Call for Submissions: The Best Asian Short Stories 2021

Kitaab is seeking short story submissions for The Best Asian Short Stories 2021 anthology, the latest in the annual TBASS series of anthologies which aims to celebrate the Asian short story as a constantly evolving, innovative and vibrant mode of literary expression.

The focus of our 2021 issue is the new normal but stories on other themes will be considered too. We are looking for well-crafted literary fiction that is able to capture the attention of our readers. The new normal is a world-wide phenomenon and we want to capture the voices of contemporary Asian writers on how it has impacted our lives and what post-Covid 19 pandemic could hold for us.

The anthology will be published in the last quarter of 2021. (Check out our earlier anthologies here)

We will also select some web-extra stories: these will be stories that did not make it to the TBASS 2021 edition but will be published as Web specials. This gives you more chance of exposure to your stories, even if they do not get selected for the main printed volume.

The Best Asian Short Stories 2021 anthology will be edited by Malachi Edwin Vethamani, is a poet, writer, editor, critic, bibliographer and academic. He is Professor of Modern English Literature at University of Nottingham Malaysia. His publications include: Coitus Interruptus and Other Stories (2018), two collections of poems, Life Happens (Maya Press, 2017) and Complicated Lives (Maya Press, 2016). He has edited two volumes of Malaysian writings which cover a period of over 60 years, Malchin Testament: Malaysian Poems (Maya Press, 2017) and Ronggeng-Ronggeng: Malaysian Short Stories (Maya Press, 2020). He is Founding Editor of the recently launched Men Matters Online Journal.

Submissions between 3000-5000 words should be e-mailed to tbass2021submissions@gmail.com (cc kitaab.sg@gmail.com). Pls write the following as subject header: Submission/TBASS2021/author’s name

Eligibility

Asians of all nationalities living anywhere in the world are eligible. By ‘Asian writers’, we mean all writers who belong to the continent of Asia. Non-Asian authors who have resided in and written extensively about an Asian country will also be considered.

Deadlines and Fees

Submission fee (until 31 March 2021): Free but you have to be an annual subscriber of Kitaab (Become a subscriber here at S$10 a year)
Submission fee (1 April 2021- 30 April 2021): You have to be an annual subscriber of Kitaab and pay an additional S$10 donation per submission (please donate here).

All submissions must be made together with the fee receipt or screenshot.

(for fee waiver requests in case of financial difficulties, please write to us at kitaab.sg@gmail.com)

Format

Submissions must be MSWORD (.doc/.docx) attachments, typed double spaced in Times New Roman 12. The submission should also be pasted within the body of the covering mail. The subject line of the email should read as:

Submission/TBASS2021/author’s name. Please include an author bio note of 100 words. Only one submission will be considered from each writer.

Previously published work in print or online (including blogs, magazines or other online fora) or translations from other languages will not be accepted. Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but will be considered. Please inform us immediately if the story is accepted elsewhere.

All selected entries will be entitled to the following:

$50 Kitaab voucher to each contributor (eligible to purchase 2 copies of TBASS with this or any other titles published by Kitaab)
Free one year subscription to tbass.org worth $20 (site should be active by Q1 2021), which will give them access to all stories published under the Best Asian series.