We are proud to announce that AFM will begin publishing e-Books and Anthologies in 2004!
Submissions are welcome!

We plan to begin the Empty Earth Publishing arm of AFM in late 2004 with TWO Novels and TWO original Anthologies.

NOVELS:

We are open to submissions of novels of any length. Please include a short synopsis, "pitch" or blurb, author's bio, and publishing history.

Novels must be in the post-apocalypse genre (please read our Submission Guidelines to get a better idea of our thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes of the genre), and must be submitted via email to sardonica@erols.com. There is no reading fee and selected authors will receive a professional e-Book contract and share of royalties.

What are we looking for? Well, post-apocalypse to be sure. But beyond that, we want something we haven't seen before. Something that redefines the PA genre and stands out from it as much as Ellison's A Boy And His Dog or the obscure Glen and Randa. We will always choose surreal, character-driven work over action or mindless violence. Think Logan's Run, Delcurla's The Man Who Sold Marionettes (published on this site), and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. The formula for successfully placing a novel with AFM/Empty Earth is the same as that betwixing formula for success in marriage: somethin old, something new, something borrowed, something blue . . .

Please query first. Include an introduction, publishing history, and a "pitch" or blurb--convince us that we should take the time to read your novel!

Upon acceptance, we will begin the negotiating/contract process with the author to determine rights, payments, royalties, etc. We will be accepting 2 novels for publication in late 2004.

ANTHOLOGIES:

In addition to the novels, AFM/Empty Earth will publish two Anthologies in 2004/early 2005. Writers are free to submit stories for either or both anthology, so long as the story meets the guidelines for that anthology.

Anthology 1 - "DREAMAGGEDDON"

"From the Minds of Babes" - The premise of the anthology: Stories will be set in a ravaged future world where, for some inexplicable reason, all the dreams of children aged 0-7 years manifest in reality.

This has been happening for nearly 15 years, and the fallout is terrifying:

--An older generation of zombie-like burnouts wander the suburbs, victims of various government plans to use drugs/mind control/brain surgery to subdue or remove the capability to dream in the first generation children when it first started happening...

--Once it became evident that these mental casualties were no answer to the problem, the world realized that the only solution was to drastically rewrite society and deal with the phenomenon. The world of the antho is one where the unformed dreams of newborns manifest as sky-ripping and earth-rendering surreal quakes and storms. The nightmare monsters of toddlers walk the earth as the dreaming children sleep... Parents of angry pre-adolescents find themselves horribly tortured or metamorphosed until their children wake... Infanticide is at an all-time high... Schools at night are filled with the wandering, naked manifestations of dreaming children searching for endlessly class... The space program caters to the rich and elite, offering them passage to worlds populated by impotent adults on child-free colonies (the world's "best kept secret" lest the children begin dreaming of the colonies)... Governments attempt to configue and control the dreams of children for use as weapons against their enemies... Bizarre family secrets are revealed in surreal detail by dreaming children... Cults and new religions develop... Crack government Profiling Team are on hand to instantly analyze the more dangerous dream manifestations for clues to the location of the sleeper... Parents and celebrities may find themselves murdered or dreamed out of existence one nght, only to be reincarnated the next...

The possibilities for storytelling are endless. Is it a paranormal event? A psychic alien invasion? A new step in evolution? Who knows...?

Writers are urged to ponder the deepest intricacies of what would be like in a world such as this. Stories can be intimate family tales or earthchanging events. Please query with ideas and story concepts, questions or comments.

Anthology 2 - "Into the Wastes"

This will be a collection of more "traditional" post-apocalypse stories. Set in an as yet undecided locale, all stories will take place in the same "world." Picture a barren post-apocalyptic desert community nestled on the edge of a vast unexplored Wasteland.

Most stories involve exploration into the Wastes, though some may focus on the community living alongside. Details of this world and its inhabitants will be added to these guidelines as they are developed, so check back often.