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rachelmanija Jun. 9th, 2020 04:25 pm)
rachelmanija Jun. 9th, 2020 04:25 pm)It's that time again! I'm putting together two anthologies to benefit OutRight Action International. Feel free to let your friends or f-list know.
Guidelines
Stories must feature two male-identifying or two female-identifying people in a romantic relationship, which can either be established or occur during the story. Sex, explicit or otherwise, is fine but not required. The romance must end happily.
The story must be urban, contemporary, or paranormal fantasy. That is, it must be set in some version of our world rather than a completely different one like Middle Earth.
The story must involve a pet. The pet can be magical (flying kitten, baaaaby griffin, dragon, etc) or real-world. If the pet is a normal pet, other elements of the story must involve fantasy, such as a magical amulet, wizards, shifters, etc.
The pet cannot die. There can be no animal harm in the story, with the following exceptions: it can be mentioned that baby animals were orphaned, and sick or injured animals can be rescued. No heavy focus on details of pet illness or injury. For instance, finding and adopting a flying kitten with an injured wing is fine, but no gory details of the injury.
No references to current politicians or coronavirus. No cops. (Civilians solving crimes is fine.) No heavy focus on depressing topics such as bigotry, climate change, sexual abuse, etc.
Stories must be a minimum of 3000 words. There is no maximum wordcount.
Deadline: October 1.
Publication date: October 15.
Terms: All profits from the anthology will be donated in perpetuity to OutRight Action International. Stories must be exclusive to the anthology for three months from the publication date. After that, you may reprint and/or resell them anywhere you like.
Contact: Rachel Manija Brown at Rphoenix2@gmail.com. Please contact me before you write the story with a brief outline (a few sentences is fine) so I can get an idea of who's writing for which one and how to contact you, and to let you know if your story proposal fits the guidelines.
Guidelines
Stories must feature two male-identifying or two female-identifying people in a romantic relationship, which can either be established or occur during the story. Sex, explicit or otherwise, is fine but not required. The romance must end happily.
The story must be urban, contemporary, or paranormal fantasy. That is, it must be set in some version of our world rather than a completely different one like Middle Earth.
The story must involve a pet. The pet can be magical (flying kitten, baaaaby griffin, dragon, etc) or real-world. If the pet is a normal pet, other elements of the story must involve fantasy, such as a magical amulet, wizards, shifters, etc.
The pet cannot die. There can be no animal harm in the story, with the following exceptions: it can be mentioned that baby animals were orphaned, and sick or injured animals can be rescued. No heavy focus on details of pet illness or injury. For instance, finding and adopting a flying kitten with an injured wing is fine, but no gory details of the injury.
No references to current politicians or coronavirus. No cops. (Civilians solving crimes is fine.) No heavy focus on depressing topics such as bigotry, climate change, sexual abuse, etc.
Stories must be a minimum of 3000 words. There is no maximum wordcount.
Deadline: October 1.
Publication date: October 15.
Terms: All profits from the anthology will be donated in perpetuity to OutRight Action International. Stories must be exclusive to the anthology for three months from the publication date. After that, you may reprint and/or resell them anywhere you like.
Contact: Rachel Manija Brown at Rphoenix2@gmail.com. Please contact me before you write the story with a brief outline (a few sentences is fine) so I can get an idea of who's writing for which one and how to contact you, and to let you know if your story proposal fits the guidelines.
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One question about contacting you: what's the purpose of the initial contact? (E.g. is it to make the story would fit in the theme, or that it's not too similar to other potential stories, or to give you a list of people to check in with for the deadline, etc, etc?) Mostly I ask to get a gauge of the required commitment level for contact, and whether I need a synopsis or even idea in hand. :P
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You don't need a firm commitment from the first contact, just the intention to write. I don't need a synopsis, just a concept: "A female veterinarian gets a surprise when a woman brings in a manticore with mange" or "Wizard husbands solve a robbery with the help of their talking cat."
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If it was for an exchange, I think you'd also have to check with the person you wrote it for.
Can you link me to the story?
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As it was Original Work and the prompt was only the tag, while I absolutely would check with the person I wrote it for, I don't think I got anything directly from them -- but I'd absolutely reach out to them since these words belong to tehm as much as me as far as I'm concerned.
However I think rather than just rewriting this outline-of-meet-cute, I might want to revise the first couple of scenes and then instead of making the rest of it the same, focus on a specific Animal Rescue Adventure that the pair could go on or something like that -- a couple people on DW/Ao3 expressed interest in seeing more of them and I was saying "Well if an opportunity comes up!" and it seems to have done so.
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Yeah, that sounds great! I think that would be an excellent fit for the anthology, and should avoid Amazon throwing a fit.
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I assume you would still like an official pitch email for records purposes, and I will send that along when I've gotten a little sleep. Thank you for the feedback!
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And... am I the only one who now wants to see a baaaaaby griffin? Because tiny griffin+that particular means of phrasing=omgsocute! Seriously, that's adorable. :)
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*goes to dust off thinking cap*
This sounds very sweet and I love it. 😍
ETA: My first thought is some combination of that story about the pet psychic who made little signs for the mice + our difficulties here with our cat being such a failboat as a hunter. Like vole-and-bird-murder would not be involved, but I'm tickled at the idea of attempts to communicate. *hmm* That that idea may or may not turn into a story pitch but I'm definitely interested here!
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I've already thrown my hat into the ring vis-a-vis dragon mishaps, but I had a thought while sitting down to work out some character and plot stuff the other day and wanted to ask whether writing in different historical periods (ie: the 20s or the 70s or what have you) was alright or whether it needs to be modern in every sense of the term?
Thanks! :)
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