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An Interview with Shingai Njeri Kagunda and Arley Sorg, Conducted by LP Kindred

Leading up to the release of our return issue in June, we are sending special early content to paid subscribers, such as new and exclusive interviews! So far, subscribers have received an interview with the recent World Fantasy Finalists and Winner in the Best Novel category (part one featured Alix E. Harrow, Wole Talabi, and Martha Wells; part two featured Tananarive Due, Yael Goldstein-Love, and Catriona Ward); an interview with Saga Press Senior Editor Amara Hoshijo; and an interview with the author of Model HomeSorrowlandThe DeepAn Unkindness of Ghosts, and more: Rivers Solomon! A few weeks ago, we also presented the following interview with Shingai Njeri Kagunda & Arley Sorg, conducted by LP Kindred, where they discuss their intentions and hopes for Fantasy Magazine. Enjoy! —AS

LP: I’m part of several private groups and the response to people hearing of the return of Fantasy Magazine was deafening. You can also see the swell of applause on the deadbird app and bluebutterfly. What does it mean to you to be part of the second return of Fantasy Magazine in 2025? 

Shingai: My history with Fantasy as my history with Arley is special. Fantasy published my first pro-rate sale “& This is How to Stay Alive” which eventually turned into my first published novella. Fantasy then continued to publish stories by African, Asian, Black Diasporic, Latinx  perspectives that most mainstream publishing did not give much of a platform to. When I became an editor at PodCastle, I remember getting on a video chat with Arley where I was trying to reconcile the whiteness of the industry, and what I felt was the gatekeeping nature of editorial positions in general. Arley reminded me, and has continued to do so since, that the work we are doing is slowly dismantling hierarchical systems of cultural domination by offering more space to writers whose cultures, styles, and lived experiences have been sidelined through marginality. To be part of the second return of Fantasy is to be part of a culture of possibility and resistance.

Arley: I feel lucky that I get to do things like this! And one of the best things about my various roles – Fantasy included – is being able to have some small impact on genre culture. It’s one of many ways to stand against the attempts of certain people in power to erase the perspectives of already marginalized folks.

Y’all wear so many hats within our community and you both have tons of experience as editors: How will your approaches be different in this iteration of Fantasy Magazine versus previous editing opportunities?

Arley: There is some degree of figuring out things as we go. Both of us have experience, but how do we work well together? So this is hard to answer because we are having a lot of ongoing conversations about processes, making sure that we are honoring each others’ needs. What we are doing right now could change tomorrow. That said, creative freedom is a huge component of our collective approach – each of us will curate the selections that speak to us individually, and the combined effect will be something that offers readers variety as well as wonderment.

Shingai: I definitely feel like the answer to this question is a work in progress. Every editing opportunity has been different. I plan on transferring what I have been able to achieve through co-editing the Voodoonauts anthology, PodCastle, and other smaller projects into my work at Fantasy. I am excited to clarify the specificity of my own tastes and to see how they complement Arley’s.

One of my favorite things about this collaboration is the Editors-in-Chief! Two of my favorite people! What excites you about editing with your counter-partner?

Shingai: I respect Arley so much, and I feel respected by him, which is huge. Because his editing, publishing, and literary experience spans a longer time than mine, I already know there is so much I will learn from this co-editing relationship. Arley is curious about what makes me excited and I appreciate how our communication is both direct, and filled with empathy.

Arley: Shingai is a genuine, warm human with great compassion and vision. Their presence is needed in genre, and I’m mostly excited to just let them be themself, in their full complexity, and to let readers see who they are through their selections.

You’re both running careers parallel to editing Fantasy. Among them, literary agent, scholar, columnist, author, and both of you teach. How do these ranges of expertise contribute to your editorial vision? 

Shingai: I am thinking about Toni Morrison with this question and how she was an editor, writer, public scholar, activist, and teacher simultaneously. I think the life of an artist cannot help but be multidimensional. Toni Morrison also said freedom is, “being able to choose your responsibilities. [It’s] not not having any responsibilities; but being able to choose which things you want to be responsible for.”* I think there is a freedom in choosing responsibilities that center storytelling and imagination that create possibilities for a more freedom-aligned world. My editorial vision and every other responsibility I am currently choosing is in conversation with this.

Arley: Tolkien called it the leaf-mould, basically the idea that everything we do and everything we are goes into a compost heap, and from this compost heap, our creativity and our ideas grow. It’s hard to say precisely how each piece impacts the other. But I can say that having a broad perspective on the field has always informed my conclusions about the field, which informs my decisions. Working at Locus for example I can see what books exist in genre spaces; I can also see the disparities, the missing voices, the perspectives that have been forced to conform for specific audiences, and so on. Working as an agent and receiving over two thousand queries gives me a sense of the ways that privilege impacts authorship, even before we get to the agenting and publishing level – who gets to see themselves as “a writer” and chase that dream, and what opportunities they have. My experiences elsewhere definitely inform what I seek; at the same time, I still need a story to speak to me, to do something special for me when I read it, and that is really hard to define beyond vague terms.

Shingai – How is editing for a digitally read magazine different from editing for a narrative podcast like PodCastle?

I love this question. As someone whose writing roots are entangled with performance poetry, I’m grateful that editing at PodCastle has been an opportunity to pay attention to how writing sounds. The breath, lyricism, and cadence of language are at the forefront of decision making processes. This is bound to influence the way I edit stories at Fantasy. Not only am I thinking about language and pacing, I’m thinking about the vocal possibilities and implications of any given story. That said, there is a lot more room with Fantasy to not get too hung up on whether the language is too wordy for a podcast, or has too much dialogue to be recorded well. Most of the time a good story works both as a “read in your head” story and as a “read aloud” story. So I come back to gratitude that there will be a lot of overlap in my experience editing at PodCastle and my experience editing at Fantasy.

Arley – How do you envision editing this version of Fantasy Magazine will be different from previous iterations you were involved in?

Last time, from 2020-2023, I was doing it with Christie Yant and John Joseph Adams under the Adamant Press umbrella, as a sibling mag to Lightspeed and Nightmare. John had made it clear that he wasn’t planning to interfere with our editorial selections, so Christie and I had complete creative freedom to select works – except for excerpts and ads. Christie was always extremely receptive to my concerns, thoughts, ideas. We had started as friends, long before our run with Fantasy Magazine happened. That said, I still had a feeling of pressure that comes with being part of a legacy and a well-respected family of magazines. It was their mag, and I only got to have that role by their good graces and trust.

Going into this relationship with Sean and Psychopomp, I was clearer about what I wanted, what I didn’t want, what I would like to change from the last iteration, and other things – a lot of which I can’t really talk about. From the beginning I felt more like… this is a thing I don’t have to do, which I can walk away from if certain aspects bother me – so my own positionality changed a lot. Which changes my intentionality a lot, behind the scenes. Christie was a wonderful partner, and both Christie and John are friends. It is extremely rare for them to give someone as much freedom and authority as they gave me. That said, a lot of what is different, for me, is behind the scenes, and we’ll see how it looks in the long run; but so far, Sean and Elise have really been wonderful! I am grateful to be working with Shingai. Sean has a very different vision for delivery and longevity, too, so this will impact how the magazine looks, how subscriptions work, and so much more – I’m excited to see how it goes! Finally, we have a much tighter budget. So, as much as I loved being a monthly, we have transitioned to quarterly. This works very well with the fact that I am just super busy with other projects; I don’t really have time to co-edit a monthly mag. Still, my hope is that this iteration does really well, that we get lots of subscriptions and can expand. Going back to monthly in some way is not out of the question, if the financial support from readers is there. Besides all these… Shingai is a very different person from Christie, and I can’t wait to see the selections they make!

Psychopomp has become a bit of an upstart, bringing us a magazine like The Deadlands and physical novellas and novelettes online. Now Psychopomp called on you to steward this legacy publication. What does it feel like to be a star in the Psychopomp constellation? How’d this happen?

Arley: When we closed Fantasy, we had a number of people reach out offering various things, including money. Some people really didn’t want the mag to close. John – or John and Christie, I’m honestly not sure – had made his/their decision; but they forwarded the emails my way, and I believe Christie told at least a couple of folks that maybe I’d be interested in doing something. One person had offered a chunk of money for me to do a magazine, separately, following those email conversations. I’d said “maybe…” because I have trust issues! Was this person serious? Were they going to stick around? I have seen so many things in genre start and then crumble before getting off the ground, often even before things are announced. Folks have ideas but don’t necessarily know what it takes to follow through, or how much work it will be. Anyways, Sean had also reached out. So I connected Sean with the person who had talked about putting in a chunk of money, and we started talking about starting a brand new magazine. I pulled in Shingai because they are wonderful, and I thought working with them would be great. Sean had always been interested in buying Fantasy Magazine, and late last year, John changed his mind about selling – so he said “Okay.” We switched our plan from opening a new magazine to reopening Fantasy. But the guy who was planning to kick in a chunk of cash dropped out…. Ironic, because all of this was kind of because of him. Sean expressed his commitment, Shingai expressed their commitment, so we moved forward – with a much tighter budget and fingers crossed. I now remain nervous but hopeful, and most of all, I hope we succeed in creating a welcoming space for some amazing creatives to shine; I hope we connect readers to awesome works!

Shingai: “A star in the Psychopomp constellation” is such delightful phrasing. In the surreal full circle nature of my life, Psychopomp is a publication I got to work with in a completely different capacity before I knew that they would bring Fantasy back to life. About a year and a half ago Sean reached out to me asking if I would be interested in writing a novelette for Psychopomp. I was in the middle of a really rough writing block season, and I wondered if writing about death (which tends to be the Psychopomp challenge) would force me to process whatever I needed to process, to move through the writing block. Fast forward a few months later, I submitted my novelette in progress around the same time Arley reached out and asked if I would be interested in co-editing a future magazine with him. I said yes to Arley, and Sean said yes to my novelette. Soon I found out that Sean had offered to house the publication of future said magazine – At the time we did not know it would be the resurrection of Fantasy – I was ecstatic to get to work with Psychopomp again, but in an editorial position this time, because I felt like Sean and Elise treated my own words and work with so much care during the editing and publication process. There was already some trust established. My serendipitous feelings continue to be affirmed the more I get to know the Psychopomp team, and realize how aligned our values are.

You’ve both been loud advocates for diversity and the diversification of fiction. Particularly in a version of the world where equity’s dimming, how is your approach to this magazine different from the other magazines or iterations you’ve been part of?

Shingai: My approach is only different in as much as who I am working with is different. The publishing industry is overwhelmingly white. Those in decision-making positions are still more likely to be white in 2025. I have been lucky enough to work with people who understand this and are aware of the bias that comes into play, because white perspectives are more likely to be considered universal experiences and perspectives. That said, getting to work with Arley who has been explicitly advocating for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Queer work to be amplified in white dominated spaces makes me more brave. I am committed to a world that has dismantled systems of imperial violence, sustained through white supremacy, colonization, and economic exploitation. That is big work. To be committed to that world is to pay attention to the imagination and stories of people who insist on alternatives. Historically, this has tended to be the people who are directly impacted by the imperial violences of this world. This is the starting point I bring into most, if not all of the work I am a part of and thus informs my approach to editing at Fantasy.

Arley: I think my approach with Fantasy last time around worked really well. Shingai and I haven’t sorted everything out yet, but a lot of it has to do with reader bias: the reader bias of many individuals in the short fiction industry (editors, reviewers, slush readers) leans white. If most of what you read is by white authors, and your cultural intake is mostly white, then of course, what you respond to as “good” to you will likely be white-coded narratives. I read very broadly, and do so very deliberately. I read with as much empathy as I can. When something doesn’t work for me, I often consider the possibility that I am just not getting it, and that it might work for someone else, instead of pretending that I am the final say in what is “good.” Ultimately, I can only like whatever I’m going to like. That said, my own reading habits are very different from a lot of other editors, slush readers, and reviewers. As a result of this, and of my lived experiences, my own marginalizations, as well as a result of actively trying to learn about people who are different from me, I am more likely to “get” the subtext of authors from marginalized communities than many of my peers. My own reader bias looks very different from that which determines what gets published at a lot of other places.

Shingai – Are there any themes or concepts you’d like to see more of in the slush?

Big feelings, questioning/dismantling exploitative societal structures, found family, and any of the magic that makes a writer excited to be writing. I am easily convinced to love a piece if the writer themselves is in love with the work they are sharing. This is to say, if there is a theme/concept you as the writer are deeply excited about, then I am curious to see it, and grateful for the opportunity.

Arley – Are there any conventions you’d like to see less of in the slush?

I can’t really answer this because, more than once, I have loved (and purchased) stories which, if you had described them, I would have shaken my head and said, “No thanks.” Maybe there is a general kind of story that an individual doesn’t like (and yeah, this really is true for me, too), but you never know who is out there, doing it in a way which will surprise you. So I won’t tell people what things I don’t like, what I don’t want to see, because I know that the moment I do, I will miss out on something that would truly delight me.

Of all the genres you could edit, what endears you to fantasy?

Shingai: I was a Lord of the Rings kid. My older cousins were nerds and we would get together to play games, and watch movies that would transport me from my home in Nairobi to a land of wizards or pirates or magic. I think one of my favourite things about Fantasy as a genre is how it relationally animates the natural world. The boundaries between plant, animal, and human lives become more fluid, and that impacts the way we understand our own positionality as people.  I would edit other genres too though. The niche of my own writing is Afrosurrealism, but I love most speculative genres, and would edit anything that fell under surreal slipstream subgenres.

Arley: Fantasy isn’t the only genre I like – I am into lots of things! I am fortunate to get to work in this genre. You can do almost anything with this kind of storytelling, from having a fun, escapist piece to laying someone out emotionally. That said, I would also edit horror and science fiction if things lined up right. I think genre fiction in general is a very special way to engage with the world.

Are there any themes or conventions you think we need in the face of Fascism more than this time last year?

Shingai: What comes up for me is Nina Simone’s quote, “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times”.** Reflecting the times can be interpreted several different ways depending on perspective and positionality. My perspective and positionality make me believe that resistance as a theme was just as important this time last year as it was important in the 1960’s during the civil rights and Pan-African decolonial movements as it is important today. In terms of specifics, some of the ideas I am excited about are mutuality, prefiguration, collectivity, political consciousness, survival, and working out definitions of freedom.

Arley: I love Shingai’s brilliant answer. I just watched the Hulu documentary Sly Lives! and it’s amazing how relevant that story is. For me, I think the most important thing is empowering folks to tell the stories they want to tell. Yes, we need stories of resistance. But sometimes, for many people, just sending your work out on submission is an act of resistance, and it can be just as important as the work which thematically talks about resistance. Especially when the goal of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and similar, is to obliterate the presence of those voices; even if that individual is not directly writing about resistance – even if they are writing about puppies – the act of writing at all (in fact, the act of continuing to breathe, of doing things that make you happy) is a type of resistance. There is a type of false allyship which only promotes marginalized voices speaking on specific topics. I want folks to feel empowered to write what they want to write, and to know that no one else gets to decide what they should write.

Name one fantasy story in the last year that made you think, “Damn, I wish I wrote/edited that story!”

Arley: A lot of my short fic reading last year was in anthologies. I read a lot of fantastic stories! One that immediately comes to mind is Rob Cameron’s “The Hyena and the Rhino” in Bestiary of Blood (Crystal Lake); another I have to mention is Ryan La Sala’s “Ask Twice” in Faeries Never Lie (Feiwel & Friends).

Shingai: This is a hard question because I read so many things I loved, but for today the answer will be Okwiri Oduor’s Things they Lost, which is a novel that completely blew me away, and has refused to let go of me since I closed the last page. My pitch for this book as a recommendation is: Afro-surreal, intergenerational trauma and joys, contentious mother-daughter relationship, and magic people living in the attic.

Arley – What’s exciting about literary agenting at the moment?

I really like the idea that I might be able to help folks achieve what they want to achieve, and that through this work, I can be a tiny part of a crowd that helps to shape literary culture. This has always been important, but is even more important now, when so many individuals in positions of power and privilege are attempting to silence the voices of marginalized creators. Meanwhile, the readers out there who really need to see more works which better reflect their lives are at risk of literary starvation. Everyone who reads impacts this, with every decision they make. At this writing, we just sold Leslye Penelope’s latest book, December 32; I have contracts in motion for a couple of other projects, and I’m still eager to find more wonderful writers to represent.

Shingai – What are you writing about lately?

The ocean. Time travel. Generational trauma which can be traced back to colonial roots. Black queer loving in all of its complexities. The stars, the sky, and talking trees.

How can fans of Fantasy Magazine support its renaissance?

Arley: Subscribe!

Whether or not we keep going will come down to subscriptions. There are a lot of readers out there, but only a few contribute to the financial successes of the mags they enjoy. All of these mags – whether ours or someone else’s (and there are a lot of great mags!) would like to pay writers and artists, but that money has to come from somewhere. For us, we would like it to come from subscriptions. Besides this, signal boost! 🙂

Shingai: Many kilograms of patience and many miles of grace. This work is a lot and we are excited to do it, and we won’t always get it right. 🙂 Also what Arley said about subscribing. We logistically need material support to sustain paying the brilliant writers we will publish, and the growing momentum of the magazine.




LP Kindred is a Chicagoan-Angeleno podcaster and teaching artist and an Ignyte Award-nominated writer, editor, and culture worker. An alum of Hurston-Wright, VONA, and Clarion Foundation workshops, LP’s fiction features in Fiyah Literary Magazine, LeVar Burton Reads, Speculative City, Apex Magazine, Anathema, PodCastle, and Escape Pod as well as appearing in the inaugural Queer Blades anthology. Kindred is Ignyte Award-nominated for his short story “Wanderlust,” co-editing VOODOOONAUTS PRESENTS: (RE)LIVING MYTHOLOGY, and community work in Voodoonauts.  In addition to co-editing the above-mentioned anthology, Kindred guest edited issues of Speculative City, Haven Spec, and the Cosmic Background. LP is a cocoa-founder of Voodoonauts, a grassroots collective addressing the underrepresentation and isolation of Black Creators in Speculative Fiction. Kindred is a co-host of Just Keep Writing, a fortnightly podcast for writers, by writers, to keep you writing. Find LP Kindred on every platform @lpkindred.