Spotlight on: khōréō
Tell us about your magazine, khōréō. When was it founded, and who’s on the publishing team? What is your mission?
In 2020, khōréō was founded with a specific-yet-broad mission: publishing speculative fiction by immigrant and diaspora writers. Our team currently relies on volunteers, with the idea that many hands make light work; on the editorial side, we have Aleksandra Hill as the founder, outgoing editor-in-chief, and publisher; Zhui Ning Chang as the incoming editor-in-chief; and Kanika Agrawal, Isabella Kestermann, and Sachiko Ragosta as the editors.
Our wider team consists of an audio department led by Lian Xia Rose; an art department led by Elaine Ho; a marketing department led by M.L. Krishnan; our wonderful copyeditors and proofreader; and our most excellent first readers. You can learn about the full team on our website.
What inspired you to start the magazine?
The inspiration for the magazine was twofold. The first was when I (Aleksandra) read ‘‘The Paper Menagerie’’ by Ken Liu. The main character’s and my cultural backgrounds were really different, but the experience of being a child of immigrant parents so strongly resonated with me. It was the type of story I wished I’d seen years and years earlier because it would have helped me feel seen and understood in a way that I never really had when I was growing up. I wanted to create a space for more stories like these to exist and to be found by the people who need them.
The second was the 2020 Hugo Awards ceremony and the rather… disastrous showing by the host, who harped on about the glory of dead white men and mispronounced every name that wasn’t within their very standard wheelhouse. Luckily, spite is one of my biggest motivators (the other two being food and someone telling me that something is ‘‘too difficult’’), so I channeled the frustration into creating khōréō about a year ahead of schedule. Science fiction, fantasy, horror – the genres have been evolving so much in the last 60 years. I wanted to create a home for a new wave of authors to share their perspectives, words, stories. I’m so grateful to magazines like FIYAH and Strange Horizons for paving the way for what speculative fiction should look like in the 21st century; these publications (and many others) were great inspirations to khōréō.
Where should new readers start with the magazine? Is there a particular story or issue you’d like to especially highlight?
This is such a tough question for us to answer! We publish across all genres of speculative fiction, so we hopefully have something for everyone. The easiest place to start is our stories that have been recognized by the SFFH community:
‘‘You’ll Understand When You’re a Mom Someday’’ by Isabel J. Kim won the 2022 Shirley Jackson Award for short story.
‘‘This Excessive Use of Pickled Foods’’ by Leora Spitzer won the 2023 Subjective Chaos Kind of Award for short story.
‘‘The Frankly Impossible Weight of Han’’ by Maria Dong appeared in the 2022 Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy.
‘‘Phoenix Tile’’ by Guan Un appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy: Volume 2.
‘‘Skin’’ by Isha Karki and ‘‘Banhus’’ by M.E. Bronstein both appeared in the 2022 Brave New Weird anthology.
Issue 3.2 is just being made available to read and listen to for free. As of September 20, we have ‘‘Kwong’s Bath’’ by Angela Liu and ‘‘The Abode of the Palms’’ by Karim Kattan available.
Are there trends in short fiction you are seeing, or trends you’d like to see?
Because of our mission, we see a lot of authors drawing from how their own background as an immigrant or member of a diaspora intersects with other identity factors, political issues, and speculative ideas – that makes the stories both new and strange and also deeply personal. It’s really important for us to create a space where writers can trust us enough to share their stories, especially when they’re drawn from backgrounds outside the traditional white, Western, Anglocentric sphere of SF/F/H.
We would always love to see: non-Anglocentric settings, secondary worlds, and galactic futures; experiments with multiples languages, dialects and accents, and showing us how the world looks different not just at the worldbuilding level, but at the word and line level; climate fiction and how various locations and cultures might experience it differently; unique retellings and interrogations of myths and folklore from various cultures and heritages; explorations of the complexities and tensions inherent in ideas like ‘‘diaspora,’’ ‘‘homeland,’’ and ‘‘immigration’’ told in ways that resist oversimplification; and, always, ambitious and audacious stories.
What’s happening next? Are there any upcoming stories or other features you’re particularly excited about?
We’ve decided to go nuts on opposite ends of the short fiction spectrum: in Issue 3.3 (September 15, 2023), we published our first-ever novelette, ‘‘Dragonsworn’’ by L. Chan. Issue 3.4, which will be out January 15, 2024, will be our first-ever all-flash issue. And Volume 4 will be the first one headed up by our new EIC, Zhui Ning Chang, who’s been with the magazine since the very start. In the future, we’re hoping to bring back our non-fiction department and also start publishing works in translation.
What can readers do to help support the magazine?
Running a magazine that pays its writers and artists fairly is expensive – and we would love to earn enough from subscriptions to pay our staff at least an honorarium for the hours of reading, editing, copyediting, layout, proofing, recording, and producing that they do. If you have a little to spare, you can get a subscription or buy issues on our website, on Weightless Books, or through Patreon. You can also donate directly via PayPal; we’re a 501(c)(3), which means all donations are tax-deductible.
We know that times are tough and not everyone can support everything they love financially. In those cases, your voice is so, so helpful: please consider shouting out our stories and authors on social media, around the dinner table, to all your family and friends, etc. You can read our stories for free after a period of time on our website, and also listen to them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcasting services.
–Aleksandra Hill & Zhui Ning Chang
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