Submission Guidelines

[ Fiction | Artwork | Nonfiction | Reviews ]

We are currently reading for a themed "feminist science fiction" issue of The Future Fire. For more information see the March editorial for further details. Please follow the usual submission guidelines, and indicate in your cover letter that this is a submission for the Feminist SF special issue. Stories submitted to the general pile will be considered for the feminist themed issue, and stories submitted to the theme will also be considered for the intervening issues. This will in no way affect our selection criteria or standards: we shall still purchase only the best stories we receive.
Update: a word about deadlines—we shall be reading with an eye for the themed Feminist SF issue until the end of 2009. However, there will never come a time when Feminist Science Fiction or fantasy is not welcome at TFF.

Fiction

If you are thinking of submitting a piece of writing for consideration by The Future Fire, please read some back issues and our manifesto to get a feel for the sort of science fiction we are looking for. When submitting, read the following guidelines carefully:

1. We are reasonably flexible with regard to format and length, but are extremely unlikely to buy any story over 10 000 words. (We may occasionally buy longer stories, up to 20 000 words, to be serialised; this will not happen more than once a year and obviously only with stories of "better than excellent" value and quality. We must in any case have the whole story before we make any decision.)
2. Please send your story to the fiction editor () as an attachment. We prefer .DOC, .RTF, .ODT, or .TXT files (query first for any other format). Please use a common, easy-to-read font such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier, and use no other formatting than italics. For any more sophisticated media (e.g. graphical, multimedia, or hypertext fiction) please query first.
3. Use the email subject line: TFF submission: Surname, 'Title'.
4. Please only submit one story at a time, and do not send work that is under consideration elsewhere; let us know in plenty of time if you plan to withdraw and offer a story elsewhere. A story that is withdrawn once illustrations have been commissioned will profoundly annoy both editors and artists.
5. We prefer to publish original material. We do not pay for reprints. Previously published stories are not verboten, but you must let us know if a story has appeared elsewhere when you submit. We are more likely to reprint a story if its previous appearance was in a venue not readily accessible to our main audience, either because of medium, date, genre, or other factors.
6. A decision is usually made within six weeks but sometimes life gets in the way of efficiency, for which we apologise. Please help to keep us honest by reporting our response times to Duotrope's Digest. Important: emails sometimes do go astray, so please query if you feel we are taking an unreasonable time to get back to you.
7. The Future Fire is offering payment of $20 for each original story accepted (to be paid via Paypal on appearance). We know that this is a nominal fee, but this is an entirely free and non-profit-making publication. The main reward is still seeing your work printed in the pages of this peer-reviewed publication.
8. Upon acceptance of a story, we shall ask authors to agree to this electronic contract: "You [legal name] of [address] grant us, The Future Fire, the non-exclusive right to publish your work [title] by [name byline or pseudonym] on the pages of our website and in the free PDF issue; all other rights to this work belong to you. You guarantee that this work is your own and that you have the right to grant us the use of it, and that the work contains nothing that breaks copyright or other laws. Any actions breaking such laws, including but not limited to plagiarism, intellectual property theft, and defamation, will be your sole responsibility. We will print a copyright notice in your name, but we will not register the work with any copyright office on your behalf. You may modify or reprint the work anywhere in the world, but we would ask as a courtesy that you wait three months after publication and credit us for first appearance." (For the contract we shall need your legal name and mailing address, even if you wish your work to be published under a pseudonym. We will never share this information with anyone else.)

It is the intention of The Future Fire to keep a indefinite archive of stories published in HTML; if an author has a pressing (e.g. legal) need to have a story removed, however, we shall of course help them to comply. We may not be able to remove the story from the copy of the PDF issue that is deposited with national libraries, archived by the Internet Archive, and other places outside of our control (just as a paper periodical archived in a national library would remain available permanently).

Artwork

All illustrations for stories are commissioned. If you would be interested in joining the TFF artist team please email the fiction editor (; subject line: TFF artist query) stating your interest and be prepared to show some examples of your work--an online portfolio or demonstration site would be ideal.

We generally ask for two illustrations per story, one for the top of the page (which should avoid spoilers) and one with less restrictions; each artist will be paid a total of $10. In addition, one illustration per issue may be chosen to adorn the front cover of the PDF version of the magazine, and this artist will be paid a further $10 (for a total of $20).

All artwork remains the copyright and property of the individual artists.

Nonfiction articles

The Future Fire also intends regularly to publish nonfiction items on topics of general interest to the audience of this magazine. We expect such articles to be informed and well-researched; we will attempt to have all articles refereed by experts in the relevant fields.

Topics may include:

• Popular science pieces, especially on cybernetics, AI, nanotech, posthumanism, etc.;
• Articles that discuss ethical or environmental implications of new technologies or practices;
• Scholarly papers, especially on literary/media studies, science fiction, genre issues, etc.

For all nonfiction please contact the nonfiction editor () to query before sending your writing (subject line: "TFF query: article"). Articles should be fully edited and referenced, and may be refereed before acceptance.

Reviews

To offer a review or to join the reviews team please contact the nonfiction editor () to query before sending your writing (subject line: "TFF query: review"). Reviews should be critical and balanced; very few works are all bad or all good. Show that you have read/watched the piece sensitively and carefully. A review should cover some or all of the following points:

• general background and outline (avoiding spoilers), possibly including relevant information about the author/publisher/production team, their reputation and history
• detailed critique of issues of interest to TFF and the speculative fiction community, for example: academic background; intertextuality; political position, assumptions, or message; science and technology; social conscience, environmentalism, feminism, cosmopolitanism, etc.
• quality judgements, perhaps including comments on realism, standard of writing/presentation/composition, sympathy for characters or situation, overall success of piece

It is important that a review avoid:

• spoilers—already mentioned above, but particularly important for reviews of recent works
• ad hominem attacks, or criticism of a work for being in a genre not to your taste, or for not being what you would have written on the subject
• hyperbole, gushing either in praise or criticism, unprofessional tone or language