Angela Yuriko Smith and her Space and Time Kickstarter

By Angelique Fawns

Space and Time magazine has been publishing speculative fiction for 50 years, and is one of the oldest flagship markets in North America. Angela Yuriko Smith, a two-time Bram Stoker Award Winner, is the publisher of Space and Time and is running a Kickstarter to celebrate five decades of bringing innovation, discovery, and storytelling to the world.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/angela-yuriko-smith/space-and-time-celebrating-50-years-of-speculative-fiction

I was honored to have a story purchased by Smith in the Fall/Winter issue 147 this year called “Gragon and the Neptune Nit Infestation,”  along with a close friend of mine, R.J.K. Lee, who shared the TOC with his tale, “What Devil or Dove Guards the Girl.”

Smith also runs a popular newsletter called Authortunities on Substack where she lists industry news and open calls. Writers can find paid opportunities, contests, awards, workshops, and grants. I’ll confess, I’ve cribbed a few things from her list for my own monthly posts. 

I asked Angela Yuriko Smith a few questions:

AF: How did you come to be involved with Space and Time?

AYS: First, thank you so much for taking the time to interview me. I also watch your newsletter for submissions as well so we are definitely cooperating there. As far as Space and Time, I actually became involved with the magazine because I wanted to submit a poem. Their submissions page had a bittersweet message from then-publisher Hildy Silverman announcing the closure. The letter ended with a plea for someone to take up the publication and keep it going. My thoughts on reading that letter was… not me. Running a magazine is a lot of work, and usually a publisher sacrifices much of their own writing career to do it, not to mention the cost.

 

But Hildy’s letter stayed with me. My background was in newspapers and I’d moved up the ranks over two decades from freelance to managing a multi-publication weekly newspaper, so I knew I could step in and keep it going. I also just wanted to enjoy an easy second career in fiction and poetry and not worry about the stress that comes with publishing.

 

 I knew the magazine had a stellar reputation and a lot of community love. Space and Time was started in 1966 by a high school student named Gordon Linzner on a mimeograph machine. Many creators cut their artistic teeth in that magazine, growing with it. Gene Simmons from the band Kiss even did some illustrations when he was 13! How could I not step in to try and keep this history alive?

 

I decided to take on the magazine as a temporary publisher until I could find someone else. My goal was to keep it alive until then. I’ve looked for another publisher and even offered it to three different people, but in the end I’ve fallen in love. One of the things I have been doing over the past few years is pulling together a complete digital archive of every issue from 1966 to now. In really digging into the magazine’s past I fell in love and became committed to ensuring it stays around for the future.

 

AF: What is the main goal of your Kickstarter and what can readers expect to find in your special 50th edition book?

AYS: The main goal of my Kickstarter is to organize the magazine’s history while I can. I feel incredibly lucky to count both previous publishers as my personal friends. I have a tremendous amount of respect for both Gordon and Hildy. I think this impulse to preserve the magazine’s history took hold of me during 2020. Like so many, I lost some people. I also realized how much I’d taken my opportunities for granted. My cousin was John Prine, the American singer-songwriter known for his blend of folk, country, and Americana music. I grew up hearing from my family how I needed to connect with him “because we were both poets.” When the first issue of Space and Time came out under my management I thought of him and thought I would finally connect with him. I sent him a copy of that issue. What I didn’t know was he had COVID. The magazine I sent probably arrived as he was succumbing to the illness. He passed away, and the issue was returned to me. It was my wake up call to ask the important questions while those with the answers are still with me.

 

As far as what I am planning to include in the book? Lots and lots of history. So many writers tell me they had their first story published in the magazine. LeVar Burton once read from an issue on his Reading Rainbow show. Dozens of major names in illustration and writing started their careers with either Gordon or Hildy. Interviews with readers, writers, artists and all others will be collated to create the history of Space and Time from those who participated in it.

 

AF: Being published in Space and Time is a prestigious accomplishment. Can you give us some hints as to what kind of stories are most likely to be successful? 

AYS: Space and Time is a speculative magazine, but I’ve noticed each publisher has had their preferences in genre. Gordon had a lot of sword and sorcery in his issues. Hildy seemed to lean toward sci-fi and I know I have demonstrated a preference for horror stories. Lately, however, the stories we love best are those that offer insight and solutions to what ails us in the world. Stories that deal with hunger, ecological disaster, social issues like racism and erasure… these have been rising to the top for the last few years. Before things can be fixed someone has to imagine the solution. That’s the role of the artist whether the medium of creation is watercolor or words. We imagine a better future and it becomes possible.

 

AF: What do you see too much of?

AYS: Lack of formatting! I think this is something that plagues most publishers, but just taking a moment to put your manuscript into Shunn formatting and spell checking before hitting send puts a piece ahead. I see less of this in the last few years though, so I think all my winging on this topic is bearing fruit.

 

AF: What is your number one piece of advice for new writers?

AYS: Write your story, not the one you think someone wants you to write. When I first started writing fiction I wrote about what I loved in the form that I fell in love with it. My ghost stories read like ghost stories, which was fine, but they were competing with all the other well crafted ghost stories that read like ghost stories. One day my friend and mentor Bryan Thao Worra pointed out to me that I wasn’t a part of my stories. I was telling other peoples’ stories. I love ghosts, but I’m also part Asian. I think technology and science are magic, and I find magic in my technology and science. I am a sucker for glowing color change, I love tattoos and if I could replace one of my eyes for a glowing red Terminator style I would. My stories didn’t reflect me at all. I tried out Bryan’s advice and wrote “Vanilla Rice” in an hour one day for a submission call. It was my first professional sale, it’s been reprinted several times since and the books it has appeared in have won Bram Stokers and Shirley Jackson awards… not because of that story, but it was a part. Every story I’ve written since has sold, usually on the first submission. I attribute the success to Bryan’s advice. I don’t have to be the best writer out there, I just have to write my story the best I can. 

 

AF: Tell us about your writing journey?

AYS: When I think about why I became a writer, the memory takes me back to a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I was probably around eight years old. I’d read in Ranger Rick magazine that the whales were dying, and it felt urgent—something I had to do something about. I gathered a bucket of stones and spelled out “Save the Whales” in giant letters across the road. I daydreamed that maybe astronauts, aliens, or even God might see it. I believed my words would make a difference.

 

When the first car came, it didn’t stop, didn’t even hesitate. The driver had no time for whales, a kid in a ditch, or the hope I’d poured into those words. Watching that car roll over my message was a message to me that I was powerless to make a difference.

 

Later that evening I was drawing my sorrows with a comic book and a TV dinner, when I read the words that would wind up guiding the rest of my life. The comic featured a villain who was winning with only his words—sharp, powerful, unstoppable words. His super power was writing. What he wrote became reality. At one point, he said something like, “He who controls words controls the world.” That line hit me like lightning. I reread it over and over, and for the first time, I saw language as something more than just a way to communicate. The written word was a superpower any of us could have. That’s when I decided I’d be a writer, hopefully using my superpower for good.

 

AF: Can you tell us how you won two Bram Stokers, how that affected your career, and what you are currently working on? 

AYS: The Bram Stokers were won for poetry and short nonfiction, and I have two Finalists for long nonfiction and long fiction. I’m going to say every one of them was because I followed my advice (which was really Bryan Thao Worra’s advice) to “Write your story, not the one you think someone wants you to write.” As far as affecting my career, awards open doors. Something I think we usually don’t consider is the anxiety that comes with them. Maybe this is just me, but once I had that first Bram Stoker nomination (not even the full award). I felt like now people were noticing me so I better not f**k up. I spent the next few years trying to please everyone. Now I am comfortable enough to know that will never happen so I just try to be nice.

As far as what I’m working on, lately it has been a lot of haibun poetry for a collection I’ll probably release in April 2025 and a nonfiction book about choosing and defining publishing quests to make tailored launches for what we really want from our books (craft, credibility, fortune or fame), banish imposter syndrome and avoid falling prey to post-creative let down. It’s called Choose Your Own Publishing Adventure and I hope to have that out by early 2025.

 

AF: If you could do something differently in your career path, would it be?

AYS: Can I say nothing? Every mistake, error and humiliation has led me to this moment and this moment is a good one for me. It’s tough to be a writer, but by luck and opportunity I have been privileged to be able to do the one thing I love best all my life, and support myself with it. If I hadn’t had the struggles, I wouldn’t know how incredibly blessed I am. 

 

AF: How have you seen Space and Time evolve over the years?

AYS: Space and Time is an entity onto its own. The first issue is barely legible from the mimeograph printing, but to see what a high schooler created is inspiring. All I was creating in high school were marks on my permanent record. Because of Gordon and Hildy’s dedication and guidance, today that magazine attracts both established names and the yet-to-be published. When I first took over several people thought I would want to boost the magazine to professional status. I doubt I will ever find a reason to do that. I think it’s important to keep the magazine in the semi-pro level, so that writers at the beginning of their career have a place to start. I do want to raise our rates soon, but during my time we will most likely always stay in the semi-pro zone. The work submitted, however, is phenomenal. Our submissions are highly competitive, especially in recent years. 

 

AF: What is exciting you most in genre fiction these days?

AYS: How important genre fiction is for society. Especially in the US I think we tend to overlook the importance of story (whatever medium used to communicate it) but it’s the artists that guide a society. It’s how we present things that can enlighten, connect, unite, guide… story is everything. I consider writing to be a sacred art whether we are writing genre fiction or not. As a wise supervillain once told me, “He who controls words controls the world.” As not a supervillain, I have created my own version: We who wield words guide the world to wonder.

That’s what genre fiction excels at.