Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This illustration by Oliver Wetter will be the cover for the anthology.

Guidelines for the Fungi anthology have gone up. I am co-editing this with Orrin Grey, so he will likely have more to say about his taste over at his blog, but here are some things I am looking for:

• Locales and protagonists from outside the United States. Why? Because we get a lot of stories with people from the US so I know I will have no problem finding stories set in New York or Los Angeles. Taiwan and South Africa? That may be more of a stretch.
• Stories from authors who do not hail from the United States. Because, once again, we’ll have no problems getting stories from authors in the United States, but other countries become more difficult. And it is often the international writers who utilize international locales, so it becomes crucial for me to get a large enough pool of authors from around the world so I can get a variety of settings and protagonists.
• Bizarre stories. Mess with my mind.
• Stories without plots. Stories that are not third-person POV. Hero’s journey? Not my cup of tea.
• Stories of body horror.
• Stories with good science. Show me you know your mushrooms.
• Stories that straddle genres. Steamfungus? Sword & Fungi?
• Stories in Spanish. Or, let me say it this way: Acepto cuentos en español. Cualquier corte fantastico (terror, realismo mágico). Favor de incluir una biografía.

Please don’t angst if you are a writer from Kansas writing about mushrooms in Topeka with a third-person POV. I will not know what I want until I see it, but this is a large, malleable wishlist. I will blog periodically about the slush once the submissions period opens.

In other news, we are having a Future Lovecraft Tweet-a-thon with a chance to  win prizes this Thursday from 6 pm to 9 pm PST. Follow the tag #futurelovecraft.