Cape Town-based social impact business Backyard Pitch is collaborating with The Heinrich Boell Foundation to publish a collection titled Our Move Next: Speculative Fiction Anthology. They are inviting African writers, artists, and activists to imagine sci-fi/speculative futures that embody the idea of changing the world.

20 submissions will be selected, and each one will receive an honorarium of 2000 Rands. Literary submissions can be work in any genre or length, poetry, prose and everything in between. Illustrations/visual art pieces can be in any style that embodies an exploration of speculative fiction. Deadline is August 13.

Our Move Next is an afro-speculative fiction anthology targeted at activists, cultural workers, organizers and healers from South Africa and across the continent.  If you identify as a change-maker, submit fiction pieces or speculative illustrations and artworks in any form and genre that imagines and re – imagines the African and global economic and socio -cultural landscape.

With this anthology, they offer those who have been building the world, fighting injustice and soothing historic hurts the pages to play out some ideas, fears, cautionary tales, hidden hopes, spiritual beliefs or dreams of the future, past or parallel present. Black Speculative Fiction holds room for various styles and genres including fantasy, science fiction, afro-futurism, afro-surrealism, magical realism and historical re-imagining.

Backyard Pitch is a queer bipoc social impact business based in Cape Town, South Africa. They envision a Global South where people are supported to move through and thrive beyond colonial legacies and structural injustices. Their mission is to collaborate with communities to re-energize cultural movements and expression, towards a future of our own imaginings. Find out more about their work here and here.

 

Guidelines

Written Submissions: 20 submissions will be selected. Selected writers will be invited to a story workshop to strengthen their selected pieces for a second draft. Each selected story will receive an honorarium of R2000. Submissions can take on any form, genre or length, poetry, prose and everything in between will be considered.

Illustrated Submissions: Prospective contributors are encouraged to submit illustrations/visual art pieces in any style that embodies an exploration of speculative fiction. Illustrated submissions will receive an honorarium of R1500 each.

Language: We do not want a future without indigenous languages and therefore we are looking to present such works. Our anthology will be presented in various languages and we would consider sharing English language translations alongside text, or for pieces where this is not practical we can share English versions online for readers who are interested.

Deadline for Submission:  13 August 2021

For more information about the anthology and submissions process, go here. For inquiries, send an email to [email protected]