Solarpunk Creatures Editor MSWL

We are still considering submissions of short fiction (up to 7,000 words) and artwork for the Solarpunk Creatures anthology! Submissions close October 31, 2022.

Full guidelines are here: https://www.worldweaverpress.com/blog/call-for-submissions-solarpunk-creatures

​Read below for more insights about what the editorial team is looking for!

What is solarpunk?

Optimistic and inclusive representations of better futures. Solarpunk embodies new ways of doing and being, which integrate ecology, technology, ethics, aesthetics, creativity, and justice. It makes space for beauty as well as practicality; it imagines abundance and delight, as well as care and restitution. A mosaic of concepts and tools, solarpunk virtues include sharing, cooperation, multispecies justice, connections, conviviality, care, decolonisation, degrowth, commons and commoning, and more, while striking a balance between individual freedom and social cohesion. Solarpunk tries to bring out the best in people, to tell stories of healing, of changing minds, of restorative justice. Solarpunk rejects the dystopian post-apocalypse—the privileged don’t get to give up on humanity, and humanity doesn’t get to give up on other species.

What are creatures?

Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, trees, plants, fungi, etc.—all of the many different species we share our planet with.
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We will consider stories and art about robots and AI, aliens lifeforms, mythological beings, dinosaurs or other extinct animals, and any other “unreal” creatures, if they take a solarpunk approach, but we hope to fill the bulk of the anthology with stories and art that center more realistic approaches to multispecies interactions and multispecies justice.

Meet the Editors

​Christoph Rupprecht, professor for sustainability based in Matsuyama (Shikoku) Japan

What kind of stories he’s looking for in Solarunk Creatures:

Solarpunk has its heart in the right place when it comes to being green/eco-oriented, but people CAN’T build our better futures alone. We need to collaborate with other species. I hope to get stories (and art!) that tell of renewal, hope, change, and reckoning through non-human senses, taking readers along on adventures outside of the everyday, and in the process hopefully fostering understanding, sympathy, respect, and maybe a sense of potential partnership with more-than-humans. I’d love to have as wide a variety of protagonists as possible, from animal to plant to fungi to microbe to non-living.
 
Melissa Ingaruca Moreno, Researcher, Designer, Futurist in multispecies & smart urbanism

What kind of stories she’s looking for in Solarunk Creatures:
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I would like to see radical political imaginaries. The fight for a solarpunk future—not a world that magically turned out better, but the stories of resistance, transformation, and dismantling of the industrial-capitalist complex. Or the coexistence/tension of solarpunk worlds with cyberpunk worlds (where capitalist corruption, surveillance, and technological authoritarianism remain). In that way, I would also love to see how we deal with the scars of loss (climate impacts), colonialism, capitalism, speciesism, and how we heal bodies, communities and land. I also would like to see stories of human non-human entanglements, stories around decentralized approaches to economies, maker spaces, common pool resources, more-than-human cognitive systems for cities. I’m also really curious to discover new aesthetics of naturecultures expressed in music, art, sensorial experiences that are possible in these worlds, or even new languages or ways of communication.
 
Rajat Chaudhuri, fiction writer, activist, editor

What kind of stories he’s looking for in Solarunk Creatures:

I will be looking for stories which creatively and/or ingeniously situate non-human creatures at the centre (as a major plot point, main character, decisive helper/s, etc.) while engaging one or more of the ideas that drive solarpunks. I would also like to see how writers address colonisation of Nature and over-consumption, rewilding etc. by employing solarpunk tools, foregrounding multispecies connections and through a radically imaginative lens.
 
Deborah Cleland, Visiting Fellow at Australian National University, political advisor

What kind of stories she’s looking for in Solarunk Creatures:

I think some of my favourite stories from Multispecies Cities spoke to the ways we would deal with all the problems/sadnesses that would still arise in a solarpunk world—conflict, heartbreak, loss, senescence, misunderstandings and mistakes—but with this backdrop of possibility. I’m also hoping for hybrid creatures, maybe ones that fall outside of traditional understandings of companion animals, for example.
 
Norie Tamura, environmental scientist/social scientist of fishery and forestry

What kind of stories she’s looking for in Solarunk Creatures:
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DIY technology, not large scale and/or industrial.
A new relationship between nature and human or non-human.
Multinational or stateless atmosphere.
Especially interested in contributions from Japan.

Need examples for inspiration?

Check out these solarpunk stories with a multispecies focus:

Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures
https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p176/Multispecies_Cities.html

“Secret Powers” by Anya Markov
https://grist.org/fix/climate-fiction/imagine-2200-secret-powers/

“The Mammoth Steps” by Andrew Dana Hudson
https://longnow.org/ideas/02022/08/31/the-mammoth-steps/

“Afterglow” by Lindsey Brodeck
https://grist.org/fix/arts-culture/imagine-2200-climate-fiction-afterglow/

Ready to submit?

Open for Submissions: October 1 – 31, 2022
Story Length: up to 7,000 words
Payment:
Fiction: $0.03 per word (USD)
Art: $100 (USD) for previously unpublished art; $50 (USD) for reprint art
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Stories must be in English; translations are welcome, provided the original author has given permission. Simultaneous submissions are okay, so long as you let us know if it sells to another market before we can make a decision. Please send only one story or one work of visual art. Reprints will be considered if you mention in the cover letter where the story or artwork originally appeared.

Fiction: Send story as a .doc, .docx, or .odt to [email protected]. Use the subject line SOLARPUNK CREATURES: [STORY TITLE] and include a brief cover letter in the body of the email. (Please do not summarize your story.)
 
Artwork: Send art as .png or .jpeg attachments with a DPI of 300 or higher to [email protected]. Use the subject line SOLARPUNK CREATURES: [ARTWORK TITLE]. While both color and black and white will be considered, please note that all artwork will be printed in black and white in the paperback.