Troll Scroll Publishing is pleased to announce it will publish a speculative fiction anthology in the first quarter of 2011, on the topic of ... well, we don't know. So we're asking you.
If you've ever wished someone would write about a dwarf private detective martial arts expert and ex-circus headliner with a doctorate in criminology who investigates strange scientific crimes then you'll be happy to hear it's been done.[*]
If you think the world needs more stories about teenagers who fall in love with vampires then you've obviously been living in a cave for ten years. (Spoiler for the last book: Buffy stakes Edward!)
But if you've got any other ideas we're listening. If there's a subject you always wished people would write stories about then here's your chance to make it happen.
Send your theme ideas to trollscrollpublishing@gmail.com.
Submissions close 31st December 2009.
We want to be able to read your theme without being biased by knowing who you are. Here are some anal-retentive rules mostly aimed at making that possible.
The subject of the e-mail should be "Theme Submission" and that's it. For heaven's sake don't mention what the idea is in the subject.
The body of the email should consist of two parts: at the top should be the part that tells us who you are. Then a line of at least ten asterisks i.e. **********. Then the part that tells us what the idea is. It's very important that this bottom part doesn't mention who you are or even give us any clues. We advise finishing the e-mail with another line of asterisks ********** just in case your e-mail program does something irritating like finishing with a signature block. Our software will use the ********** to cut the e-mail into pieces and we'll only look at the part between those two lines until we've made our decision.
Everything should be in the body of the e-mail itself. Don't do anything fancy like attaching a Word document, just type it into the e-mail.
Ideally your submission will tell us your idea of a theme for the anthology, some suggested kinds of stories, essays, etc. that might appear in the anthology and a suggested title. If you don't suggest possible stories and a title then you're relying on us to think of them and if nothing comes to us then you won't win.
To: trollscrollpublishing@gmail.com
Date: 3rd December 2009, 14:33
From: Alice <alice@evil.com>
Hi snookums,
I had a lovely time at dinner last night. Please don't worry about my dress, I'm sure the stains will come out. Meanwhile, here's my idea for a theme for your anthology!
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Theme: Cocktails
Title: Speculative fiction with a twist
The stories would involve cocktails, either in the plot or by some sort of analogy with the events of the story or something like that. Murderers are caught by their inability to smell some critical ingredient or their temporary colour-blindness. The hero seems doomed until he remembers a lesson he was taught by a cocktail master and applies it to surviving on the slopes of Everest in his underpants.
******************************
To: trollscrollpublishing@gmail.com
Date: 9th December 2009, 16:04
From: Bob <bob@palindrome.org>
I don't like you. I am definitely going to put you in intensive care for how you treated Alice. But if you choose my anthology idea I might wait until it gets into print.
**********
Theme: Mismatches across genres
Title: "Bullets Won't Stop Them" or "Worlds in Collision"
Possible stories: a Napoleonic musket company tries to hold off Cthulthu; an African witch-doctor learns why odd socks disappear, with the fate of the entire Tasmanian postal service in the balance; the Hindu Goddess of gossip battles the Celtic god of drunkeness on Big Brother and neither realises what's happening outside the house.
**********
The take-home messages here are: everything personal happens above the line; everything about the theme happens below the line; as much information about the theme as you can.
We want a variety of different types of content. For instance, we might have 160 pages of short stories, 20 pages of essays, 10 pages of poetry and 10 pages of art.
We'd like to have a mix of science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative fiction genres. So a theme that ties us down to a single genre isn't likely to be a winner: we want something that will inspire a wide range of kinds of stories.
Hopefully you're doing this because you enjoy it - that's why we are. And we'll give you credit inside the anthology. But just in case it helps get you interested we're throwing in a $20 prize for the best theme proposed. (If several people submit similar ideas we'll pick a winner on grounds that seem good to us at the time or split the prize into even smaller amounts.)
We'll throw in another $20 for a good logo for Troll Scroll Publishing. Send these in as attached PNGs, GIFs, JPEGs or the like.
Troll Scroll Publishing is David Bofinger and Peter Eisler, speculative fiction readers who live in Sydney.
If you'd like to be kept informed of the anthology's progress then send an e-mail with the subject "Stay in Touch" to trollscrollpublishing@gmail.com.
Send any questions to trollscrollpublishing@gmail.com.
[^] The detective character mentioned above is Mongo, created by George C. Chesbro.