Call for Open Submissions: Women in Practical Armor

With the ever-increasing scrutiny the fantasy and gaming genres are receiving regarding gendered roles and its treatment of women, the time is right for a series of anthologies that celebrates the empowered woman in the fantasy universe. She is no longer just the love interest, just the damsel in distress, or just the prize. She is strong, independent, and she knows that the armor depicted in video games wouldn’t stop anything but traffic.

It’s true that the kind of female warrior who would be on the front lines in practical armor, without hiding or apologizing for her gender, has little historical precedent in the medieval societies on which much fantasy is based, but fantasy doesn’t need to have its basis in real world European history.

Evil Girlfriend Media is committed to breaking stereotypes and pushing the boundaries of speculative fiction. We encourage you to use this opportunity to do just that. Your secondary world can be based on some other culture or created out of whole cloth. It can be your proprietary universe in which you have set other works. We ask only that the protagonist be a female character who is already empowered. There are plenty of works out there about women who are struggling for acceptance or to build their self-identity. In this anthology, we would like to focus on the kinds of challenges that empowered, powerful, seasoned warriors would face.

The anthology is open to all writers regardless of gender, this is not an exclusively female-author anthology.

We are accepting new works for consideration, and reprints if the rights are currently unencumbered. We are able to offer an advance of 6 cents per word up to 5,000 words for original fiction, and 1 cent per word for reprints, along with one author’s copy (of each available format) per contributor and an author discount on additional copies. Advances will be payable upon publication. Due to budget constraints, we will not be able to offer additional compensation for original stories that check in above 5,000 words. 2,000-5,000 is our ideal range.

Before submitting, please be aware the anthology is contingent on funding from a Kickstarter project. The first month of publication all royalties will be donated to a PTSD charity of Evil Girlfriend Media’s choice that focuses on providing services for all individuals regardless of sex, gender, race, age, sexual preference, or disability.

For more info and the specific guidelines, visit http://gabrielle-edits.com/2015/01/21/practical-armor/