Tagline
A blue light tells you something special is about to happen in these modern-day folktales about the LGBTQ experience. It might be ghostly, or romantic, or spiritual, but we guarantee you won’t see it coming.
Folktales
People from all cultures use folktales to help understand and explain the world they inhabit. These tales are about real people in extraordinary circumstances. They often use supernatural or surreal phenomena. Whether from the Brothers Grimm, or A Thousand and One Nights, or modern-day urban legends, folk tales are part of our shared cultural heritage.
A blue light is a narrative device found in many tales and across multiple cultures. Blue is the color of the sea and the sky, and thus can symbolize different aspects of our world. We admire people who are true blue, we sing the blues, and danger comes out of the blue. Blue can symbolize serenity, or sadness, or certainty. Blue can be the harbinger of hope, or heaven, or hell.
Concept
Our anthology will consist of folktales set in the modern world. They will each be based on a traditional folk tale but re-imagined to feature LGBTQ people grappling with today’s problems. They will each include a blue light as a surreal or supernatural element.
What We’re Looking For
Successful stories will be between 1000 and 5000 words and be grounded in strong characters interacting with a gritty, realistic world. We prefer stories with traditional narrative form. If you’re not sure what that means, consider this quote from Gary Kurtz: “I took a master class with Billy Wilder once and he said that in the first act of a story you put your character up in a tree and the second act you set the tree on fire and then in the third you get him down.” Do that.
We seek original fiction only. No poetry.
Authors will provide a brief synopsis of 100 words or less of the underlying folktale suitable for use either as a forward or afterword to their story.
“Modern world” may include SciFi stories set in the near-term future, but excludes fantasy and faerie realms.
We like stories that grab us by the throat and make us continue reading. That means authors should immerse us in their fictional world from the first sentence and avoid things that pull us out of the here-and-now like info-dumps, head-hops, and passive writing. We prefer stories that start in media res. For more information on the kind of openings we like, see our blog.
We are especially interested in tales from non-Western traditions. Don’t send us Cinderella unless your take is especially creative and original.
We’re not looking for stories with violence or sex, but these are acceptable if essential to the story. However, we will not consider stories that feature incest, underage sex, or sex with animals–space aliens or other sentient creatures excepted! We will not accept extreme horror, fan fiction, erotica, graphic sex, manga-type stories, standard romance except in the context of the original folktale, overtly political pieces, or themes that are degrading to any person or persons of any type. Fantastic elements such as talking animals should be believable in the context of a story set in the modern world. Any genre is acceptable, so long as the story adheres the other guidelines.
We anticipate the final anthology will consist of as many as twenty stories and will be between 60,000 and 75,000 words. Our projected publication date is May 1, 2021.