Triangulation: Taking Flight is the latest edition of the Triangulation print anthology series. (Last year we went the POD route with Lulu.com, complete with option of letting the buyer download the PDF for cheap instead, and were quite pleased with the results. We'll almost certainly go through Lulu.com again this year, so if the whole POD thing squicks you out, you probably don't want to submit to us.) We're looking for short speculative fiction that fits our theme.
As with last year, we define "short" as "up to about 5,000 words or so." We have no reason to impose hard and fast arbitrary word limits, but we are interested in publishing a wide variety of stories. So the more space a story will take, the more it will need to impress us. If you have a kick-ass story that exceeds 5K then by all means send it; but be warned that if you're closer to 10,000 words, your story will need to lay-down a Chuck-Norris-grade ass-kicking on the editorial staff to make it in.
There is no minimum word count. We dig flash.
As with last year, we have no interest in getting more specific about the term "speculative fiction." Science fiction, horror, fantasy, alternate history, whatever; if there's a speculative element vital to your story, we'll gladly give it a read.
And as with last year, we welcome creative interpretations of our theme. This year, the theme is "Taking Flight." What's that mean? Come up with your own answer, and give us a story that convinces us you're right.
We will run mature content, as long as we like the story. So make sure there's an actual story in that mature content.
We will gladly consider reprints. (If the story ran someplace obscure, then chances are it will be new to almost all our readers; and if it ran someplace high-profile, then chances are it's really good. Either way, we win!) We're still not interested in fanfic.
Submission deadline is March 31, 2008. All electronic submits must be sent by that time, all snail mail submits must be postmarked by that date.
Many markets will advise you to buy a back-issue to get the best idea of what the editor is looking for. This is my second stint as the anthology's editor, so buying a copy of last year's edition might indeed be helpful that way.
But the truth is, these guidelines contain everything you need to know in order to get your story accepted. (If they didn't, they'd be some suck-ass guidelines, wouldn't they.) Don't buy "End of Time" to get some insight into submitting a story to me; buy it because you like good fiction. Here's what it would probably tell you about how to sell a story to me:
We pay two cents per word on acceptance (rounded to the nearest 100 words, $10 minimum payment) and a single contributor's copy. Contributors will also have the option of purchasing additional copies of the anthology at cost, exact price TBD.
We prefer electronic submissions as they make our lives easier. Please send your story to editor@parsecink.org. Please put your subject line in the format of "SUBMISSION: Story Title" so that our software knows you're not spam.
We'll consider stories in the following formats:
Please use standard manuscript format. There's disagreement on some of the finer details of the "standard" -- we're cool with that. We're not testing you to see if you can follow each and every niggling detail, we just want a manuscript that looks professional.
If you absolutely positively can't use email, please send the manuscript (with either a SASE or a return email address) to:
Triangulation 2008
134 Orchard Dr.
Penn Hills, PA 15235
No hand-written manuscripts. We gotta draw the line somewhere.
Please, no multiple submissions (sending us multiple stories at once) or simultaneous submissions (sending the story to us and other markets at the same time). We'll get back to you promptly, we promise.
Expect to hear back from us within a month. Feel free to start sending us nagging emails if you haven't heard from us after two months.
Triangulation is an annual anthology produced by PARSEC Ink, the publishing wing of the PARSEC science-fiction association in Pittsburgh, PA. Yes, PARSEC used to be an acronym for something. Now, it isn't.
A new edition of Triangulation has been published every year since 2003 (save for a brief hiatus in 2006).
Triangulation shares an informal relationship with the annual Confluence short story contest, and has in the past published stories that placed well in it. Authors who do well in the contest may be offered publication in Triangulation solely at the discretion of Triangulation's editors. However, contest entrants are encouraged to also submit their work separately to the anthology. The contest stories are accepted on an "all-or-nothing" basis; either we like the story well enough to run it with no more than minor edits, or we pass. When we find a "near miss" in the slushpile, we do try to give the author an opportunity to correct the problem and try again; stories read only as contest entries will get no such consideration.
Thank you for considering Triangulation: Taking Flight as a market for your work; we look forward to reading it.
-- Pete Butler, Editor, Triangulation: Taking Flight