Tor.com Publishing Opening to Fantasy Novellas on October 12th

[The Bluestocking]

From Tor.com Publishing:

"Tor.com Publishing will soon be reopening to unsolicited novella submissions! Starting October 12, Lee Harris and Carl Engle-Laird will be reading and evaluating original novellas submitted by hopeful authors to Tor.com Novella Program Submissions. You can find full guidelines here, and we highly recommend you read the guidelines before submitting. We will be open for three months, beginning on October 12th around 9:00 AM EDT (UTC-4:00) and ending on January 12th around 9:00 AM EST (UTC-5:00). We may extend this period depending on how many submissions we receive over the course of the open period.

Until the end of this open period, Tor.com will only be considering novellas of between 20,000 and 40,000 words that fit the epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, high fantasy, or quest fantasy genres, whether set on Earth or on an original fantasy world. However, we will only be considering novellas that inhabit worlds that are not modeled on European cultures. We are seeking worlds that take their influences from African, Asian, indigenous American, or Pacific cultures, or any diasporic culture from one of those sources. To qualify, novellas should center the experiences of characters from non-European-inspired cultures.

Both Lee Harris and Carl Engle-Laird actively request submissions from writers from underrepresented populations. This includes, but is not limited to, writers of any race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class and physical or mental ability. We believe that good science fiction and fantasy reflects the incredible diversity and potential of the human species, and hope our catalog will reflect that."

For additional information: Tor.com Publishing Opening to Fantasy Novellas on October 12th

 

[E.Maree]

I love this submission call! My work doesn't fit the bill but I'm very excited to read the novellas that come out of it.

 

[Boneman]

An 'epic fantasy' novella. Isn't that a contradiction in terms? Can you do epic in 20-40,000 words?

 

[ratsy]

I think you can Boney. It's more about the feel and world than the length of the story I think. For my Fantasy collection Journeys, I have some stories that are 6,000 words but I would almost consider them epic in genre!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Considering how much backstory is usually involved in anything epic, it shouldn't be too hard for someone to put together something of a prologue for their main story.

However, Tor seem to be asking for anything fantasy-based. And by pushing on short-fiction ebooks, seems a good way to gauge the market and reader tastes.

Presumably, anything that proves especially popular could help open the doors to a series commission.

 

[Gareth Lewis]

Does anyone who's submitted to Tor.com Publishing have an idea of their average response time? Or if there's a maximum response time?

I submitted three months ago. There was movement in the queue in Dec and Jan, but since then I've only gone up one position about a month ago.

I realise they'll be busy working on existing stuff and not having time to read submissions. It just gets frustrating when your story becomes vaguely topical after you submit it, but could pass through that by the time it's read.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

If it'a not going to be topical by the time a window is closed you might have made it too tight for the market given publishing scheldules.

I was in the last window and they stayed pretty much to the promised time