The campaign for Chiral Mad 5 is now live, its primary focus to raise awareness and money for underrepresented demographics around the literary world. All profit from the book will go Black Lives Matter, indefinitely. Donate what you can and get some amazing books. Let’s listen. Let’s react. You can find it here (or click any image).
Also, for the next 60 days, all Written Backwards titles purchased as add-ons through the campaign will go to the cause. Let’s change things.
Previous Written Backwards anthologies have always included emerging talent alongside known names in the industry, spanning short fiction, long fiction, graphic adaptations, poetry, and artwork, and ranging from dark science-fiction and fantasy to horror; all things speculative.
The End Is the Beginning / The Beginning Is the End
That’s the theme for the fifth and perhaps final volume in the Chiral Mad series by Written Backwards. This anthology will be edited by Michael Bailey, recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Award, Bram Stoker Award, and a Shirley Jackson Award nominee. Is this the beginning of the end for Written Backwards, or will this be the end to a new beginning? You get to help decide. And while we’re at it, we are going to raise some serious funds for Black Lives Matter, and represent the underrepresented in the literary world. It’s time to listen.
For this latest chiral dance, the focus is diversity. Past anthologies have slowly improved over the years in this area, with effort always made to find new voices in the literary world, but that has not been enough. We need to hit the world harder. We need to better represent the underrepresented. We need to listen to those voices screaming out. For this fifth act in the series, we are reaching out to places like Botswana, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa, Japan; basically, as far out as we can reach, all over the world, with an emphasis on highlighting underrepresented demographics.
And this time around Written Backwards is asking for your help, both monetarily and to shine light upon new and emerging writers and artists who need to be heard at this important time, those who are otherwise not-so-relatively-known but should be. To do that, we are going back to the roots of what originally launched this small press off the ground: charity. Click here to see the campaign. (or keep reading).
The first Chiral Mad focused on bringing awareness to Down syndrome and raised over $6,000 for various charities, with all work donated, and with all proceeds going to organizations such as the Down Syndrome Information Alliance (DSIA). Chiral Mad 2 paid professional rates to contributors, and profit then went to charity, but didn’t raise nearly as much for the greater good. And both Chiral Mad 3 and Chiral Mad 4: An Anthology of Collaborations were not designed to support charity. This time around, Chiral Mad 5 will pay professional rates to contributors of underrepresented demographics, with all proceeds (everything but the cost to initially create the book) going to Black Lives Matter, indefinitely.
If you have a problem with that, there’s an X at the top right of your screen you can click, or simply throw your phone across the room if that’s what you’re using to read this.
Here’s what we are hoping to accomplish with this not-for-profit project:
- Support and bring awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement
- Raise as much money as humanly possible for that cause
- Create an incredibly diverse anthology of fiction, poetry, and artwork
- Bring underrepresented talent to the limelight
- Pay professional rates to that talent
- Not make money off this anthology whatsoever (other than for the charity)
- Promote change inside and out of the literary world
The goal is to keep overall cost minimal. More well-known writers invited to the anthology (there are some big names already attached) will be asked to forego payment to keep cost down. Contributors of underrepresented demographics, however, will be offered professional payment (6 cents per word for fiction, a dollar per line for poetry), but may donate their work in lieu of payment if they so choose.
Also, all Written Backwards titles purchased as add-ons during this campaign (60 days) will benefit this campaign to help raise money for the cause, with no profit made by the editor or publisher whosoever.
So, what are you waiting for? Check out the campaign and support however you can, even if that’s simply sharing it.
Chiral Mad 5 will be available in deluxe signed / numbered hardcover, trade hardcover, trade paperback, and eBook. More information is available in the campaign.
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