Written by Stephen Thompson | 28 April 2009

It would be a wonderful thing indeed if it were possible to put together a magazine with a cohesive theme. To do so would mean that there was enough content available for the editor to pick and choose which articles to use. Or it would mean that the magazine had the social clout/financial power for the editor to commission people to write around a particular topic. Of course there is another way it could be done: by a fluke of circumstance – where every submission happens to be related in some way.

Over the eight or nine years I've been editing sf magazines I've learnt a very important fact: you use whatever content you have. I realised that there was nothing to be gained by worrying about whether this or that article was of a high standard or not, whether that story or this would make it unscathed through a determined writers' group critique – because nothing emerges unscathed from a determined writers' group critique. No, the magazine is not a literary journal, nor does it seek out the world's best writers. But that doesn't mean it can't be entertaining or it can't have it's own sort of quality.

So what do I look for in an article or a short story?

The main criterion for submissions to The Specusphere is that the item should be entertaining. It doesn't need to be a literary masterpiece or to have been passed by a jury of peers, it just needs to be entertaining, reasonably well thought out and cohesive. And for me the most entertaining writing is where the author has developed a distinctive voice, or is in the process of developing one.

An article for The Specusphere should also be short. Most people read online and it makes for a much more enjoyable experience if all you have read is about 1000 words. An essay that rambles on like a PhD thesis is not appropriate for casual screen reading, unless of course you have a wonderful writing style that keeps people amused over dozens of pages. We're into short bites — and entertaining voices.

Voice, in fact, is what The Specusphere is all about, not just the authorial voice but also the clamour of the speculative fiction world.

The Specusphere has a mission to seek out all the possible varieties of speculative fiction on the planet: how it interacts with the real world, the various forms it takes, the places it hides and expresses itself in the mainstream of society. In these pages we've uncovered the hidden speculative fiction at folk festivals, in art, in music. We've seen it at play in other countries, how it interacts in literature, how it informs tv and science. We've covered people and companies and events and gatherings that help create the community of the genre. In short, we want to show how speculative fiction is expressed in all its forms.

This leads to another criterion for submissions: it's ok to be different. It's ok to experiment.

If, say, I received an article in Klingon, I would have no hesitation in publishing it in the next issue. I cannot speak Klingon so wouldn't have a clue what it would be about, but what I would know is that it is a manifestation of speculative fiction and that it deserves air time. However, if I received another article in Klingon I'd reject it outright. Why? Well, it's already been done and there isn't much entertainment in it once the novelty factor is gone. Similarly, the first story written in sms slang or in a computer language would get a guernsey but subsequent submissions probably would not – unless they had something else working in their favour.

OK, the policy may not lead to a magazine issue with a cohesive theme, it may not even lead to a magazine with quality writing (in some academic/literary sense) but that's not the point. Nor is it the point of the internet. The Specusphere is here to be another voice taking part in the mass conversation that takes place online every day, and what it wants to do is entertain and inform and show off examples of how much variety there is in this wonderful genre of ours.