Where to Get Anthologies and Advice on Writing

I love anthologies as a reader and a writer.

As a reader, anthologies offer a wide variety of different authors and styles all surrounding a theme. Sometimes the theme is rather broad for a "best of the year" anthology, while others have very specific themes that focus on an idea or setting.

And that is exactly what I like about anthologies as a writer. There are many open calls for submissions when it comes to anthologies that have a very specific theme, you just have to find them. These themes offer inspiration and are a great incentive to work on a story.

At present, I am very excited about one anthology in particular for which I have a great story I want to submit. The anthology is called "Guilds & Glaives" edited by S.C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier to be published by Zombies Need Brains. This small press funds its anthologies through Kickstarter projects and their current project will produce three anthologies if funded.

Guilds & Glaives, The Razor's Edge and Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar are the names of the three anthologies and each will contain approximately 14 original short stories, half of which will be written by established, well-known and beloved Science Fiction and Fantasy authors and the other half will be filled through a call for open submissions. The Kickstarter still has 6 days to go and is still in need of funds to reach its goal. Here is the link to the Kickstarter if anyone is as interested in seeing these anthologies published as I am.

Cover for The Razor's Edge by Justin Adams of Varia Studios

Another reason why I think this project is so cool is what Joshua Palmatier is doing to promote the project. He is the founder of the small press Zombies Need Brains and has already produced seven quality anthologies. He posts on Twitter daily with new posts on his blog giving advice for writers. He started out with 9 informative and interesting posts on how to create an anthology and has moved on from there to elevator pitches, query letters and synopses. He gives great advice and has lots of links to other well-known authors and their advice on the same topics.

I think he's doing a great job of giving back to the writing community. So the writing community should do its best to give back to him and help fund these three anthologies. We'll all be the merrier once these great collections are published and can be read by us, with or without our own stories on the pages.