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| Amok cover by Jun Hun Yap |
I'm so excited for this anthology, and so proud to be part of this. So far, we've received 5-star reviews. There's a Crowdfunding Campaign on IndieGoGo, and even though we surpassed our goal of $500, that's only the minimum. If you'd like a copy of the anthology, or any other books from Solarwyrm Press, or a t-shirt of the anthology, or a personalized story, or any other goodies, please support us and purchase something from the IndieGoGo website. I just bought my t-shirt a few days ago, and am excited to wear it!
The editor of the anthology, Dominica Malcolm, graciously accepted my offer to interview her as well about this anthology.
Q: What did you see in all the stories you chose to include? Aside from good writing, obviously.
A: Haha, obviously! Still, when it comes to good writing, I actually look for a good story first; something I can connect with, which is usually human emotion within the characters. Love, loss, pain, fear, that sort of thing. I also looked at stories that had a sense of realism in them, which can include those human emotions even in the not-so-human characters, but particularly realism in the future-set stories. Possible futures I could see existing based on current happenings in the world. And, of course, one of the primary things I was looking for was diversity. The stories themselves did not need to include a great range of diversity between their characters, but the anthology did. I wanted stories about characters that are seen less frequently in Western media.
Q:What would you like to see more of in the speculative fiction genre?
A: More diversity, which I talked about above. Characters from many different backgrounds (religious, cultural, racial, etc). Bisexual characters (bi erasure is kind of a pet peeve of mine). But where these character backgrounds aren't really a big deal. I don't need someone to make a song and dance about it. People are people. Just show me different people interacting with each other.
Q: Choose three words to describe the sensation of editing this anthology.
A: Enjoyable, educational, and pride.
Q: Any last words for the readers of this Q&A?
A: If they like diversity, they should check out Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction. The racial diversity is the greatest part, but there are also characters with disabilities, a few LGBT characters, a couple of Muslims, and characters of different ages.
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