Tag Archives: anthologies

Two of Solarwyrm’s Books in Oakland Public Library

My apologies for the lack of updates over the last several months. I didn’t even announce when Marked by Scorn was officially released and available to buy online. It was officially released on July 31st, and you can buy both the ebook and paperback from Amazon. If you buy the paperback on Amazon, you can download the ebook for free through their matchbook program.

Dominica Malcolm with two of her books at Oakland Public Library, Cesar Chavez BranchI’ve been pretty busy primarily with improv over the past few months, with little time to dedicate to promoting Solarwyrm’s books. However, after spending a lot of time over the summer borrowing graphic novels from my local library, I was invited to suggest others for them to add to their collection. I ended up asking if they’d be interested in having my books in their collection, and since my local branch has an excellent focus on diversity, they were delighted to hear about my books.

As of yesterday, two of my books, Adrift and Marked by Scorn: An Anthology Featuring Non-Traditional Relationships are now featured new books at Oakland Public Library, in the Cesar Chavez Branch. The Branch Manager took a photograph of me with the books to share on Facebook. If you’re in Oakland, you can check them out in their catalogue system (Adrift and Marked by Scorn), or if you’re elsewhere in California near a library that uses the Link+ interlibrary borrowing system, you should also be able to look for them there.

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Crowdfunding Marked by Scorn

The crowdfunding campaign for Marked by Scorn has been running for the last two weeks, and we’re already down to the final 10 days. I meant to announce it here sooner, but things have been busy.

If you’re not already aware of this book, the premise behind it was to put together a collection of stories and poetry that highlight a diverse array of characters in various non-traditional relationships. I have been making my mark highlighting the tales of the under-represented characters in mainstream media for years now. Focusing in particular on racial diversity, as with Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction, and sexuality diversity, like with many of the female characters in my pirate time-travel novel, Adrift (which features 4 women who are not straight and fall in different places along the sexuality spectrum).

Marked by Scorn follows and expands on both of these diverse areas, with stories across 5 continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America), more gender diversity (transgender, gender fluid, and intersex, as well as your more common cisgender characters), and a wider variety of gay, lesbian, and bisexual stories than what appeared in Amok. Many of the South East Asian stories explore what it’s like to have to hide your homosexuality in those cultures.

But these are all stories that transcend the labels, with universal experiences that everyone can relate to. Even if you fit the mainstream culture. As one reviewer put it:

“Altogether, the collection is uplifting, heart-wrenching, sexy, fun, wicked, but most of all, utterly important. Because the one thing that ties all of these stories of breakups and makeups and threesomes and violence and werewolves and partnerships and understanding together—is love. And what could possibly be more important than that?”

While we’re already 20% funded, we still have a way to go to reach the $2,500 goal. If you haven’t already seen the campaign, let me lay down a few basic details about what YOU get:

  • If we reach the goal, everyone who backed the campaign will get a free ebook of Solarwyrm’s first anthology, Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology. This will likely be the last time the book will be available with Solarwyrm, as the editor has moved on to another publishing business.
  • Backers will get their paperbacks at least a month prior to the publication date (July 31) – they’re ready to be sent out as soon as the campaign ends.
  • San Francisco Bay Area backers will be able to collect their paperbacks in person even earlier, if ordered early enough (there are about 20 available copies scheduled to arrive in Oakland in the next 48 hours, and 3 remaining available copies of Adrift, and 2 of Amok before more would need to be ordered).
  • DRM-free ebooks come with all paperback orders of the same book(s).
  • The ebooks will start to be sent out as of Friday May 27 to anyone who has already backed the campaign.
  • There are still a few ebooks available at the early backer price of $4!

Whilst the book is all ready to send out to people, the aim of the campaign is to raise enough funds to pay the 32 writers what is owed to them as per their contracts. Because Solarwyrm believes in paying our contributors.

So if this all sounds awesome to you, go check out the campaign, buy a book or three (the other books listed above are also listed as perks), and help us spread the word so you can get that bonus ebook.

Call for Submissions: Marked by Scorn

Solarwyrm Press is seeking submissions for a new anthology titled Marked by Scorn: An anthology featuring non-traditional relationships.

This anthology is open to fiction (any genre), non-fiction, and poetry. If you submit a memoir piece, and choose to use real names, please make sure you have permission from those mentioned before submitting.

In the context of this anthology, non-traditional relationships means any romantic/sexual in nature relationship that deviates from society’s stereotype of “normal.” Interracial couples, LGBT+, polyamorous and other open relationship styles, asexual, and so on. Relationships that have in the past and/or are presently deemed “unacceptable” to the majority of society, though that does not need to be the subject of the piece(s) you submit. We want all kinds of submissions about these relationships, both depressing and uplifting and anything in between, but will not publish submissions that clearly discriminate thematically against them.

As with the editor’s previous publication, diversity is important. The final submissions selected for publication will reflect that, and so it will hopefully include as many types of non-traditional relationships as possible. It would also be excellent to see submissions set all over the world. If possible, we would particularly like to include submissions written by people from/living in, or submissions set in locations within the continents of Africa, Asia, and South and Central America, but will not be limited to these regions.

Submissions should not include a lot of gratuitous sex (this is not an erotica anthology), but some sex is acceptable if it is relevant to the story.

A special note form the editor on submissions with interracial couples: whilst I am not against publishing stories where one half of the couple is a white man, I find it very hard to enjoy such a story if the white man is portrayed as some kind of a saviour to their partner.

The editor of this anthology previously published Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction, if you would like to get an idea about the stories she has selected in the past.

Submission Guidelines

Please send your submissions by email directed to Dominica Malcolm at solarwyrm@gmail.com. You may submit up to 3 stories and/or 5 poems for consideration.

Your attached story should be a .doc, .odt, or .rtf file and must be formatted with double spacing. Times New Roman font is preferred.

The subject line should read “Marked by Scorn Anthology Submission/YOUR SURNAME/TITLE/WORD COUNT”

Within the body of your email, please also indicate: type of submission (poetry, fiction, non-fiction), and how you feel your submission fits the prompt.

Word count (prose): Between 1,000-8,000 words.
Line count (poetry): Not more than 150 lines.
Deadline: February 15th, 2015.

Submissions will not be read until AFTER the deadline, but we will endeavour to notify all writers accepted for the anthology by March 31st, 2015.

Rights and Remuneration

The author will retain copyright of the work. Solarwyrm Press requests first print and digital publication rights, exclusive for 3 months from publication. After that, the author is free to accept publication elsewhere, post the story to their blog, or anything else.

Submissions may be edited for minor spelling, grammar, or formatting issues. Submissions with major spelling and grammar issues will be rejected.

The author will receive 1 paperback copy of the anthology, and be paid at the rate of 1/2 a cent per word, which equates to a maximum of US$40.

Reviewers Needed for Our Upcoming Anthologies

We realise it has been a long time since we posted anything directly to this blog. I didn’t even properly announce my novel here when it was officially released on September 19th, as I’d been busy promoting it in numerous other locations.

In any case, Jax and I (Dominica) have two anthologies that we are looking to have ready to the point of launching our next crowdfunding campaign in February. We have now responded to all of the submissions for both the precocious children anthology and the Amok Asia-Pacific anthology. If you’ve been waiting to hear back from us and haven’t seen anything, please send an email to us so we can sort that out!

We won’t be officially announcing any names or story titles until contracts are sent out and signed. However, as we are looking to have both anthologies typeset by the beginning of February, we are looking for people who would be interested in receiving an ARC (advance reading copy) around that time, so reviews can go up during the course of our crowdfunding campaign. ARCs will likely be available in PDF format. Other formats will depend on whether we can have them ready in time.

Early reviews may be posted on blogs, Goodreads, or anywhere else that accept book reviews. Once we have the books listed at online stores, reviews can be crossposted there.

If you’re interested in receiving an ARC, please contact us at solarwyrm@gmail.com with the subject “ARC Request”. Please specify which anthology you would like to review, or if you would like to review both. Please don’t sign up unless you are sure you can make time to read and review during the month of February.

Information about the anthologies, to make your selection (based on the assumption that all accepted authors agree to publication):

Precocious Children
18 stories at approx. 70,000 words.
These stories all have major characters who are children, written for an adult audience.

Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction
24 stories at approx. 85,000 words.
This anthology includes traditional mythology, fantasy, future tech, dystopias, and more.
Stories selected are set in the following locations:
Australia, China, Hawai’i, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pacific Ocean, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam

If you have a book blog, we may also be open to sending review copies of books from our back catalogue. If you would also like to request those, please include a link to your blog and an estimated date for review.