Literary Journal Spotlight #3: Sci-Fi Ireland

For our third literary journal spotlight, the editors of Sci-Fi Ireland tell us a little bit about their publication…

 

The Basics

Sci-Fi Ireland is an independent literary magazine championing the voice of Irish Sci-Fi writers. The magazine publishes twice yearly in print and digitally. The magazine draws a few stories via commissions and then accepts open submissions from writers living on, or born on, the island of Ireland. Sci-Fi Ireland also encourages submissions as Gaeilge and publishes these stories with an English translation.

Sci-Fi-I is based out of Belfast and is linked with the Seamus Heaney Centre and the Crescent Arts Centre. The magazine also gets down to Dublin a fair bit and is developing connections with Templedark Books, the Irish Writers centre and is a crowd favourite at Octoncon (the Irish speculative fiction convention).

 

The Dream

Sci-Fi Ireland’s dream is to bring sci-fi into the spotlight at a time when philosophy, thought and discussion around science and technology is as important as it’s ever been. We hope to do so by finding and publishing the best new short science-fiction from the island of Ireland; and by providing a literary space for the science-fiction community of Ireland to connect.

Sci-Fi-I is particularly interested in stories that interrogate the philosophies of emergent and future technologies, stories that explore human potential, and stories that examine human nature drifting away from the natural world.

We lean heavily towards humorous writing and don’t consider ourselves particularly beholden to “hard” science. We champion an optimistic writing tone and prefer concept driven stories and so for us speculative capacity will outweigh scientific accuracy.

It’s the sincere belief of Sci-Fi Ireland that the best of human potential has yet to be seen and that by telling powerful, thought-provoking stories that dare humanity to be better; the Irish Sci-Fi scene can act as a source of inspiration for a better global future.

 

The Journey

Sci-Fi Ireland is brought to you by editor-in-chief Mark Mullan and lead-editor Alex Johnston. The two met whilst studying their MA in creative writing at Queen’s University Belfast and bonded over a shared love of anything nerdy they could sink their teeth into. Whether it be Vonnegut, Le Guinn or one true lord and saviour Douglas Adams they’ve sat tipsy in a dimly lit pub debating and bathing in the warm glow of sci-fi goodness. Now they are creating a magazine to share that same passion: that’s how Sci-Fi Ireland was born.

The bulk of the heavy lifting is done by Mark who has been mentored by Hanna Nielson of The Belfast Review through the magazine set up process. Without the phenomenal guidance of Hanna, Sc-Fi Ireland would not have come so far so quickly, and The Belfast Review and Sci-Fi Ireland have come to see themselves as sister magazines and even hope to share a Christmas party this year!

After three months of expedited behind the scenes work guided by Hanna; Mark and Alex had the great pleasure of doing a soft launch at Octocon 2025 in the Maldron, Tallaght. We introduced the magazine to the Irish fandom to a mixture of relief and delight that there would once more be somewhere for people to submit and read from our phenomenal Sci-Fi talent pool.

 

The Realities (AKA the Boring Stuff)

Sci-Fi Ireland is a bi-annual magazine available digitally and in print. We open for submissions twice yearly. In Dec/Jan for May publication, and again in June/July for November publication. All fiction authors published are paid for their work.

We also publish reviews, op-eds and essays from the Sci-Fi Ireland team and occasionally members of the fandom who have something to say that we believe just has to make it into the public sphere.

Mark and Alex do the slush pile reading then work with a team of readers to narrow the longlist to a shortlist and down to a final seven stories to go with our three commissions.

 

A sample of work previously included in Sci-Fi Ireland is available here.