New Year, New FIYAH: Fiyah Literary Magazine #13 Review

Three years ago Fiyah Literary Magazine emerged into the speculative fiction field with a straight-forward premise: to publish speculative short stories, novellas, and poems by and about Black people of the African Diaspora. They have had a startling start. In their first year, they won the World Fantasy Award in the non-pro category. Since then, cover to cover, Fiyah has shaken the white world of sci fi, fantasy, and horror, appearing on Must Read and Awards lists around the world. They’ve introduced us to fantastic writers and served as the entry point for readers who felt excluded from other stories. Fiyah demonstrates what we, Black readers, already knew — exclusion of Black writers from mainstream outlets was not based on our merit but on racism and cultural imperialism. While other magazines and journals scramble to update their submissions guidelines and invite more Black authors, Fiyah continues to put out the fresh, new science fiction and fantasy that I love. Here at the beginning of their 4th year, it is time to revisit the latest issue, #13. Does it still bang? You know it does. Fiyah Goes Theme-Free Issue #13 isn’t centered around a theme. The themes that have been chosen in the past have set the tone not only for each issue, but for the direction of Fiyah in general. “Big Mama Nature” or “Ahistorical Blackness”, for example, introduces the reader to a whole new way of organizing sci-fi, fantasy, and horror around the wide variety of Black experiences, religion…