Update: submission deadline extended to May 14th as Jo & Roz are moving home.

Wizard’s Tower Press is delighted to announce open submissions for a new anthology, Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion 2: Rail, Sea and Sky.

The first Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion book has now sold over 800 copies in all formats and many of the original team have expressed an interest in doing a second book. We have put a core team together again, including editors Joanne Hall and Roz Clarke. However, not everyone from the first book wanted to participate so we have at least 3 spaces available for additional stories.

Airship 2, as the subtitle suggests, will have a theme of transport. Brunel’s original vision for Bristol was to be a transit interchange where rail passengers from London could transfer onto luxury liners to cross the Atlantic. Since his time, Bristol has become famous for aircraft manufacture. And because this is steampunk there is no reason why Bristol could not become a major spaceport with aetherflyers leaving for the British colonies on the Moon, Mars and Venus.

Adventure can come in many ways. Trains can be robbed by masked automata; ships can be menaced by a giant kraken; airships can be hijacked by foreign agents; and aetherflyers can be raided by Venusian pirates. As with Airship 1, we are hoping that contributors will take the opportunity to interrogate Victorian society and question the conservative values for which it has become notorious.

We are looking for stories of no more than 6,000 words in length. Stories must be steampunk, and should have a connection to Bristol and/or surrounding region. Payment will be £50 per story on publication and a share of any royalties.

Confirmed contributors for Airship 2 are: Ken Shinn, Ian Millsted, Pete Sutton, Scott Lewis, John Hawkes-Reed, Andy Bigwood, Roz Clarke, Deborah Walker, Piotr Świetlik, Jonathan L Howard, Stephen Blake & Cheryl Morgan.

In selecting stories, consideration will be given to the diversity of voices represented in the anthology. Preference may also be given to writers who have a connection to the Bristol area, but this is not essential.

Please send submissions to: airship2@wizardstowerpress.com.

Submissions will close at the end of May 14th (Bristol time).