YA Fantasy Matters

This is such a simple title for something so near and dear to my heart. It’s not enough to say it saved me or that it brought me the truest happiness I’ve known. Many think reading YA Fantasy is an escape and, in a way, it is, but it became an integral part of my life. YA Fantasy books taught me about strength, adventure, love, and how to see the magic and fantastic aspects of our world. I found my calling, my future in the pages of those books.

My experience is not unique. Millions of people, teenagers and adults alike, have fallen in love with YA Fantasy. Countless fandoms and intense conversations have followed in the wake of magical and supernatural tales. Despite the vast number of books in this genre, I found that there was a lack of published short stories, poetry, etc. in this genre.

I wrote short stories. I wrote poems. I submitted them to countless literary magazines, and found this was simply not what they were looking for. If I submitted to fiction magazines, they didn’t like the fantasy, and if I submitted to fantasy magazines, they didn’t want the YA audience. For a while I was frustrated. I searched for a YA Fantasy literary magazine that I could submit to, and didn’t find one. So I thought, maybe I should create my own.

That was two years ago, and after my initial annoyance died down, I really began to dwell on that idea. Why not create a magazine? I had the resources, and the YA Fantasy audience is huge. More importantly, I wanted to do something special with the genre that hadn’t been done before. I wanted to do something that would not only be meaningful to me, but to thousands of others.

YA Fantasy is more than an escape and more than a connection to the characters. There’s a certain sense of wonder and awe that awakens the imaginative side of everyone who loves it. Even though it’s fiction, it reminds all of us that there’s more to life than what lies on the surface, and delving into those worlds is like pushing a restart button. The passion with which these stories are written have evoked more emotion from me, and others, than regular local news stories in our world.

Realms was created to expand the world of YA Fantasy beyond the limitation of novel-writing. So explore the website, submit your stories, and prepare yourself for a fantastic issue in May 2015.

By: Daphne Tuccitto

Originally posted on the Realms website on 11/01/2014