That's right--you guessed it. Today is the day that we announce the 2014 themes for Penumbra!
It's actually a lot harder to select themes than you might think. We want to engage authors in three different genres. We want to pay homage to some of the great writers in those genres. We want to incorporate different mytholgies, traditions, and folklore. And every once in a while, the Freud in us wants to toss out a single word just to see what everyone will come up with.
2014 is no different. After a lot of hemming and hawing and dithering, we finally settled on the following themes:
January--Winter
February--Egyptian Mythology
March--A Night at the Villa Diodati
April--Issac Asimov
May--Superheroes
June--Isolation
July--Hyperspeed
August--Pain
September--Lewis Carroll
October--Paranormal Adventures
November--Aliens
December--Arthurian Legend
Obviously, some of these are no-brainers. As my daughter said this morning, "Winter is the theme? In January? Shouldn't that be cruel and unusual punishment?"
We live in Ohio and she doesn't like snow all that much.
But there are a lot of directions that writers can go with a theme like winter. Or pain. Then when you set a theme that's both specific and perhaps a little obscure, like A Night at the Villa Diodati, writers will have to research to find out what the theme is. The Villa Diodati is where Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley, and John Pollidori had their infamous horror story competition--the one that resulted not only in Frankenstein by the 18 year-old Mary Shelley, but Pollidori's less well-known offering The Vampyre, which was at the forefront of the Victorian vampire craze. So the theme of the March issue is to write your own horror story for that opium and wine-laced contest with some of literature's greatest writers.
You can read more about these themes--including the call dates--by heading to our submissions page here on the blog.
Then once you've checked those out, leave me a comment and let me know what YOU think of the 2014 themes.
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