Strange Bedfellows
Strange Bedfellows
I’ve always been fascinated by both science and politics. My first degree is in Chemistry and my second in Political Science. I work as a policy advisor – currently at the Senate of Canada – and read physics for fun. Add to those obsessions, nearly half a century of reading science fiction and nearly half that writing all sorts of fiction, it was inevitable that when I became a publisher, I’d have to bring them all together in one place.
“Strange Bedfellows,” an anthology of political science fiction where ideology is a character, has on my mind when I met with my publisher, Virginia O’Dine of Bundoran Press, last November. I went to breakfast to pitch an anthology and wound up buying a publishing company. Strange Bedfellows was immediately added to my publishing plans.
If this anthology was going to be a signature piece, I wanted it to be the best anthology I could make it. Paying professional rates (5 cents/ word instead of 1.5 cents) was one way to accomplish that. Higher rates means both more submissions and it means writers who no longer submit to non-pro markets might submit to mine. I’ll also be accepting submissions from anywhere in the world (as long as they’re in English) even if it means Strange Bedfellows doesn’t count as Canadian content for arts council grant purposes.
The difference between paying pro and non-pro rates on 80,000 words is significant -- $2800, on top of the thousands I’d already be spending on publication. The only way I could afford it was by fund raising. Hence the Indiegogo project.
We are now in the last few days of the campaign and, at the time of writing, achingly close. If you can help please throw in a few bucks. Even if we’ve already made the goal by the time you get there, remember, all additional funds go to buying more stories or raising the rate of pay to writers.
