Submissions to our second anthology are now OPEN!
As many of you may have seen, we released the theme and submission window dates a few weeks ago:
But we deliberately didn’t go into more detail about what ‘Alien & Otherness’ meant because we wanted to give you all time to interpret it yourself before breaking it down now.
What does it mean?
Science fiction has long framed narratives of aliens around questions of identity, of what makes us human. The word ‘alienation’ evokes an existential ache. And extraterrestrials, like Bowie’s Man Who Fell to Earth, speak to all who feel an Outsider in human society. We hope some of your submissions stir a soul-deep reaction too.
At the same time, many alien narratives channel hostility towards a politicised Other. These can be representations of prejudice, or a commentary on the sexism/racism/transphobia the author sees in their own society. So 2009 film District 9 interrogated apartheid’s segregation of non-whites via a camp of aliens. Meanwhile post-colonial science fiction, like Tade Thompson’s Rosewater series, is rewriting the tropes of first contact and invasion. We welcome submissions that play with genre stereotypes with such wit and originality.
While we love subversive science fiction, our anthologies embrace many genres, tones, and forms. Have fun with the weird, the bizarre, the monstrous and the mysterious. Reflect on the emotions that ‘Alien’ and/or ‘Other’ evokes in you and write from that place.
What to do if you’re not sure your piece is what we’re looking for.
Short answer:
Submit it anyway.
Long answer:
The overall tone of the anthology will be determined by the submissions we receive. We decided not to give this anthology a title at this stage for that exact reason. Last year, we called for submissions using the title Race for the Stars. But the final anthology read more like an exploration of humanity’s place in the universe rather than a race so we changed the title to Uncharted Constellations. So even if your piece doesn’t match our explanation exactly, send it to us and let us decide if it works with the other submissions.
You can get an idea of the kind of pieces we like by reading Uncharted Constellations and by keeping an eye on our twitter (@SpaceCatPress). We have an ‘On This Day’ series which involves posting snippets from our titles, a backlog of which you can find using the hashtags #DesertMoonfire and #UnchartedCons.
We are also going to release weekly writing prompts on our social media platforms starting next Friday @ 12pm BST, [which you can keep track of using the hashtag #AliensOtherness/a backlog of which can be found on our Theme Breakdown page].
How to submit.
To submit, send your piece(s) to: sub.spacecatpress@gmail.com along with a 50-word bio and a list of anywhere your piece(s) have previously been published. These will not be taken into account during the selection process but will save time later on.
Before you submit though, we highly recommend that you read our Submission page if you have not done so already. It will give you a better idea of what types of pieces we want, what we will give you if we do decide to publish your piece(s), and what we expect in return.
We look forward to seeing all the ways you interpret this theme!
Space Cat Press 