Call for writers
Manufactured Ecosystems is a trans-disciplinary international project that explores the potential for nature-based knowledge, techno-knowledge, and imagined knowledge to forecast the future of climate adaptation. As part of our project, we're developing a future-based science fiction anthology, co-edited by Nebula award-winning author and scientist Premee Mohamed and sci-fi editor and writer, Heather Clitheroe. This project will pair authors with scientists to create biomimicry-inspired stories that will explore and forecast the future of climate adaptation technologies.
What does this mean? Think microdrones to augment pollinators, air and water filtration systems on space stations inspired by coral reefs, and synthetic root systems to stabilize slopes weakened by erosion.
Over the summer of 2024, six writers will be recruited to work with scientists, artists, and futurists to learn about ecosystems services and biomimicry. You'll take part in two online workshops (tentatively June and August, 2024 with scheduling support to ensure everyone’s availability) and have access to experts throughout the summer as you work to produce original fiction (2500-6000 words) that will be published in an online and print anthology in early 2025. You'll be compensated for your time in the workshop as well as for your fiction. The works will be published under the name (or pen name) of the writers who wrote the story.
We're looking to feature writers identifying as being from Canada/Turtle Island. This includes expats, refugees and displaced people living in Canada, new immigrants, and people who refuse/resist Canadian Identity. Applicants from other countries will also be considered.
Selected writers will identify one ecosystem service as their subject and will explore the technologies associated with achieving life-sustaining functions. The selected ecosystem services identified for this project are:
1) Biodiversity: a diverse reservoir of strategies and information
2) Pollination: a distribution system for the purpose of plant reproduction
3) Cultural Services and Human Experience: the components of the human species derived from emersion in the natural world
4) Soil formation: the creation of new soil
5) Photosynthesis: the creation of sugars from sunlight
6) Climate regulation: the stabilizing of climatic conditions
Applicants will be asked to rank their preferences in the application form (see link to form below).
Manufactured Ecosystems welcomes submissions from writers of all identities (e.g. racialized, Indigenous, disabled, LGBTQ, neurodivergent). If you are comfortable, we encourage writers to indicate their intersections in their cover letters. Disclosure is not a requirement to submit, and we recognize that not all people are safe to disclose their identities.
Our goal for the anthology is to publish at least 75% Canadian content. All submissions for this project must be in English.
To apply, please submit a writing sample of 2500-4000 words. Works can be published or unpublished and should be fiction or creative non-fiction that reflects your current writing interests. Please provide a brief statement indicating your interest in the project, prior publications, and relevant technical, creative, or lived experience.
We are not interested in stories for which the ‘traditional elements of authorship,’ were performed by AI or machine-learning tools. Spell-check, grammar-check, and AI-generated prompts that you then wrote your story from are acceptable, but we are not interested in any story where AI tools or text generators wrote or drafted any portion of the text. We consider authors who represent work as their own which is, in fact, machine-generated, whether whole or in part, to be plagiarism, and grounds for being permanently banned from this project. In short, DO NOT submit AI-generated works.
Apply by April 1, 2024 with the following:
Author statement: 250 words maximum, (one (1) page, size 12 font),
Résumé/CV (one (1) page, size 12 font);
Author portfolio: a writing sample (suggested length: 2,500 - 4,000 words)
Remuneration: participation in online workshops (2 x $250), $2,500 for each work of approximately 4,000 words.
Responses should go out by May 15, 2024.
Any questions should be directed to Heather Clitheroe (co-Editor) at heather.c@gmail.com