Time Well Bent- looking for m/m
Editor Sacchi Green posted this on a specfic forum and I thought it might be of interest to forumers here. She's needing m/m. GLBTQ Alternate History Anthology I've been writing and editing under another name in another genre for the last few years, and finally have a chance to cross back over. This will be my fourth anthology; the first, Rode Hard, Put Away Wet (Suspect Thoughts Press) was a Lambda Award finalist, and the second, Hard Road, Easy Riding (Haworth Press) is just out. Another will be published late this year. I'm finding that I especially need gay male and transgender stories at this point, although there's still some room for others. While the pay ($100) isn't what it should be for work like this, it's what I have to work with; if you have a story demanding to be told, I hope you'll send it along to me anyway. Time Well Bent Queer Alternate History Haworth Press, Positronic Division Edited by Sacchi Green Time Well Bent will be an anthology of speculative fiction in the sub-genre of alternate history, written from GLBTQ perspectives. Imagine some historical event, of great or slight significance, veering off from what is currently recorded, thereby changing history in large or small ways. The alternate sexuality of the protagonists must play an integral part in the course of events. Elements of time travel with the intention of altering history will be a hard sell, but might work. Fantasy could fit when the historical period or cultural setting is appropriate, such as in the Medieval or Renaissance eras, or, as a culture-based example, in a story of Roma (Gypsies) resisting Nazi oppression. This book is not intended to be primarily erotica. Plot, setting, and characterization are the essential elements. Explicit sex is fine, but only if it’s essential to the development of the story. Story length should be between 3000 and 8000 words. Payment will be $100 for each story. Deadlines: Queries are advisable (to sacchi@sff.net) indicating the historical period and gender presentation you want to write about. Final manuscripts must be submitted by June 30. E-mail submissions are acceptable, preferably as RTF attachments. Please put "Time Well Bent" in the subject line.

This sounds fascinating but I'd be a mite worried about the 'real person slash' angle...?

The guidelines don't ask explicitly for RPS, but these are historical figures, in theory. Withing the context of a historical event, one can certainly come up with original characters. I don't think she's asking for RPS. Besides, if you go back far enough, these folks are all dead.

MJ, it was this sentence that made me think 'real person': "Imagine some historical event, of great or slight significance, veering off from what is currently recorded, thereby changing history in large or small ways". To me that reads as though they're looking for real life historical events that could have been totally different if one of the participants had been gay. (eg, would World War Two have happened if Hitler had been gay...) I was just a bit concerned that descendants of the people I 'bent' in this way <g> might be annoyed.

I saw the guidelines as asking for two things: (1) alternate history, and (2) GLBTQ characters. Theoretically, one could create alternate history by having the GLBTQness of a character be what causes the division between our reality and theirs, but I don't think she was trying to suggest that one necessarily followed from the other. I think she was just trying to explain what alternate history is, for folks who hadn't run across that concept before. You could always query her to check. Or you could create alternate history by making Richard the Lion-Hearted straight. :)

LOL! I'm still confused. Maybe I'd better give this one a miss. ;)

Slash or not slash, how "historic" is historic enough? There's plent of Henry VIII stuff and even "Queen" coming up and she's still alive. I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that if it involves homosexuality, it had better be pretty freaking historical.

They are asking for alternative histories--also called speculative history. Like sci fi is speculating about the future, alt history is speculating about how the past might have been if... It almost never uses famous people as major characters. It would start with something like, what if Queen Victoria had made lebianism illegal--what if she had refused to do this for male homosexuality? So maybe the Oscar Wilde trial never happened, the prince lived and came out as openly gay and Britain became the queer cente of the world. Or what if the night of the long knives never happened and many promonant and talented gay Nazis stayed in the ruling elite, and went on to win the war. That speculative history is the background to the story and nothing more... all the usual story telling elements apply about inventing some specific person in the world with some specific story arc. It is a genre already out there like slip steam, magical realism or urban fantasy. Major alt history writers include Harry Turtledove and Roald Dahl. My favorite would be Fatherland by and English writer (Harris, I think) which is a 'what if the Nazi's won' speculative story.

Thanks for the extra clarification, Em. I think I was missing the link of not using major characters in the story, just as background. Hmmm.

That's very interesting, Em. I love 'Fatherland' too.

Yeah--what veinglory and Dusk said. Most of the alternate history I'm familiar with has fictional main characters, it's the historical conditions that the author messes with. That's why I was confused about how you were reading the guidelines--I thought maybe I missed something that you were seeing.

Oh, sorry, how provincial of me. Me being from the SF/F community, I figured everyone here already knew what alternate history was. :) Here's three relevant links. The third link isn't working tonight, but hopefully that's temporary. Wikipedia: Alternate History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_history_(fiction). Uchronia. AlternateHistory.com. A recent example of alternate history is Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which imagines a world in which the Napoleonic Wars were fought with the help of dragons. As a historical fantasy writer, I'm a bit miffed that the alternate history folk get all the attention. :/

This is interesting, and tempting. Especially considering I'm actually writing an M/M alternate history right now. I couldn't submit my story for this though because it's asking for 300 - 8000 words and mine is currently hovering right around 26,000 with only about 2/3 of it written. I'm expecting it to come in somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 when it's all said and done. Way too big. Hell, the back story alone is something like 1600 - 1800.