New anthology call for language, literature, and lechery

Cunning Linguists will collect 20 to 30 pieces of diverse, feminist, body-positive erotica exploring the seductive potential of:

Literature—

• Reading a sexy story to yourself, or to a lover. Writing a sexy story for yourself, or for a lover, or for a friend. Reading a story that wasn’t intended to be sexy but, well, it turns out you’ve got a new kink.
• The narratives we construct about our sex and love lives, or have constructed for us, or deconstruct. The patterns we and our cultures make and break.
• Sexy thoughts we have about other people’s stories and characters—yes, send us your fanfiction! For legal reasons, please stick to works in the public domain.
• Literary structures: write an epistolary story collecting the steamy letters a 19th century abolitionist sent to his boyfriend. Take it into the 21st century with sexts. Or the 23rd century with a hologram.
• Write a story entirely in dialogue. Write a sex scene that also works as slam poetry. Write a story that travels back in time with each scene—paraphrasing Sam Goldwyn (well, allegedly), open with an orgasm and then work us up to a climax.

Language—

• Make love to and with your favorite words. Or take a new look at your less favorite. Which is sexier—dirty talk or sonnets? Quote Shakespeare in sexts. Make pillow talk about all the dirty words in Shakespeare. Convince us moist is actually a turn-on. Is it a dick or a cock? Is her sex better than her pussy or vice versa? And is cunt an insult or a term of worship?
• Write with and about the words that send a shiver down the spine, that make a heart skip beats or knees go weak.
• Write about the feeling of finally finding the right word to describe your sexuality.
• What about wordplay? What’s the sexist literary device—parallelism? Zeugma? Alliteration? Even a good pun gets us laughing, and laughter can be sexy. Or dare we say, puns can make us moan as well as groan.
• What about wordlessness—pleasure that sends lovers beyond words? The use of nonverbal communication?
• And what about the unspeakable? Reveal what someone has never been able to talk about. What’s more naked than the truth?–Maybe the right lie?

Keep in mind that, alongside this anthology’s focus on words, the most erotic stories are sensual—texture, taste, and scent play a role in addition to sights and sounds. We don’t have as many words for smell as we do for vision, but what can we do with the words we have? Perhaps you can coin new words. Plus there’s synesthesia, and a sixth sense, or seventh sense… For many, isn’t reading itself a form of synesthesia, transforming sight into sound? And how do telepaths talk dirty?

Length and Payment:

$30 for flash fiction up to 1,000 words

$100 for short stories from 2,500—6,000 words

(Wordcount requirements aren’t firm if you’re within rounding distance. Or query first.)

Contributors will also receive a free ebook copy of the anthology and a discount on paperback copies.

Submission deadline: September 1, 2021. Final decisions will be made by November 2021.

Release planned for Spring 2022.

Genre, pairing:

Just about any, and any. Contemporary, historical, speculative fiction, romance, mystery, literary character study, prose poem—really, the only genre we don’t accept is erotic horror because it’s led to too many submissions that don’t fit the rest of our guidelines or our mission. Paranormal takes on creatures like ghosts and vampires, as well as stories with a bittersweet tinge (we do want the “sweet” along with the bitter—we love stories that show a sense of compassion) will be considered!

No limits on the gender or number of participants, so long as they are 18+ and express their affirmative consent.

See full guidelines, including submission instructions, here.

Answers to frequently asked questions are posted in the q&a tag on the New Smut Project’s blog. For updates and more info, you can sign up for our newsletter through MailChimp, follow us on Tumblr, or follow editor T.C. Mill on Twitter or Facebook.