Submission Rules for the

Freedom Anthology

​

Freedom is worth sacrificing for

 

 CALLING ALL WRITERS OF SHORT FICTION AND POETRY

 

THIS IS OUR LAST BLACK AND GOLD ANTHOLOGY

And potentially the end of our wide submissions so this could

be your last chance to be published in one of our anthologies

​​ 

Read to the bottom before submitting

​​

​

Anthology Publishes: July 4th, 2024

​​

Genre: Any (erotica/smut will not be accepted)

 

Reader Age Range: Around 18+ (Upper YA, NA, Adult). Appropriate for younger ages but geared for 18+ audience. 

​

Categories: Societal Freedom, Freedom for Family/Friends, and Personal Freedom

 

Payment: Accepted authors will receive a discount on the paperback only. No monetary payment. 

​

Length: Poetry can be any length under 3,000. Short stories/flash fiction between 200 and 3,000 words. We will only be accepting a total of 55,000 words for the whole anthology. 

*If you have a story over 3k, you can submit it, but the chances of getting accepted will plummet. But if it’s the best thing since sliced bread, we might accept it. 

​

Due Date: May 8th 2023, midnight in your own time zone

​

​

Tip! If you don’t grab us within the first paragraph, it's likely we won’t even read the rest.

We get a high volume of submissions so do everything you can to wow us right out of the gate.

 

 

Content Guidelines:

 

Theme— Freedom is worth sacrificing for. In a world bent on honoring safety over freedom, selfish "freedom" over selfless liberation, we wanted to do an anthology that depicts giving your life, figuratively or literally, in the pursuit of freedom. Whether that be freedom for society as a whole, for those you love, or for yourself. Each story/poem must somehow show that freedom is worth the sacrifice, whatever that sacrifice might be.

 

​Categories—

​

Society: Freedom for society. What sacrifices might someone (or a group of people) have to make to help free their society, culture, country, village, town, community from whatever is oppressing them? 

​

Family/Friends: Freedom for those close to you. What lengths would you be willing to go to to save people you love? Save them physically, mentally, or spiritually? What would you sacrifice to chase after a family member or friend? 

​

Personal: Freedom for yourself. Freedom from sin. From abuse. From mental health. From self doubt. From physical bondage. From mental bondage. This section is about the individual. Surrendering is the most beautiful form of freedom.

 

​​Submission Guidelines (MUST READ):

 

Not a requirement, but the most important thing to note: Please polish your entry as much as you can before submitting it. Get beta readers; have others read and critique it (who aren't Anne or Lara); get an editor if you can. If you don't love your entry, chances are, we won't either. Entries that require much developmental and major line editing are unlikely to be considered.

 

FAILURE TO FOLLOW THESE GUIDELINES WILL AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFY

YOUR ENTRY FROM ACCEPTANCE. NON-COMPLIANT ENTRIES WILL NOT BE READ.

 

• The title of your submission must go in the name of the document, with the name you want to publish under (your name). For example: Story Title-Author Name

• In the document, put only the title of your story, the category it falls under, genre, if it’s been previously published, and the word count. All five elements MUST be included. Do NOT put this in the document's header, so it shows up on every page. It should only appear once at the beginning of the document. 

• Times New Roman, Double Spaced, each new paragraph indented. (Poems don't need to be double spaced or indented.)

• See image for example. 

​

​

​

​​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

• You may submit with either Google Docs or Word. Submitting through another format will not be accepted. All accepted entries will be edited on Google Docs only as this is the best format to allow our authors and editors to collaborate. 

• All entries need to be submitted with EDITOR turned on. PDFs cannot be accepted. We need to have access to edit the actual document, so we can adjust formatting if needed for reading. Entries sent as "view only," "comment only," or "suggest only" will not be accepted. (We will not change anything in your document, other than potentially formatting.)

• Your entry needs to fit into one of the categories clearly. Entries that border on more than one category will not be accepted. 

• Middle-Grade stories will not be accepted. While all stories must be clean and appropriate for younger readers, only stories targeted at an older Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult readership will be accepted.

​​

Our definition of clean for this anthology: no sexual content. It may be implied, but do not show it on the page. Keep swearing minimal. (Minimal swearing is fine, especially if your character would swear, and we will address any swearing we think is too much in the editing process, so this won’t disqualify you.) Violence is fine as long as it’s not gratuitous or unnecessarily graphic.

​​​

You can enter as many submissions as you want. No limit. 

​

Stories/poems that have been previously published are fine to submit, although unpublished stories will be prioritized when deciding which stories get accepted. There will be a contract locking in your rights and our right to publish if you're accepted. Authors will retain full rights to their stories to publish again in the future.

​

Accepted pieces will be thoroughly edited before publishing. Twenty Hills Publishing will not publish your work until we believe it is fully edited and up to our standards. Authors who are unwilling to have their work fully edited will not be published.

​

Not all entries will be accepted, but send them all!!! We love reading your submissions, and we are so excited to see what you come up with.  

 

Acceptance letters will be sent out by August 31st, 2023 at the latest. ​If you don’t hear back from us, then you haven’t been accepted. We will not be sending out rejection letters, only acceptance letters. 

 

If you have any questions, please go back and read the guidelines again first. Chances are, the answer is here. If you still can’t find it, email any questions to twentyhillspublishing@gmail.com. Please do not contact us elsewhere to ask questions. Thank you.

 

​Thank you in advance for your stories and poems. It is you, the authors and poets, who make these anthologies possible and bring these projects to life!

​

Please email submissions to twentyhillspublishing@gmail.com, or hit the Submit button below.

 

Happy Writing!

 

-Anne J. Hill & Lara E. Madden