Hi Folks,
Realms of Fantasy is planning a special themed issue for August 2011, the theme being women in fantasy. This theme will be addressed in all three departments of the magazine, i.e. nonfiction, art, and fiction. So we’re putting out the official word that we’re looking for submissions from the fiction writers out there.
- For this issue the sign on the proverbial door says “Women only.”
- While being a woman submitting a fantasy piece to us is enough to get your manuscript considered for this issue, submissions dealing with gender, sexism, and other areas important to feminist speculative literature are particularly welcome.
- If you’d like to have your story considered for this issue, stories should be postmarked no later than November 15th, 2010. This will provide enough time to find the right women artists for the stories. I’ll provide periodic reminders about the submission deadline as we move along.
All right, that’s pretty much everything. If you have questions, please ask. We look forward to reading your submissions.
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I’ve been debating whether to comment on this for a while, but I’ve decided to go ahead. I hope that Warren, Doug, and Shawna take this in the spirit in which it is meant, that of intellectual disagreement, but I think this is a disappointing turn of events. I am totally for feminist articles and stories and art, but the idea of an all-woman issue is really distasteful and smacks of a stunt rather than inviting discourse on the issue of feminism and fantasy. It shows contempt for many male authors who write thoughtful female characters and it panders to a certain mindset that maintains that women authors are underrrepresented in fantasy. I don’t think that’s the case, and if you look at the fantasy bookshelves, women may be in the majority.
You want a strong female hero? Read”Anasazi-35,” by Matthew Bey, published in Fusion Fragment. It’s a shame that his character Sunset MacClaine couldn’t make an appearance in Realms, since the author is a man. That kind of exclusionary editorial direction, even for just one issue, is just shameful.
I also can’t help but think this is a way to alleviate some of that damned cover controversy that flared up last year, and it isn’t right to give in to that nonsense.
Realms has the chance to break new ground with fantasy simply by selecting great stories by authors of both genders. Certainly we need to discuss issues of feminism, but being sexist is no way to go about it.
Patrice, thanks for commenting. I don’t mind intellectual disagreement at all, so no hard feelings.
The abridged version of how this issue came about: the cover controversy influenced this indirectly. One of my columnists proposed a women in fantasy art article to me for the art gallery over the summer, and that suggestion was clearly influenced by said controversy. Warren and I both liked this idea, so I approved it. This article was slated for the June 2010 issue. Then a few months back, the proverbial light-bulb went off in my head, and I thought it would be cool if we made this a themed issue instead, the theme being Women in Fantasy. I ran the idea by Shawna to see if this worked for her on the fiction side of things. It did. I proposed the issue as a whole to Warren and he approved it.
After that it was a done deal. It was just a matter of figuring out how we would handle putting this issue together and when we would publish it.
Beyond these details, I don’t think it’s proper to discuss in a public forum the particulars that went into figuring out how we would handle this issue. I will note I’m fairly certain Shawna edited the first feminist speculative anthology, so she has some experience with the subject matter at hand.
If you want to call this themed issue pandering, this is of course your opinion. If you want to call it sexist, this is also your opinion. These are opinions you’re entitled to. But I do know me, Warren and Shawna are excited about this issue, and the response from my nonfiction columnists has been tremendous.
If you choose not to read this issue because of your stated opinions, I understand. If you do choose to read the issue anyway, I hope you like it. No hard feelings either way.
Best,
Doug
Are you only looking for stories about feminine females in fantasy, or are females of other genders included?
If I understand your question correctly (please forgive me if I don’t), you’re asking whether we’ll accept transgendered female protagonists. The answer is yes, as long as the stories are well written.
Hello!
I am very excited about putting in a submission. Could you please direct me to the guidelines for doing so? Such as length, and where and how to submit.
Thank you so much!
Jessica
Information for submitting your manuscript to us can be found under “Contact Us” along the nav bar at the top.
Hi Doug,
I think the question also might be asking about female-bodied individuals whose gender experience is other than feminine, such as gender fluid women or women who feel themselves to be agendered and so on. I would hope that the issue is open to all sorts of non-traditional genders (and see nothing to indicate it won’t be, apart from the fact that there’s a dearth of this material anywhere).
Relatedly, though, I don’t see anything in your call that requires that the women writers involved in the issue write about female characters at all. Will woman-authored fantasy about men be considered for this issue?
I like to write about general fantasy.
How do I submit?
Thanks,
Stef
@ Rachel: all of these gender scenarios would be welcome. As to the question of woman-authored fantasy about men, Shawna mentioned a while back that this would be fine.
@ Stefania, our submission guidelines can be found under “Contact Us” along the nav bar at the top.
Brava, RoF! This has been a long time coming. I’ve heard editors in SF/F community wonder aloud why they consistently receive twice as many submissions from men than women, and in the same breath refuse to do anything different than they’re already doing. The evidence from many sources is that affirmative action helps to create equity, whereas race/gender “blind” policies actually entrench racism and sexism. Thank you for refusing to opt for the status quo. Thank you for doing some of the work that can ultimately bring even more great writing to the field.
Bernadine and Rachel: The comments make more sense if you’re aware that at the time Polenth made that comment, Paragraph 2 above still read: “submissions dealing with gender, sexism, and other areas important to feminine speculative literature are particularly welcome.” (My emphasis.)
This has since been edited to read “feminist.”
Yes, the edit was mine. I clearly meant to write “feminist” and wrote “feminine.” That’s what I get for writing this before the drinking of the morning coffee. Once the mistake was pointed out to me, I changed it at once.
Four new comments have appeared since I tried (twice) to leave one earlier. Did it get stuck in moderation or in a spam filter because of the link I included?
Thanks–I should add that although I really don’t like the tokenizing feel of a single women’s issue, making it a feminist issue (even one with only female writers) changes a lot, and seems much more reasonable to me. Because feminism’s a theme; women writers aren’t.
(The SF/Fantasy world being what it is, you could easily do an all-woman anti-feminist issue right after this one, and then an all-woman feminine issue right after that. Not that you should–although actually I would like to see that–but you could. For fun.)
Cija, anything is possible regarding future themed issues, but I don’t see anything in the pipeline in the immediate future. I’ve learned that themed issues require a lot of extra work, and since this issue happens to be coming out right after the 100th issue, my plate is full for the moment.
Thanks for the input.
@Idle: could have been caught in the spam filter, though I didn’t see it there either. Perhaps the spam was emptied, and your comment was among them?
I think the mobile theme might be at fault. (I switched to normal web viewing now, but that’s something to investigate.) Here is what I wanted to link to (3rd attempt!):
http://feministsf.org/anths/index.html#editorindex
Let’s remember some publishing history.
Big list!
As has been said, the original post was changed after I commented. I wasn’t intending to come across as snarky or the like. It was a genuine question based on the wording of the post. I appreciate Doug taking the time to answer.
There also seems to be some confusion about what I meant by gender. I meant it in the sense of socially constructed roles for behaviour, not biological sex. I’m physically female and have always been female. But I’m not considered to be feminine by Western gender role standards.
This means I’m often disappointed by all women issues, because I can’t find stories in them by/about women like me. Or perhaps stories looking at gender roles in other cultures (I particularly like stories with more than two gender roles). As a reader, it concerned me that the issue might be limited to the Western view of femininity.
Hopefully that makes my question and a bit clearer (and the context of asking it before the submission guidelines were changed).
I’m thrilled that Realms of Fantasy is putting together an issue like this to try to redress the balance. However, I’m sad to see that the very guidelines for such an issue contain sexist language (“girls,” “ladies”). Just search “non-sexist language” and you’ll find plenty of style manuals (for a start, here’s one: http://www1.umn.edu/urelate/style/language-bias.html, point 3, “Do not use the word girl to refer to an adult. Many women find this term offensive. Call females over the age of 18 women, not girls, gals, or ladies”). I hope that the issue itself will reflect a more informed perspective.
Doug:
While I can see where the wording of the announcement wasn’t perfect, I took this in the spirit of what it appears to be: a themed issue, much like the Halloween issue. I don’t see it as anything more than that. And yes, I look forward to submitting to this themed issue…as well as to non-themed issues. I also look forward to reading it, just as much as I look forward to reading all RoF issues.
Oz
Doug,
Shawna didn’t edit the first feminist specfic anthology. As pointed out on another website, there were anthologies by Virginia Kidd, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Pamela Sargent and other way before Shawna’s anthology of stories taken from Asimov’s.
Thanks for the correction. No doubt I misunderstood something she said to me. But she has edited a feminist anthology, of that much I’m sure!
@ Oz & Lyn: Thanks for chiming in. Also this just went up a little while ago: http://douglascohen.livejournal.com/224836.html
Will all the nonfiction columns also be written exclusively by women for this issue?
Good question. The answer is no. Realms of Fantasy uses regular columnists. I don’t like the idea of taking a regular paycheck out of the male columnists’ pockets for the sake of a women in fantasy issue. Were the issue called “men in fantasy” instead, I would feel the same way about the female columnists.
All that said, based on who normally handles what for the magazine’s nonfiction, everything works out rather well. I don’t want to say more than this, for fear of giving away too much about the magazine’s contents too early on.
I tried to post this earlier, and apparently my comment was eaten by the ether!
I assume that if we submit a story for the feminist issue, we can also continue to submit as usual to the regular slush?
“submissions dealing with gender, sexism, and other areas important to feminist speculative literature”
Ideas of gender and sexism are speculative? Where is this gender and sexist-free reality you live in and how come there are so few women there that you have to put them in a single issue to see them?
B, ideas of gender and sexism most certainly are NOT speculative in their origin. But Realms of Fantasy is a magazine that deals with speculative literature, fantasy in particular. Given that, our interest will be in submissions that deal with gender, sexism, etc. set in the framework of a fantastical story. I hope that clears things up.
@ Linda: I’m going to post an expanded submission announcement when I get the chance, but in answer to your question …yes, since a number of people have asked about this, I’ve had a change of heart. A one-time exemption will be made, allowing folks to multi-sub one women in fantasy submission as well as one submission they’d like considered for another issue. Simultaneous submissions will still not be allowed.
Re: the exemption: Thank you.
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While I appreciate Nalo’s valid point, this kind of themed issue does alienate some male writers who work very hard to break into pro markets. The guideline “sorry gents” really sounds like discrimination even if the final effect is just shifting around which stories appear in which issues. There’s always the excuse that males are already published more often, but that does not make it easier. Why not have a follow-up “Male Fantasy” issue? No one ever does this sort of thing, and this actually seems more dangerous to do, and would actually mean something and show real balance. Not doing so at this stage would catch some flak.
Mike, anything is possible. But themed issues take a lot of work. This one is scheduled for the August 2011 issue. Our June 2011 issue will be # 100 in the magazine’s run. As you might imagine, we also have some special stuff planned for this issue. And having these one after the next is all that any of us can handle for the moment in terms of special or themed issues. Anything more would overwhelm us. So after these two issues come out, the brain-trust can talk about the possibility of doing other themed issues, be it your suggestion or something else. But for the time being we’re not thinking about doing any others. Our plates are quite full, but thanks for the suggestion.
ETA: Or maybe even further down the line, when these two issues are closer to publication, we can start talks about other possible themed issues. But not right now. It’s just a little too much for us to handle.
First, I would love to see you create an “All Male writers!” issue, because it would point out the ridiculous ghettoization of “Female writers.” I get the impression that ROF has not participated much in that practice, anyway.
Secondly, as other women, and men, have said in other places on the internet– I hope you don’t choose didactic work over speculative entertainment. I don’t write fantasy in order to explain the issues I deal with every day, really not. And in this society, from my point of view, just having a female protagonist is already a major statement of where I believe women belong!