The Speculative Ramayana Anthology: Call For Submissions

19 February 2010
The Speculative Ramayana Anthology: Call For Submissions
Requirements: Stories should be between 2,000 and 7,000 words and in English. No reprints or material posted online. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. Stories should be submitted in standard manuscript format as an attached RTF file.

Where to submit: Stories should be emailed to zubaan.antho@gmail.com. Hardcopy submissions will be ignored. Include the story-title and author name(s) in the email’s subject line. For example:

Submission: “Name of Story.” by A. N. Author
Reading period: February 14, 2010 - June 01, 2010.
Publication date: February, 2011
Payment: Rs. 1000 (~$25) plus a contributor copy.

What we are looking for: Stories that use the Ramayana in an essential and innovative way. As the anthology title suggests, the stories need to have an speculative element. We take speculative fiction to include sub-genres like magic realism, science-fiction, fantasy, new weird, slipstream, interstitial, etc.

Finally, it is worth emphasizing that we care deeply about how a story is told. We’re looking for literary stories. Given a choice between an idea-rich but poorly-told story and a well-told but not-so-brilliant story, we’ll pick the well-told one. Of course, we are looking for stories with both virtues: brilliant words and brilliant ideas. The Ramayana deserves nothing less.

About the Editors:

Anil Menon
Anil Menon’s short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Albedo One, Apex Digest, Chiaroscuro, Interzone, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, New Genre, Strange Horizons and anthologies such as TEL: Stories and Apex World SF. His debut novel, “The Beast With Nine Billion Feet” (Zubaan) was released in November 2009. Email: iam@anilmenon.com.

Vandana Singh
Vandana Singh grew up in New Delhi, listening to tales of the Ramayana from her mother and grandmother. She now lives near Boston, where she teaches college physics and writes speculative fiction. Her short fiction has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, and shortlisted for the Carl Brandon and BSFA awards. Some of her stories are collected in The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories, and she is the author of the Younguncle books for children (all published by Zubaan/Penguin India).

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