During the September 2017 open submission window, World Weaver Press will be considering speculative romance between 20,000 words and 100,000 words. Romance isn't all we publish, but it's all we're looking for right now. Romance that does not contain a speculative element (i.e. fantasy or science fiction) will not be considered. We are looking for standalones, duologies, or trilogies only. Longer series will not be considered at this time. Query only the first book, but mention if the book is the first of a duology or trilogy. We publish in both digital (ebook) and paperback (print on demand) formats. Unagented submissions welcome.

See below for more details about what our editors are looking for, and click here for full submission guidelines.

What I'd like to see more than anything right now is an intelligent take on a kinky or polyamorous romance with strong speculative elements. I'm also on a bit of a history kick, so am particularly interested in a historical (or alt-history) paranormal romance. And if you have a kinky or polyamorous alt-history paranormal romance we really ought to talk ;0)

Hi, my name is Trysh
here’s my manuscript wish list
Yup, I’m after kissing books, those are my pick
But romance with some speculative fic
Give me fantasy or paranormal worlds
But if you’ve got dystopian, I’m not your girl
Just like a fine wine, the older the better
I don’t know YA well enough to be your editor
Like I said, romance is a must
Geeks, sarcasm, and pop culture references a major plus
I want characters worth staying up for
That I’ll care about and long for more
Sex? Sure, I’ll take it, I’m no prude
You don’t have to fade to black—give me hot, naked dudes.
Tension, sexual and otherwise, is mandatory
And an HFN or the ever-popular HEA
I’m big on atypical heroes and heroines,
You want to make me ship an LGBT couple? Total win
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good start
Of what you can write to win over my heart.

We're thrilled to reveal the cover for a brand new science fiction novella from Wendy Nikel. THE CONTINUUM will be available in both ebook and paperback on January 23, 2018. You can be one of the first ones to read this time travel story by entering the Goodreads giveaway for a paperback copy!

Elise Morley is an expert on the past who's about to get a crash course in the future.
 
For years, Elise has been donning corsets, sneaking into castles, and lying through her teeth to enforce the Place in Time Travel Agency's ten essential rules of time travel. Someone has to ensure that travel to the past isn't abused, and most days she welcomes the challenge of tracking down and retrieving clients who have run into trouble on their historical vacations.
But when a dangerous secret organization kidnaps her and coerces her into jumping to the future on a high-stakes assignment, she's got more to worry about than just the time-space continuum. For the first time ever, she's the one out-of-date, out of place, and quickly running out of time.

Ready for the cover? Here it is!

Add THE CONTINUUM by Wendy Nikel to your Goodreads To-Read Shelf and enter to win one of four paperback copies. Or go ahead and pre-order your copy as part of the Sci-Fi Six Pack in our current Kickstarter campaign.

Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she's left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and various other anthologies and e-zines. For more info, visit wendynikel.com or subscribe to her newsletter here!

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro is a Brazilian writer and editor, and he's the one behind the world's first anthology of "solarpunk" stories—optimistic, ecologial science fiction.  Solarpunk: Histórias ecológicas e fantásticas em um mundo sustentável was released in Brazil in 2012, and we'll be publishing an English translation of it in 2018. If you haven't been following our Kickstarter to fund the translation of Solarpunk into English, please check it out here. WWP Editor-in-Chief Sarena Ulibarri asked Gerson some questions about solarpunk.

Sarena Ulibarri: Solarpunk was the third of an anthology series: first Vaporpunk (steampunk), then Dieselpunk.  Why did you decide to do “Solarpunk” for the third one?  Why not Cyberpunk, or Biopunk, or some other vision of the future?
 
Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro: Well, I guess that after polluting Brazilian’s fantastic literature biosphere, burning first coal to produce steam (Vaporpunk) and then petroleum into internal combustion engines (Dieselpunk), it was the right time to write stories in self-sustaining fictional civilizations — no matter if those were located in future Earths or alternate history timelines — greener and more inspiring futures or timelimes not troubled by pollution, overpopulation, famine, mass extinctions and anthropogenic global warming.  After all, as a reader, I was feeling rather bored myself with all those old dystopian plots.  Of course, it meant a hard challenge for many Brazilian and Portuguese science fiction authors to write stories about fairly wise characters living in civilizations more mature than ours.  It really seems more difficult to write an interesting and loving piece of original fiction inside a greener future or alternate history.  The characters living in those alternate or future scenarios should still face and overcome their own conflicts and dilemmas, live their own human drama.  Because, in literary terms, aseptic utopias use to be very dull.  So, although Solarpunk narratives are usually not dystopic (at least, as compared to average conventional science fiction ones), they are not exactly utopic either.  Many of them are ecotopias.

That was the main reason why we chose a greenpunk thematic of sorts, instead of a more conventional one, like Cyberpunk or Biopunk.
 
SU: What does the “punk” in solarpunk mean to you?
 
GLR: The “punk” suffix in any X-punk genre (Cyber, Steam, Diesel, Bio et cetera) means the gathering of the elements of counterculture as an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon. In the specific case of the Solarpunk (and other branches of ecofiction), these punk elements oppose an establishment represented by corrupt governments and megacorps that pollute Earth’s ecosystems, ruin our biosphere, and refuse to assume their responsibility for the anthropogenic global warming.

SU: Do contemporary Brazilian/Portuguese science fiction writers tend to write dark and grim, or are there some authors writing more hopeful futures?  Are any of them writing what you would consider solarpunk?
 
GLR: Lusophone (Brazilian + Portuguese) science fiction authors do tend to write dark and grim future narratives, as much as their foreign counterparts do, just because to write about pessimistic futures is easier. As I said above, it is more difficult to create a convincing science fiction story inside a greener future or alternate scenarios. For, if there were no more famine, misery, war, pollution et cetera, where the heck is the conflict and the drama to advance the plot after all? How challenging was this solarpunk writing task? Well, we had rather fewer submissions to Solarpunk than either to Vaporpunk or to Dieselpunk. Now, if we consider that, contrarily to Steampunk and Dieselpunk narratives, Solarpunk ones can be straightforward science fiction (and not only an alternate history plot of sorts), we see how hard is to create dilemma in a greener future society.

On the other hand, many far future narratives are Solarpunk, even if only in a broad sense, as their authors propose mature post-scarcity human civilizations, which means humanity has overcome its present crises, both as a civilization and as a species.

Indeed, there are fictional narratives written by Lusophone authors that can be read as Solarpunk. They have elements of Solarpunk in their worldbuilding and express concepts associated with that literary and cultural movement. However, we do not have authors writing Solarpunk stories and novels in a consistent way right now.

SU: What do you most hope to see in new books and stories following the solarpunk tradition?
 
GLR: Both as an anthologist and as a reader, I would like to see a lot more optimist & greener future narratives. Even knowing it is not so easy to create dilemma and human drama inside post-scarcity mature and less Manichaean cultures, it would be lovely to read a greater number of those ecotopic science fictional scenarios.
 
SU: What new projects are you working on right now, either as an editor or an author?

GLR: As an editor, I just delivered an anthology of alternate history stories to Draco (the same Brazilian publishing house that launched Solarpunk: Histórias ecológicas e fantásticas em um mundo sustentável in Portuguese in 2012). It will be probably published in 2018.

As an author, I am happy, because my far future novel Octopusgarden will be launched in Rio de Janeiro Book Fair next September. It is a prequel of sorts of another novel of mine, A Guardiã da Memória (The Guardian of Memory, Draco 2011), which won Brazilian science fiction Argos Awards in 2012, in the Best Novel category. By the way, presently, I am writing the third novel in a trilogy written in the same fictional universe of The Guardian of Memory and Octopusgarden.

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro had two novelettes published in Brazilian Asimov’s: hard SF “Mythic Aliens” and “The Ethics of Treason”, the latter was the first alternative history story in Brazilian and Portuguese science fiction. His alternative history novelette “The Vampire of New Holland” won the Nova Awards 1996, while his SF novelette “The Daughter of the Predator” won the Nautilus 1999. His main short fiction collections are: Other Histories…, The Vampire of New Holland, Other Brazils, Taikodom: Chronicles and The Best of Carla Cristina Pereira. Gerson has published four novels so far: Xochiquetzal: An Aztec Princess Among the Incas, The Guardian of Memory, The Adventures of the Vampire of Palmares and Strangers in Paradise. He has edited eight short fiction anthologies so far: Phantastica Brasiliana, How Lustful my Alien Girl Was!, Vaporpunk, Dieselpunk, Solarpunk, Fantastic Erotica 1, Super-Heroes, and Dinosaurs. Beyond the science fiction borders, he published Vita Vinum Est!: History of Wine in the Roman World.

GLASS & GARDENS: SOLARPUNK SUMMERS
Anthologist: Sarena Ulibarri
Open for Submissions: August 15, 2017 - November 15, 2017
Expected Publication: Summer 2018
Story Length: up to 8,000 words
Payment: TBD (Determined by Kickstarter success.)
*Update!* Payment will be $0.01 per word, + contributor copy

Solarpunk is a type of eco-conscious science fiction that imagines an optimistic future founded on renewable energies. It might take place in a wind-powered skyscraper or on a solar-powered robotic farm, in a bustling green-roofed metropolis or in a small but tech-saavy desert village. Often coupled with an art nouveau aesthetic, and always inclusive and diverse, solarpunk stories show the ways we have adapted to climate change, or the ways we have overcome it.
 
For this anthology, I want to see solarpunk summers. Show me futuristic stories that take place in summer, whether that involves a summer night in a rooftop garden, or characters adapting to extreme heat and weather, or an annual migration to cooler lands. Keep it planet-based (Earth or other), and optimistic. Solarpunk worlds aren’t necessarily utopias, but they definitely aren’t dystopias.

We're a northern hemisphere publisher, but southern hemisphere summers are also welcome!
 
Need inspiration? Read New York 2140 or Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson, Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation, or Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology.

Submission Method: Send your story as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment to solarpunk[at]worldweaverpress[dot]com with Submission: [story title] in the subject line. Please include a brief cover letter, but DO NOT summarize your story in the cover letter.

Simultaneous submissions = okay. Multiple submissions = no.

About the Anthologist: Sarena Ulibarri attended the Clarion Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers' Workshop in 2014 and earned an MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her fiction has appeared in magazines such as Lightspeed and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, as well as anthologies such as Biketopia: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories in Extreme Futures and Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction. She has been Editor-in-Chief of World Weaver Press since 2016, and edited the anthology Speculative Story Bites.

Glass and Gardens author payments are part of our stretch goals for the Solarpunk Anthology Translation Kickstarter! Click here for more information about the Kickstarter. Rewards include story critiques, concept consultations, art prints, and more.

We've launched a Kickstarter to support the first English translation of a groundbreaking Brazilian anthology of science fiction stories set in sustainable future worlds. World Weaver Press acquired the English rights to this anthology, and we're working with translator Fabio Fernandes to bring these stories to an English-speaking readership.

The term "solarpunk" has been steadily gaining momentum in the English-speaking world to describe an aesthetic of hopeful, eco-friendly futures, stories that try to shift us away from the dystopian mindset that has been so prominent in recent science fiction. This anthology, edited by Gerson Lodi-Ribero, and featuring nine Brazilian and Portuguese authors, was the first published book to use the term.

Backer rewards include copies of the translated book in ebook or paperback, other science fiction books World Weaver Press has published, story critiques and concept consultations, and more!

Whether you're interested in ecological science fiction, or whether you're looking to support more international science fiction and science fiction in translation (or both!), please help share the news of our campaign.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/262808239/solarpunk-anthology-translation

Guest Post by Cheryl Low

Vanity in Dust is officially published and I am over the moon!

Being a published author is something I've wanted for as long as I can remember wanting anything more than candy and cartoons. Having finally done it, I know I’d give up all the candy and cartoons in the world for it.

Even with all the work and preparation that went into getting Vanity in Dust ready for today, it didn’t feel entirely real all the time. Little moments drove it home in my heart, like the first time I saw the cover on someone’s Instagram or when the ARC arrived in my mail. Holding my book for the first time was something completely new, something I will probably never experience again. No book will ever be the same as that first one. My hands shook when I held it and I had to laugh because I was afraid if I cried I’d mess up the cover. I actually kept it in a plastic bag because I didn’t want it to get damaged, and was careful not to crease it. Giving it away was harder than it reasonably should have been.

Every now and then, it would hit me that today was coming—that soon my first book would really be published and officially out in the world. I’m surprised how much it feels like letting go, bringing to mind images of rehabilitated wildlife released into nature. I guess books could be birds if a library played the role of nature. That leaves me on the sidelines, holding my breath and hoping things go well because now it’s out of my hands. Letting it go comes with a mix of feelings, but mostly it’s just happy and relieved.

I thought that when I checked this off my list of things to do in life, it would feel like something was finished, but it feels more like something has started. I have a hundred stories I want to tell and Vanity in Dust is the first one into the world.

Cheryl Low might be an Evil Queen, sipping tea and peeping on everyone from high up in her posh tower—a job she got only after being fired from her gig as Wicked Witch for eating half the gingerbread house.

…Or she might be a relatively mundane human with a love for all things sugary and soap opera slaps.

Find out by following her on social media @cherylwlow or check her webpage, cheryllow.com. The answer might surprise you! But it probably won’t.

VANITY IN DUST by Cheryl Low is out today in both ebook and paperback! This debut is the beginning of the Crowns & Ash series, set in a decadent dark fantasy world full of carnivorous pixies, ghostly wolves, drugged pastries, and immortal royalty.

Cheryl Low might be an Evil Queen, sipping tea and peeping on everyone from high up in her posh tower—a job she got only after being fired from her gig as Wicked Witch for eating half the gingerbread house.
           
…Or she might be a relatively mundane human with a love for all things sugary and soap opera slaps.
           
Find out by following her on social media @cherylwlow or check her webpage, cheryllow.com. The answer might surprise you! But it probably won’t.