Editor Warren Lapine has just announced that he is reading for Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, which he projects to be a yearly anthology.
Lapine writes “I’m looking for stories that cover the entire science fiction, fantasy, and horror spectrum. I love magic realism (think Tim Powers and Neil Gaiman) and hard sf. I want a story to surprise me and to take me to unexpected places. I love word play, and would like to see stories with a literary bent, though decidedly not a pretentious bent. I could spend some time telling you what I don’t want, but I’ve found that good stories can make me buy them regardless of how many of my rules they violate. Let your imagination run wild, push and blur the limits of genre, or send me something traditional. I want it to see it all. My experience as an editor tells me that over time I’ll develop preferences and that the anthology will take on its own personality. When that happens I’ll change the guidelines to be more specific, but for now I’m going to explore what’s out there before I decide what direction to go in.”
Payment is 10 cents per word on acceptance (maximum: $250) for new stories, 2 cents a word for reprints (maximum: $100). “A check will accompany the contract so no simultaneous submissions please. I am purchasing First English Language Book Rights and non-exclusive electronic rights.”
There are no set length limits at the moment, but Lapine notes that when he was buying fiction for magazines, his preferred length was 3,000-10,000 words, and he never bought anything shorter than 1,000 words.
Submission address is:
Warren Lapine
Wilder Publications
Box 10641
Blacksburg, VA 24063
No set deadline: the anthology will close when he’s got enough to fill it.
Though he was the founder of SFScope Editor Ian Randal Strock’s Fantastic Books, and the anthology’s title is similar, this book is not part of Fantastic Books.