Sub Op

Solarpunk Press has an open call for short fiction submissions: "Word count: 2,000 to 5,000 words; will consider shorter or longer, but they'll be a harder sell. Pay rate: 0.03 USD per word. (Word count will be determined using Google docs and rounded up to the nearest hundred.) Genre: Near-future SF (Solarpunk) What we're looking for: "Solarpunk" means different things for a lot of different people in the community, but on here, for the most part, we mean near-future science fiction that deals seriously with environmental crises, systematic oppression, global imperialism and other issues in dire need of solutions. These issues are complex, and we're interested in stories that treat them with appropriate complexity. Check out the Wikipedia page on wicked problems for an idea of what we mean. Vitally, we want stories that are optimistic about these problems. They don't have to be all solved as of the story's present-day; they probably shouldn't be; but we don't want to publish stories that portray hope and effort as absurd or pointless endeavors. We don't want "Resistance is futile" or "It's all downhill from here." We're fans of Kafkaesque fiction but it's going to be an extremely hard sell here. That said, if you've got a story that feels to you like it's solarpunk in its values and attitude, but that's urban fantasy or historical fiction or far-future hard SF or space opera or anything else, go ahead and send it. We are open to the possibility of being blown away, and we don't want to limit ourselves to an overly preconceived narrative structure." Query on reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: I'm not seeing one, but Ralan.com has them listed as "Open to Submissions: August 27th, 2015."