ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction

ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction

ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction

Violet Lichen, an imprint of Apex Book Company, is proud to announce the launch of a new annual anthology, ECO: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction, edited by Marissa van Uden. This anthology showcases some of the most vivid, thought-provoking, and emotionally affecting ecofiction published in the previous calendar year.

Speculative ecofiction is defined as stories that explore our place in the natural world and our relationships to non-human life (e.g. focused on themes related to ecology, nature, the environment, climate, conservation, wildlife and animal rights) and that also fall into speculative genres, such as science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, anthropomorphic fantasy, Weird horror and New Weird.

Ecofiction engages with some of the most urgent issues facing us today and also looks ahead to the possibilities of the future. Even when dealing with dark or tragic themes, these stories are expressions of our human connection to the most beautiful planet we know, and to all of earthlife.

Marissa van Uden, EiC of Violet Lichen Books, is a lifelong nature lover who grew up in New Zealand and now lives in a cabin in the woods of Vermont. She is a writer, anthologist, and freelance editor with more than fifteen years experience in publishing. Her anthologies include Apex Magazine’s Strange Microfiction series (Strange Libations, Strange Machines, and Strange Locations) and The Off-Season: An Anthology of Coastal New Weird (2024). Her fiction has appeared in Vastarian, Dark Matter Magazine, Zero Dark Thirty, and Los Suelos. She is also an associate editor and the staff interviewer for Apex Magazine.

Link to submissions page: https://apexbookcompany.moksha.io/publication/8/guidelines

Editors and Publishers are encouraged to send their best works of eco-fiction published in 2024. If not all of the stories in a magazine or anthology are eligible, please indicate which stories you are nominating.

Authors: You may nominate you own works, but please check with your publisher first to avoid duplicates.

Eligibility Criteria:

  1. The story must be ecofiction; e.g., the plot or main themes but be focused on ecology, climate, the environment, conservation, the natural world, our relationship to animals and other non-human life, and related issues. A climate-crisis setting alone is not enough to qualify.
  2. The story must contain speculative elements; e.g. it should be eco-science fiction, eco-fantasy, futuristic or secondary-world climate fiction, ecological Weird, ecological magical realism, or any other blend of speculative fiction.
  3. The original publication date must be between January 1 and December 31 of the eligibility year. If it’s a translation, the eligibility year is the English publication date.
  4. Stories must be complete (no excerpts) and between 1,000 and 6,000 words
  5. The story must have been published in an anthology, collection, journal, or magazine (online or print) by an editor or publisher that is not the author. Self-published works are not eligible.
  6. Stories published in Apex Magazine or Apex Book Company anthologies are eligible for nomination.
  7. Stories authored by the paid staff of Apex Magazine, Apex Book Company, and Violet Lichen are not eligible for nomination.

Submission guidelines

  • Nominations for 2024 calendar year open: January 27, 2025
  • Nominations for 2024 calendar year close: February 28, 2025
  • Word Count: 1,000 – 6,000
  • Rights: non-exclusive World anthology rights in English
  • Simultaneous submissions: yes
  • Multiple submissions: yes
  • Self-published: no
  • Translations: yes, if the English version was first published in the eligible calendar year. Please include the translator’s name and email address in your cover letter.
  • Cover letter: Please include the publisher, publication date, and whether you are a publisher or the author.
  • Responses: Unfortunately, we will not be sending individual rejections. Authors of the final selected works will be notified once all nominations have been considered.
  • Formats:
    • DIGITAL: As EPUB or .DOC or .DOCX or RTF using Standard Manuscript Format (Modern or Classic). Inclusion of your mailing address and phone number is not required.
    • PRINT: Send physical copies to

      Marissa van Uden / Violet Lichen
      PO Box 146
      Eden, VT 05652
      USA

  • We welcome and encourage submissions from writers of all races, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, and military status. We want and value diverse voices. Saying that, please be aware that we do not collect any information that might clue our editors to any of these attributes other than your name, email, and cover letter before any decisions are made regarding your submission.

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Submission guidelines and opening dates for ECO25 (stories published in 2025) will be announced soon.

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