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It’s down to the last few days of the Kaleidoscope Pozible campaign, for a book of contemporary YA fantasy (and a dash of science fiction) with diverse protagonists, edited by Alisa Krasnostein of Twelfth Planet Press, and Julia Rios of The Outer Alliance. They’ve raised nearly $8000 but have quite a few miles still to go if the project is going to fully fund.
There simply aren’t enough protagonists in YA fiction who are anything other than the straight, white, able default, and this is a book that aims to show how many different ways this can be achieved while still displaying great, crunchy speculative fiction (as opposed to an Issues Book that’s all about the Issues). As a pledge of the type of stuff they are looking for, they have accepted stories by Sofia Samatar, Vylar Kaftan, Jim C Hines, Ken Liu and Sean Williams).
This is an exciting and genuinely important book, and I really want it to happen. Not just because I’m writing a story for it right now, though I’ll admit that’s a teeny part of it… Most exciting for the writers out there, they opened to general submissions at the $7000 mark, so you can start writing *your* stories of teen diversity, magic and other hijinks right now!
Submission guidelines are HERE!
There are two ways you can support this project – first, by pledging at whatever financial level you feel comfortable with ($15 gets you an e-copy of the book, $45 a hard copy, plus a whole bunch of fun reward levels with lots of Twelfth Planet Press books up for grabs – but honestly even $5 would be appreciated) but second, by spreading the word across social media. One tweet could make all the difference.
On a personal note, Alisa is having her first baby at some point this week (in as much as these things can be planned), and it would be pretty awesome for her to enter that new stage of her life on a surge of happiness and support from the SF community. I think it’s extraordinary that she has dedicated this last month of her pregnancy to this particular project, because she believes in it so hard. She’s going to be one hell of a working mum!
Three days to go, let’s make this book happen!
Some links:
Tehani of Fablecroft on Supporting Diversity in Young Adult Fiction
Julia Rios on The Origins of a Diverse YA SF and Fantasy Anthology
Sofia Samatar on her Kaleidoscope story.
Fabio Fernandes on Diversity is The New Normal (Only It Isn’t)
Sherwood Smith & Rachel Manija Brown on Who Gets To Escape?
Jim C Hines on writing an autistic protagonist
Julia and Alisa discuss Kaleidoscope on the Outer Alliance Podcast (along with some great interviews with writers about their contributions to the book Suffered from the Night: Queering Bram Stoker’s Dracula).