Submissions OPEN! The Art of Being Human anthology

The world in 2020 has been tipped upside down and shaken in ways we could barely have imagined, except perhaps in the post-apocalyptic and dystopic worlds of story. Amidst pandemic illness and death, political machinations and despair, one of the casualties has been, at least in a financial sense, the Arts. Governments across the world have slashed funding, galleries, theatres and entertainment venues have closed amid lockdown restrictions, money is being carefully metered with jobs more uncertain than ever, meaning our creatives across all industries are suffering. And yet, more than ever, we are turning to art to stay sane in lockdown, to keep our spirits up in isolation, and to remind us that despite the hardship, there is beauty in this world. 

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Image Credit: NASA/JPL/NGA

To that end, FableCroft is coming out of hiatus in this year of social distancing and staying at home, to call for submissions on a brand new original anthology, The Art of Being Human. Co-edited by Tehani Croft and Stephanie Lai, this anthology seeks to remind readers of the hope and beauty of the Arts, and the way our engagement with writing, music, film, theatre, artworks in all media, and craft of all kinds are at the core of our humanity. We are looking at this through a broad context, seeking work that in some way demonstrates the beauty and hope of humanity through a lens of “the arts” in some form.

Stories should be between 2,000 to 20,000 words long, and not previously published. Poetry of any length is also welcome. Works are invited from all over the world, but must be primarily in the English language.

Stories must contain speculative elements – science fiction, fantasy and horror and their sub-genres are all welcome, but we recommend researching FableCroft’s past projects for an idea of the sort of stories we publish. Generally, no erotica or splatterpunk is desirable. Please query the editor before sending stories outside those limits.

We are seeking original stories only – no reprint submissions please.

No simultaneous submissions please.

For multiple submissions, please query first.

Submission Guidelines:

E-mail to fablecroft@gmail.com as an attached RTF. We do not accept submissions via snail mail.

  • Please use a regular font, size 12, with margins of at least 2cm.
  • Indent the first line of each paragraphs by 0.5 (approx 1cm), 1.5 space lines, and indicate section breaks with a centered “#”.
  • Include name, address, phone number, email etc at the top of the document.

Submissions open: September 1, 2020

Submissions close: December 1, 2020

Anticipated publication date: May 2021

Payment will be AUD$100.00 for stories of up to 10,000 words (payment for poetry and longer stories accepted will be negotiated with the author) and a contributor copy of the ebook. 

We would also like to include artwork to support the stories, and illustrators are invited to send appropriate samples (previously published work welcome for this element) – payment to be discussed.