Call For Submissions – Coffeeshop Erotica

Send me your stories!

Things I adore:

• coffeeshops
• speculative fiction
• sexy stories

Things I’ve never done:

• edited an anthology
• asked strangers to send me stories that sexualize caffeination stations

Putting these things together, I’m excited to edit an anthology of speculative coffeeshop erotica for Circlet Press.

If you want to write for it, check out the full Call for Submissions on Circlet’s site.

ETA: That website is down for the moment (12 Sep 2014), so I’m posting the info here.

Coffee: Hot
An anthology of café erotica
Edited by Victoria Pond

Deadline: September 15, 2014

When you visit a coffee shop, you use all your senses. You hear the whir of steaming milk, smell the hot roasting beans, feel the glazed ceramic mug, see the latte art, and taste the dark glory of your daily addiction.

In the 1600s, coffee shops inspired academics and philosophers (who worked faster and stayed sober longer). Now it is a place of writers, homework-doers, and first dates. One hardly blinks at an infatuation with Taylor, the latte boy.

This anthology gives you the chance to expose the excitement in the ‘mundane’ world of coffee. Maybe your local is run by a succubus, or Cupid has traded in his arrows for a smock (and that’s not nutmeg he’s grinding onto your foam). Perhaps that guy who has “been in the shop forever” actually has been (well, at least for the last 400 years), or there’s something ‘special’ going on in the first Starbucks on Mars. So long as your story is science fiction or fantasy erotica and a café is strongly featured, we want to see it.

All sexualities and gender expressions are welcomed.

This ebook anthology is being edited by Victoria Pond for Circlet Press. Victoria’s stories have appeared in numerous Circlet anthologies.

Submission details

Length: Preferred length for this book is approximately 3000 to 6000 words, but we will consider the range from 2000 to 8,000 words. Query if you have something outside those ranges that seems otherwise fitting.

How to Submit: All submissions must be made via email to Victoria Pond, editor, at the following email address: coffee.submissions@gmail.com

Submissions sent to other addresses/other editors at Circlet Press will not be considered. Standard manuscript formatting rules apply even though sending as an attachment (MS Word .doc or .rtf preferred). Please note that this means your name, address, and email contact must appear on the manuscript itself and not simply in your email message. (If you’re not sure what standard short story submission format should look like, Google is your friend.)

No simultaneous submissions (that is, don’t also send your story elsewhere at the same time, and don’t send it to multiple Circlet editors, either), and no multiple submissions to the same book. One story per author per anthology, thanks.

All stories must include explicit sexuality and erotic focus. Romantic content is welcome, but in a short story remember to keep the details on the action and its effects on the main character’s internal point of view. We favor a strong, singular narrative voice (no ‘head hopping’ or swapping between different character’s points of view within a scene). For more details on our editorial preferences, see the general submission guidelines on circlet.com. We highly recommend reading the guidelines, especially the “do not send” list, to increase your chances of sending us something we’ll love. Try to avoid cliches. Fresh and direct language is preferred to overly euphemistic. Sex-positive, please, no rape/nonconsensuality/necrophilia or other purposefully gross topics. We do not publish horror.

Originals only, no reprints. We purchase first rights for inclusion in the ebook anthology for $25, with the additional rights to a print edition later which would also be paid $25 if a print edition happens. Authors retain the rights to the individual stories; Circlet exercises rights to the anthology as a whole.