Lois Ava-Matthew writes to let us know of the launch of Belletrista, an “international, nonprofit, web magazine celebrating the work of women writers around the world.” One of its goals is “to encourage cross-cultural understanding through international literature written by women, and to increase the visibility of that literature.” She warns SFScope readers that Belletrista will contain “very little genre, although a review of Ekaterina Sedia’s Secret History of Moscow is in next issue, and I do have a copy of the Greer Gilman out with a reviewer.”
The currently available first issue has:
a feature on the “Afghan Women’s Writing Project: A Voice in the World”
an article “Exploring Charlotte Roche’s Wetlands” by Carolyn Kelly
“Miracles” by Jaroslava Blažková, translated by Andrew Stancek (fiction)
an interview with New Zealand author Eleanor Catton, conducted by Rachel Beale
a list of new and notable books
a whole slew of reviews
The magazine is not looking for freelance submissions. Instead, Ava-Matthew says, “most everything is either assigned or agreed upon ahead of time. We pay between 2-6¢ per word for articles. Any fiction we use—which would be rare and probably not from English-speakers—would be negotiated on a case by case basis.” The magazine will appear every other month.
When not launching magazines, Ava-Matthew is a bookseller, and is involved in running New England’s annual Readercon science fiction convention. She is the Managing Editor of Belletrista, with a Board of Advisors including Andy Barnes (UK), Rachael Beale (UK), Akeela Gaibie-Dawood (South Africa), Rachel Hayes (UK & Belgium), Carolyn Kelly (Ireland & Germany), Julie McCoy (US), Amanda Meale (Australia), Joyce Nickel (Canada), Maggie Oldendorf (US), Paola Sergi (US & Italy), Charlotte Simpson (UK), and Barbara Steeg (US). Ava-Matthew notes that “Many of us, but not all, met on an international book cataloguing and social site called LibraryThing and have been discussing our reading with each other for years.”