3 days left!
about 1 year ago
– Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 06:37:56 AM
We’re just $1,500 shy of our $10K stretch goal, but we’ve only got 3 days left to get over the finish line. This is the perfect time to share this Kickstarter with anyone who likes speculative fiction and/or who wants to see the New Year, New You mindset taken to very satisfying and strange extremes (seriously, check the log lines below).
Don’t forget about our new reward tiers, either. We’ve got hand-knitted jellyfish softies and custom artwork all up for grabs! These are two jellyfish that you for sure want to get your hands on.
Oh, and we’ve also got one VERY IMPORTANT update regarding the Lion’s Mane Jelly tier, where a Viable Paradise 2023 cohort member reviews a workshop application.
Get your story critiqued!
We’re excited to announce that we’ve expanded the Lion’s Mane Jelly tier to include not only workshop application reviews, but also reviews of any speculative piece up to 8K words that you want to throw our way!
That means we’ll review your short stories, your novel excerpts, your flash fiction bundles, even that one super weird novella you wrote that you don’t wanna show your friends because they’ll hold some kind of intervention—whatever speculative fiction pieces you’d like.
For only $50, this is an excellent gift for the writers in your life who’d like to hone their craft. As working writers with countless workshops, critiques, published stories, and even a few writing degrees under our belts, we've faced our share of rejection and criticism. Meaning: we won't be d*cks about it. Every critique will be considerate and professional, not “brutally honest.” Like our beloved jellies, we are a bunch of softies ♥️. And we know writing is very personal; your brain babies are safe with us. (We love brains!)
Loglines Galore
Three more teasers from stories that will grace our anthology:
- Determined to reach the pinnacle of the basilica's hierarchy, one woman will take ungodly measures to outdo her charismatic rival.
- There are lights out there in the desert now. Strange glowing things that seem to beckon and call out. And Salome is worried that William is going to answer them.
- A lonely, sentient ship and her human employee must learn to trust each other when the boring process of mining asteroids turns deadly.
Thanks again for supporting this eclectic crew of emerging Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers. Let’s make it to $10K!
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
Who wants a cyborg jellyfish sticker?
about 1 year ago
– Fri, Feb 23, 2024 at 07:58:51 AM
Big news! With only a week left before this campaign comes to a close, we are excited to announce a new reward tier and an expanded stretch goal.
Alec J. Marsh, one of the New Year, New You writers and a member of our fabulous publishing team, will knit beautiful jellyfish softies for three lucky people who back at the new Crochet Jelly reward tier! For $200, you get a print copy of New Year, New You, an e-book, a limited print bookmark, a credit in the acknowledgments, and an original piece of (very snuggly) handmade art!
And there’s more! We still very much want to unlock our $10K stretch goal so we can pay our hardworking writers a professional rate. We want it so much that we’re adding a special thank you gift to that goal for our backers. If we reach our $10K goal, everyone who backs the project at the Sea Nettle reward tier and above will receive a gorgeous die cut cyborg jellyfish sticker designed by one of our writer/artists. The sticker has yet to be officially designed, but here’s our fun placeholder!
If you love this project (and you want a cool sticker), please help us spread the word before the campaign ends. Let’s do this!
Meet the Publishing Team, Part I: Brigitte Winter
Brigitte is a writer, photographer, and game designer based in Maryland. She is also a co-founder of Scryptid Games and the Executive Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater, a DC-based nonprofit dedicated to inspiring young people to realize the power of their voices through creative writing. She started applying her fiction-writing and theater background to tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) a few years ago, and she was honored to be a 2023 Dicebreaker Tabletop Awards Finalist for Designer of the Year. Brigitte describes the capacity of storytelling to connect, inspire, and incite as central to her art and her activism, and she aims to create and consume stories and storytelling games that are queer, feminist, intimate, and deliciously weird.
Brigitte serves on the publishing team for New Year, New You, helping to run the Kickstarter campaign and supporting the editorial team. Get to know her better with this mini interview!
Tell us about your experience in writing and publishing immersive storytelling.
Through my fiction, my publishing, and my game design, I’m focused on creating and platforming immersive stories and storytelling frameworks for queer people, women, people of color, and others who too often don’t see themselves reflected in mainstream literature and gaming.
My stories typically include genre notes of weird fiction and low fantasy, introducing magic and monsters into otherwise contemporary settings as tools for driving and deepening themes. I have a background in theater, and I often access story through character, writing from a close point of view and inviting readers into characters’ inner worlds. I strive for world-building that is rich but light, leaving space for the reader’s imagination. My work typically centers queer characters and bodies, polyamory, and unconventional communities and family structures. I grew up on monster-of-the-week narratives, but I’ve always been on the side of the monsters.
I came to gaming sideways–through fiction-writing and theater–so I didn’t discover the diverse and amazing world of indie TTRPGs until I was in my thirties. My Scryptid Games co-founders and I started our small press to create and platform more of the innovative, immersive story games that we were hungry to play. Our first release was Psychic Trash Detectives, a game played with actual garbage that I wrote about psychic animals solving mysteries and building community in a world of discarded beings and objects. I learned a ton about designing and running a Kickstarter campaign through that process, and I’ve been excited to contribute all that learning to New Year, New You.
What do you find speculative fiction and roleplaying games have in common? How are they different?
Like speculative fiction, roleplaying games offer immersive story experiences that can enable us to explore both the problems and possibilities of our world. My favorite games, like my favorite stories, center on compelling “what if” questions.
But roleplaying games are special because they are interactive. They do not allow for passive participation. The players are both reader and author, audience and actor, and the story they build together exists only in that moment, just for them. It can be refreshing to lean into storytelling that’s collaborative, playful, and ephemeral by design. Writing fiction makes me a better gamer, and playing games makes me a better writer.
I truly believe that some of the best stories ever told were created by groups of friends sitting together around a gaming table and sharing their snacks, laughter, and creativity.
If you stepped through a portal into an existing game world, who and where would you be?
At the moment, it already feels like I’m living almost every day in the world of Against the Gloom, a new roleplaying game by Dustin Patrick Winter that Scryptid Games is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. The worldbuilding in that game is one of its central joys. You play as a kind of punk pirate troubadour sailing across a vast and dangerous void—the Gloom—aboard a ramshackle ship propelled by the power of song. Together with the rest of your band, you use your sonic powers to push back the Gloom as it seeks to obliterate any pockets of community that dare to resist it. The game uses actual music and playlist-building as a central mechanic and is basically an ode to the joy and power of music, chosen family, and building community in the face of the void. Dustin has playfully described it as “Our Flag Means Death Metal” or “Oops, All Bards.”
The cover art for the game book was created by Gigi Wilder, a Japan-based illustrator with a passion for fantasy creatures, sprawling environments, and colorful, expressive characters, and her art makes it easy for me to imagine myself into the world of the game.
The last time I played, I stepped into the role of Truth, a singer who made a Faustian deal with the Gloom to alter her voice so she could perfectly mimic the sound and style of any performer but herself. I played in a whimsical, epic band called Neon Rococo (we even had a mood board!), and I can’t wait to reunite with my bandmates, Tripp or Treat, Calypso Moonchild, Sunshine Panic, and Luminessa Longbottom No Relation, when we return to our ship, the Fluffy Stern, to continue our adventure in a few weeks.
Publication Corner
From Anastasia Kirchoff, a lyrical, very short story about a questionably benevolent creature that emerges to answer humanity’s collective prayers. {“It Answered”—Dark Matter Mag}
From Melinda Smith, a short story examining the question, “What if our skin changed color with every emotion?” {“Skin”—Medium}
Story Tips!
Over the course of getting this anthology off the ground, we’re going through the process of not only writing the stories, but writing the marketing for them, too. The first thing that we needed (and some of us needed a little help on ✋🏽) was log lines.
What’s a log line? It’s usually a one-sentence summary of a story, book, or movie that tells you about the plot and central conflict, plus a “hook” to pique your interest.
Here’s a quick formula (courtesy of our publication team’s very own Alec J. Marsh) to help you write yours: LOCK
Lead—who is your main character?
Objective—what do they want?
Conflict—why can’t they have it?
Kicker—the twist, vibes, or curveballs to entice readers.
Check out a few examples from one of the stories in our collection:
- A chat assistant guides a client through order and checkout of her NuYou™ made-to-order body.
- One woman’s perfect doppelgänger offers her a chance to be better — sexier, wittier, more charming, to be always loved and never alone. All this better self requires in return is one small offering.
- A far-future time traveler secretly seeks therapy in the past, hoping for a cure for his depression and lack of connection from traveling in deep time.
We’ll be dropping more story teasers later in the month, so stay tuned for your sneak peek!
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
A Neuroscientist Did Our Cover Art 💅 Meet Melinda: Writer, Artist, and Neuroscientist
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 12:11:20 PM
We are still going strong with over 200 backers and $7,500! Because we can’t say it enough, thank you all for supporting this project. Let’s make it to $10K to get pro rates for the writers (who are currently frantically revising their stories)!
You’ve probably noticed our dope cover art by now. But did you know that it was designed by one of our multi-talented writers? Well, now you do. And it’s about time you met Melinda.
Meet the Cover Artist, Melinda Smith
Melinda has a PhD in neuroscience and works as a science writer, composing articles about medical research. She writes character-driven science fiction, and her first published novella, SUM (Ellipsis Imprints) was long-listed with the British SciFi Assoc for best short fiction. She also produces albums of spoken word poetry set to original electronic music (you can find her albums here.) Two of her spoken word pieces were finalists in the Deanna Tulley Multimedia Contest. When she’s not writing, she is doing art, playing guitar, composing electronic tunes, practicing karate, or driving her two daughters somewhere.
We’ve got a mini interview with Melinda to delve a little deeper into how she fits so much art in her brain.
Tell us a little about your artistic drive. How did you get started? (And what inspires you to keep going?)
When I was in grad school, I kept thinking about how amazing (and incredibly strange) the brain was: our sense of reality hinges completely upon a few pounds of fatty, squishy tissue? All my life, I thought being curious meant I was supposed to be a scientist. Turns out, writing teaches you just as much about the universe. Asking and answering questions about our characters, getting inside their heads, and learning how they’d react to fantasy, dystopia, or super advanced tech can teach you so much. Sometimes, I think it takes examining other worlds to better understand your own.
I think art helps me channel my curiosity about the universe, too. Creating (anything—music, art, writing, woodworking—anything) actually teaches you things. You can’t draw a face without studying it. And you can’t write a story without learning how humans interact, love, argue, process grief, overcome challenges, etc.
As far as inspiration to keep going—I have no choice. It’s not something I do; it’s something I am. When I’m too busy to write or do art, I miss it. I think, for me, creating is a form of therapy.
What was your inspiration behind the cover artwork?
Something about faces really draws me in, maybe because the face is the most intimate thing about a person, and yet it’s the first thing you see when you meet someone.
I always say that speculative fiction is really just empathy. It’s the ultimate way to immerse yourself in a totally foreign world, and to try to understand how people there feel. So that’s what I wanted to convey with the cover. Here’s this woman who is clearly not human, and yet we can relate to her. We can feel her. We can look into her eyes and imagine a whole backstory.
If you could be a cyborg, what's one upgrade you'd give yourself?
I’d give myself the ability to function without sleep. I mean, we waste a third of our lives sleeping. Imagine how much writing I could do in that time…
Publication Corner
We’re going multi-media this week.
From Brigitte Winter: A diceless tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) played with actual trash where you “Live fast. Eat trash. Solve mysteries.” {Psychic Trash Detectives} Brigitte is also the co-founder of Scryptid Games, a small press focused on making storytelling games for people who love books. Check out their latest project on Kickstarter: Against the Gloom, a TTRPG about pirate troubadours pushing back against a sentient gloom with the power of music.
From Chris Campbell: A podcast of his dark fantasy where sometimes the price of magic is higher than you can reckon. {Fatal Conditions—NIGHTLIGHT}
Don’t Forget!
You have exactly one more chance to get your face on a digital print from Melinda Smith! How many personalized pieces of art can you say were created by a neuroscientist, hm? Don’t regret missing the Blue Fire Jelly tier. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
Viable Paradise applications are officially open! If you or someone you know wants to apply to this incredible, week-long workshop, remember that our Lion’s Mane Jelly tier includes an application review from a member of the 2023 cohort. This would make a great gift for that writer in your life ♥️
That’s all for this week, friends. Thank you so much for coming along on this journey with us.
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
Meet the Lead Editor, Chris Campbell
about 1 year ago
– Wed, Feb 07, 2024 at 07:57:42 AM
Thanks again for funding this project in under 12 hours! With your help, we’ve also become a featured Kickstarter project, under their category of “Projects We Love”!
Now that this anthology is definitely happening, we are working to unlock our stretch goals. Thanks to you, we are more than halfway to our first goal! Once we get to $10,000, we will be able to pay all of our writers a professional rate. If you love this project and want to show our writers some love, please tell another sci fi/fantasy fan in your life to back this anthology. Help us share this book with people who will love it.
We are so excited to bring you this collection and we are already well underway beginning the editing process for our stories. Speaking of editing…
Meet the Lead Editor
If you haven’t heard of Chris Campbell, our Lead Editor, then you are missing out.
Chris Campbell is a writer who works across a broad spectrum of speculative fiction. His words have appeared or are forthcoming in Asimov's Magazine, FIYAH, the Nightlight Podcast, and more.
Most of his work fits within the Afrofuturist artistic movement. "I believe in recontextualizing the past as a space where Black people exist at the center of their own narratives and using my art to craft yet unimagined futures as part of the necessary work of bringing them into being."
Chris is one of the first readers of Apex Magazine and has been an instructor for Wildchild Artdoors and the Metro West Writing Guild. Sara Megibow of kt literary represents him.
Get to know Chris a little better with this mini interview!
Tell us a bit about your editorial experience and how you plan to bring that to New Year, New You.
Chris: The single experience that has shaped my approach to the editorial process the most is being part of the Apex Magazine crew since 2022. Lesley, Jason, and Maurice are all very generous with sharing their process and helping everyone on the team develop as part of putting the best magazine out issue after issue. I was also lucky enough to have a chance to work with DaVaun Sanders of FIYAH Magazine as the editor of my first professional short story sale. DaVaun is one of the most talented editors in Speculative Fiction, so the bar he set as an example was sky-high for me from the start. He showed me that the process is at its best when the editor comes from a place of internality with the piece. The focus is on bringing the writer's vision to the front rather than shaping a story to some preexisting aesthetic.
What are you most excited about for this anthology?
Chris: I came into this knowing how talented these writers are, so initially, that drew me to this project. Now that I've gotten a chance to read the anthology, what is exciting to me is all the bold, weird, and wild places everyone went with the New Year, New You theme. These are the types of stories that crawl into the back of your head and just stick there.
If you could clone yourself, would you? Why or why not?
Chris: Considering the stories in our anthology, I think the concept of what a clone is needs to be expanded on a little bit and perhaps include other forms of duplication. Would I make a straightforward genetic copy of myself to raise as a child? No, I wouldn't see the point of that. However, whether I would duplicate myself if the process resulted in a continuity of consciousness is a different question altogether. Some of the formative stories that have stuck with me since I was in middle school, and falling in love with Speculative Fiction were Butler's Wild Seed, Simmon's Hyperion Cantos, and Sheffield's Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Stories that explore the idea of living on, through one form or another, and watching history unfold. The chance of seeing how the story of humankind plays out would be too interesting to pass up.
Publication Corner
We’ve got a lot of talent in our group, and some of us have a few stories in the wild already.
Here’s a couple to get a taste of the quality of writing you can expect in our anthology:
From Trae Hawkins: A group of young teens born in a dystopian future fight to reclaim autonomy—even if it means rending their world apart with rebellious, magical rocks. {“Justice Rocks” – Augur Mag}
From Ash Howell: A heart-rending conversation between a sword and its wielder. {“Forte/Foible or At the Center of Percussion”— Baffling}
New Reward Tiers!
Thanks again for all of your amazing support. We’re now hoping to meet our stretch goals so we can pay the writers a professional rate, compensate the publishing and editorial staff, and publish a second anthology featuring even more stories from Viable Paradise alumni.
To achieve these big dreams, we’ve expanded our reward tiers to include two new reward options: For $200, you’ll get the anthology as a print and e-book, a limited print bookmark, your name in the book credits, AND New Year, New You writer and cover artist Melinda Smith will incorporate an image of you as an android into an original digital art piece inspired by the anthology cover! For $300, Melinda will send you the same personalized android art as a signed physical art piece.
Please share this Kickstarter with your circles to support a diverse group of sci-fi and fantasy writers breaking into the game.
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
You did it!
about 1 year ago
– Wed, Jan 31, 2024 at 07:31:55 PM
You did it!
Thanks to you, this little dream of ours–to publish an anthology of diverse and queer speculative fiction exploring themes of reinvention, transformation, and the self–will now be a reality.
We are so, so very grateful.
This campaign funded fully in less than twelve hours, exceeding our wildest expectations for this project. We will be publishing New Year, New You, and our writers will all be paid a modest fee for their creativity. Cybernetic implants and robotic appendages are expensive!
With your pledges, you’ve told us that you are hungry for stories like this, and we hear you. We are hungry to write stories like this.
Over the next 29 days, we’ll be raising funds toward even bigger android dreams. We want to pay all of our writers a professional rate. We want to pay our publishing and editorial staff $$ for their hard (and thus far, free) labor. And we’ll be fundraising toward our biggest dream of all: to publish a SECOND anthology featuring even more writing from Viable Paradise alumni.
To achieve these big dreams, we’ve expanded our reward tiers to include two new reward options. For $200, you’ll get the anthology as a print and e-book, a limited print bookmark, your name in the book credits, AND New Year, New You writer and cover artist Melinda Smith will incorporate an image of you as an android into an original digital art piece inspired by the anthology cover! For $300, Melinda will send you the same personalized android art as a signed physical art piece.
Act fast if you want to snag these new rewards to augment your reality. There are only three available at each tier.
Thank you, from the bottom of our fabricated hearts, for believing in this project. We can’t wait to share this book with you!
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
