About
A modern salon for the stories that were never given enough room.
Publishing for
Black American
fantasy & horror
JAVAHouse is an independent publishing house dedicated to Black American voices in speculative fiction: the fantastical, the horrific, and the worlds that live at the crossroads between them.
We believe Black imagination is boundless. Our authors write witches and vampires, epic quests and ghost stories, the mythic and the everyday made strange. The only lane is the genre. The rest of the map is yours.
Every envelope and every page is a door. Step through.
“Some doors open from the other side.”
A note from K.J. Moore
I have been writing since I was eleven years old. Almost two decades later, I have notebooks full of witches, monsters, and worlds that live just past the edge of this one. What I did not have, for a long time, was a place where stories like mine felt like they belonged.
Black American writers have always written Fantasy and Horror. We have just not always been given the room. JAVAHouse exists to make that room. Centuries ago, salons were where new ideas spread and overlooked voices were finally heard. Today that table is the coffeehouse. I wanted to build one for the stories that were shunned elsewhere, and for the writers brave enough to tell them.
I am building this House the way I would want it built as an author: every submission read by a person, royalties paid on time, and no one ever asked to pay for their own publication. The first book off our press is one I am finishing myself, so I know exactly what it asks of a writer to hand over their work.
JAVAHouse is based in Mobile, Alabama, but it was shaped by everywhere I have been, from the classrooms where I studied international relations to a stint in Japan that taught me how far a good story can travel. Wherever you are writing from, if your work lives in the dark and the fantastic, I hope you will find a home here.
Every house needs its people. Welcome home.
K.J. Moore
Founder, JAVAHouse
Why a coffeehouse
For centuries, salons were where ideas spread: rooms where writers, thinkers, and artists gathered to share work the wider world was not ready to hear. Their modern descendant is the coffeehouse, the table where anyone can sit down and be heard.
JAVAHouse is built to be that room. A modern salon for the stories that were shunned elsewhere, and a home for the writers who tell them.
Every submission is read by someone at JAVAHouse. No one is turned away by an algorithm or a form letter written before the pages were opened.
Royalties are paid quarterly, not twice a year. Authors should not wait six months to see what their work has earned.
We work with professional freelance editors and designers today, and we are building toward a full in-house team as the catalog grows.