edited by Claude Lalumière & Mark Shainblum
Superheroes! Supervillains! Superpowered antiheroes. Super scientists. Adventurers into the unknown. Costumed crimefighters. Mutant superterrorists. Far-future supergroups. Crusading aliens in a strange land. Secret histories of covert superspies … and more! We want to see any and all permutations of the superhero genre. Any genre-mashing goes: alternate history, crime, horror, romance, SF, fantasy, surrealism; we want a variety of tones, approaches, subgenres, cultural perspectives, etc. We’re interested in submissions where Canadian setting (a specific city, region, or province) plays a role, but we’re open to other types of stories, too, set anywhere in the world, the universe, or the multiverse!
- Open only to Canadian writers (citizens, residents, expats, etc.)
- Length: 500-6000 words
- Stories must be previously unpublished in English
- English-language translations of stories that were previously published in another language are welcome
- French-language stories may be submitted in French or in English
- Although prose fiction is preferred, we will also look at poetry and other types of creative writing (no nonfiction, comics, or artwork)
- Submission window: 30 October 2014 to 2 February 2015, 12 midnight, Pacific Time.
- Multiple submissions welcome; up to two stories maximum per author, sent under separate cover
- We prefer no simultaneous submissions, please (we promise to respond promptly)
- Initial responses (rejections, holds, and rewrite requests) within 15 days of submission; final responses no later than 30 days after the deadline
- Payment for poetry is $20.00 for poems up to a maximum of 2 pages in length. Payment for short stories is prorated as follow: $50 for stories up to 1,500 words, rising to a maximum of $150 for stories up to 5,000 words, and $160.00 for stories up to 6,000 words.
- Electronic submissions only, via Submittable
- File formats accepted: .docx, .doc, or .rtf
- Formatting: indented paragraphs; italics in italics (not underlined); Canadian spelling;
use # (or other unambiguous symbol) to indicate scene breaks; no headers, footers, or pagination; no outlandish formatting, please; full contact info (name, street address, email, phone number) and word count on the first page. That said, don’t fret too much about formatting; good fiction is what’s most important - Please include a cover letter with a brief author bio, title of story, and full contact info, including street address; if your address is outside Canada, please explain your Canadian status in the cover letter; as we’re trying to be as inclusive as possible in regards to getting stories from everywhere in Canada, if you have substantial ties to more than one province or territory (place of birth, residence, etc.), please also indicate that in your cover letter
- Please do not summarize or describe the story in the cover letter
- To be published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing in spring 2016
- Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author
- queries: tesseracts19@gmail.com
- NOTE ON PSEUDONYMS: we will only publish one story per author, even if you write under several names; please use your real name on all correspondence and indicate your pseudonym in the cover letter and on the byline of the story itself
About the editors
Claude Lalumière (claudepages.info) has edited thirteen previous anthologies, including one previous volume in the Tesseracts series (the Aurora nominee Tesseracts Twelve: New Canadian Fantastic Fiction) and two previous superhero anthologies, including Super Stories of Heroes & Villains, which was hailed in a starred review by Publishers Weekly as “by far the best superhero anthology.” In addition to being a frequent contributor to Tesseracts anthologies, he’s the author of Objects of Worship, The Door to Lost Pages, and Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes.
Mark Shainblum (www.shainblum.com) was born and raised in Montreal, where he and illustrator Gabriel Morrissette co-created the comics series Northguard and the bestselling humour book series Angloman, which later appeared as a weekly strip in The Montreal Gazette. Mark also collaborated on the Captain Canuck daily newspaper strip and Canadiana: The New Spirit of Canada, a webcomic featuring the first female Canadian flag superhero with her own series. In the late 1990s he co-edited the Aurora Award-winning anthology Arrowdreams: An Anthology of Alternate Canadas with John Dupuis. Mark currently lives Ottawa with his wife Andrea and daughter Maya.