In my completely biased opinion, Miscreant Anthology is the coolest indie publishing project of the year. The Anthology is over 700 pages long, and contains the works of over 175 creators. It contains a huge mix of poems, comics, tabletop games, short stories, posters, photographs, and more, all with clashing styles, themes, and tones. Here is story of how I got involved.
A few months ago, I was letting myself brainrot on Instagram when I ran across an ad looking for story submissions. Curious, I clicked the link, and found the following mission statement:
“This is a space for fiction, poetry, comics, art, illustrations, photography, and hybrid work that wants room to breathe on its own terms. Different forms, tones, and genres aren’t just welcome here, they’re part of the point. The best anthologies don’t flatten everything into sameness. They create friction, contrast, surprise, and discovery.”
I tried to think about what fiction I had written that aligns with that, and chose five of my stories to submit. My process was scattershot: I tried to hit as wide of a variety in theme and tone as my works could muster, that also fit within the tight page constraints. To my delight, two of my stories got accepted. One of them, False Island, is more realistic in tone, while my other story, Pareidolia, is more in the realm of magical realism. False Island is a short story about a boy called Kotya, who goes to a wildlife preserve in the Russian far east along with his parents to help film a sea life documentary. While there, he watches as the preserve’s rangers arrest poachers, including a boy his age. It was a story that I had written years ago for a creative writing class, and hadn’t necessarily expected to find a home for it in actual publication. My other short story, Pareidolia, tries to hit a different tone. It follows a man named Paddy who returns home to a sleepless night after a lonely evening at the bar. As he lies in bed, he starts to see a woman’s face in the shadows of leaves on the wall. In his exhaustion and solitude, he starts to fall in love with the woman and attribute more and more of a persona to it. on a sleepless night.
Above is a promotional post made on Instagram featuring my short story that includes some of the stylized formatting that all the stories and works of art in the anthology receive. Pareidolia‘s layout features a slowly cracking and shattering window pane as its border. It felt incredible to see my story get that kind of love and care.
This anthology means a lot to me personally, because it contains my second and third works of fiction ever published, and my only ones to ever appear in physical print. I was elated when I heard back from the publisher, Eric, after only a couple of day, letting me know that two of my five submissions made it in. So far, we’ve outraised our initial funding goal fivefold, and with a few days remaining in our Kickstarter, we may well get further than that.
What do you think? Are there other Indie Anthology projects that excite you? Let us know on one of the platforms below!
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