Calling for submissions

Art by Olisa Onwualu

I don't know if its the season or something, but suddenly I'm seeing all these calls for speculative fiction about women and Africans and I'm excited.

Crossed Genres is a cool a small press publisher of speculative fiction. They also publish Crossed Genres Magazine. They're accepting submissions for two publications: an anthology of short science fiction stories about skilled labour called Menial. For complete guidelines and to submit, click here. Deadline is end of May.

Their second call is for Winter Well: Speculative Novellas of Older Women. They are looking for sci-fi and fantasy novellas featuring women of advancing age (late middle age and older) who are smart, tough, and have wills of their own. The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2012. Click here for more information.

Both CG calls strongly encourage under-represented characters such as characters of color, LGBTQ characters, and female characters.

Also, TU Books, publishers of speculative fiction for children and young adults featuring people of color and set in worlds inspired by non-Western folklore or culture. In particular, they want: Asian steampunk, any African culture, Latino/a stories, Native American/Aboriginal fantasy or science fiction, original postapocalyptic worlds, or historical fantasies or mysteries set in a non-Western setting. For more information check out their submissions page.

Then there's the Kwani? Manuscript Project which is a one-off literary prize for African writing from the Kwani Trust. They are calling for submissions of unpublished fiction manuscripts from African writers across the continent and in the Diaspora. The deadline is open until the 20th of August, 2012. More information about guidelines and prizes can be found here.

Finally, there's the Golden Baobab Prize for children's literature. Their tagline is: "an African literary award whose goal is to inspire the creation of African stories that children and young adults the world over will love!" And they're open to all genres, including speculative fiction. In fact, two years ago, their winning entry was a sci-fi story set in a future Zimbabwe called Mr Goop by Ivor Hartmann. Their deadline is June 24, 2012.

I'm sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it really gave me hope that there are places to publish the weird mish-mash of Afro-spec fic that I love. Now all I've got to do is start writing.

Women and Modern Misogyny

So I just finished watching Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo. The original Swedish one – not the Daniel Craig version. While I enjoyed the film, I found it strange that a film that is ostensibly about fighting against misogyny lingered almost lovingly on scenes of rape and violence against the main female character, Lisbeth Salander. And even though she kicks ass, in the end, she still needs the approval of her male lover (which was confusing to me, as earlier in the movie we see her waking up naked next to a female companion) to sanction her act of self-defence and defiance. The whole thing got me thinking about modern misogyny. Why do so many men hate women?