When I was talking with Jeannie on the podcast, I had just barely gotten to the point of talking about my podcast’s audio fiction series when it was time to wrap things up. So here’s a bit more information, since submissions for the series will be open during January.
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast’s fiction series is buying short stories (up to 5000 words) with historic settings featuring queer female characters, and where any romantic or erotic relationships within the setting are between women. That’s a roundabout way of avoiding applying specific identity labels to the characters or implying that I’m only looking for romance stories. This is explained in a bit more convoluted detail in the full call for submissions
I’m looking for stories where the setting is solidly rooted in a specific historic time and place, but this year I’m also allowing (although not requiring) fantastic elements that are appropriate to that time and place. So I’m not looking for time-travel stories, or the adventures of immortal vampires, or fantasy beings that are not rooted within the historic setting of the story. But I will be interested in stories that are modeled on fantastic literatures of the past (e.g., medieval chivalric romances, 18th century fairy tales, ancient Greek heroic tales, and so forth) as long as they have the feel of a story that might have been told in the past. I’m also looking for plain ordinary historic stories.
I’m especially looking for stories that range outside of western culture and the last couple centuries, particularly from authors who are working within their own cultural heritage.
See the call for submissions for full details of pay rates and what rights we’re buying, as well as a longer discussion of the look-and-feel of what we’re interested in. And if you want an idea of what we’ve published in the past, check out the 2018 and 2019 stories.