Deadline: October 30th, 2024
Payment: $25
Theme: Australian and New Zealand authors who identify as neurodivergent telling tales of characters accepting and embracing their neurodiversity

Last year a press in Australia made a call for neurodivergent voices and their short stories, but only if they had a medical diagnosis. In this country it can take two years to find the truth about ourselves – and at great cost – so Deadset Press wanted to provide an alternative for the neurodivergent writers of Australia. We made a call for those voices, and E. J. Dawson joined in, helping us create a neurodiverse apocalyptic anthology, EMBRACE THE SILENCE, open to anyone self-identifying as neurodivergent. But like many ND folk we had other commitments. We are now re-opening our submissions call on a wider scale for apocalyptic, dystopian and scifi short stories which focus on neurodiverse characters. There are not enough of these in fiction and we are hoping by broadening our submission call we can hear more of these voices.

We welcome submissions from all Australian and New Zealand authors who identify as neurodivergent, and will also encourage submissions from neurodivergent Indigenous and LGBTIQ authors.

EMBRACE THE SILENCE will be assembled – from the cover to the footnotes – by a team of neurodiverse individuals, including the wonderful E. J. Dawson and the sleep deprived Austin P. Sheehan.

The idea behind the title EMBRACE THE SILENCE refers to characters accepting and embracing their neurodiversity, as well as adapting to a changing and challenging new world. We encourage you to be as creative as you like in your approach to the theme.

Our preferred length for short stories is between 4,000 and 6,000 words, however this is just a guideline, we won’t auto-reject stories based on word count alone.

Submissions are currently open until October 30th, and we hope to publish EMBRACE THE SILENCE in early 2025.

Please only submit unpublished pieces.

We will not be accepting AI-written stories.

All contributors will receive a payment of $25 per story.

Please email submissions to [email protected] with ‘Embrace’, your story title, and word count in the subject line. (Embrace – For Those That Can Sleep At Night – 4500 words).

If you have any questions, or are interested in supporting this project, please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] with ‘Embrace’ in the subject line.

Via: Deadset Press.