Amazing Alternity

Thomas Deja, formerly of Fangoria magazine, is putting together an anthology for Pulpwork Press and has released the following author guidelines. I find the concept quite intriguing and hope to be able to place a story in the anthology. The ideas are already percolating...


AMAZING ALTERNITY STORIES is a new anthology from Pulpwork Press. It purports to be an average issue of the flagship title from pulp magazine publisher Alternity Publishing, and features a rotating series of what Publisher George H.W. Bush proudly calls 'The Greatest Action Heroes On Earth'... ....wait a minute....Publisher WHO? The trick is that Alternity Publishing is a magazine publisher from an alternate reality where many of our real life personages exist only as fictitious characters in the most lurid of popular fiction. In this reality, for example, Nikola Tesla could be a 'science spy' who uses advanced technology to save the world, Albert Einstein could be a Flash Gordon-like swashbuckler, and George Washington could be a maritime adventurer. (Note that the above are just examples; I'm not looking specifically for these concepts) What we are looking for is stories in the pulp tradition with an adventure component of 5-12K in length with a central character based on a real-life personage. We want a wide variety of pulp genres represented; if this book is successful we'll release future volumes that focus on specific genres. Fun should be the most important element in these tales--the oddity of seeing a real-life person in a different setting should be secondary to the excitement of reading a fast paced adventure tale.

Original concepts will net you extra points--we've seen H.G. Wells as a time traveler or H.P. Lovecraft as a psychic detective several times already, but Wells as a mercenary with a heart of gold or Lovecraft as the courageous major of The French Foreign Legion, however..... Keep in mind that while you should give us enough to make the real life person recognizable as that person, you don't have to hew 100% close to their bio; to expand upon one of the earlier example, it's sufficient that you mention that Major Lovecraft joined the Legion to forget his lost love Sarah and that he's from Providence; we don't need chapter and verse.

The important thing is to give us verve, give us style, give us true blood-and-thunder...in short, a real pulp fiction reading experience. Have fun writing the tale; if you're having fun, the reader will have fun. Keep in mind that, given that these are supposed to be 'genuine' pulp stories, you should refrain from profanity.

Because of the unique nature of the anthology, we will require authors to submit a story outline of two to three pages. This is to assure that we won't end up with two stories about different versions of the same real-life figure, and also to assure that we have as wide a variety of genres represented. Once we choose a good line-up, we'll give the authors picked the go-ahead to write up their tales.

Please send outlines to nywisdom@hotmail.com. Deadline for outlines is August 31st, 2009. Deadline for completed stories will be announced to chosen writers shortly after the deadline proper.

Good luck, and if you have any questions, contact me at the above e-mail!

Thomas Deja
Editor, AMAZING ALTERNITY STORIES