Dash – Editor

I am an American lawyer, editor, linguist and social justice activist. I am fascinated by the mind, consciousness, language, the structure of society, identity, critical theory, anti-colonialism, social justice, and how to make the world a better place.

I am Jewish, agnostic, eclectic and spiritual. Raised first by my white family and then simultaneously by my adoptive second mom of color, I often feel I fall between my racial identities, never “fully” either.

As an attorney, I try to use my skills, talents, sensitivities and awarenesses to bring people together to prevent and solve problems, promote social justice, foster education, empower the oppressed and give voice to the voiceless. I want to fight the “fear of the other” with every tool at my disposal, and to show people that there is nothing so esoteric as cannot also be completely normal.

Jacie – Webmistress

As an intersex lesbian girl who was raised as a boy in a highly traditional Vietnamese expatriate family, I am intimately and personally familiar with many of the unique challenges faced by multicultural LGBT people of color. I believe that well-crafted, authentic speculative fiction can be an important avenue for highlighting these and other social justice issues to those who do not experience them personally. Even though people read speculative fiction primarily for entertainment purposes, such stories can have a very strong educational impact by helping to shape the way in which people perceive and discuss these important subjects.

Mainstream speculative fiction all too often plays a major part in perpetuating highly negative misconceptions and stereotypes about people like me. That’s why Expanded Horizons is so important: it’s about making a place for truth in fiction, fighting back against those misconceptions and stereotypes through authentic portrayals.

I can be reached via e-mail at jcady@ugcs.caltech.edu

Maria Velazquez Earley – Webmistress and Story Consultant

I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park. My research interests include constructions of race, class, gender, and sexuality in contemporary media, as well as community-building and technology. I have served on the board of Lifting Voices, a District of Columbia-based nonprofit that helped young people in Washington D.C. discover the power of creative writing, and am currently on the editorial board of Femspec, an academic journal exploring feminist speculative fiction. My poetry has been published in Expanded Horizons, Concise Delights, and Stone Telling.

Layout credits

Our layout is built on a WordPress template by Minimalistic Design. The artwork uses the Splat Circles brush by rce-ordinary, and public domain space imagery by NASA.