Spec Colorways In Verse icon—per coed Lysz Flo: resilient brown fist holding a wispy rainbow to represent our intention to cultivate and nourish speculative safe space for Queer BIPOC. The stars behind it honoring how far and wide our worlds can go.

About

A newsletter and community space centering queer BIPOC speculative poetry. On Patreon, we post prompts twice a month, host quarterly craft gatherings, and in the future aim to publish poetry inspired by aforementioned prompts at, or above, SFWA rate—after three months, that content will be available on this here website.

Our Whys

With escalations in censure and erasure, there is a critical need for supporting as well as creating independent spaces made by and for our communities. And this is why we, your coeditors Lysz Flo and Jeané D. Ridges, believe cultivating connection around queer BIPOC speculative poetry is a vital move toward meeting it→

  • Lysz: Imagining Queer BIPOC speculative poetry as an expanse for tangible ways of existing, placing, painting, and audaciously permeating the future regardless of time, place, or galaxy. There is a promise and manifestation of all of the in-between of possibilities written to the forefront. There is space where all that has been considered too much or too far out is declared within nuance, emotion, and zooming in with interiority. Queer BIPOC speculative poetry is a root filled with intention that reshapes the rigidity of reality. I believe in its essence to hold softness and liberation and the more that only we can write into existence.

  • Jeané: When I think of BIPOC, queer (can.also.be.read. centering the liminal as its own expanse and none of what is considered above) speculation that resonates in this breath on the timeline, it doesn’t just check boxes—import our being into narratives that can’t hold all of who we are except as decoration or something to be used. In emotive, wondrous, expanding ways and worlds, it genuinely explores existence and relation, beyond merely human/human orientation, and the very experience of stories—reweaving what is known and told, inventing forms and lore. Speculative poetry is no exception, rather it is a unique, felt-centered vehicle of telling toward this.

Support

  • On Patreon, you can subscribe for free and receive prompts and general updates. For additional content, we have two paid tiers: $2 Sweetgrass Shovel = Prompts & Poems, $5 Viridian Verse = Prompts & Poems + Exclusive Workshops & Generative Sessions. Individual poem posts with audio will be available for purchase.

a lazer sword, with a thin yet broad blade, and katana, handle diamond-shape wrapping, make a V shape

  • You can send donations directly to us on PayPal by searching Spec Colorways In Verse under “Send and Request” when you log in—make sure to type donation in the note box. Thank you :).

Editors

Lysz Flo

is an AfroCaribbean Latine, polyglot, writer, indie author, The Estuary Collective member, Ignyte Award Winner for CNF, Creatively Exposed podcast host, Voodoonauts Summer 2020 Fellow/Educator in 2024, and Obsidian Black Listening 2022 Fellow. She released Soliloquy of an Ice Queen, March 2020. She is creative educator since 2020 with a workshop series in MOCA NOMI. Her poems can be found in FIYAH, iamb, Hellebore, Lolwe, Strange Horizons, and has done various multimedia projects with O, Miami. She is also an Online Crystal and Spiritual wellness shop owner at Astrolyszics.com.

Lysz Flo is an AfroCaribbean Latine, polyglot, writer, indie author, The Estuary Collective member, Ignyte Award Winner for CNF, Creatively Exposed podcast host, Voodoonauts Summer 2020 Fellow/Educator in 2024, and Obsidian Black Listening 2022 Fellow.

Jeané D. Ridges

Their poetic storytelling is bound and manifested by abundant melanin, Southernness, good eatin’, breath, ill living, and care for our whole ecosystem’s thriving. They’ve had a dozen and counting short-form works published, most recently in Strange Horizons, Stone of Madness Press, SISTORIES (where they were a contributing editor as an inaugural fellow of the mag’s Luminary Editorial Incubator), and khōréō (where they’ve been a copyeditor since 2023). How to connect: jeanedridges.carrd.co | @jdridges (bsky).

Jeané D. Ridges—poetic storyteller, food serenader, ecos admirer living with systemic lupus, abundant with southern melanin.

Guidelines

WE ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED
CHECK BACK MAY 16 :)

Spec Colorways In Verse is seeking prompt-inspired speculative poetry by queer Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC)—for more deats, read our whys.2–3 poems, each begins on a new page and less than 25 lines per (6 max); if your heart, or energy, determines you have a single masterpiece, we’ll read it. Must be speculative—not “I glided into a portal” then the rest is unrelated and nonspeculative. We’re open to any form: traditional, free, experimental, and/or hybrid. We also encourage those living with (dis)abilities*/chronic illnesses and rooted in or of diasporas from Africa, Asia, SWANA, Central/South America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and First Nations to submit work engaging with the cultures and stories of their communities—but it is not a requirement, we want whatever is forged from the depth of your creativity and wonder.Original content only.Simultaneous Submissions: Allowed. Please indicate if you’re submitting simultaneously in your cover letter, and notify us as soon as possible if your submission has been accepted somewhere else—or you need to withdraw for another reason (no explanation required)—so we can remove it from consideration.Payment is $50 per poem (USD): Paid on publication—primarily through PayPal, but will arrange other payment methods as necessary.Rights: First electronic rights (digital)—4 months of exclusivity from the date of publication on our Patreon, and indefinite archiving on our website unless the author requests to remove the content; an exemption to the period above is granted for reprinting of work in Year’s Best, other annuals/related volumes, author collections, and as otherwise agreed upon by both us and the author. If elect to include with your piece, nonexclusive right to record, or post recording of, audio and share it on our Patreon for at least a year.We Can’t Accept: Work that isn’t in English, because we don’t have the capacity or knowledge for translation. We will not be rating your engagement of English (e.g., dialects) in our decision, write your work how it yearns—if you can, read aloud, how does it feel?We’re Not Interested In:
Previously declined work—editors will offer authors the opportunity to revise and resubmit at their discretion.
Previously published work—including work previously published in a language that isn’t English.
Work produced with and/or assisted by AI/LLMs—all authors will have to attest whether they did or didn’t use when submitting, and anyone who indicates they didn’t and is discovered to have used it will be banned from submitting in the future.
Work depicting unexamined, repressive violence and overly explicit content—if you are unsure, please email the editors before submitting.Please submit all poems in one .doc or .docx file titled “LastName-Poem” or “LastName-(1st)PoemTitle(+#)” via our submission form linked below. Additionally, you’ll be asked to provide your byline; title(s) of poem(s); if applicable, put what form(s) you are using or hybrid in the designated box; inspiring Spec Colorways prompt(s); and for the cover letter, it’s easiest just to address us as “Dear Editors”, or say hi, and include: your preferred name and any pronouns if use, title(s) of poem(s) submitting (any associated forms, but no summaries), any content notes for the presence of and/or allusion to graphic content (such as psychological and physical violence, gore, medical neglect, sexual imagery, etc.), and a brief bio statement noting self-identification for inclusion in Spec Colorways (you can include a couple publications, but being previously published isn’t a requirement to submit).

Status: [When open, button will magically
transport to form—not home page.]

For those previously published in Spec Colorways: Please wait at least 1 quarter from when we publish your work on our website (all our prompts and poems on Patreon are made available herein 3 months after posting).Queries: Address your emails to email (at) here (at) com. If sending a general query, please use the subject “Query: Your Question”. If querying about the status of a submission, please use the subject “Query: Your Submission Title”. We intend to keep all submission responses under 8 weeks, but our responses may get spammed. If that isn’t the case and we’re late sending you a response, don’t hesitate to query.*(Dis)ability: Used thinking with Dr. Sami Schalk about “the mutual dependency of disability and ability to define one another . . . the shifting, contentious, and contextual boundaries between [them]” (Bodyminds Reimagined p. 6).

Prompts

Dreaming of Poems