khōréō is a quarterly magazine of speculative fiction and migration. We are dedicated to diversity and elevating the voices of immigrant and diaspora authors.
We publish fiction, genre non-fiction, and art; our stories include fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and any genre in between or around it — as long as there’s a speculative element. We’re especially interested in writing and art that explores migration. Examples include themes of immigration, diaspora, and anti-colonialism, as well as more metaphorical interpretations of the term.
Any act of migration, whether voluntary or forced, requires a recalibration of self-identity. We are defined, after all, by the environment that surrounds us: people, language, food, smell, sound. To change any one of them may be disorienting; to change them may leave us adrift. What better medium to explore this sensation than speculative fiction, where the author must create a new world for the reader to inhabit?
Our Name
Migration conjures up the language of botany. To leave one’s home is to be uprooted from family, friends, culture, identity; to build a life somewhere else is to put down those very same roots. A person who is removed from one context and put into another is a transplant. A colonizer, stemming from the Latin colere (to till), invades another location and imposes their vision of order.
khōréō has been named for the English transliteration of χωρέω, meaning (among other definitions) “go forward, advance”; “go forward, make progress”; “be spread abroad.” It is also the English root of -chore, which defines how organisms such as seeds are spread: hydrochore (spread by water), aerochore (air), ornithochore (birds).
We hope to transport you with our stories: by spaceship; by foot; by time; by sheer force of imagination.
Philosophy
khōréō is committed to the value of art, and as such, will pay SFWA-qualifying rates from its first issue for fiction, as well as market rates for non-fiction and art. In the coming years, we hope to also evolve to a model that compensates our staff.