News: New Ceres Anthology open for submissions

Twelfth Planet Press announces the forthcoming publication New Ceres: the Anthology.

During the war that left Earth uninhabitable, refugees from the doomed planet fled to the outer colonies. Many of them found their way to New Ceres, a planet that embraced the Age of Enlightenment almost two hundred years ago, and has not yet let go.

The water may be green and spaceships may be landing on a regular basis, but New Ceres is a planet firmly entrenched in Eighteenth Century culture. Offworld technology is strictly forbidden to anyone outside the government, and powdered wigs are in fashion.

The New Ceres project is set in a shared world where writers are free to play with genre, characters and world-building. The resulting fiction has been notable for the collaborative follow through of stories - Tansy Rayner Roberts' characters La Duchesse and Pepin first appearing in Scandal at the Feast of Saturn (Issue 1) were adopted by Lucy Sussex in her award-winning story Mist and Murder (Issue 2). This much-loved pair will be back for more scandal, this time in print. Dirk Flinthart's George Gordon from She Walks in Beauty (Issue 1) will also reappear, this time with an oriental flavour. Kaaron Warren brings some of the darker shades of New Ceres to light in her offering, Tontine Mary.

The ensemble nature of the writing goes beyond character-driven story, into an interplay of theme and mood. New Ceres explores undercurrents of dissent in an underclass created through the mass absorption of refugees, as seen in Stephen Dedman's Sufficiently Advanced (Issue 2) and Cat Sparks' The Bride Price (Issue 2); this is contrasted by the power and the glory of the Lumoscenti in Jay Lake's Tower the Sun (Issue 2). Maxine McArthur grapples with the unknown in Tyger Tyger (Issue 1).

Each writer has stamped their own claim on this world and it's story. Where will they take New Ceres next? Find out in New Ceres: the Anthology! Scheduled to be released at Swancon 2009, with a standard print run and limited hard cover print run of 50.

Queries should be directed to Editors Alisa Krasnostein and Tehani Wessely at twelfthplanetpress@gmail.com
Submissions will close October 15th 2008
Payment: AUD$50.00 per story and contributor copy.

Rights: First International rights, and exclusivity for one year after first publication. Not accepting reprints. (All currently submitted stories to New Ceres online are automatically being considered for the anthology.)

The New Ceres project is being refitted, with the new print anthology playing a major role; the website is currently being overhauled as part of this. Further New Ceres support material usually maintained on the webspace is not available at this time. However this material can be made accessible to authors upon acceptance to the project.


Source: Alisa Krasnostein