Joanne Merriam is the publisher of Upper Rubber Boot Books, a fantastic independent publisher who has brought you amazing books such as Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation and Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up to No Good. Now Joanne is running a Kickstarter to get two new anthologies off the ground. Broad Knowledge features a story by my good friend and Clarion classmate Vida Cruz, as well as stories by Wendy Nikel and Aimee Ogden, two authors I've been lucky enough to work with through World Weaver Press. Sharp and Sugar Tooth looks pretty awesome too, featuring some familiar names that always deliver amazing stories: Catherynne M. Valente, Alyssa Wong, Damien Angelica Walters, Caroline M. Yoachim, and many others.

Check out my interview with Joanne Merriam, and then support the Kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1431077765/135809732?ref=489967&token=55a135c1

Sarena Ulibarri: Your description for these anthologies says they focus “on ‘bad’ women, and ‘good’ women who just haven’t been caught yet.” This reminds me of that famous quote about “well-behaved women rarely make history.” What made you want to publish stories about this kind of character?
 
Joanne Merriam: That description is defining ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in reference to what we expect women to be, and I’m really fascinated by social expectations and how people structure their lives to adhere to or challenge them. The women in these anthologies appear to be doing everything ‘right’ while getting their own way, or decide they won’t be held back by others’ expectations, or, tragically, try to adhere to or challenge expectations and pay a terrible price for it.
 
I hope that the breadth of stories will collectively show different ways of being, and open up a mental space for thinking about their own options for our readers (whether or not they’re women), in addition to entertaining them.
 
SU: Can you give a couple of teasers about some of the stories we’ll find in BROAD KNOWLEDGE and SHARP & SUGAR TOOTH?
 
JM: Broad Knowledge includes a scientific paper written by a researcher who contracts Innsmouth Fish-man Syndrome, an article for biblical scholars on a seraph’s visit to Earth, an in-depth ethical discussion for journalists covering a woman who has been quarantined on a military base so her ideas don’t spread to the general population, and a series of newspaper headlines and excerpts covering the invention of time travel—but the story that’s probably the most fun, and also possibly the darkest, is “Mary in the Looking Glass,” about the legendary horror figure Mary Whales, and her ex-lover.
 
Sharp & Sugar Tooth features the ritual consumption of funerary meat, poison as a replacement for war, chefs who heal society one meal at a time, alien biomes which entirely consume their hosts, and women turning into chocolate, honey, pastry, fish food, and apple-bearing trees. I’m particularly taken with Jasmyne J. Harris’ “What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs,” in which part of romance is being eaten by your partner, and what happens when people split up before the process is completed. It’s really haunting.
 
SU: You are editing BROAD KNOWLEDGE, while SHARP & SUGAR TOOTH is being edited by Octavia Cade. Did the two of you take different approaches to curating these books?
 
JM: Yes, I think so. Octavia is quite brilliant! She struck me as very deliberate and careful and thoughtful about how she structured the book, both in selecting stories and in ordering them, to fit a kind of overall narrative arc. I took a more topic-oriented approach to ordering, and am perhaps not as smart, but I’m always saved by the amazing writers who send in their stories and make me look really good as an editor.
 
SU: How do these two anthologies differ from CHOOSE WISELY, the first anthology you did of “Women Up to No Good”?
 
JM: The main difference is the theme, of course: Choose Wisely is all about choices, while Broad Knowledge is about (you guessed it) knowledge, and Sharp & Sugar Tooth about food and consumption. They are also more diverse: Choose Wisely has more white authors, and more Americans, than either of these anthologies, and that’s reflected in the stories in these anthologies being more varied and reflecting more of our world.
 
SU: You have some excellent writers lined up in these two anthologies. As an editor/anthologist, how do you go about reaching out to writers to ensure a diverse table of contents?
 
JM: I use social media extensively to reach communities I’m not a part of. For calls for submissions, I post, where appropriate, on the FB groups Call For Submissions; Calls for Submissions (Poetry, Fiction, Art); Open Call: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Pulp Markets; Open Submission Calls for Horror/Paranormal/Mystery/SciFi Writers; Call For Submissions : QUILTBAG; Asian Science Fiction & Fantasy; Feminist Science Fiction; The State of Black Science Fiction; Women of Color Writers' Community; and WOMPO (Women's Poetry Listserv). I also tag writers who I’m interested in seeing work from, and post using hashtags like #diversesff on Twitter and Tumblr, and note the call for submissions in my emailed newsletter, which goes out 2-3 times/year. I’m also on Duotrope, so people who use that to search for markets will find our listings.
 
When I’m selecting stories, I try to read blind by saving all of the stories under their titles and removing author identities. Of course, it’s never entirely blind because I can recognize some writers’ voices, but I make the attempt, which means that I have to address diversity in my submissions pool before I get to that largely-blind selection stage. Midway through my submissions period, I’ll go quickly through the submissions I’ve received to get a sense of who is submitting, just looking at names, and faces where gmail has included a photo, so I can see if I need to work harder to get the word out to certain communities. It’s necessarily an incomplete and uncertain process, so I try to err on the side of assuming I need to do more work. I try to do this at least a month and preferably longer before submissions close, so people have time to respond to renewed calls for submissions.
 
SU: What's the process a story goes through between the time it is accepted and the time it is published in an Upper Rubber Boot Books anthology?
 
JM: External editors have their own editorial processes, but for me there’s editing and proofreading with an outside proofreader, and then there’s all the stuff that goes into making the books themselves. So I go through any edits with the authors (reading closely, sending suggestions for changes), and possibly rewrites if they’re required, and then I figure out what order the stories should go in (usually I try a bunch of different orders until I settle on something that feels right), then create an html file of the stories, which will eventually be part of the ebook (I make the html file first then create the print book file from it so that any errors in the html will get caught). Then I do the formatting for the print files, then send those to the authors to double-check.

Check out some excerpts from these anthologies below, and support the Kickstarter until June 30, 2018 by clicking here.

Full disclosure: Jennifer Lee Rossman is one of the authors I work with through World Weaver Press. We've been lucky enough to snag short stories from her for Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers and Mrs. Claus: Not the Fairy Tale They Say, and she'll have a science fiction novel that is fun and heartbreaking in all the right ways coming out with us in early 2019.

Then again, she's got stories all over the place these days, so other publishers are clearly catching onto her talent! I invited her onto my blog to tell us a bit more about her awesome time travel novella, out now from Kristell Ink.

Here's the description of Anachronism:

Sarena Ulibarri: In a nutshell, what was the path from manuscript to publication for ANACHRONISM?

Jennifer Lee Rossman: When I wrote ANACHRONISM, I had never been published and, quite frankly, had no clue what I was doing as far as publishing was concerned. I wrote my query letter in about five minutes and proceeded to send it to every publisher that came up in my "sci-fi novella publishers" Google search (typos and all and, in one case, I managed to send two copies of my query letter in one email).

By some miracle, it worked, and Kristell Ink's amazing editor Kate Coe has helped me polish the manuscript and guide me through the confusing world of proof copies and promotion. It's been a long process, but holding an actual book full of my words is the best feeling.
　
SU: Without too many spoilers, how does time travel work in your novella? Are there limitations and constraints your time traveling characters have to work within?

JLR: Moses doesn't like to give a lot of information about the intricacies of the science involved in time travel, but he does say that paradoxes are possible. There is nothing stopping you from going back in time and killing your ancestor, but it might make your ancestor pretty mad.
　
SU: What books, authors, or films most influenced you when writing ANACHRONISM?

JLR: The writing style has been compared to Douglas Adams, but that wasn't really a conscious decision. I was really inspired by roadtrip buddy movies. I love the dynamics (and hilarity) that arise when you stick two people in a car and force them to get along, and getting to add sci-fi and save-the-world elements made it really fun to write.
　
SU: What’s your typical writing routine? Do you write at a certain time of day, have word count goals, a particular playlist you listen to, etc.?

JLR: I write whenever I can, usually listening to 70s and 80s music. I try to write at least one page every time I'm on the computer, which sometimes results in short paragraphs and a lot of dialogue.
　
SU: What advice do you have for young writers who are struggling through the first draft of a science fiction novel?

JLR: Find other writers in your genre, whether that means a critique group at your library or a couple nerdy people on Twitter who will laugh along with you when you realize you accidentally stole half of your plot from Star Wars.
　
SU: What are you working on now? And where can readers find you, online or off?

JLR: I'm trying to rewrite a series of novellas I wrote when I was nineteen. They are... not well written, but I think they're fixable. And a bunch of people on Twitter have somehow convinced me to write a book about werewolves in wheelchairs. Called Chairwolves.

I also have a novel, Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic Freakshow, coming out next year with World Weaver Press. The editor is a really nice lady named Sarena Ulibarri, and she definitely did not force me to say that.

I blog at jenniferleerossman.blogspot.com and Tweet @JenLRossman, and you can find my stories in these anthologies on my Amazon page: amazon.com/author/jenniferleerossman

Jennifer Lee Rossman is a science fiction geek from Oneonta, New York. When she isn't writing, she cross stitches, watches Doctor Who, and threatens to run over people with her wheelchair. Her work has been featured in several anthologies and her novel, Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic Freakshow, will be published by World Weaver Press in 2019.

My fantasy story "The Ice Tree" is in the second issue of Apparition Literary Magazine! A hero-in-her-own-mind amateur sorceress sends a village into chaos while trying to prove herself, and vows to undo an ancient curse to make up for the mess she's made. Things do not go well.

I initially wrote this story more than ten years ago, and very little of the original survived when I re-wrote it in 2014 at the Clarion Workshop. It again became a different monster based on workshop feedback, and it took me a lot of drafts to get it just right. In the Clarion version (which unfortunately will be housed forever in the Clarion archives at the UCSD library), I was responding to feedback from a classmate who said my language tended to be dull. I was trying, desperately, to write more lyrical and beautiful sentences. The result just sounded…kind of silly. So I doubled down on that, and the character of Mirella developed naturally from that "extra" tone. She's not a likable character—she's not meant to be—but I hope you enjoy her anyway. It's much easier to get away with this kind of a male character—I drew inspiration from Zap Brannigan, Gilderoy Lockhart, and Ash Williams, but Mirella is definitely her own brand of delusional egotist.

Here's a brief excerpt, a bit of backstory about how Mirella developed the magic she's now abusing:

If you'd like to see the Pinterest board I made for the story, you can check it out here. And you can pick up a copy of the issue on Kindle at the link below, or read the story online at the Apparition Lit website.

My story, "Cocktails at the Mad Scientist's House" is in the Spring 2018 issue of Mad Scientist Journal, out now! Makes sense that this is where this story would end up, doesn't it? I didn't initially write the story with Mad Scientist Journal in mind, but it turned out to be a perfect fit.

My story is classified as an "essay," but it's still definitely fiction (I should hope that would be fairly obvious). One of the quirky, fun things about Mad Scientist Journal is that they publish these first person "essays" as though the character were a real person who just dictated their experience to the author. That's why below, you'll see the byline says "An essay by Tina Eikenboom, as provided by Sarena Ulibarri." I even had to come up with a brief bio for my character. Here's what I said about her:

Tina Eikenboom is a real nobody. You've never heard of her, or met her. Unless maybe you went to high school with her. Or community college. If you ever lived next door, you might know her as that girl who plays music too loud. Tina's not her real name, but it does start with a T, and if she has too much to drink, she might accidentally tell you what it is.

I'm grateful to Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman for giving Tina's frantic story of murder and mad science a home in this issue. I was also thrilled to recognize a couple of other names in the table of contents, including Holly Schofield, who has a story forthcoming in my Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers anthology. This story of hers is a lot darker than the solarpunk one, of course. Those feral clowns mentioned on the cover? Yeah, that's Holly's story. (And it's awesome.)

I hope you'll check out a copy, and let me know what you think of the stories!

I edited a solarpunk anthology! It's now a real live thing. You can pre-order it now, and it will be loosed upon the world on June 5, 2018. Over the three-month submission window last year, I received 62 submissions from authors all over the world. I put 25 of those stories on the shortlist and read them again, then sent 20 of them to one of the other World Weaver Press staff for a second opinion. I ended up with a table of contents of 17 stories that I am thoroughly psyched about, and a bunch of authors who have been wonderful to work with.

Wondering what it means to "edit" an anthology? See my post about that here. Wondering what "solarpunk" is? Check out an article about it here.

Solarpunk is an emerging subgenre, though it's situated within a larger tradition of "climate fiction" that is well established by now. My hope is that the stories within my anthology will help to solidify some of the tropes that set solarpunk apart from its more dystopian and apocalyptic cousins, and also inspire more writers to approach science fiction from an optimistic angle. And more than anything, I just hope these stories will make readers smile the way I did when I found each of them in the slush pile.

Okay, ready for the cover? (I designed that, too.)

New solarpunk story markets are popping up all the time. See my first two lists of places to send your solarpunk stories here and here—some of those deadlines have expired, but others are still coming up, or are ongoing. 

Below are ten more magazines and contests that are interested in publishing solarpunk stories. They're organized with the earliest deadlines listed first. Know of a solarpunk fiction market I missed? Please leave a comment! 

Magazine, Themed Issue
Submission Window: January 1, 2018 – January 31, 2018
Length: 2,000 to 15,000 words
Payment: (2,000 – 7,000 words): $150 USD; (<15,000 words): $300 USD
Description:
Big Mama Nature issue: Everyone knows that you need to respect Mama. We’re looking for stories of Nature and her swift backhand when folks get out of line. Give us your stories of ecological wastelands, futures full of solar powered punks, or natural disasters. Climate fiction is the name of the game, and Big Mama don’t play.
 
Full Guidelines: ​​http://www.fiyahlitmag.com/submissions/

Note: Submissions limited to stories by and about people of the African Diaspora.

Published by Microcosm Publishing
Submission Window: closes February 1, 2018
Length: 500 to 8,000 words
Payment: based on Kickstarter, no less than $30 per story 
Description:
​The theme for this issue is: Dragons. Stories can be in any science fiction or fantasy – ish genre: high fantasy, hard SF, space opera, fairy tales, solarpunk, spec fic, slipstream… anything but fanfic. Dragons can be literal or metaphorical, from a specific cultural tradition or entirely of your own invention. Surprise me! All stories must contain bicycles—the story doesn’t need to be about bicycling, but this element must be central enough that removing it would change the story significantly. Same goes with feminism. The story doesn’t have to be about feminism, but it does need to break from tired old gender stereotypes.
 
Full Guidelines: ​http://takingthelane.com/2017/10/25/call-for-submissions-bikes-in-space-6-dragons/

Published by The Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy
Submission Window: closes February 15, 2018
Length: 3,000 to 10,000 words
Payment: 50GBP per story
Description:
For Future Generations (theme): Generation starships establishing new colonies. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Driving back the dark to protect your children. For this issue of Electric Athenaeum, we are seeking genre stories that focus on the issues surounding planning for future generations. We are particularly interested in stories featuring new visions/interpretations of generation starships, the care of fragile ecosystems, and dramatic explorations of balancing the rights of future generations versus the needs of the present.

Full Guidelines: ​http://csff-anglia.co.uk/ea/subs/

Magazine, Themed Issue
Submission Window: closes February 20, 2018
Length: up to 5,000 words
Payment: exposure only
Description:
Permaculture issue: The MOON welcomes submissions of original short stories, poetry, essays, and memoirs of any length (generally less than 5,000 words), as well as photography, artwork, and even video, addressing the following themes. (For 2018 we’re on a mission: what can “save” the world?) March 2018, “Return to our roots: The Permaculture plan for saving the world,” DEADLINE: February 20, 2018
 
Full Guidelines: ​http://moonmagazine.org/submission-guideline/

Contest, Winners Published by Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative at Arizona State University
Submission Window: closes February 28, 2018
Length: up to 5000 words
Payment: $1,000 grand prize. Nine finalists will receive $50 each
Description:
In the wake of Earth’s hottest year on record, the effects of climate change are more apparent than ever. But how do we come to grips with the consequences on the ground, for actual people in specific places? Paolo Bacigalupi, renowned for his climate fiction novels and short stories, believes the answer lies in story: “Fiction has this superpower of creating empathy in people for alien experiences. You can live inside of the skin of a person who is utterly unlike you.” If our political responses and our empathy for people besieged by the consequences of climate change fall short, perhaps we need new stories to help us imagine possible futures shaped by climate change and our reactions to it.
 
Full Guidelines: https://climateimagination.asu.edu/clificontest/

Note: Last year's winning stories are available as an ebook or a PDF. Download it here. The first story, “Sunshine State” by Adam Flynn and Andrew Dana Hudson is very much solarpunk.

Magazine, Themed Issue
Submission Window: January 1 to March 1, 2018
Length: up to 4,000 words
Payment: exposure only
Description:
Rewilding Issue: Is it also possible for humans to rewild themselves? What would this look like? When humans deny themselves or are restricted from opportunities for deep immersion in nature, or access to their ancestral places, what has been lost? Journalist Richard Louv has suggested that this deprivation is a “nature-deficit disorder” that afflicts many humans—particularly those of us dwelling in urban, high-tech surroundings or housing projects planted on landscapes of pavement under orange glowing lights that so obscure the night sky that we might come to think of the stars and the planets as rumored bodies floating somewhere up above.
For some of us trying to get “back to the garden,” this rewilding may look like resistance. Urban families who seed unsanctioned gardens in vacant lots are often reviled by developers and city leaders, who respond with bulldozers and concrete mixers. When Latinx neighbors install backyard chicken coops, the HOA squawks about it, but when white hipsters make it cool, restrictive city ordinances are rescinded. Houston politicians have tried to ban piñatas from city parks, claiming they often end up as litter—sending a clear message that Mexican families are not welcomed in public green spaces. When Black artists in Dallas are commissioned to create signs for a city park and their proposed designs memorialize a history of racial violence in that public space, their project is cancelled.

​For this issue of About Place, you’re invited to describe the “letting go” spaces of rewilding—the critical habitats where and when our human expressions and behaviors might become unfettered—in explorations that are less mediated, colonized, or civilized. And what could such explorations possibly serve to resemble, reify, or reject?

Full Guidelines: ​http://aboutplacejournal.org/submissions/

Published by Dark Regions Press
Submission Window: closes March 31, 2018
Length: 2500 to 10 000 words
Payment: 7c p/w up to 7K – 5c p/w for stories longer than 7K
Description:
Though some among us have realised the importance of sustainable living, in the broad sense of everyday life, we still demand too much. Our capitalist dispositions have driven a wedge between ourselves and nature; we have become transfixed by the shine of chrome, the luxury of packaged lives, no longer seemingly aware of the solid earth beneath our feet.

At an ever-advancing tipping point, humanity persists in its war against the natural world. Running a trail of extinction and cutting down vast swathes of oxygen-producing forests, we breed at an alarming pace, overpopulating a planet we seem hell-bent on reigning in – but at what cost? It seems we’re playing a cruel joke on the system that sparked our existence, and which has sustained us ever since.

Or could the joke be on us?

Force of Nature (working title) will be an anthology of original short fiction that explores the physical and metaphysical boundaries between humanity and the natural world.
 
Full Guidelines: ​​lynnejamneckdiaries.blogspot.ca/2017/12/submission-guidelines-weird-nature.html

Contest, Stories Published by Publication Studios / Guelph
Submission Window: closes April 15, 2018
Length: up to 1,000 words
Payment: $3,000. $1,500, $500 prizes, honorable mentions published with no payment
Description:
What are the stories of people and nature in cities in 2099? What will cities be like to live in? Are they lush and green, verdant and biodiverse? What will cities look like; be made of? How will they be designed and powered? Will they be tall, short, dense, under ground or under water? What of public spaces? Social organization? Mobility? Government? Sustainability and food? Wildlife? Climate change and resilience? Poverty, consumption, wealth, and justice? How will we interact and relate to one another and the natural world? What sort of stories can we tell about our communities and the spaces that shape will them?​
 
Full Guidelines: ​http://www.storiesofthenatureofcities.org/

Themed Magazine
Submission Window: June 15 - July 15, 2018
Length: 1,500 and 3,000 words
Payment: 6¢ per word
Description:
Terra, Tara, Terror: Whether the setting is a cabin in the woods (Terra), Fae (Tara), or spaceship Nostromo (Terror), take us there and spin your adventure. For a bit of mood whiplash, we'd like a mixture of dark and bright stories. Examples: Obsession with odd artifacts (like Roadside Picnic's golden sphere?), alternate histories, paranormal romance (no erotica, please, we're PG-13). 
 
Full Guidelines: ​http://www.thirdflatiron.com/liveSite/

Small Press Publisher
Submission Window: April 1 – June 30 and October 1 – December 31
Length: 17,500 and 40,000 words
Payment: Royalties, not specified
Description:
Dancing Star Press is seeking submissions of speculative fiction novellas. Space operas, solar punk, dark fantasy, and urban fantasy. Hard science fiction with an emphasis on biology or chemistry rather than physics. Fantasy based on non-Western cultures. Optimistic futurism. Polar Tesla pop and soft science fiction.
 
Full Guidelines: ​http://www.dancingstarpress.com/submissions/

My story "A Chorus of Shadows" is in the newest issue of Weirdbook! "A Chorus of Shadows" is a dark fantasy about a monk who realizes that not all of the vibrations they've been chanting are for the good of the world. This is my first appearance in Weirdbook, and I'm thrilled to be one of the names on this awesome tentacley cover. I was also happy to discover I share a table of contents with fellow Albuquerque author Andrew Bourelle. I had the pleasure of publishing his story "We Us You" in the WWP anthology Equus, so it was a fun surprise to recognize his name in this TOC. I sneaked a peak at his story, "Homecoming Corpse," during the final proof, and it is awesome, bittersweet, and Weird with a capital W. 

Want to know more about what I mean when I say "Weird"? Here's a fantastic article by the Vandermeers: ​http://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/05/the-weird-an-introduction/

Here's the opening paragraph of "A Chorus of Shadows."

"A Chorus of Shadows" is a Lovecraftian fantasy with an Asian aesthetic, much like my Lightspeed story "The Bolt Tightener," which was once described by N.K. Jemisin (when she was my Clarion teacher) as "if Singapore was the last holdout against Cthulhu." This one is more like "if a Tibetan monk discovered a secret way to summon Cthulhu." It takes place in a completely fictional fantasy world, though, and it's not exactly Cthulhu.

Below are some images from my Pinterest board for this story. See the whole board here: ​www.pinterest.com/sarenaulibarri/a-chorus-of-shadows/

Pick up a copy of Weirdbook #37, and let me know which stories from it are your favorites!

I've been reading through submissions for my anthology Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers, which closes to submissions on November 15, 2017, and I'm loving a lot of the stories I'm seeing there. If you have something that fits the theme, or can write it by November 15th, please send it to me!

A couple of months ago, I posted 10 Markets for Solarpunk Stories. Some of those deadlines are coming up, and I've come across even more projects that would be great for solarpunk writers to submit to. Most of these don't explicitly ask for solarpunk, but many of them have environmental or social justice themes that are absolutely compatible with solarpunk. Okay, and the last two are a little different—rather than anthologies or magazines, it's a publisher's unagented open door (they say they're looking for utopian and cli-fi!) and a call for academic papers on utopian and dystopian literature of the 21st century.

I'm not affiliated with any of these projects, so please follow links/guidelines/etc. But if you do get a solarpunk story accepted by any of these markets, please come back and leave a comment to let me know!

New to submitting short stories? Check out my blog about that here.

Contest, Stories Published by Gizmodo’s io9
Submission Window: Submissions are due November 1st, 2017
Length: up to 5,000 words
Payment: $12,000 over 2018 in $1,000 per month payments beginning 2/1/2018, as well as airfare and accommodations to attend an awards dinner in San Francisco, date tbd (the “Grand Prize”). Short list winners will receive $1,000 upon publication.
Description:
What might a world look like where all of our most basic needs are met? In 5,000 words or less, we want you to explore the impacts of a basic income on individual lives and on society at large. To be clear, we are not expecting you to draft economic policy, but hope to ignite debate around new economies with stories that offer nuanced critique and evidence of impact. Writers may want to address how this economic policy could shift relationships of power, or if economic liberation is even possible without first addressing racial and gender justice. Writers may consider universality (i.e., whether this benefit applies to everyone), investigate the community impact, and even give this economic idea a new name.
 
Full Guidelines: https://medium.com/economicsecproj/into-the-black-a-short-fiction-contest-with-a-big-prize-f91cd6553967

Anthology or Themed Issue, Published by Anomaly
Submission Window: November 1, 2017 - March 1, 2018
Length: unstated
Payment: unstated
Description:
Work should relate or respond to indigenous futurisms, indigenous futures, and/or imagining the decolonial (future, present, or past). Speculative and non-speculative work are both welcome. Imagine the future, re-imagine the past or present. Let’s talk about what future we’re fighting for. What lives we’re living, now.

Note: They accept work in Spanish, Tagalog, and other languages, as well as bilingual work, with or without translations.
 
Full Guidelines: https://medium.com/anomalyblog/call-for-submissions-indigenous-futurisms-imagining-the-decolonial-7a556a70404f

Anthology, Published by Rosarium Publishing
Submission Window: ends November 1, 2017
Length: 2500 – 7000 words
Payment: $0.06 per word
Description:
TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue will be a new anthology of water-themed speculative short stories that explore all kinds of water lore and deities, ancient and new as well as unimagined tales. We want stories with memorable, engaging characters, great and small, epic tales and quieter stories of personal and communal growth. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, interstitial, and unclassifiable works are welcome. We are seeking original stories in English (2500 – 7000 words; pays 6 cents per word) from writers of all walks of life from this beautiful planet and will accept some select reprints (pays 2 cents per word).
 
Note: Unable to accept simultaneous or multiple submissions.
 
Full Guidelines: http://rosariumpublishing.com/trouble-the-waters-submissions.html

Magazine, Themed Issue
Submission Window: October 1 and November 30, 2017
Length: under 3,000 words
Payment: flat fee of $10
Description:
The past year has thrown into sharp relief the surreal terrain of our contemporary landscape, and here at The Golden Key, we have watched this rising social and political upheaval with a contradictory, heart-rending mixture of despair and awe. While the world is facing unconscionable violence and pervasive attacks on human rights, there has been an extraordinary response to these systematic injustices and abuses of power. People have taken to the streets in defense of the rights of women and immigrants, to protest political corruption, to reject white supremacy. And even in the midst of our rage and grief and heartbreak, there has been such beautiful strangeness and joy. More than anything, this past year has shown us we must create radical change, through our words and through our deeds.

With this in mind, The Golden Key has decided to devote our upcoming issue to the theme of revolutionary things.  We’re looking for stories and poems that subvert, that upend the old order, that wheel and circle, that present novel modes of belief or being.

Note: Also accepts poetry up to 100 lines.
 
Full Guidelines: http://www.whatwonderfulthings.net/main/submissions/

Anthology, Published by Mason Jar Press
Submission Window: ends December 7, 2017
Length: up to 6,000 words
Payment: $.02/word plus a contributor’s copy
Description:
Metropolitan tales of city-focused fantasy with queer perspectives. Squalid flats, glittering spires, and alchemical trolleys. Manipulative heirs, handsome swordswomen and noble automatons. Write us something built with borrowed Bordertown DNA, purloined echoes of House Tremontaine society and stolen grit from the dark of London Below. Be inspired by Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, or “The City Born Great” by N.K. Jemisin.

We are looking for stories that explore the edges of urban fantasy through queer stories. While the city these stories are set in should be vast and unnamed, highly specific neighborhoods and landmarks are encouraged and sought after. We welcome a broad interpretation of the genre that is inclusive of postmodern folk tales, future/ancient noir, and stories that happen both behind closed doors and in plain sight. Throughout, we’re looking for rich, varied and nuanced understandings of gender, family and ethnicity.
 
Full Guidelines: https://masonjarpress.submittable.com/submit

Magazine, Themed Issue
Submission Window: closes November 15th, 2017
Length: 1,000 to 8,000 words
Payment: unstated
Description:
The Maleficarum is looking for stories about nature. Whether it be the earth taking back what it rightfully belongs, or simple observations of what goes on in life, send me your wonderful works. From these submissions, I will choose 10-15 works to go into the first issue!
 
Note: Debut issue.
 
Full Guidelines: https://rosettemaleficarum.wordpress.com/submission-guidelines/

Anthology, Published by B-Cubed Press
Submission Window: closes December 15, 2017
Length: 500-5000 words
Payment: $0.02 cent a word paid on publication + shared royalties
Description:
We are looking for near- or farther-future stories, society as it is AFTER 2032 – at least two presidential election cycles after Donald Tr*mp’s last eligibility. Show us America or the world in a new era, or look at world politics changed by the actions of US policies and people. Or go beyond.

Stories may present an optimistic or pessimistic, utopian or apocalyptic visions of the future, with some clear connection to current events and the world as it is in 2017. Political shenanigans would be interesting, as well as romance, spooks, robots and evil overlords, satire or parodies. But remember, the world has moved on. The editors generally favor character- and/or plot-driven stories.
 
Full Guidelines: https://bcubedpress.com/open-for-submissions/after-the-orange/

Magazine
Submission Window: ongoing, see theme deadlines
Length: 3000 to 5000 words
Payment: $10 per story
Description:
The goal is to release stories with mind-numbing ideas, brain expanding concepts, or just to get a reader to say WTF? There isn’t enough SF out there that really makes you think about the universe, so, that’s what I’m looking for – something that at least includes SOME hard science. The definition for Alien Dimensions is that science fiction contains real or extrapolated scientific ideas or concepts, and I need more of those. So, I have many fantasy stories ready to go for the rest of the year, but not enough hard core science fiction stories containing real science or non-anthropomorphic aliens. Alien Dimensions is a predominantly positive series about the future.

Full Guidelines: https://aliendimensions.com/submission-guidelines/

Publisher, Full Length Only
Submission Window: opens November 1, 2017
Length: 70,000 to 130,000 words
Payment: Advance + royalties
Description:
We publish Science Fiction and Fantasy. These are wide genres with many, many subgenres, so to be clear: we want anything broadly in the realm of science fiction and fantasy. This includes: alternate history, military SF, space opera, epic fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, dieselpunk, silkpunk, anypunk, grimdark, utopian fiction, modern fantasy, cli-fi, unclassifiable SF/fantasy mash-ups, and so on.

We do like getting submissions that are hard to classify, especially if they’re innovative blends of various genres. It’s the Angry Robot way. So if you’ve written a science fiction novel set in an unexpected location – the Stone Age, or Urban Outfitters, say – great. Maybe you’ve found a way to write a novel that combines your interests in cryogenics, social media, and the Third Reich. In short, don’t be afraid to send us your extremely unusual science fiction or fantasy novel – as long as it would sit in that section of the bookshop.

Note: Full book-length manuscripts only

Full Guidelines: https://www.angryrobotbooks.com/open-door-2017-guides-faq/

James Doan and Barbara Brodman, editors
Submission Window: abstracts due by February 1, 2018, finals due September 15, 2018
Length: 5,000-7,000 words (abstracts 300 words)
Payment: unstated
Description:
Editors Barbara Brodman and James Doan are seeking original essays for the fifth in a series of books on images of the supernatural and the futuristic in film, literature and visual arts. This volume and its predecessor, Apocalyptic Chic: Visions of the Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Literature and Visual Arts (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017), take the reader into the futuristic realm of apocalypse and post-apocalypse, utopias and dystopias.

Note: This is a call for non-fiction critical essays, not fiction.

Full Guidelines: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/09/05/utopia-and-dystopia-in-the-age-of-trump

I met Michael David Lipkan a few years ago at the Solar Fiesta (New Mexico has a fiesta for everything), an event primarily aimed homeowners looking to install rooftop solar panels, but which also included things like an electric car race, a solar oven cookie bake-off, and educational panels about sustainable architecture, climate change, and other green topics. Michael's presentation on Linear Cities gave me tons of ideas about how solarpunk cities could look and work. So when I started planning the Solarpunk Anthology Translation Kickstarter, I tracked him down to ask if he'd be willing to offer a concept consultation—my hope was that a couple of solarpunk writers might take advantage of his vast knowledge to better inform their own worldbuilding!

Below, please enjoy a brief interview with Michael David Lipkan, in which we talk about sustainable technology, and what kinds of conflicts might still arise in a solarpunk world.

Sarena Ulibarri: There’s a ton of information about sustainable cities on your Imagine Cities website! Can you break down what you think are the most important principles for a sustainable future city?

Michael David Lipkan: Perhaps the most important principle for building a sustainable future city is the ability to live close to the food supply. That idea is integrally linked to many other systems that are part of the processes or supported by the processes that provide food for the citizens.

Renewable energy in all its variety of forms should be integrally linked to the performance of the city. Solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass conversion are high on the list of renewables we should be using.

SU: Have you seen/read any science fiction movies or books with cities that look like the future you envision?

MDL: I have not read or seen any books that are like the kind of city I envision for the future. As a child I remember reading a story I believe, by Isaac Asimov, about what I call glidewalks. Airports use glide walks to speed passengers along their concourses. Basically, they are moving conveyor belts that people can walk on. I believe we should use many more of these kinds of devices in the future.

SU: Stories still have to have conflict to be interesting, even those set in beautiful eco-friendly cities. What kinds of new conflicts do you think might arise in this kind of a future world?

MDL: I believe certain kinds of conflicts will probably be inevitable despite the humane and eco friendly nature of any city we build. That is because there are conflicts that are a result of emotional disturbances and are not controlled by rational thought.

By reducing design-provoked stress, we make the city easier on our emotions. For me, overhead telephone poles, power lines, and advertising signs have been stressors throughout my life. In the 1970s, main arterial streets packed with business signs seemed like an artist’s nightmare of mismatched juxtapositions of form and color. Hot parking lots, non-point source toxic pollution cocktails caused by environmental contamination, and noise are a few more.

I like to think we can build egalitarian cities in the future. Individual wealth and power would be determined by using a standardized, comprehensive test of mental acuity and physical health. From first grade on, students are taught that doing well in school is paramount to future success in life. This is made believable since pay would be determined by comprehensive test scores and not a person’s job or occupation. The extreme gap between the highest and lowest paid people is reduced enough to cause a universal sense of economic justice. This reduces crime.

Despite efforts to help everyone believe the “Comprehensive Test” is fair, some may believe otherwise and steal to gain more wealth. The concept of self determined pay I am suggesting works within a controlled economy. Simplifying all manufacturing to the point of greatest workability aims to reduce ridiculous variety of similar products while mass producing higher quality for any items made. This is an egalitarian principle.

Healthcare is a right achieved by nationalizing healthcare for all. Healthcare should not be about making profit. That is contrary to the Hippocratic Oath. Additions to the Constitution encourage the consolidation of all healthcare providers. There is no greater reason for government to exist than caring for the people.

Crimes of passion will probably be more difficult to control than greed. The “Seven Deadly Sins” may be with us until enough social control factors are put in place. (Better healthcare for all reduces this probability.) Regardless of how close we come to building a “Justopia” (a portmanteau of justice and utopia) there will probably always be some who think they know better and prefer using violence instead of discourse to get their way.

SU: When did you first become interested in sustainability and alternative energy?

MDL: I have been concerned with concepts relating to sustainability since I was very young. I grew up believing it was wrong to be wasteful. When studying Physics in college I came to believe linear cities could help avoid much wasted energy in our transit systems. That epiphany started a schema in my mind that has grown with me as I learned about new problems. Nearly every problem from global warming to solving world hunger can solved or at least mitigated by building linear cities.

SU: What are some of the newest developments in sustainable technology that you’re most excited about?

MDL: There are many sustainable technologies that should supersede existing practices because they do more with less or accomplish a given job with better results. Higher quality with less muss and fuss. (Less entropy with similar results.)

Vertical farming techniques, under cabinet drawer refrigerators, electric automobiles, water desalinators, 3D printers, modern cell phones, LED TV’s (not LED backlit LCD TV’s), battery storage technologies, geopolymer bricks, light field photography, high speed computers, are an extreme understatement of sustainable technologies worth developing. Nearly everything we do or use as a tool can either be improved upon or eliminated as we consciously evolve toward the future. Everyone plays many parts as the future unfolds. The ideal society encourages everyone to be the best they can be.

Originally from Charles City, Iowa, Michael David Lipkan now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After visiting Arcosanti, an experimental eco-village in Arizona, he became profoundly aware of the dysfunctional nature of our cities, and has spent more than thirty years thinking, writing, creating images, and finding answers to correct our city problems. He is a board member of the New Mexico Solar Energy Association, and is the author of Imagine City: Dream the City Sustainable and Farming in the Sky, both available for free from the iBookstore. Find out more at www.imagine-city.info

Today is release day for Sunvault, a new anthology from Upper Rubber Boot. In Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation, you can find optimistic sci-fi stories by authors such as Daniel José Older, Nisi Shawl, Lavie Tidhar, A.C. Wise, and many more.

Check out my interview with the Sunvault editors, and then pick up a copy of their book at Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, or IndieBound.

And, if you want to support even more solarpunk fiction, check out the Kickstarter to fund the translation of the earliest solarpunk work from Brazilian Portuguese into English: www.kickstarter.com/projects/262808239/solarpunk-anthology-translation

Sarena Ulibarri: Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation was your first time editing an anthology, right? How did that process go? Was it harder or easier than you anticipated?

Brontë Christopher Wieland: It was! The process has been long, and we’ve done a lot that I used to imagine was unachievable. Like… Phoebe and I ran a Kickstarter that raised over $6000??? Isn’t that territory for people way more adept at the publishing world than I am? Ultimately, the process went much more smoothly than I had anticipated, and I think that was largely because Joanne Merriam of Upper Rubber Boot Books is a powerhouse. She seemed to know the ins and outs of just about everything, and Phoebe and I both learned a lot from her over the last two years.

Phoebe Wagner: I second that about the wonderful, amazing Joanne Merriam. She works so hard to make the SF world a better place, and it was a privilege and important learning experience to work with her at Upper Rubber Boot Books. The anthology was a new experience, and totally rewarding by the end. Reading submissions was fun and exciting (if not exhausting), but I definitely wasn’t sure how to go about helping on social media, which is still a mystery to me. The hardest part was rejecting stories that we liked but weren’t right for the anthology.

SU: Can you give a couple of teasers about some of the stories we’ll find in Sunvault?

BW: How do y’all feel about generation ships, burgeoning sentience in refuse collection droids, solar sails, self-sustaining smart buildings, oil struggles, community-centered educational systems, asteroid mining, reforestation, and planet- and society-saving genetic engineering?

PW: Everything from AR resistance to Strandbeests to genetic modification. Without spoiling the story, one that I think about a lot is “Death of Pax” by Santiago Belluco. It deals with ideas of evolution and genetic modification and the story changed my ideas on GMs and their utilization.

SU: What does the “punk” in solarpunk mean to you?

BW: So so so so so much. This is an important question, because “punk” in a genre name often connotes an aesthetic derivative of cyberpunk’s techno-orientalism, something that is mostly lacking in solarpunk. Solarpunk is still punk as hell, though.

To me, the root of a -punk genre necessarily needs to be countercultural. In a very basic way, solarpunk responds to and challenges SF and Hollywood’s recent spell of “gritty reboot” stories. More deeply, though, solarpunk manifests a counterculture in the ways that it is community-focused, anti-capitalist, decolonial, inclusive, etc. Solarpunk presents an alternative. Every piece in Sunvault is in some way a response to the artists’ concerns for the world around them and a little nugget of hope.

PW: This question comes up a lot from people exploring the solarpunk community, which does have an optimistic element that many seem to consider un-punk. To me, solarpunk is all about resistance, and what’s more punk than that? A resistance of consumerism, capitalism, environmental destruction, selfish individualism, racism, ableism, homophobia, sexism, specisim, and on. Solarpunk has a strong DIY and community aspect that always attracted me to “punk” in general.

SU: What do you most hope to see in new books and stories following the solarpunk tradition?

BW: This sounds corny, I know, but I want to see what more and more new voices bring to the genre; I want to see solarpunk reimagined and reborn with every new story. I want to see what solarpunk looks like to those of cultures, classes, faiths, places not represented in Sunvault. I especially want to see solarpunk become ever more decolonial, and I would love to see indigenous voices from around the world become central to the genre.

PW: Hopefulness, joy, new ways of resistance, community. Speculative fiction has a way of shaping the future (from the early conception of Sunvault, Star Trek and how it inspired the cell phone has been in the back of my mind). Right now, SF is predicting a pretty bleak place. Let’s imagine change and inspire people to create solutions. Like Brontë said, I hope solarpunk gets decolonial AF. I’d love to see more international voices and more connection with the science communities. I day dream of a collaborative series of solarpunk stories/poems/art where the artist and scientists work together to create and inform the solarpunk ideas.

SU: What’s next for you, either as writers or as editors?

BW: First I have to cry a lot, then I have to finish my novel! After that, who knows? Hopefully, I can finally write some solarpunk of my own.

PW: I’m finishing up my graduate thesis right now—a YA novel that, while not solarpunk, does deal with climate change in a non-dystopian way. At least, that’s what I’m trying to do.

Phoebe Wagner grew up in Pennsylvania, the third generation to live in the Susquehanna River Valley. She spent her days among the endless hills pretending to be an elf and eventually earned a B.A. in English: Creative Writing from Lycoming College. Follow her on Twitter: @pheebs_w

Brontë Christopher Wieland is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University, where he thinks about language, storytelling, nature, history, community, and their intersections. His fiction has previously appeared in Flash Fiction Online and Hypertext Magazine and his poetry in FreezeRay. Follow him on Twitter: @beezyal