Mentorship Opportunity for Writers, Story Bundle, Awards Update, AND a Submissions Call!

What? Another news post hot on the heels of the last one? YES! Buckle up, because I have lots of awesome stuff to share!

2024 SFWA Mentorship Applications Are Open!

I'm the Director of Matching for the SFWA Mentoring Initiative, and we're gearing up for the 2024 mentorship period RIGHT NOW! Have you ever wanted to share your experience with a newer writer? Or get advice from someone more experienced? Come apply to be a mentor and/or a mentee!

The SFWA Career Mentoring Program:

• Is open to mentee writers at any stage of their writing career, beginner to seasoned.
• Will last three months, from late March to late June of 2024.
• Is free to apply and participate in.
• Selects mentees via a lottery system, so any applicant might be picked!
• Is all virtual – No travel needed!
• Is NOT based on critique! Mentors share industry insights and career experiences, but they do not read mentee work.
• Is a great way to make a connection with another writer, whether you are a mentor or a mentee!

We are actively looking for both mentors and mentees right now, and I will personally be matching mentors and mentees in March! The application window for both closes on the 27th of February, so you have the next ten days to apply.

Full details and application forms here: https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/mentoring-initiative/

Check out the Twisted Folklore Histories Story Bundle!

StoryBundle is a really cool way to get curated collections of ebooks, and right now there's a great bundle curated by Mike Allen of Mythic Delirium Press!

With StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of four books in .epub format.

•         Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap
•         Blood Mountain by Brenda S. Tolian
•         The Twice-Drowned Saint by C. S. E. Cooney
•         The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff

 If you pay at least $20, you get all four of the regular books, plus eight more books for a total of 12! And one of them is Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas, which contains my story, "Xtabay" along with many other very cool stories and poems. I also translated one of the poems by Mexican writer Jimena Jurado, and it is SCARY! The other volumes in this bundle are really good, too! The single author collections are all by incredibly talented writers, and the other anthology, Black Cranes, has some amazingly powerful stories in it! Seriously, if you like things dark, mythic, and wondrous, do not miss out on this bundle!

•         A Feast of Sorrows by Angela Slatter
•         Dance on Saturday by Elwin Cotman
•         Chasing Whispers by Eugen Bacon
•         Black Cranes edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn
•         The Collected Enchantments by Theodora Goss
•         Like Smoke, Like Light by Yukimi Ogawa
•         Dark Breakers by C. S. E. Cooney
•         Shadow Atlas edited by Carina Bissett, Hillary Dodge and Joshua Viola

This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get a DRM-free .pdf for all books!

Awards Update!

When I wrote my last post, the Hugo Awards were temporarily closed to nominations. Now they have re-opened, so if you are a member of the 2024 Worldcon, or if you were a member of the 2023 Worldcon, you can nominate your favorite works by following the instructions here: https://glasgow2024.org/hugo-awards/hugo-awards-nomination/

If you love Worlds of Possibility, here is a handy guide on how to recognize it on the Hugo ballot, which is open until March 8th:

If you're a Worldcon member, you've probably been following the news about the Hugo Awards. I know I have! It seems like last year's ballot involved a lot of work being unfairly disqualified by the Hugo administrators in Canada and North America. Here's a detailed report on what happened by Chris Barkley and Jason Sanford. This is deeply upsetting and my heart goes out to all the 2023 finalists and winners, and also to all the people who were deemed ineligible. Perhaps, most especially, my heart goes out to all the Chinese fans who played no part in this at all, except for wanting to nominate their favorite works from 2022.

I don't know what the future of this award is going to look like in the long run, but I do know that for the moment, it seems like the Glasgow Worldcon is doing their best to run this year's award in a fair and transparent manner, so we should not see a repeat of last year. I don't know if the Chinese membership will want to nominate this year after everything, but if they do, I won't be surprised if many of the nominated works and people on this year's ballot are Chinese. If that's how it works out, I'll celebrate them! But in the meantime, I am going to nominate my faves, and I hope that if you are a Worldcon member, you'll nominate your faves, too!

And the Locus 2023 Poll is still open until April 15th! Here's the guide for where you can vote for Worlds of Possibility on that one:

Here's a list of all the stories that were first published in Worlds of Possibility in 2023:

• Morning Dew by Megan Baffoe
• A Refugee from Fairyland by Keyan Bowes
• Housecall by Christine Hanolsy
• Heartbeats by Annika Barranti Klein
• Man's Best Fiend by Caias Ward
• Inherited Shadows by Wen Wen Yang
• Night Mare by Susan Taitel
• Garage Ghost by Julia LaFond
• Please Mind the Poltergeist by Tehnuka
• We Carry What's Ours" by V. Astor Solomon
• Coalescence by Simo Srinivas
• Wheat Bread and Honeycomb by Marc A. Criley
• Shopping at the Soul Patch Consignment Store by Amanda Helms
• The Last Items of the Forgotten Hero, or, The Grandchild’s First Dragon by Guan Un
• The Ng Yut Queen (The 五 月 Queen) by Eliza Chan
• Flowers With Teeth by Jenn Reese
• Top Reviews of the Sweet Beauty Bakery, Home of Extraordinary Gender Reveal Cakes by Jo Miles
• Prep Luay by Jeané D. Ridges
• Cloud Zoo by Moriam E. Kuye
• The Migration of Birds through the City of Glass by Priya Chand
• Heirloom by Avra Margariti
• 6 Must Have Sentient Spellbooks (and How to Find Them) by Alexei Collier
• The Last Amanda by Lauren M. Roy
• How to Be a Ghost by Annika Barranti Klein
• Things Most Meaningful by P.A. Cornell

And finally... Worlds of Possibility is NOW OPEN to Fiction and Poetry submissions!

Please send me your uplifting science fiction and fantasy stories and poems! This window will remain open until the 23rd of March, so even if you don't have anything right now, you do have over a month to get something written!

Worlds of Possibility is a bimonthly ebook magazine of uplifting science fiction and fantasy. I am especially excited for works that leave the reader feeling hopeful, peaceful, or happy. Want examples of what I'm looking for? The December 2023 issue is free to read online here: https://www.juliarios.com/the-december-2023-issue-of-worlds-of-possibility/

I may accept a couple of pieces early in the period, but expect to do most of the acceptances after the period closes. I aim to send all my responses by the end of April.

What I want for the Spring 2024 reading period:

• Originals (not reprints)
• Poems of any length, stories up to 5,000 words (flash, drabbles, and other short short forms are welcome here!)
• Human made, no AI
• Ideally the pieces should leave the reader feeling hopeful, peaceful, or happy

What rights am I asking for?

• The right to display the work on my personal site, juliarios.com, on my Patreon, and in an ebook issue of Worlds of Possibility
• 6 months of exclusivity from the first date of publication (this will usually be from the date it appears in an ebook issue for my subscribers)
• The right to eventually (within 2 years) publish the work in an anthology of Worlds of Possibility works

What am I offering in exchange, and when?

• $50 for poems, $0.10 per word for fiction.
• To be paid once we have agreed on a final version of the work (after edits, but before publication)

 How many pieces can you send, and can you send your stories/poems to other places, too?

• Up to three pieces at a time – if you receive a rejection and the period is still open, you may submit more immediately
• Simultaneous submissions are fine – you can send things to me and to other people at the same time. Just make sure they're okay with that, too. If you get an acceptance from someone else, please withdraw that piece from Worlds of Possbility.

Submit your pieces here: https://worldsofpossibility.moksha.io/publication/1