Crowdfunding Links of the Week: Kaleidoscope (a Diverse YA Antho) & War Stories (a MilSF Antho)

If you haven’t backed these projects yet, you must do so right away.

First, my good friend Julia Rios and Twefth Planet Press ninja Alisa Krasnostein (also of Galactic Suburbia fame) are putting together an anthology of YA fantasy stories with diverse perspectives.  If you know me, I love me some diversity in SF/F, so I really want to see this project get funded.  It’s called Kaleidoscope, which is a pretty nifty name if you ask me.  There are only three days left (as of this posting), and several thousand bucks left to go, so please spread the word and throw down some cash!

Here’s what the Pozible page says about the project:

Kaleidoscope is an anthology of diverse contemporary YA fantasy & science fiction stories, which will be edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein, and published by Twelfth Planet Press. Too often popular culture and media defaults to a very narrow cross section of the world’s populace. We believe that people of all kinds want to see themselves reflected in stories. We also believe that readers actively enjoy reading stories about people who aren’t exactly like them. We want see more stories featuring people who don’t always get the spotlight, so we’re gathering a wonderful variety of:

• YA fantasy stories [Update: As of 10/23 we are also open to science fiction] 
• Set in the modern world 
• Featuring teen protagonists from diverse backgrounds 

The main characters in Kaleidoscope stories will be part of the QUILTBAG, neuro-diverse, disabled, from non-Western cultures, people of color, or in some other way not the typical straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied characters we see all over the place.

Oh, and submissions are currently OPEN!

Next is a new military science fiction anthology called War Stories, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak.  Based on who is currently billed for the anthology, I suspect this is going to be one heck of a project.  I mean, Joe Haldeman will contribute to this thing.  That’s enough for me.

Here’s what the Kickstarter page says about the project:

An anthology of Military SF, exploring how warfare might affect the soldiers and civilians of tomorrow.  

War has been speculated about in science fiction literature from the earliest days of the genre. From George Tomkyns Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking and H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds & War In the Air to Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers to Karin Traviss’s Wess’har Wars series and Dan Abnett’s Embedded, science fiction literature has long had something to say about war. Now, it’s time to tell some new stories. War Stories is an anthology that looks to the modern state and the future of war through the words of some of the best short fiction authors writing today.  

Our cover art is by the fantastic, Hugo Award winning artist Galen Dara, who’s worked for such places as Fireside Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, Geek Love and Apex’s own Glitter and Mayhem anthology. She’ll also be contributing some additional, interior artwork.
War Stories isn’t an anthology of bug hunts and unabashed jingoism. It’s a look at the people ordered into impossible situations, asked to do the unthinkable, and those unable to escape from hell. It’s stories of courage under fire, and about the difficulties in making decisions that we normally would never make. It’s about what happens when the shooting stops, and before any trigger is ever pulled.  

We’ve grown up reading stories from authors such as Robert Heinlein, Joe Haldeman, Orson Scott Card, Timothy Zahn, C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold and others that have laid the foundations for ‘military science fiction’ as a distinct genre.  

We want to tell some different stories. Science Fiction, and military science fiction in particular, is a good look at the world today, where military actions are certainly relevant. We aim to tell some new stories that look at the future of warfare, and the people, robots and aliens involved.

Submissions are also currently open for War Stories!

I’ve already backed both projects, but since I’m kind of poor, I couldn’t give much.  And that means you all need to get off your tooshes and back these things too.  If 10,000,000 of us give $5, then…well, I guess all the aforementioned editors would be millionaires, which would allow them to raise their pay rates to $1.37 a word.  That would be cool, no?