Guidelines

• Submissions: All stories should be submitted via our Google Submission Form as a .doc or .docx file (link below). We are seeking original fiction for this project, not reprints. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please withdraw immediately if your story is accepted elsewhere. No multiple submissions, but if you have a story rejected before the deadline you may submit again. (But note: the editors make no promises about how quickly submissions will be reviewed.)

• Word Count: Stories should be no more than 6,000 words long, but 4,000-5,000 is a good target. Flash fiction will happily be considered, but as the exception rather than the rule.

• Format: We don’t wish to create barriers to entry, so if you have a story in standard manuscript format you’re absolutely fine. However, the editors are fans of Modern Manuscript Format, Garamond, and italics as italics.

• Rates: Authors will be paid $0.08 /word for worldwide English language rights (including audio).

• Cover letters: None! Nada! Not required! There will be a box on the Submission Form where you can tell us any information that you think we really need to know about you (specific experience relevant to the story, awards noms, pro publications). However, we won’t read any of this until after your story, so don’t worry about selling yourself.

• Enquiries: Please contact us through our contact form if you have any questions or problems, but do not attempt any submissions this way.

• Responses: We are aiming to respond to all submissions by 31 July 2025. Please query if you have not heard back by then.

• AI-Assisted Writing: …can get in the bin. Off you pop.

• Anonymity: Equality of access is very important to us at Bona Books, so we’re trying something new with this anthology and will anonymise all submitted stories before they go to readers to help prevent any possible bias. You don’t have to do anything differently when you submit, but we wanted to let you know that this will be the process.

• Demographics and Diversity: For similar reasons, our Submission Form now includes a section with brief questions around sexuality, disability, ethnicity, etc. We have included this in order to hold ourselves to account; if we don’t know who’s submitting to us, we can’t assess how well (or badly) we’re doing with our outreach or editorial proccesses. The editors will only see this data in an anonymised form after the project has finished, and it will not be used to inform editorial decisions.

Notes on Stories

• Wrath is a complex emotion. It can burn hot like fire or cold like ice. It can encompass righteous anger or bloody vengeance. It can also go too far. The editors are open to the full spectrum of fury.

• Punk believes in non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, do-it-yourself ethics, anti-consumerism, anti-corporate greed, direct action, and not ‘selling out’ (https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Punk)

• Queerness embraces a full spectrum of identities and experiences.

• Whilst we love cyberpunk, and some of the anthology will certainly be cyberpunk, we encourage writers to think more broadly. Bring us secondary world fantasy, bring us urban horror, bring us space opera. This is the editors inviting stories we want to be in the universe, so there aren’t tonnes of direct comparisons already out there. Just as long as you’re WRATHFUL.

• Standard story structures are great, but this is a punk anthology - if you want to try and break something, go for it.

• We are particularly interested in submissions from trans, non-binary, or intersex writers; black, south asian, east asian, and other writers of colour; aro/ace writers; disabled writers; neurodiverse writers.

• We also love to see stories that feature more explicit bi representation.

• The editors have no interest in gratuitous sexual violence or unexamined prejudice. Great stories can grapple with these things, but if you’re using them as window-dressing, it’s not for us.

• If you’re in doubt whether your story fits, submit and let our editors take a look. Don’t self-reject!

Punk? What? Help!

The important bits for the anthology are: wrath, punk, and queerness, so this is not an assigned reading/viewing list. However, if you fancy some recs to help get you in the mood:

• Books: Hell Followed With Us (Andrew Joseph White), Chain-Gang All-Stars (Nana Kwame), The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (Margaret Killjoy), The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi), Tiny Pieces of Skull (Roz Kaveney), Vurt (Jeff Noon), the Brixton Novels (Martin Millar), Neuromancer (William Gibson).

• Bands: The Clash, Bikini Kill, Against Me!, Dog Park Dissidents, Pansy Division, The Slits.

• Movies: Jubilee (1978), Repo Man (1984), Brazil (1985), Blade Runner (1982), Akira (1988), Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Tank Girl (1995), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), The Matrix (1999), Fight Club (1999), Dredd (2012), or anything by John Waters.