Lisa at Joyfully Reviewed did a great review of Emerging Magic. She said:
Multiple layers within a complex, explosive character driven storyline comes together in Emerging Magic. The various plotlines are carefully woven in and out, converging at points before going on another twist in this fantastical tale. Rory is dealing with almost overwhelming feelings of betrayal while also exploring his first real relationship. Low on sex, high on drama, it’s never dull, though the outcome is expected. Regardless, Emerging Magic delivers the goods.
Many thanks to Lisa -- I'm glad she enjoyed it. :)
Angie
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
World's Best Dad, Seriously
This guy needs to get a huge trophy for being a completely fantastic dad.
He runs a triathlon every year and brings his daughter with him. She's thirteen and has cerebral palsy. She's not watching -- she's in the race with him. Massive awesome, click through for a pic.
Angie
He runs a triathlon every year and brings his daughter with him. She's thirteen and has cerebral palsy. She's not watching -- she's in the race with him. Massive awesome, click through for a pic.
Angie
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Who Has Final Say?
Kris Rusch's latest Business Rusch post is about working with editors. It's a great piece and well worth reading.
One of the things she talks about is who has the final say in what your manuscript looks like. She's referencing another article written by an editor who clearly works for a publisher that contractually gives the final say to your content editor; you can discuss and negotiate and try to persuade, but bottom line, at this house it's the editor who says what words end up in your book once it's for sale. This isn't a great situation, especially if your editor has a completely different vision for your book than you do.
This reminded me of something I read in Laura Resnick's book Rejection, Romance and Royalties, which is a collection of her columns and articles and such from various publications and places. (Also a great book, well worth digging up and reading.) One article is about awful glitches, and there's a doozy perpetrated by an editor working for an imprint of Kensington called Precious Gems.
This is on pages 127-8 in my copy:
Trish Jensen, writing under the pseudonym Trish Graves, sold them a novel called Just This Once in which the hero, among other things, mentors a teenage boy, steering him away from street gangs and toward organized sports. So you may imagine the author's shock when, upon reading her galleys, she discovered that the editor had changed the boy into a raccoon.
(I think I speak for everyone here when I say, "What?")
When Jensen asked the editor why on earth she had rewritten a teenager as a small nocturnal carnivore, the editor replied that the hero's mentoring the boy could be misconstrued as having undertones of pedophilia. (All together now: "Huh?") So the obvious solution was to rewrite the kid as an animal.
I am not making this up.
Jensen says, "I screamed to high heaven, my agent screamed to high heaven. We wanted the book pulled. Kensington said it was too late. They couldn't pull it, and it was too late to turn it back into what it had been." Understandably, she adds, "I was heartsick for a long time. To this day I can't look at that book."
The lesson here is that when you allow an editor absolute control over your work, as that Precious Gems contract stipulated, the results can be worse than your wildest nightmares. Jensen made sure her next contract with Kensington didn't have that clause, and she warned other Precious Gems writers about it, too. She's wryly philosophical about the experience these days, saying, "Now I'm known as 'the raccoon author.'"
As for Precious Gems, the imprint no longer exists. It folded within a few years of the raccoon episode. A rare example of things turning out as they should in the publishing industry.
Seriously, a raccoon?? Laura doesn't go into any detail here, but I have to wonder, did the editor do the fairly extensive rewrite it (sounds like it) would've taken to actually make the raccoon character fit into the book -- like, instead of a boy who was drifting toward a gang and was steered toward sports, have it be a raccoon who was raiding trash cans and messing up people's attics, who was trained or rehabilitated by the Guy? That would've taken a LOT of work, I would think, if this is any kind of a significant subplot in the novel. Or OTOH did the editor just change out the boy for a raccoon, but have it still playing Little League or whatever? Did the raccoon character still have dialogue after that edit...? o_O Incredible either way.
Kris strongly recommends never signing a contract that gives final say to the editor, nor signing away your moral rights. I'm sure very few professional editors would ever consider raccooning one of your characters, or anything similarly outrageous, but then I'm sure Ms. Jensen never expected her editor to do that either.
Read Kris's post, and be careful of your contracts.
Angie
One of the things she talks about is who has the final say in what your manuscript looks like. She's referencing another article written by an editor who clearly works for a publisher that contractually gives the final say to your content editor; you can discuss and negotiate and try to persuade, but bottom line, at this house it's the editor who says what words end up in your book once it's for sale. This isn't a great situation, especially if your editor has a completely different vision for your book than you do.
This reminded me of something I read in Laura Resnick's book Rejection, Romance and Royalties, which is a collection of her columns and articles and such from various publications and places. (Also a great book, well worth digging up and reading.) One article is about awful glitches, and there's a doozy perpetrated by an editor working for an imprint of Kensington called Precious Gems.
This is on pages 127-8 in my copy:
Trish Jensen, writing under the pseudonym Trish Graves, sold them a novel called Just This Once in which the hero, among other things, mentors a teenage boy, steering him away from street gangs and toward organized sports. So you may imagine the author's shock when, upon reading her galleys, she discovered that the editor had changed the boy into a raccoon.
(I think I speak for everyone here when I say, "What?")
When Jensen asked the editor why on earth she had rewritten a teenager as a small nocturnal carnivore, the editor replied that the hero's mentoring the boy could be misconstrued as having undertones of pedophilia. (All together now: "Huh?") So the obvious solution was to rewrite the kid as an animal.
I am not making this up.
Jensen says, "I screamed to high heaven, my agent screamed to high heaven. We wanted the book pulled. Kensington said it was too late. They couldn't pull it, and it was too late to turn it back into what it had been." Understandably, she adds, "I was heartsick for a long time. To this day I can't look at that book."
The lesson here is that when you allow an editor absolute control over your work, as that Precious Gems contract stipulated, the results can be worse than your wildest nightmares. Jensen made sure her next contract with Kensington didn't have that clause, and she warned other Precious Gems writers about it, too. She's wryly philosophical about the experience these days, saying, "Now I'm known as 'the raccoon author.'"
As for Precious Gems, the imprint no longer exists. It folded within a few years of the raccoon episode. A rare example of things turning out as they should in the publishing industry.
Seriously, a raccoon?? Laura doesn't go into any detail here, but I have to wonder, did the editor do the fairly extensive rewrite it (sounds like it) would've taken to actually make the raccoon character fit into the book -- like, instead of a boy who was drifting toward a gang and was steered toward sports, have it be a raccoon who was raiding trash cans and messing up people's attics, who was trained or rehabilitated by the Guy? That would've taken a LOT of work, I would think, if this is any kind of a significant subplot in the novel. Or OTOH did the editor just change out the boy for a raccoon, but have it still playing Little League or whatever? Did the raccoon character still have dialogue after that edit...? o_O Incredible either way.
Kris strongly recommends never signing a contract that gives final say to the editor, nor signing away your moral rights. I'm sure very few professional editors would ever consider raccooning one of your characters, or anything similarly outrageous, but then I'm sure Ms. Jensen never expected her editor to do that either.
Read Kris's post, and be careful of your contracts.
Angie
Monday, January 21, 2013
Blog Moderation Techniques
Okay, this is awesome. :) How does one handle jerkwad commenters? Sure, you can delete their posts, but certain practitioners of gluteal haberdashery are annoyingly persistent. What to do?
John Scalzi (a big-name SF writer, for anyone not into SF) has a ridiculously popular blog and doesn't shy away from controversial topics. I generally agree with him, so in my world he's a good guy, but there are folks out there who disagree with him strongly on various matters. If they're willing to be civil then all is well, but certain individuals come sliming and frothing their way onto his blog, spraying putrid stupidity all over the curtains. His usual response is to delete them (using the Mallet of Loving Correction -- some SF fans actually gave him a real one at WorldCon, like a fancy judge's mallet but about three feet long) but some folks, when their comments have been malleted, just keep coming back over and over. Handling them is annoying and takes up time.
So he borrowed a technique from blogger Jenny Lawton, in a move one of his commenters called "setting the Mallet to 'Kitten.'" It made me laugh, and after a couple of kittenings, a recent jerkwad couldn't take it anymore and vanished, yay!
I only wish I had 1/100 the blog traffic Scalzi does. My current jerkwad visitors are all comment spammers; moving up to active asshats would be an indication that my blog had achieved a new level of readership, so I'd actually kind of welcome that, at least as an indicator of popularity. [wry smile] Right now, I don't even need a Mallet, much less one with a "Kitten" setting. When/if I ever do, though, I'll keep it in mind. [snicker]
Check out the Kitten setting.
Angie
John Scalzi (a big-name SF writer, for anyone not into SF) has a ridiculously popular blog and doesn't shy away from controversial topics. I generally agree with him, so in my world he's a good guy, but there are folks out there who disagree with him strongly on various matters. If they're willing to be civil then all is well, but certain individuals come sliming and frothing their way onto his blog, spraying putrid stupidity all over the curtains. His usual response is to delete them (using the Mallet of Loving Correction -- some SF fans actually gave him a real one at WorldCon, like a fancy judge's mallet but about three feet long) but some folks, when their comments have been malleted, just keep coming back over and over. Handling them is annoying and takes up time.
So he borrowed a technique from blogger Jenny Lawton, in a move one of his commenters called "setting the Mallet to 'Kitten.'" It made me laugh, and after a couple of kittenings, a recent jerkwad couldn't take it anymore and vanished, yay!
I only wish I had 1/100 the blog traffic Scalzi does. My current jerkwad visitors are all comment spammers; moving up to active asshats would be an indication that my blog had achieved a new level of readership, so I'd actually kind of welcome that, at least as an indicator of popularity. [wry smile] Right now, I don't even need a Mallet, much less one with a "Kitten" setting. When/if I ever do, though, I'll keep it in mind. [snicker]
Check out the Kitten setting.
Angie
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Anthology Markets
If you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month (except last month, but anyway), so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets (if there are any -- none this month) are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
***
[UPDATED 1/22] 15 March 2013 -- Love, Lust and Zombies -- ed. Mitzi Szereto, Cleis Press
A trade paperback to be published by Cleis Press, USA
Publication date: Autumn 2013
Let’s face it: zombies are hot, and baby, they’re getting hotter. Although not the most traditional of sex symbols, zombies are truly coming into their own, even landing on the silver screen in romantic roles, not to mention ambling and shambling across the pages of novels and television screens. Gone are those one-dimensional gut-munching characters from George Romero’s grim and gruesome flick Night of the Living Dead. Zombies now have a lot more to offer, and thank heavens we non-zombies are finally beginning to recognise this.
From the bestselling novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to the hit TV series The Walking Dead, zombies are infiltrating and enriching our daily lives. So isn’t it about time they had their more…err… romantic and sexy sides showcased? It’s my goal as editor of Love, Lust and Zombies to help make this happen. And here’s how you can help.
I want you to write some fun and steamy stories featuring sexy zombie characters and send them over for me to chew on (in a literary sense, that is). Can zombies be sexy? Why the hell not? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. So can you do it without grossing us out too much or being too gory? Sure you can. And you know you want to!
Submission deadline:
Feb 10, 2013
(I’ll be selecting stories on a rolling basis, therefore earlier submissions are strongly encouraged, though I’ll still consider stories that make it in by the deadline).
Word count:
3,000 to 6,500
What I’m looking for:
Well-developed story lines and well-crafted prose told in a unique voice and containing interesting characters and settings. Stories may be set in the past, present, or future. Stories from female and male writers are welcome, as are those written from the POV of characters of any gender and containing characters of any sexual orientation.
Note that sexually explicit content is acceptable as well as a more subtle approach; however, absolutely no stock sex scenes or formulaic writing/terminology. Please refer to my previous anthologies to get an idea of the variety and style of content I look for. No excessive gore or violence. No reprints.
Payment:
One-time payment in the range of USD $50-70 (payable on publication) and 2 copies of the anthology.
Submission requirements:
Stories should be formatted as follows: double-spaced Arial 12-point black font Word or RTF document. Indent the first line of each paragraph by half an inch. Do not add extra lines between paragraphs or any other irregular spacing. American spelling and punctuation only (i.e. quote marks, etc.). Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), postal address, and a fifty-word maximum author bio written in the third person. Contract is for one-time, non-exclusive anthology rights with one year’s exclusivity from date of publication. (This may be waived if your story is selected for a “Best Of” collection). No simultaneous submissions please.
In the subject line of your email, please state: Love, Lust and Zombies
Send to: submissions @ mitziszereto.com
I look forward to reading your work!
***
15 February 2013 -- Sword and Mythos -- Innsmouth Free Press
Sword and Mythos is an anthology paying professional rates (5 cents per word) looking for short fiction of up to 5,000 words which combines the pulp genres of Cthulhu Mythos and sword and sorcery.
WHAT WE WANT
Sword and Mythos. This includes any element of the Cthulhu Mythos (creatures such as shoggoths, characters like the King in Yellow, locations like Leng) combined with sword and sorcery (heroic fantasy). Stories can be told from the viewpoint of sorcerers or other non-traditional heroic characters, although fighters with brawn and brains will also be accepted.
We are looking for a variety of settings and characters (Yes, we are GLBT-friendly). Although much sword and sorcery has utilized a proto-European setting, we’d like to see stories that take place in settings inspired by Middle Eastern, African, Asian, Prehispanic, and other cultures. We will accept secondary world stories and stories set in historical settings with magical elements. For example, Robert E. Howard set his Mythos-inspired “Worms of the Earth” in real-life Great Britain.
We might also consider some sword and planet stories. But no copyrighted characters, please. We can’t afford the lawsuits.
There are many famous sword and sorcery male characters, but we’d also like to see women hacking tentacles. Or summoning Mythos creatures.
Overall, we want to be surprised and inspired to read beyond the first page.
Scenarios which might be fun:
== A Mayan warrior faces Cthulhu’s own daughter, Cthylla.
== A crafty thief steals more than she bargained for when she takes a statuette from a Tamil temple.
== A Kurdish mercenary is hired to rescue the son of a rich merchant from the clutches of a sorcerer in medieval Cairo.
== An acolyte of Dagon grows tired of his job and seeks new thrills.
== The sacrificial virgin procured for a certain ceremony proves to be adept at survival.
== A Maori warrior in the South Pacific fights thawed-out shoggoths from sunken R’lyeh.
== A Wampanoag builds a stone circle to unspeakable entities, in order to beat back European settlers.
== A Malian warrior teams up with a shaman in Timbuktu to fight a Black Pharoah from Egypt.
== In the late Parthian Empire, a pahlavan warrior and a Zoroastrian priestess investigate an alchemist who is raising the dead.
== Pearl divers hire samurai to fight an undersea race of carnivorous creatures.
PAYMENT
Sword and Mythos pays 5 cents per word. We are asking for First English Anthology Rights. Because we are a very small press, we don’t pay royalties. We do, however, offer to buy the stories on a non-exclusive basis.
Each contributor will receive two physical copies of the anthology and an e-book copy. More copies can be purchased at a discounted rate.
Story length is up to 5,000 words.
Reprints will be considered. Flat fee of $50 paid for reprints.
SUBMITTING
== E-mail us at innsmouthfp AT gmail.com. Subject line: Sword, [Title of your Story, Author's Name].
== Do not send more than one short story.
== Include a cover letter with the story word count, salient writing credits and any reprint information (if applicable). Yes, we do read cover letters, so include the information.
== Attach story as an RTF or Word document. Use standard manuscript format. Italics as italics, bold as bold. No fancy fonts.
== Stories can be sent in English, French, or Spanish.
== Submissions are accepted from January 15 to February 15, 2013. Do not send anything before or after that date. If you do, we will ignore it.
== Final story selection will take place in the spring of 2013. Check back for updates.
[Click through for more info.]
***
1 March 2013 -- Handsome Devil -- ed. Steve Berman; Prime Books
Incubi. They seduce women (and some men) with their devilish ways. Infernal Casanovas and fiendish Romeos. This anthology will feature supernatural tales of lotharios that entice, arouse, and often destroy their prey. Tales do not have to be horror--dark fantasy is fine but please no paranormal romance (no vampires!). Seeking stories no less than 3,000 words in length, no more than 12,000. Payment for original fiction is at least 3 cents a word. Reprints at least 1 cent a word.
***
1 April 2013 -- Darker Edge of Desire -- ed. Mitzi Szereto, Cleis Press
A trade paperback to be published by Cleis Press, USA
Publication date: Autumn 2013
Gothic literature has always possessed a dark attraction ripe with the promise of the forbidden and the sensual. This theme has been successfully explored in my anthology Red Velvet and Absinthe, but with a far gentler touch. In Darker Edge of Desire, I will take the sexualized Gothic and ratchet it up a few notches into the danger zone, opening the door into the darker side of lust and love that only the courageous dare to venture through.
I am looking for atmospheric and high quality stories with a distinct Gothic flavour that explore our more forbidden desires and contain plenty of added kink. In these tales love and lust know no boundaries, and all nature of being—from vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, ghosts, succubae and creatures we may not even have heard of—can be found. Think Red Velvet and Absinthe, but with some very sharp edges!
Submission deadline: April 1, 2013
(I’ll be selecting stories on a rolling basis, therefore earlier submissions are strongly encouraged, though I’ll still consider stories that make it in by the deadline).
Word count:
3,000 to 6,500
What I’m looking for:
Well-developed story lines and well-crafted prose told in a unique voice and containing interesting characters and settings. Stories may be set in the past, present, or future. Stories from female and male writers are welcome, as are those written from the POV of characters of any gender and containing characters of any sexual orientation.
Note that sexually explicit content is acceptable as well as a more subtle approach; however, absolutely no stock sex scenes or formulaic writing/terminology. Please refer to my previous anthologies to get an idea of the variety and style of content I look for. No excessive gore or violence. No reprints.
Payment:
One-time payment in the range of USD $50-70 (payable on publication) and 2 copies of the anthology.
Submission requirements:
Stories should be formatted as follows: double-spaced Arial 12-point black font Word or RTF document. Indent the first line of each paragraph by half an inch. Do not add extra lines between paragraphs or any other irregular spacing. American spelling and punctuation only (i.e. quote marks, etc.). Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), postal address, and a fifty-word maximum author bio written in the third person. Contract is for one-time, non-exclusive anthology rights with one year’s exclusivity from date of publication. (This may be waived if your story is selected for a “Best Of” collection). No simultaneous submissions please.
In the subject line of your email, please state: Darker Edge of Desire
Send to: submissions @ mitziszereto.com
I look forward to reading your work!
======
ETA: Comments closed because of a truly insane amount of spam. :/
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets (if there are any -- none this month) are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
***
[UPDATED 1/22] 15 March 2013 -- Love, Lust and Zombies -- ed. Mitzi Szereto, Cleis Press
A trade paperback to be published by Cleis Press, USA
Publication date: Autumn 2013
Let’s face it: zombies are hot, and baby, they’re getting hotter. Although not the most traditional of sex symbols, zombies are truly coming into their own, even landing on the silver screen in romantic roles, not to mention ambling and shambling across the pages of novels and television screens. Gone are those one-dimensional gut-munching characters from George Romero’s grim and gruesome flick Night of the Living Dead. Zombies now have a lot more to offer, and thank heavens we non-zombies are finally beginning to recognise this.
From the bestselling novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to the hit TV series The Walking Dead, zombies are infiltrating and enriching our daily lives. So isn’t it about time they had their more…err… romantic and sexy sides showcased? It’s my goal as editor of Love, Lust and Zombies to help make this happen. And here’s how you can help.
I want you to write some fun and steamy stories featuring sexy zombie characters and send them over for me to chew on (in a literary sense, that is). Can zombies be sexy? Why the hell not? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. So can you do it without grossing us out too much or being too gory? Sure you can. And you know you want to!
Submission deadline:
Feb 10, 2013
(I’ll be selecting stories on a rolling basis, therefore earlier submissions are strongly encouraged, though I’ll still consider stories that make it in by the deadline).
Word count:
3,000 to 6,500
What I’m looking for:
Well-developed story lines and well-crafted prose told in a unique voice and containing interesting characters and settings. Stories may be set in the past, present, or future. Stories from female and male writers are welcome, as are those written from the POV of characters of any gender and containing characters of any sexual orientation.
Note that sexually explicit content is acceptable as well as a more subtle approach; however, absolutely no stock sex scenes or formulaic writing/terminology. Please refer to my previous anthologies to get an idea of the variety and style of content I look for. No excessive gore or violence. No reprints.
Payment:
One-time payment in the range of USD $50-70 (payable on publication) and 2 copies of the anthology.
Submission requirements:
Stories should be formatted as follows: double-spaced Arial 12-point black font Word or RTF document. Indent the first line of each paragraph by half an inch. Do not add extra lines between paragraphs or any other irregular spacing. American spelling and punctuation only (i.e. quote marks, etc.). Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), postal address, and a fifty-word maximum author bio written in the third person. Contract is for one-time, non-exclusive anthology rights with one year’s exclusivity from date of publication. (This may be waived if your story is selected for a “Best Of” collection). No simultaneous submissions please.
In the subject line of your email, please state: Love, Lust and Zombies
Send to: submissions @ mitziszereto.com
I look forward to reading your work!
***
15 February 2013 -- Sword and Mythos -- Innsmouth Free Press
Sword and Mythos is an anthology paying professional rates (5 cents per word) looking for short fiction of up to 5,000 words which combines the pulp genres of Cthulhu Mythos and sword and sorcery.
WHAT WE WANT
Sword and Mythos. This includes any element of the Cthulhu Mythos (creatures such as shoggoths, characters like the King in Yellow, locations like Leng) combined with sword and sorcery (heroic fantasy). Stories can be told from the viewpoint of sorcerers or other non-traditional heroic characters, although fighters with brawn and brains will also be accepted.
We are looking for a variety of settings and characters (Yes, we are GLBT-friendly). Although much sword and sorcery has utilized a proto-European setting, we’d like to see stories that take place in settings inspired by Middle Eastern, African, Asian, Prehispanic, and other cultures. We will accept secondary world stories and stories set in historical settings with magical elements. For example, Robert E. Howard set his Mythos-inspired “Worms of the Earth” in real-life Great Britain.
We might also consider some sword and planet stories. But no copyrighted characters, please. We can’t afford the lawsuits.
There are many famous sword and sorcery male characters, but we’d also like to see women hacking tentacles. Or summoning Mythos creatures.
Overall, we want to be surprised and inspired to read beyond the first page.
Scenarios which might be fun:
== A Mayan warrior faces Cthulhu’s own daughter, Cthylla.
== A crafty thief steals more than she bargained for when she takes a statuette from a Tamil temple.
== A Kurdish mercenary is hired to rescue the son of a rich merchant from the clutches of a sorcerer in medieval Cairo.
== An acolyte of Dagon grows tired of his job and seeks new thrills.
== The sacrificial virgin procured for a certain ceremony proves to be adept at survival.
== A Maori warrior in the South Pacific fights thawed-out shoggoths from sunken R’lyeh.
== A Wampanoag builds a stone circle to unspeakable entities, in order to beat back European settlers.
== A Malian warrior teams up with a shaman in Timbuktu to fight a Black Pharoah from Egypt.
== In the late Parthian Empire, a pahlavan warrior and a Zoroastrian priestess investigate an alchemist who is raising the dead.
== Pearl divers hire samurai to fight an undersea race of carnivorous creatures.
PAYMENT
Sword and Mythos pays 5 cents per word. We are asking for First English Anthology Rights. Because we are a very small press, we don’t pay royalties. We do, however, offer to buy the stories on a non-exclusive basis.
Each contributor will receive two physical copies of the anthology and an e-book copy. More copies can be purchased at a discounted rate.
Story length is up to 5,000 words.
Reprints will be considered. Flat fee of $50 paid for reprints.
SUBMITTING
== E-mail us at innsmouthfp AT gmail.com. Subject line: Sword, [Title of your Story, Author's Name].
== Do not send more than one short story.
== Include a cover letter with the story word count, salient writing credits and any reprint information (if applicable). Yes, we do read cover letters, so include the information.
== Attach story as an RTF or Word document. Use standard manuscript format. Italics as italics, bold as bold. No fancy fonts.
== Stories can be sent in English, French, or Spanish.
== Submissions are accepted from January 15 to February 15, 2013. Do not send anything before or after that date. If you do, we will ignore it.
== Final story selection will take place in the spring of 2013. Check back for updates.
[Click through for more info.]
***
1 March 2013 -- Handsome Devil -- ed. Steve Berman; Prime Books
Incubi. They seduce women (and some men) with their devilish ways. Infernal Casanovas and fiendish Romeos. This anthology will feature supernatural tales of lotharios that entice, arouse, and often destroy their prey. Tales do not have to be horror--dark fantasy is fine but please no paranormal romance (no vampires!). Seeking stories no less than 3,000 words in length, no more than 12,000. Payment for original fiction is at least 3 cents a word. Reprints at least 1 cent a word.
***
1 April 2013 -- Darker Edge of Desire -- ed. Mitzi Szereto, Cleis Press
A trade paperback to be published by Cleis Press, USA
Publication date: Autumn 2013
Gothic literature has always possessed a dark attraction ripe with the promise of the forbidden and the sensual. This theme has been successfully explored in my anthology Red Velvet and Absinthe, but with a far gentler touch. In Darker Edge of Desire, I will take the sexualized Gothic and ratchet it up a few notches into the danger zone, opening the door into the darker side of lust and love that only the courageous dare to venture through.
I am looking for atmospheric and high quality stories with a distinct Gothic flavour that explore our more forbidden desires and contain plenty of added kink. In these tales love and lust know no boundaries, and all nature of being—from vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, ghosts, succubae and creatures we may not even have heard of—can be found. Think Red Velvet and Absinthe, but with some very sharp edges!
Submission deadline: April 1, 2013
(I’ll be selecting stories on a rolling basis, therefore earlier submissions are strongly encouraged, though I’ll still consider stories that make it in by the deadline).
Word count:
3,000 to 6,500
What I’m looking for:
Well-developed story lines and well-crafted prose told in a unique voice and containing interesting characters and settings. Stories may be set in the past, present, or future. Stories from female and male writers are welcome, as are those written from the POV of characters of any gender and containing characters of any sexual orientation.
Note that sexually explicit content is acceptable as well as a more subtle approach; however, absolutely no stock sex scenes or formulaic writing/terminology. Please refer to my previous anthologies to get an idea of the variety and style of content I look for. No excessive gore or violence. No reprints.
Payment:
One-time payment in the range of USD $50-70 (payable on publication) and 2 copies of the anthology.
Submission requirements:
Stories should be formatted as follows: double-spaced Arial 12-point black font Word or RTF document. Indent the first line of each paragraph by half an inch. Do not add extra lines between paragraphs or any other irregular spacing. American spelling and punctuation only (i.e. quote marks, etc.). Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), postal address, and a fifty-word maximum author bio written in the third person. Contract is for one-time, non-exclusive anthology rights with one year’s exclusivity from date of publication. (This may be waived if your story is selected for a “Best Of” collection). No simultaneous submissions please.
In the subject line of your email, please state: Darker Edge of Desire
Send to: submissions @ mitziszereto.com
I look forward to reading your work!
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ETA: Comments closed because of a truly insane amount of spam. :/
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
A New Year Starting With Free Stuff
I hope everyone had a great holiday and is humming along back at work. I'm doing well -- could hardly be worse after 2012 -- and have a couple of major goals for this year. One is to write at least 250K words of fiction. I've done that before, should be able to do it again, and have joined a challenge through one of the mailing lists I'm on to help encourage me along the way. On track so far, yay.
The other is to get into indie publishing this year. I have backlist stories that are sitting on my hard drive, unavailable to anyone who doesn't hang out on pirate sites, and I need to get those back up and available. I also have stories that've collected multiple positive rejections -- the kind that say, essentially, "Good story, well written, not buying it, enjoyed reading it, looking forward to reading more from you." If you have to be rejected, that's the kind of rejection you want to get, but it's still a rejection. I have some stories that've gotten multiples of these, from multiple professional editors. I figure any story that multiple pro editors thought was well written and enjoyed reading would probably be enjoyed by readers too, so I'm going to start putting them up myself.
To help me along with that, I downloaded and printed out the Smashwords formatting guide, figuring that was a good place to start. Then, in a great piece of serendipity, I heard that Adobe is giving away free copies of a lot of its older-version software, stuff that it's been using phone-home DRM on for a number of years while newer versions have been released. It's no longer cost effective for them to maintain the validation servers for their older packages, so rather than cut off all the customers who've handed them money for their software packages, they've released free, non-DRMed copies of this stuff, and it's open for anyone to grab. The list includes both Photoshop and InDesign, and I've grabbed copies of both. If you're thinking of indie pubbing, or if you're doing it already but have been saving up for expensive high-level software, I highly suggest you grab it too: Free Adobe Software. I have no idea how long this is going to last, so get it while you can.
And major props to Adobe for being cool about this. Plenty of companies in the same position just say, "Too bad, buy the new version, here's a percent-off coupon," and leave it at that. Making sure that the honest customers who've handed them money in the past can keep using the software they've paid for is a class act. Letting other people (like me) try these older versions for free is also very classy, and might make them some money in the future, if I like these tools and decide to upgrade.
Angie
The other is to get into indie publishing this year. I have backlist stories that are sitting on my hard drive, unavailable to anyone who doesn't hang out on pirate sites, and I need to get those back up and available. I also have stories that've collected multiple positive rejections -- the kind that say, essentially, "Good story, well written, not buying it, enjoyed reading it, looking forward to reading more from you." If you have to be rejected, that's the kind of rejection you want to get, but it's still a rejection. I have some stories that've gotten multiples of these, from multiple professional editors. I figure any story that multiple pro editors thought was well written and enjoyed reading would probably be enjoyed by readers too, so I'm going to start putting them up myself.
To help me along with that, I downloaded and printed out the Smashwords formatting guide, figuring that was a good place to start. Then, in a great piece of serendipity, I heard that Adobe is giving away free copies of a lot of its older-version software, stuff that it's been using phone-home DRM on for a number of years while newer versions have been released. It's no longer cost effective for them to maintain the validation servers for their older packages, so rather than cut off all the customers who've handed them money for their software packages, they've released free, non-DRMed copies of this stuff, and it's open for anyone to grab. The list includes both Photoshop and InDesign, and I've grabbed copies of both. If you're thinking of indie pubbing, or if you're doing it already but have been saving up for expensive high-level software, I highly suggest you grab it too: Free Adobe Software. I have no idea how long this is going to last, so get it while you can.
And major props to Adobe for being cool about this. Plenty of companies in the same position just say, "Too bad, buy the new version, here's a percent-off coupon," and leave it at that. Making sure that the honest customers who've handed them money in the past can keep using the software they've paid for is a class act. Letting other people (like me) try these older versions for free is also very classy, and might make them some money in the future, if I like these tools and decide to upgrade.
Angie
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