Accessing the Future: plain language call for stories

(by Kathryn Allan)

Note new closing date: December 31, 2014.

Accessing the Future will be an anthology of speculative fiction short stories. The theme of the book is disability. Kathryn Allan and Djibril al-Ayad are the editors of Accessing the Future. The editors want to receive stories from as many people as possible. The editors encourage submissions from:

• people with disabilities (this includes physical and mental disabilities)
• people with chronic illness
• people with mental illness
• people who are neuroatypical
• people who understand disability politics
• the QUILTBAG community
• people of colour
• non-North American writers
• people who are sensitive to intersectional politics

Stories the editors want:

The editors want to read stories that depict disability and people with disabilities in the future. The editors also want the stories to be mindful of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class. Stories can take place in virtual spaces (like the internet). Stories can also be set in outer space or anywhere on earth. Stories can deal with prosthetic technology (like brain implants or artificial limbs). Stories can also be about medical technology (like gene therapy).

Here are some questions the editors want writers to think about:

• How will people change the future world?
• What kinds of new spaces will there be to explore and live in? Who will have access to these spaces? In what ways will people use these new spaces?
• What kinds of technology will people use to make their lives easier in the future?
• How will new technology change existing differences in ability, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, and race?
• What does an accessible future look like?

Stories the editors will reject:

• Stories where people with disabilities are “cured,” or receive medical treatment without consent.
• Stories of people with disabilities as “extra special,” “magical,” or “inspirational” because of their disability.
• Any story that is racist, sexist, or homophobic.
• Any story that is insulting or harmful to any person or group of people.

Payment and Rights:

The editors will pay $0.06/word (six cents a word) for global English first publication rights in print and digital format. The authors retain copyright.

Submission Guidelines:

• Send stories to accessingfutureatgmailcom by midnight on December 31st, 2014.
• Story length is between 2500-7500 words.
• No reprints or simultaneous submissions.
• Attach the story as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file, with the author’s name, the story title, and the wordcount on the first page.
• The editors do not ask authors to identify themselves as a person with a disability. The editors respect anyone’s desire to self-identify.

About the Editors and Publisher:

Futurefire.net Publishing is the publisher of The Future Fire magazine. Futurefire.net Publishing also published Outlaw Bodies (2012, co-edited by Lori Selke) and We See a Different Frontier (2013, co-edited by Fabio Fernandes). Djibril al-Ayad is a historian and futurist. He co-edited both Outlaw Bodies and We See a Different Frontier. He has edited TFF since 2005.

Kathryn Allan is an independent scholar of feminist SF, cyberpunk, and disability studies. She is the first Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellow (2013-14). She is editor of Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure (2013, Palgrave MacMillan). Kathryn is an Associate Editor and Reader of The Future Fire. She tweets and blogs as Bleeding Chrome.