magazine is about increasing the actual diversity in/of the genre, so stories whose publication would not directly promote actual diversity (here on Earth) do not work for us. Note: “The aliens came down, and we learned to stop fighting amongst ourselves (and to fight them instead)” is overused. Exception to this guideline: the story is about being Otherkin (which would fit closely with our mission of promoting actual diversity, but this is repeated for emphasis).

We are not keen on zombie stories. Although we have published a limited number of zombie-themed stories, we receive many, many more that we do not publish. We are not keen on stories which use zombies “allegorically” or metaphorically to make a linear point about race, disability, oppression or diversity among humans. Don’t send us a story with the premise, “In this world, being a zombie is like being disabled/a person of color/someone with a terminal illness,” and then try to make a point about one of these things (or about prejudice versus social acceptance in general). Remember — most of the stories we publish do not deal with oppression or prejudice in any way. We’re not interested.

We are not keen on gay/lesbian love stories that end in the couple’s death. For some reason, gay/lesbian romances which end in the death of one or both partners are over-represented in submissions. We don’t require happy endings, but we would prefer not to get so many “surprise, they were killed!” endings.

We are not keen on “end of the world” stories. Like zombie stories, we have published several of these, but we receive many more that we do not publish. Common reasons: 1) The “end of the world” has been predicted by a cliché prophesy (or astronomical prediction), and comes about exactly as prophesied (i.e., “the linear plot”); 2) the astronomy and/or geology and/or meteorology in the story has no shred of scientific basis (i.e. the Earth is about to crash into Mars, another sun shows up in the solar system and changes the seasons, the Earth all of a sudden starts rotating in the opposite direction, a lunar eclipse causes planet-wide cataclysmic seismic destruction, etc.). If you’re going to destroy the world (and this editor has), be creative, but please make it make sense!

No clone tropes. This includes clones not having souls, the protagonist cloning his/her deceased lover, the protagonist cloning him/herself to have the perfect (gay or lesbian!) lover, clone armies, etc. Not only has this all been done before (over and over), it’s also often “single issue” (see above). For a long list of clone tropes, see here.

We do not accept stories about indigenous/Native peoples that are not told realistically from the perspective of those indigenous/Native peoples themselves, or stories that place Native narratives in a romanticized “past.” We are uncomfortable publishing stories about Native peoples or theme where the viewpoint character is non-Native. We do not accept stories which romanticize Native people, history and customs (real or fictitious), or stories in which Native peoples (real, fictitious, visions, ghosts) serve as literary symbols for a pristine ecosystem. Please note that stories in which the “tables are turned,” and someone does to the descendants of the colonizers what those colonizers have done to the Native peoples, will not be accepted, nor do we accept stories featuring indigenous/Native people or cultures where the author exercises “creative license” to invent the beliefs, customs, religions, languages, traditions, legends, myths and lore of indigenous/Native people or communities. If you, the author, are not indigenous/Native, you will be asked to provide the research you have conducted in order to write your story. This research, while important for all stories where the author is “writing across difference,” is especially important in stories representing Native and indigenous peoples, whose cultures, traditions and lore are so often mis-represented in fiction as well as non-fiction, whose cultures and spiritual traditions are appropriated by whites, and about whom white authors so often feel the “right” to invent material with little to no historical or contemporary basis. It should also go without saying that if your story, or the viewpoint character in your story, portrays or describes indigenous/Native people as savages, or “magical savages,” in any way, it will be rejected.

We do not accept stories about fictional Native/indigenous tribes. Please do not send us stories where you have invented a fictional tribe with fictional customs in some fictional land, named or unnamed, which the readers are supposed to know are Native/indigenous (for example because they have “chiefs,” live in a “tribe,” reside in huts and fight with spears). Non-native authors often go this route because they know they cannot write authentically from a Native perspective, but want to write about Native people anyway. Almost always, the results are problematic. There is no ‘generic colonized Native culture’ — that’s a colonialist fiction, and colonized poeple do not think or talk about themselves this way. Thinking you can dodge the issue of rooting your colonialism in a real culture by making it a generic, nameless, colonized tribe of brown people doing generic Native customs is… colonialism. We really are looking for stories by Native/indigenous authors, and we really are looking for stories about something other than oppression.

We do not accept stories depicting gender-based violence, or any form of abuse of women, girls or children. Though it takes great strength to leave an abusive situation, surviving/escaping abuse is not the only strength a woman can possess. We do not publish any stories depicting rape in any form. We do not publish any stories in which women/girls/children are physically/sexually/verbally abused, made into sex slaves, or held captive for sexual purposes. We do not publish any stories with the following plotline: Women (and/or the children) are being abused. She kills her abusive (one-dimensional jerk of a) husband. The end. We do not accept stories in which robots or androids are “perfect” (or expected to be perfect) in some sexual, aesthetic or romantic way.Examples: androids make “perfect husbands” or “perfect wives,” androids make “perfect fashion models,” androids are the new, better prostitutes/sex workers. We’re not interested in stories in which female sex objects are, for the sake of the story, actual objects (but with feelings!). This runs directly contrary to our mission of combating sexism in speculative fiction. (Note: “Android geishas” are racist as well as sexist.)

We do not accept stories which contain or promote negative/inhuman images of obese people. Sometimes the whole point of a story is to say “this person was disgustingly fat!” Sometimes the whole development a character receives begins and ends at obesity (or obesity and skin color). Sometimes something awful happens to a character, but it’s “OK” because he or she was fat. Sometimes fatness is shown as a sign of moral decay. Sometimes fat characters are ostensibly shown in a “positive” light, but their bodies are described in offensive inhuman terms (whales, parasites, mountains, something else not human). Sometimes, this being spec fic, a character is inhumanly fat, for no clear reason in the story. This all goes against our mission, and we are not interested. If, on the other hand, your story authentically reflects the experience of obese people — your character happens to be obese but is a full human being, your character’s obesity is not the sole purpose of the story or the character, and your character’s obesity is never described by the author or any character as inhuman/a monstrosity, we will consider your piece.

We do not accept stories where disabled characters are, or become, “super-people” to compensate for (or in spite of) their disabilities, where the sole purpose of a character is to be disabled (i.e. “the blind guy”), or where the sole purpose of the story’s plot is to describe a character’s disability. These are very common tropes in spec fic, and don’t authentically reflect the experiences of disabled people, which is what Expanded Horizons is all about. We are interested in stories in which disabled people face challenges and overcome them just like any protagonist should, and stories which hold up a lens and examine how disability is seen in our world today — not stories which reduce people to what they can/cannot do (and define them as characters based on that), or which give them super powers of some sort to compensate for their “deficiencies.” Note: We’re also not interested in stories in which characters who are very powerful (magically, psychically etc.) are given disabilities by the author to “balance out” their power.

We do not publish stories involving “savage” or “primitive” alien species. Such alien species simply serve as literary proxies for indigenous/Native people here on Earth (see note on indigenous/Native people above). If your story describes an alien race or species as primitive savages in any way, it will be rejected.

We do not publish erotica, or stories not intended as “erotica” but which nonetheless contain explicit sexual content. Mild sexual content is allowed, so long as this is not the sole point of the story, it serves an artistic purpose, and the overall story furthers the mission of the magazine. If your story includes explicit sexual content, it will be rejected.

We do not publish stories about governmental/institutional oppression of psi people, stories in which psi characters are verbally and/or physically abused, or stories in which psi people are utilized as a metaphor for the oppression of some other group (racial, ethnic, political, etc.).