Anthology with focus on disabled characters meets US$13,000 Pozible target

A crowdfunding campaign for an anthology of apocalypse-survival fiction with a focus on disabled characters has reached its US$13,000 (A$16,595) target on crowdfunding website Pozible.

The Defying Doomsday anthology, edited by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench, will be published by Twelfth Planet Press in mid-2016. The campaign had 271 supporters, contributing a total of US$13,760 (A$17,570) to cover production costs, author payments and reward items. Funds will also be used to establish an annual Defying Doomsday Award to recognise disability advocacy in literature.

On the Pozible page, Dolichva said speculative fiction has a tendency to focus on ‘survival of the fittest’, often ignoring disabled or chronically ill characters. ‘As a person living with chronic illness, I find it gets tedious to read books which directly or indirectly tell me “you could not survive this situation”,’ said Dolichva..

Among the authors contributing stories to the anthology are Corinne Duyvis, John Chu, Janet Edwards and Seanan McGuire, with an introduction by Robert Hoge.

Twelfth Planet Press’ 2014 YA science-fiction and fantasy anthology Kaleidoscope was included in the 2014 Tiptree Awards honour list for works of speculative fiction that explore and expand notions of sex and gender.  

Category: Local news