I randomly had the idea on Discord this morning and @Joe was in the chat, so we got to talking about possibly doing this. DLP Anthologies are one part of what puts DLP above other writing forums. "Look, our writers actually published something good."

There have been four anthologies published so far, with the following themes:
1) Unbowed, Unbroken, Unrelenting (anti-hero)
2) Mysterious, Monstrous, Metropolitan (urban fantasy)
3) Love, Loss, Longing (romance)
4) Of Wars and Wizards (fantasy)

A fifth anthology project, with a sci-fi theme, was never published.

It's been a few years since then, we've got some new members, we've matured in different ways, our writers only got better. So how about it, DLP? A new anthology to celebrate DLP's Big 15 and once again assert our collective dominance?

Discus and vote. Poll will be open for one month, and you can change your votes, but please don't vote without thinking. You have 2 votes to cast among 7 options.

Thanks to @Mordecai and @Paradise for helping come up with poll options.

Everyone is welcome to join the discussion. Even if you don't intend to write, anthologies' main audience is DLP anyway, so vote for what you'd like to read, not just write. The poll doesn't set anything in stone. If you want to partcipate but not write, we'll need editors and beta readers if this takes off.

 

As I said in discord, I'm happy to help out with the editing side of things again.

 

Now that I'm out of the OP--personally leaning towards High Fantasy or Underworld/Fairytale. I'd like to submit something, but regardless of what gets picked (in the event we bring this to fruition), I'm up for editing.

 

I'd like to try my hand at submitting for a change since I've put more effort into OF. Urban Fantasy or Underworld/Fairytale would be the ones that would suit best but hey, I'm down to try anything.

This is a great idea, it's been too long.

 

It's been the best part of five years, if you can believe it. Who knew those days would be simpler times, eh?

I'm happy to help/lead the revival here - lessons learned from last time, I think the biggest one would be to maybe limit the anthologies to one or two a year, perhaps a holiday release so writers and members can gift copies to one another and their friends/families.

I say this for two reasons:

• Back-to-back anthologies led to burn out among writers and editors
• I want this to complement and not compete with the excellent DLP Competitions @Ched and @Xipho are shepherding

Let's get ourselves a topic and we'll work from there.

 

I'm still down for scifi. Finish editing up my last submission, or jump forward to a side-story passed that point but in the same world perhaps. Or one of the other ideas I've had.

High fantasy could let me expand on #4's world again, or branch out further. But I'd be kind of curious to see what comes out of an attempt at mystery.

 

Modern fairytale would be fun. Have some half written thing about a faery tempting people in modern times. Trying to make pacts and whatnot.

 

What is with this site and picking sci-fi every opportunity.

Y'all virgins.

 

Non-sci-fiers unite. High Fantasy all the way.

 

I would like to write urban fantasy again, but will try any theme if the anthology happens.

 

Urban fantasy would be fun. Sci-fi also suffers from lack of bathing.

Don't try to tell me you're gonna feel clean after a sonic shower.

 

Under most circumstances I’d give you grief for pissing on sonic things, but in this case I happen to agree.

 

Loving the big brain level of discussion here, but let me interrupt this high-brow debate with another topic. Previous anthologies generally featured wordcounts on the shorter side (~10k).

Assuming you're thinking of submitting, what wordcount would you like to try? Would it be dependent on which genre is chosen for the theme?

How long should the window be for writing? Probably at least 3 months (same as the quarterly comps). Longer than that?

 

To add to Scott's questions, one other thing for folk to consider. In previous anthologies entries were graded by a panel of judges (who were the editors/anthology committee), receiving one of 3 grades.

A - Definitely being included, just needs minor spelling and grammar edits.
B - Will be included pending satisfactory edits.
C - Not being included, but a detailed review being provided of why.

Would people want to proceed with this method? Do you want to make it more permissive, with the goal of getting every entry in? What would folks preference be?

 

10k or less should be fine, depending on the genre.