Submissions are open for Alternating Current’s themed anthology The Tertiary Lodgers until November 30, 2020.
The Tertiary Lodgers: An Anthology of Fiction from the First-Person Viewpoints of Secondary and Tertiary Classic and Contemporary-Classic Literary Characters
Final Deadline: November 30, 2020
It’s time to shake up the shelf of those old books you read in high school for this anthology of fiction from the first-person points-of-view of secondary, tertiary, or other random bit-part characters from classic and contemporary-classic public-domain literary works.
Fiction only, though it can be historical, contemporary, speculative, literary, hybrid, or you-just-made-it-up. No nonfiction or poetry.
All stories must be told from the FIRST-PERSON (only) points-of-view of secondary, tertiary, or other random bit-part characters from classic and contemporary-classic public-domain works.
We are not seeking work about the main protagonists or main antagonists; we’re seeking work told through the eyes of the butlers, maids, cousins, other-women, sisters, neighbors, pets, squires, and lawnboys, no matter how absurd, far-fetched, funny, realistic, sad, traumatic, simple, or complicated. Give us grand. Give us lore and legend, heartbreak and laughter. Make us think. Make us change how we feel about that story and its characters forever. Kudos for diversity and awareness of societal, class, racial, gender, and economic biases during the stories’ original time settings. Kudos for characters that do something; we aren’t as interested in staring at wallpaper or settling into the scenery for 20 pages, and we don’t want you to regurgitate the original source material or storyline in more than a breath or two. WE ARE SEEKING FICTIONAL CHARACTERS FROM LITERATURE, NOT JUST ANY RANDOM CLASSIC FIGURE.
Work must spring from classic or contemporary-classic public-domain fictional characters and ought to be somewhat recognizable (though not outright copied). For this anthology, we’re more interested in popular classics (Dickens, Austen, Melville, Hawthorne, Dumas) than we are in fairytales, folktales, and mythology. In the U.S., public domain works are any works first published prior to 1925.
Stories are read incognito. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME OR ANY IDENTIFYING MARKS INSIDE THE FILE, inc. headers, footers, cover pages, acknowledgments, and file names.
We are not seeking work aimed at children.
Must be at least 18 to submit.
All work must be in English and must be the author’s own. Single work by multiple authors considered.
No word-count limit, but a soft upper limit of 10,000 words is suggested, and preference may be given to shorter works.
Simultaneous submissions allowed and encouraged.
Previously published pieces considered. Don’t include acknowledgments in the file.
Submit via Submittable only. We do not accept email submissions.
There is no reading fee.
We close our free submissions when we reach our monthly Submittable submissions cap, so submit early in the month and don’t wait last-minute for the deadline.
We respond to every submission, in order. Form response only. We are regretfully unable to provide feedback.
You may submit as many pieces as you’d like, but please submit them all at once, in one single submission, and please only submit to free categories once per month, to give everyone a chance to submit before submissions are capped.
Final deadline is November 30, 2020. Acceptances and declines will be notified as they are read. Please refrain from asking for updates.
We have already accepted pieces from the following viewpoints, so we are no longer reading work from the viewpoints of: Merlin (Le Morte d’Arthur and Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight), The Miller’s Daughter’s Brother (Rumpelstiltskin), Lamb from Bo Peep’s Flock (Little Bo Peep), Cassandra (Agamemnon, Iphigenia at Aulis, and The Iliad), Hector of Troy (The Iliad), Nettie’s Baby (The House of Mirth), Horatio (Hamlet), The Mouse (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Portia (Julius Caesar), Mrs. Medlock (The Secret Garden), Mrs. Hosea Hussey (Moby Dick), Lenore (The Raven), Jess McCarty (One Summer Night), The Chief Clerk (The Metamorphosis), Guiderius (Cymbeline), The Yellow Wallpaper (The Yellow Wallpaper), Lord Henry Wotten (The Picture of Dorian Gray), Jacobin under Robespierre (A Tale of Two Cities). Please choose a different story or a different character!
We will accept approximately 30 pieces for this collection, depending on length. There is a $200 payment budget for the anthology, and all authors published in the collection receive an even division of that amount, after publication, in an opt-in system (which you will choose at payment time), along with a digital copy of the completed anthology in all formats, and an author-discount price for print versions (without obligation). We do not give out complimentary print editions.
