Call for Submissions: Asexual Romance

Possible Titles: The Romantic Ace; Acethetic
Edited by Victoria Pond

It seems like every romance movie, book, and song out there equates lust with love, and that means some of us are left out. Not everyone feels lust. Not everyone even wants romantic love.

Here’s your chance to talk about romance for the characters uninterested in sex. Give me your space pilots in serious relationships with their sentient ships. Think about how an incubus would patiently court a demi-sexual. Maybe you have a regency fantasy where only a virgin can wield the talisman, and thank goodness we’ve got an adult countess who can step up.

Let’s not define this by what it isn’t. Allosexuality dominates the rest of the media. Here’s a chance for ace pride to shine. Submit your stories from all over the spectra—from science fiction to fantasy, from sex-repulsed to demi-sexual, from romantic to platonic.

This romance anthology celebrates asexuality in all its forms, in all its levels. Maybe your characters will take things to their allosexual conclusions, but maybe they won’t. And, as it ought to be in reality, that’s up to you.

“Ace” puns highly encouraged. (You know: the dogfighting “flying ace” who has a closer-than-lovers arrangement with his mechanic.)

Email your submissions to acethetic.submissions@gmail.com. We do not publish poetry. Stories should generally be between 2500 and 8500 words (though we’re flexible for a great story). Originals only, no reprints. We purchase first rights for inclusion in the ebook anthology for $25, with the additional rights to a print edition later which would also pay $25 should it happen. Authors retain the rights to the individual stories; Circlet exercises rights to the anthology as a whole. Submissions are open now, and close on April 15th.

9 thoughts on “Call for Submissions: Asexual Romance”

  1. For those of us who are bored with the sex 24/7 (yeah that means you, too ,Kardashians) this anthology sounds like something we’d buy. Tree huggers, animal advocates, and new moms will understand completely. Good theme.

  2. Wow, I can’t describe how excited I am to read about people not banging. I think the bit I look forward to the most is the internalized homophobia and misogyny.

  3. “Maybe you have a regency fantasy where only a virgin can wield the talisman,”

    Ooooh, nothing more “subversive” than a story where a woman’s “purity” is her power!

    1. Not yet. Everything is backlogged at our new owners, Riverdale Avenue Books, while the principal owner there, Lori Perkins, has been dealing with breast cancer. But I’ll check in with the editor to see if she’s heard anything recently.

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