Posted by The 2023 Sapiens Plurum Short Fiction Contest is now live and will run through June 15! There is no fee to enter. Prizes are $1000/$500/$300 for 1st/2nd/3rd-place winners. Here’s the writing prompt:
Theme: Building communities in the face of climate change.
“We invite stories that explore how we can use science and technology to build resilient communities in a rapidly changing world. We are most interested in the ways that science and technology can help us to ride out the coming storms, especially in communities already under stress. Let your imagination run free. We encourage submissions that explore the impacts of climate change in a very expansive sense. A changing climate puts the entire system at risk, creating compounding crises not only for human civilization but for the entire biosphere. So, we seek stories that explore how communities can evolve to survive and even flourish in a shifting background, not only with sea-level rise, warming temperatures, increased droughts, storms, and wildfires, but also from the by-products of climate change: the increased prevalence of pandemics; biodiversity loss; human and non-human migrations. We encourage stories that explore how we might creatively respond to these threats. Simply put, we are interested in your thoughts, expressed through fiction, around how science and technology can be used to promote positive change in a world where everything is at risk, and nothing is guaranteed.
Winning entries will need all the traditional aspects of good storytelling: strong plots, believable character development, fascinating worlds and interesting settings, all in a form that reflects the Sapiens Plurum Mission Statement. Finally, just a heads-up that upon choosing the winners, we might suggest some light copyediting before posting the stories.”
For more information, and instructions on how to submit your stories before June 15, check out the website: https://sapiensplurum.org.
Image: Better Tomorrow, Yuumeiart.
The Icarus Question 