2020 SFF Anthology: Beneath Strange Stars – Call for Submissions

The call for submissions has ended.

Thank you to everyone who submitted their work to support The Association for Science Education!

Keep an eye out on our blog and on Twitter for updates!

Calling all lovers of stories beyond our world!

TL;DR Press is proud to announce Beneath Strange Stars, an anthology of science-fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction short stories and poetry, to benefit charity. We are asking for submissions from writers around the world who have a story to tell and want to help a great cause.

We would like to hear about aliens from a distant world. A knight defending a castle. A unicorn creating an army of robots. Super-powers in a gritty urban setting. And of course, anything in between and beyond. High or low, soft or hard, we are looking for interesting stories that push these fantastical genres out of this world.

UPDATE: We have officially announced our charity of choice: The Association for Science Education! Check out all the details on our announcement page.

Submission Guidelines

– Submissions open: September 1, 2019
– Submissions close: September 30, 2019
– One short story submission or two poetry submissions per author
– Word Limit: 4,000 words for short stories, 2,000 words per poem
– Any form of science-fiction, or fantasy, or speculative fiction is accepted. It can be hard or soft, whimsical or dark, about fighting robots or elves in love, or anything in between. We strongly encourage creativity and are open to any interpretation of science-fiction, fantasy, or speculative fiction.
– Submit your story or poem through our Google Form (link below), which will require the following information:

– A .docx or .doc attachment of your submission
– Your name (pen names are acceptable)
– Title of your piece
– Genre
– Social media handles (optional)
– Word count
– Whether or not your piece has been previously published, and if so what rights you maintain
– Whether or not you would like editorial feedback before a final
scoring of your piece

Read our General Submission Guidelines for more information.

Submission Format

Please submit in .doc or .docx file types. Make sure the title of your submission and your name are on the first page of your submission. Your story should be formatted in Chicago Style if possible. This includes double spacing, indenting except for the opening line, and size 12 font in Calibri or Arial*. Find more information about Chicago Style here.

If you have any trouble with the above guidelines, please feel free to ask for help! You can contact us at info@tldrpress.org or through our Twitter.

Please note that we are not accepting pieces with graphic depictions of assault, sexual violence, or incest.

*If you use comic sans in your submission, your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.

Our Charity of Choice: The Association for Science Education

We are partnering with the Association for Science Education (ASE), and we could not be more pleased to work with a charity that is dedicated to helping all those involved in science education, from pre-school to higher education. Check out the full details on our announcement page!

You can find our previous collections, and the charities we’ve worked with, on our Library page.

TL;DR Press has always been dedicated to helping emerging writers grow their talent, as well as contributing to great causes. All proceeds from our collections are donated directly to specified charities. We are proud to be able to merge creativity and charitable work. For more information about our past work and our process, please check out our about page!

If you have any issues with the Google Form while submitting, email our team at tldrpress@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @TLDRpress.

Good luck! We can’t wait to explore the worlds you’ve brought us to, beneath strange stars!

TL;DR Press