STONE TELLING is a poetry magazine seeking to publish speculative poems with a strong emotional core and a literary sensibility. It is edited by Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan.

We are a diversity-oriented venue. We publish a wide variety of voices and themes, and encourage submissions from multiple perspectives. Please look at the guidelines and peruse an issue of the magazine to see what we're after.

FOUNDER and CO-EDITOR: Rose Lemberg was born on the outskirts of the former Habsburg Empire, and lived in Russia, Israel, and Berkeley, CA before making her home in the Midwest. She works as an assistant professor at a local university, mothers a little boy with moderate autism, and works on poetry and fiction at night. Rose's poems have been published in Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, and many other venues and nominated for the Rhysling Award. Her fiction was published or is forthcoming in Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, GUD Magazine, and other venues. Check out her website, roselemberg.net, for more information.

CO-EDITOR: Shweta Narayan was born in India and lived in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, and Scotland before moving to California. She makes her home in liminal spaces, and her internal landscape is a patchwork of places, myths, and languages. Shweta's poetry has been published in places like Stone Telling, Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, Strange Horizons, and nominated for the Rhysling Award. Her fiction was published in a variety of venues, and was recently Nebula-nominated. She hangs out online at shweta_narayan.livejournal.com.

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Jennifer Smith was born under the perfect alias, and is satisfied that while she can choose to be helpful, you will never be able to pin anything on her. She is currently hiding out in the Southwest, with frequent break-outs into the internet, and dreams of one day hanging up her guns by the ocean and translating what the roses have to say.

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Bogi Takács is a neutrally gendered Hungarian Jewish person who's recently moved to the US. Eir speculative fiction and poetry has been published in venues like Strange Horizons, Apex, Scigentasy and GigaNotoSaurus. You can visit eir website or find em on Twitter.

INTERVIEWER: Julia Rios writes speculative prose and poetry, and is a regular contributor to the Outer Alliance blog (http://blog.outeralliance.org). She's half-Mexican, but her (fairly dreadful) French is better than her Spanish. She has blue hair and brown eyes, though these things are subject to change without notice. To see more of her work, visit her website at http://www.juliarios.com.


GUEST EDITORS (Issue 4):

Shweta Narayan (starting with Issue 5, Shweta joined the team as a permanent co-editor)

J. C. Runolfson's work has appeared in Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, and Strange Horizons, among others. Her poetry has been nominated for the Rhysling Award multiple times. She currently lives in Florida at the whim of the U.S. Navy, and can be found discussing poetry, movies, and her four beloved puppies online at http://seajules.livejournal.com.

Why "Stone Telling?"
Stone Telling is the name of the main character in Ursula Le Guin's Always Coming Home. The narrative takes place in the far future after an unspecified apocalypse. Stone Telling grows up with her mother's people, in a society modeled on the native cultures of Northern California. As a young woman, Stone Telling falls in love and leaves to live with her father's people, who are patriarchal and militaristic; eventually she returns home with her young daughter. We think the story of Stone Telling perfectly embodies the kind of multicultural and boundary-crossing vibe we are looking for.

What exactly do you mean by "literary speculative poetry?"
By speculative we mean poetry of the fantastic, which includes surreal, fantasy/mythic, science fiction, new and old weird; but in fact we will consider any poem that can wow us with amazing language, emotion, and ideas. That said, Stone Telling is not a market for mainstream poetry focused on the mundane. We are also not big on horror for its own sake. Please read the issues to see what kind of work we publish.

Where do you get your art?
The art in the banner and Stone Telling covers is by a Lithuanian symbolist artist and composer, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875 – 1911). Art by Čiurlionis is in the public domain. We also showcase individual work by photographers around the world, who publish their art under the Creative Commons licence.

How can I help?

If you enjoy Stone Telling, please consider contributing on Patreon to help Stone Telling stay alive for many more issues. Your donations go towards content – payment for poems and non-fiction pieces.