Kaleidoscope is a crowdfunded project which completed a successful fundraising campaign–this book WILL be made! Yay! If you are interested in seeing how our crowdfunding went, you can visit our Pozible page.

Guidelines:

Kaleidoscope is an anthology of contemporary YA science fiction and fantasy with a focus on diverse perspectives. Alisa Krasnostein (founder of Twelfth Planet Press, and winner of the World Fantasy Award in 2011) and Julia Rios (fiction editor at Strange Horizons, and host of the Outer Alliance Podcast) are co-editing this project, which we hope to fill with a variety of exciting tales, happy and sad, adventurous and meditative. We’re not simply looking for cookie-cutter vampire or urban fantasy stories, but for things that transport us and subvert our expectations.

Stories submitted for this anthology should be between 2,500 and 10,000 words and should feature:

*Protagonists who are characters of color, disabled, neurodiverse, mentally ill, QUILTBAG, people with non-western cultural backgrounds, or otherwise diverse (not the typical straight, white, cisgender, able-bodied, western characters).

*Contemporary settings: modern day Earth life should be part of the story. It’s okay if there is a portal to a fantasy world, but we want characters to have some grounding in this world, too.

*Science fiction or fantasy elements: While we want the setting to be contemporary, we do want each story to have a speculative element (magic, the supernatural, genetic mutations, tech that doesn’t exist yet, etc.).

*Teen protagonists, because this is a YA anthology, after all! Mature themes and content are okay, but we’re not looking for erotica or extreme violence.

Payment will be 5 cents per word (USD) to be paid on publication in late 2014. We’re asking for First World Publication Rights, with an exclusivity period of 12 months (with the exception of Year’s Best reprints).

All submissions must reach us by the 31st of December in order to be considered for the anthology.

Send your submission as an RTF or Doc file to kaleidoscope@twelfthplanetpress.com with “Kaleidoscope Submission: [your story title]” in the subject line. Please no simultaneous or multiple submissions (that is to say, please send us only one story at a time, and please don’t send that story to any other markets until you have heard back from us). We expect to make our decisions in early 2014.

We look forward to reading your story!

Best, Alisa and Julia