WE ARE RUNNING ANOTHER KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN!

HERE’S THE LINK. 

PLEASE CLICK THE LINK AND CONSIDER BACKING THIS NEW ANTHOLOGY. AND PLEASE SHARE THE INFORMATION.

AFTER THE KICKSTARTER FUNDS, WE’LL OPEN SUBMISSIONS FOR BEHIND THE REVOLVING DOOR. 

This will be our fifth anthology.

Each of us makes a multitude of choices daily, some minor and some with major consequences. Do you eat cereal or oatmeal for breakfast? Skip it entirely? Do you or don’t you wear your lucky shirt to the sports event? What do you think the consequences would be if you didn’t wear your lucky shirt?

This anthology will be a collection of stories that will take you on a journey with the author’s protagonist as they make a decision. We will ask for stories that take them through a trial and force them to take an action, to make a choice. For example, the character comes to a fork in the road. Do they take the right path or do they take the left? Does the character find a wallet on the ground? Do they open it? Return it to the owner, or keep it? What are the consequences?  Do they encounter a second choice, going back through the revolving door? Do they find classified information, implicating a family member in a coup? What do they do with it?  What happens next? Is the character hiking through the woods, and finding a portal, not knowing where it will take them if they enter? What happens? Is it so bad that they try to return, hence going through the revolving door? There are many, many ways this theme can be interpreted.

We believe authors can give us a great story by fleshing out the characters and plot, within 4,000 words.

The revolving door on the cover will not be required in the story; if a door and/or a revolving door is in the story, that will be a plus. We anticipate receiving stories in genres from humor to horror, from romance to fantasy. Authors will be given the theme of making a choice and will have free rein how they interpret that theme. We can’t wait to read what they write and are sure you can’t wait either.

Back at the Tuckerization level and the reward will be for you, or someone you choose, to be in the story!

As we felt for Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, we like to support new authors. The story comes first, as always. But if we receive a great story from a newbie, we’ll include it.

We have invited five authors, some award-winning and some award-nominated, whose headshots and bios appear below. Once the Kickstarter funds, we’ll open submissions to all authors, to see how they interpret the theme. The number of stories we accept from open submissions will depend entirely on the funds raised by this Kickstarter. We anticipate a minimum of twenty stories.

No AI will be used in any element of this anthology. All stories and art are being created by real live people.

Charley Heenan, author of the novel Danny’s Boys, has delivered newspapers, waited tables, tended bar, managed a restaurant, analyzed logistics for the military, worked in finance, and knocked on doors for political campaigns. A life-long resident of the Philadelphia area and huge Philadelphia sports fan, the St. Joseph’s University graduate now writes full-time. charleyheenan@gmail.com www,charleyheenan.com

Rik Hoskin is a multi-award-winning writer of novels, graphic novels, video games and animation. He’s written comics for Star Wars, Superman, Doctor Who and various other properties, and won the Dragon Award for Best Graphic Novel 2018 for White Sand (with Brandon Sanderson), which also made the New York Times Bestseller list.  He writes SF and horror novels and short stories under his own name and as “James Axler.” He also writes video games, where he has served as head writer, and has written animation for BBC television in the UK.

Chris Bauer has authored multiple thrillers: crime, political, espionage, horror. I Heard You Paint Cowboys, his tenth, releases April ’25. He’s a subject matter expert in none of the following, but his major characters are: firearms, billionaires, aviation, NASA, geology, any law enforcement agency, fugitive recovery, the Navy SEALs, crime scene cleaning, Hawaiian mobsters, U.S. senators, or the Supreme Court. Award-winning member of International Thriller Writers. You can find Chris online at chrisbauerauthor.net and on Facebook, Bluesky, X, and Instagram. He likes the pie more than the turkey. His mantra: “The thing I write will be the thing I write.”

Susan Shwartz returned from a long sabbatical on Wall Street to her first love, writing fantasy and science fiction. She is a five-time nominee for the Nebula, a two-time nominee for the Hugo, with nominations for the World Fantasy Award, the Philip K. Dick, and the Edgar. In 1993, San Francisco chronicle cited her work for Best Novelette, and in 1996, best Novella with the late Mike Resnick for Bibi, a 1995 winner of the HOMer award.

Susan holds a Ph.D. in English from Harvard and a B.A. from Mount Holyoke. She has also studied at Dartmouth College and Oxford University. With her partner, she collects SF art and loves the opera, the theatre, and travel.

Marisca Pichette is a queer author based in Massachusetts. More of her work appears in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, and others. Her poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker and Elgin Awards. Her cli-fi novella, Every Dark Cloud, is forthcoming in March 2025 from Ghost Orchid Press.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

PLEASE READ THE TAB TITLED “HYBRID PUBLISHING” PRIOR TO SUBMITTING A MANUSCRIPT

Open Manuscript Submissions

We are open for submissions. These are the guidelines to use for submissions:

  1. We have varied interests. Ruth is interested in girls’ YA, mysteries, Holocaust-related nonfiction, and Westerns; Ann is interested in fantasy, sci-fi, thrillers, and steampunk.
  2. We do not accept porn, graphic erotica, or serious violence (especially against children), or textbooks.
  3. Submit by email to ruthann@celestialechopress.com. Ensure your manuscript is double-spaced in 12-pt black, using Times New Roman or equivalent font. Label your file with your last name, and the title of your manuscript.

NOTE:

We will not accept any submissions which contain content created by AI. Our contract contains a clause indicating the story is written solely by the author submitting it.

To submit:

For non-fiction –

Submit your proposal with a tentative table of contents.

For fiction –

We want to read your synopsis of at least 500 words. Yes, more is fine, but remember, a synopsis is a brief summary.. No, less is not fine. We also want a compelling query letter. Include why your novel is different from all others. Also, tell us what shelf it would fit on in a bookstore. Tell us some similar, but not exact, published works. Please include the first 30 pages.

We will reply as quickly as possible. We’re a two-woman shop, so we may take a bit longer if we’re inundated. If you haven’t heard from us, either rejection or acceptance, within two months, please email us at ruthann@celestialechopress.com.