Some big news to share. I’m co-editing an anthology with fellow writer and Northern Ontario boy – Mat Del Papa. Mat first approached me last spring with the idea for this anthology and its taken some twists and turns since. We pitched it Latitude 46 Publishing and they were happy to partner with us to bring it to life. The call for submission was just put out January 24th and while I posted about it on all my social feeds (even the X/Twitter – shudder) I neglected to promote it on here. So let’s fix that!
If you click through to the Latitude 46 page for the submission call out all the details are there, but here’s the basics.
What We’re Looking For: Small-town Canadian Superheroes. Let me break that down a bit. Small-town doesn’t necessarily mean cities of a certain size. We’re looking for those isolated, out of the way places that don’t always make the news. The places that FEEL small because of their geography. Or are unique because of their geography. I grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, a border town, that has a population of around 75k but has always felt a lot smaller due to it being very isolated relative to say cities in Southern Ontario where you can hop a Go Train and go from somewhere like Barrie to Toronto in a couple of hours. Growing up in the Sault it felt like Sudbury (150k+ population), a 3 hour car ride to the East was a world away and don’t get me started about Thunder Bay (100k+ population) 7+ hour ride to the north-west. These were our nearest urban centers growing up. And even those two cities I would consider small-town Canada in this context.
So tell us what these places feel like. What does it mean to some one with super powers? Why are they still in small-town Canada? What keeps them there? Or what drew them there? How hard is it to keep your identity a secret when everyone knows everyone? Are their superpowers some how less than useful? Are their super powers related to where they come from?
The call out on the Latitude 46 site has more about what types of stories we’re looking for. Go read the whole thing.
Word Count: 500 – 3500 words
Payment: $200 flat rate for stories accepted for publication. And a complimentary copy of the anthology.
Deadline: April 21st, 2024
Publication: Fall 2025
We look forward to reading everyone’s submission and we hope we get a wide variety of submissions from places all across Canada. Please share the call out and encourage people to submit. We’re hoping to publish established as well as emerging and new writers from all across Canada.