Independent Science Fiction and Speculative Culture Newspaper
Alienaward PressBuenos Aires · Independently edited · Weekly columns and dispatches
The workflow described on this page is the one used for columns, reviews, translation notes, and convention dispatches. It is not a submission pipeline for finished manuscripts, and it does not apply to the letters section, which contributors select and shape on their own.
Two things are worth stating plainly. First, no piece is commissioned on the promise of a deadline; the schedule follows the editing, and a translation review can hold a text back until the original wording is settled. Second, corrections sent to the editor are read as correspondence, not as tracked tickets, and nothing on this site confirms that a message has reached an inbox. If you want to see how a finished piece looks after this process, the current issue is the place to start.
Alienaward Press runs on a small newsroom and a wide circle of contributors. If something in a review, a translation note, or a convention dispatch needs a correction, write to the editor directly. Pitches for reviews and essays go to the same address, and our weekly reading selection highlights work already published.
Send the article title, the issue date, and the passage you are flagging. Short notes are fine. We read everything that arrives, though we cannot promise a reply to each one.
support@alienaward.comReview ideas, translation notes, and dispatches from zine fairs or small-press events are welcome. A paragraph about the angle is enough to start. The contact page carries the only form on the site.
Send a pitch through the contact pageFor print correspondence and reader letters, the newsroom can be reached at the address below. The phone line is answered during working hours in Buenos Aires.
Av. Corrientes 1386, C1043 Buenos Aires, Argentina
+54 11 4536-1679Before you write, the FAQ on the contact page covers the questions we get most often about submissions, the letters section, and how the digest works. Legal details live on the policy page.
Every story in Alienaward Press starts as a pitch, not a commission. Contributors and staff send ideas for reviews, translation notes, and convention dispatches, and the ones that fit the current issue move forward. What follows is the path a piece takes from that first message to the version you read online.
Write a short note describing the book, film, or scene you want to cover and why it belongs in the paper now. A working title and a rough sense of length help more than a polished pitch.
The editor replies with one of three answers: take it, reshape it for a different column, or pass. If a piece overlaps with something already in progress, you may be asked to fold it into an existing thread instead.
You write the draft, then the desk checks names, dates, titles, and quotes against sources. Claims that cannot be verified get cut or rewritten as clearly marked opinion.
A second editor works the sentences for rhythm and clarity. When the original material is not in English, a translation pass follows so the Spanish source and the English text stay honest to each other.
The piece is set in the broadsheet-inspired look, with serif headlines and the paper's cream and indigo palette. It goes live with the current issue, and letters responding to it are read and selected by contributors, not by a script.
If you want to see what the process produces, the Southern Cone reading list is a good place to start, and the service list shows the columns and formats the desk runs each week.
Alienaward Press has no fixed editorial calendar and no automated queue. A piece moves forward when a person reads it, argues with it, and decides it is ready. What follows is the sequence we actually follow, not a marketing version of it.
Review ideas, translation notes, and convention dispatches arrive from contributors and staff. An editor reads each one and replies with a decision: assign it, ask for a sharper angle, or pass. Nothing enters the pipeline on a maybe.
Names, titles, dates, and publication details get checked against primary sources before a draft is touched for style. Then a line editor works the prose, cutting where the argument repeats itself and tightening the reporting around zine fairs, print runs, and cover art.
When the original material is not in English, a second reader checks the translation before publication. The question is not only accuracy but rhythm: whether the Spanish or Portuguese carries an idiom that should survive into the English, or one that should be explained and let go.
Reader mail is read and shaped by contributors rather than sorted by software. We select letters that push an argument forward, add short editorial notes, and leave the disagreements standing where they are honest.
The finished piece is set in the broadsheet look the paper uses throughout: serif headlines, deep indigo, newsprint cream, and signal orange accents. It is published with the weekly selection and remains in the archive by theme.
We do not promise a turnaround time, and we would rather tell you that plainly than invent one. If you are waiting on a pitch, write to the editor at support@alienaward.com and ask where it stands.