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Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered

Pole to Pole Publishing is seeking fictional short stories for its upcoming anthology, Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered, to be published in June 2020, on the sesquicentennial of Jules Verne’s work.

Since June 20, 1870, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has been hailed as a classic, translated and reprinted in numerous book versions, transcribed for stage, movies, and TV miniseries, made into video games and a theme park ride. The book has inspired countless submariners, undersea explorers, and ship designers, not to mention armchair adventurers. We can’t let this anniversary pass unnoticed, so will launch this anthology as our tribute to the Father of Science Fiction and his masterwork. Pole to Pole Publishing welcomes Steven R. Southard as a co-editor of this anthology.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered will contain short stories that pay tribute in some way to Jules Verne’s novel. Set your story in any time or place; use characters from Verne’s novel or make up your own. You need not write in Verne’s style. The mood of your story need not be dark, as other Pole to Pole Publishing anthologies have been. Aim to capture, in your own way, the sense of wonder and adventure for which Jules Verne is famous. The connection between your story and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea must be obvious and significant, and your story must not disparage either the novel or its author.

Stories should be 3,000-5,000 words (firm).

Hard Sells:

· Profane and vulgar language. Because we market to both adult and YA readers, if you use an F-Bomb, and we accept your story, we’ll probably ask you to change it.

· First person and Present Tense. We’ve published both: when the stories were very, very good. We want to let you know up front that we’re going to reject this most of the time. It’s just not our preference.

· Excessive Gore and/or violence. Blood and guts are fine—as long as they’re part of the story and not the story itself.

· Sex. See above about marketing to a wider audience.

Edition and Rights:

· Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered will be published in electronic and trade paperback in English. We are asking for exclusive, worldwide rights to your work for both electronic and print for six months only, and a non-exclusive right to keep your story in the anthology after that.

· Payment: Payment is 2¢ per word for original stories ($15 flat rate for reprints), paid at publication, via PayPal only.

· If you do not have a PayPal account, please do not submit your work.

· Authors will also receive one copy of both the electronic and paperback versions of the anthology. (Authors can buy additional books at a discount.)

What We Don’t Want:

· No rape, torture, etc. of children. No animal abuse. No stories with characters from a copyrighted world that belongs to someone else. (Note: both Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island are in the public domain.) No Poetry. Only one story from each author will be considered.

Formatting:

· No tabs. Please format the document with a first line indent.

· Curly quotes, please—no straight quotes.

· Please, no headers or footers. Use italics, not underlines. No boldface. Use Times New Roman font.

If you’re not sure if your story is suitable, don’t query; just go ahead and submit, and let our editors decide. (Word count is firm, however.) If your story is a reprint, please give us details of its publication history.

Opens: January 1, 2020

Deadline: April 30, 2020, or until filled. Be aware that all of our anthologies have filled before the deadline, so don’t wait until the last minute to submit.