OUTSHINE is A Twitterzine for optimistic, near future prose poems. They’re flash length, and look ahead: why not call them flashforwards?

What I’m looking for: prose poems of optimistic, near future SF that fit within the ‘tweet’ limits (check out Twitter); i.e. maximum 140 characters long.

prose poem: what the heck is that? Well, anything you think it is. Write what you believe fits the bill and let the editor sort it out. Don’t limit yourself and feel free to push the boundaries, like, e.g.:

--> Haiku –- written like this: Maybe a haiku/there in the twitterverse/would appear like this;

--> Prose rife with poetic elements both formal — such as rhyme, alliteration (which is easy to overdo!) and meter — and thematic such as syntax, tone and reference (images, symbols & metaphors);

--> Imbue it with a certain rhythm and a unique voice;

--> I’ll look at actual poetry, too (the boundary will be blurry, anyway);

optimistic: anything with an (eventual) positive attitude or upbeat tone;

near future: from next year up to about fifty years later;

SF: ditto as in prose poem: write what you believe fits the bill and let the editor sort it out;

One submission per person per week: I’ll be publishing one prose poem per week, and will be checking the submissions once a week. Don’t feel limited: this means you can submit up to 52 prose poems a year. I prefer people submitting their best rather than people submitting at will then hoping something will stick.

Submit by email to shineanthology@gmail.com , in the body of the email (and yes: anything longer than 140 characters will be rejected: this is, after all, for Twitter);

Payment: 5 dollars per prose poem, payable through PayPal (don’t have a PayPal account? Either get one, or don’t submit), on publication.

Accepted prose poems will be published once a week on Wednesday on Twitter, here: OUTSHINE!

Bio: a biography with author name will follow the published prose poem almost immediately. Bio must be shorter than 136 characters (as bio- will precede the actual biography). Hint: use a tinyurl to link to your website/blog/LJ or to your FaceBook/MySpace/Twitter account.

UPDATE 2: I have received a question about the rights @outshine is asking. Well, so far, none: I accepted tweets from submitters, published them on Twitter, and republished them on both the Shine and DayBreak Magazine websites. Otherwise, submitters are -- as far as I'm concerned -- free to republish their tweets (OK: 'prose poems') anywhere, anytime, and the rights revert to them rightaway. Why? Well, the moment someone likes a particular message on Twitter, it is 'retweeted' -- a tweet starting with 'RT @ XXX', where XXX is the source. It is *the* common practice on Twitter, and as a Twitterzine publisher I can either state that people are not allowed to retweet @outshine's prose poems -- which obviously won't work and is also counterproductive -- or just let Twitter be Twitter.

Therefore I never asked for rights, or sent out an actual contract. Sorry about that, but even as the highest paying Twitter market -- to the best of my knowledge, and do absolutely feel free to point me to a market that pays more than $5 a tweet: I'd be tempted to submit, myself -- I simply don't feel the need to put up a contract, define rights, and go through all the paperwork: even $5 a tweet isn't worth my time on that.

But after almost a year I did get the question, so here's my answer: I want *exclusive* Twitter rights for 6 weeks -- hey, gotta drive a hard bargain -- or the first retweet, whichever comes first (obviously, if you retweet your own submission, you've just liberated your own tweet, congratulations: it never happened before...;-). Otherwise, I want the *non-exclusive* rights to reprint your tweet at both the Shine website and the DayBreak Magazine website -- things I've been doing for over six months already, sorry about that, but I just assume you want your pieces to be read as widely as possible, and assuming the average word is 6 characters, then including spaces [which Twitter does], I'm paying about 25 cents a word, which is in line with the top paying online markets like Tor.com and Subterranean Press. Only difference is that I am open to unsollicited submissions...;-).

SHINE is an anthology of optimistic near-future SF, edited by Jetse de Vries, published by Solaris Books, and is planned for an early 2010 release.

Keywords:

Convincing and optimistic: Imagine that we are the biggest skeptics on the planet, then show us how things can change for the better, and persuade us.

Near-future: from now until 50 years later.

SF: we're not going to define it. Write what you think is SF, and convince us with the story.

The Gritty:

Length: up to 10k words (not hard, but anything longer than 10k should be mind-blowingly superb).

Payment: 5 cents a word, on publication (and probably a pro rata share of the anthologist's earnings: I'm working on that).

Genres: science fiction only. I greatly prefer original stories, but I will -- like Baen's Universe -- look at stories that have been published in markets that are not professional by SFWA standards, or markets with a relatively small reach. I also consider Interzone, Black Static, Postscripts, Futurismic, Apex Digest and Flurb to be either professional markets or markets with a wide reach (or both), so don't want to see stories published by them, either.

Rights: First World English Rights, non-exclusive world anthology rights, non-exclusive audio anthology rights, and further subsidiary rights specified in my boilerplate [author-anthologist contract], which I'll put up after I return from World Fantasy. NOTE: obviously, for eventual reprints the first world rights will become anthology rights, first if possible.

Reading Period: May, June and July 2009. (UPDATE: reading period extended until August 1)

Response Time: Most rejections will be sent out quickly, while I will hold over stories that I like until July 31, when a final decision is made. No multiple submissions, please: only one story per author, and only submit a second one if I expressly ask for it. Simultaneous submissions: at your own discretion, but keep in mind that I will not fight over a story, that is, if it's with another publisher I will drop it like a ton of bricks.

Submissions Instructions: send your story, preferably single-spaced and in rich text format (RTF) to shineanthology@gmail.com. Put Submission: "Title of your story" in the email's subject line.

Submission tips: Things to keep in mind when writing a story for Shine & An update on the Shine submissions, part 1.