The Zubaan Book of New Writing by Young Women

(working title only)

Concept note

Zubaan is planning to produce an anthology of short fiction showcasing new, young women writers from South Asia.

The criteria

• The focus of the book will be on young writers in the 20s and 30s.
• The writers should be women of South Asian extraction, but may be based anywhere in the world. We are interested in non-resident Indian writers as well as those based in India.
• Stories can be of any length up, ideally anywhere between 2-5,000 words and should be complete stand-alone narratives.
• All submissions must be in English.
• The anthology will be of fictional writing, and we are keen to include a variety of genres – from humourous pieces to science fiction, fantasy, detective stories, and other forms which may fall under the general rubric of ‘speculative fiction'.
• Preference will be given to unpublished stories.

Selection

Selection will be on merit, and the stories would be read by Zubaan's in-house editorial team. The final selection for inclusion would rest with the Editor.

Submission

Complete stories should be sent as word attachments to:
zubaanwbooks@vsnl.com Zubaanwbooks AT vsnl DOT net, contact AT zubaanbooks DOT com and anitaroy1000 AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk
with the subject line Submission for Young Writers Anthology.
Along with the story, writers should email a short biography about themselves, including details of their published writings (if any).

Publication

Responsibility for the editing, design, production and sales of the book rests with the Publishers.
Copyright for individual pieces would rest with the respective authors, but rights in the anthology as a whole would rest with the publishers, who will actively pursue the sale of translation and co-publication rights for the book.

Payment

All writers selected will receive a modest fee for their work.

Deadline

All submissions should be received by July 31 st 2006

About Zubaan

Zubaan is a small independent feminist publisher, based in New Delhi. Headed by Urvashi Butalia, who co-founded India's first feminist press, Kali for Women, Zubaan is committed to publishing books by, for, on or about women – and women's issues – in South Asia for an international market. For further details, and a list of books published thus far, please refer to: www.zubaanbooks.com.

Update: Please note change in the first email address.