Small Loves: A Queer Microfiction Anthology — Closed

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it’s also a unique constraint for writers. How do you get an idea through in as few words as possible? How do you express a mood in 2,000 words? How do you build a character in the space of a tweet or two? It’s a challenge, and with the popularity of microfiction on social media and other flash fiction challenges, one that many seem willing to take up!

Inspired by Blue Neustifter’s delightful story “Ghosts”, Small Loves will collect the best LGBTQ+ micro- and flash-fiction that writers have to offer.

About the anthology

Small Loves: A Queer Microfiction Anthology is an anthology of micro- and flash-fiction edited by Madison Scott-Clary. It will comprise several pieces from diverse authors. The anthology will be released in both physical and eBook formats.

Here is what Hybrid will be looking for:

Submission content

We are looking for micro- and flash-fiction submissions that explore queer and minority identities. There is no restriction on the gender, expression, orientation, relationship configuration, or ace/aro spectrum of the characters, but the stories should focus on those topics. There is no restriction on genre. We are particularly keen on featuring #OwnVoices authors.

The topics in this anthology will be particularly useful to teens and young adults. While your stories needn’t contain characters of that age range, keep in mind that we will be attempting to reach the audience who will benefit most from hearing stories with which they identify. As such, we will be particularly wary of tragedies, though please do not let that stop you from submitting. While stories about coming out are particularly important to such a demographic, please don’t hesitate to also focus on day to day life, transition, relationships, and so on.

Poetry will also be welcome, but understand that, with the anthology focusing on fiction, slots will be limited.

Additionally, we will be looking for black-and-white art to complete the anthology, with the goal of at least one image per story. A separate call will be made for this down the line.

Hybrid Ink will not, under any circumstances, publish content that portrays any of the following without justification or in a positive light:

• Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or other forms of discrimination
• Pedophilia or sex with characters under the age of 18
• Rape, torture, dubious consent, or forced seduction
• Gratuitous violence, gore, or death

For more information, please see here, and remember that we're all governed by our code of conduct.

Submission genre

While there is no restriction on genre of submitted stories, we will aim for a cohesive anthology after the fact. For instance, if we receive more speculative fiction stories than contemporary fiction, that may play a role in accepting stories. Literary fiction, speculative fiction, shifters, furries…give us your best!

Submission rating

G–PG — this anthology will be read by teens and young adults, so please keep that in mind

Submission length

200-2,000 words — 2,000 is a hard upper limit, but if you feel like you will wind up with less than 200 words, do let us know.

We will also be accepting several pieces of nanofiction, which must be under 500 characters long (think about two tweets) to sprinkle between longer works. Please still submit these in a separate file so that they’re easy to track offline. You may submit more than one per document, and there is no limit to the number of nanofiction submissions.

Rate

2½¢ per word

Simultaneous submissions

Yes, but please inform us if you are also submitting to other sources.

Multiple submissions

Yes — limit 5. A maximum of 2 will be published.

Prior publication

Previously published works are allowed, but preference given to entries that have not yet been published.

Schedule

Submissions open	December 1, 2019
Submissions close	February 1, 2020
Submissions read and responded to	Within four weeks
Anthology available for sale	within six months of contracts

Submission contracts will include a sunset clause. You may see an example contract here.

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Submitting to Hybrid

Please submit via email to hybrid+submit@hybrid.ink.

Include your name and what you are submitting for in the subject line in the format [Submission type] Submission name (for X) by Author. For example, Jace Doe is submitting their story "Something Awesome," to the Great Stories anthology, they would use the subject line [Story] Something Awesome (for Great Stories) by Jace Doe.

Alternately, for longer work queries, if Anna Doe is submitting a query for her novel Holy Crap, Birds!, she would use the subject line [Query] Holy Crap, Birds! by Anna Doe.

Please submit the entire short work, or the first 10,000 words or so (about twenty pages) for longer work queries. If your work is longer than 10,000 words, please also submit a synopsis. We will accept the following formats: Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), Open Document Format/LibreOffice/Calligra Words (.odt), Markdown, TeX of various flavors. We can also accept Google Docs, but would prefer a standalone file.

If you are submitting to a call for submissions, please be sure to note the following in your submission email:

• Whether or not you are submitting simultaneously to other markets
• Whether or not your submission has already been published elsewhere
• Whether or not you are submitting multiple submissions to the call

We appreciate you following these guidelines, as they help all of us keep submissions organized! If you are submitting to an anthology and do not follow the email subject line guidelines, you will confuse our poor editors, those wily beasts, and we will have to coax them out of catatonia once more.

For published pieces we take non-exclusive print and electronic publishing rights. Bear in mind that most publications will not publish pieces that have been published in print, e-book, or on the web, so for all intents and purposes after your work is published by us it can only be marketed as a reprint. That is, while we accept reprints, that is hardly universal. It is up to you, the author, to decide if publishing your work in print and/or e-book formats is really what you want to do.