Jenny Barber

Another rather funky kickstarter project that's just appeared on the radar is the rather excellent looking Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History by Bart Leib.  The anthology is to be published by Crossed Genres, which on its own should be enough to sell you on it, and already has a whole stack of fabulous authors attached (with bonus room for open subs should they make the funding target!)

The Pitch:
"Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world.

"There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events."

Why It's Cool:
The subject! I'm currently studying history-from-below and subaltern sources as part of my undergrad degree so this isn't just hitting my buttons, it's slamming into them with the force of a truck. The stories of the colonised get far too easily lost under the dominant voices of the colonisers and what historical accounts that are recovered get filtered through a privileged lens and often distorted to reflect specific agendas so straight up accounts from people in the margins are a rarity.  So a whole anthology of stories from this perspective is very shiny.

The authors! They've got: Linda Addison, Jennifer Marie Brissett, Chesya Burke, Aliette de Bodard, Tananarive Due, Amal El-Mohtar, Andrea Hairston, Beverly Jenkins, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Kima Jones, Victor LaValle, Ken Liu, Sarah McCarry, Neesha Meminger, Nnedi Okorafor, An Owomoyela, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Veronica Schanoes, Rion Amilcar Scott, Nisi Shawl and Troy Wiggins.  Some of whom I'm huge fans of, some of whom I've not yet read things from.

The Rewards!  There's ebooks and dead-tree books, t-shirts and critiques, a Ken Liu Emoji translation of the short blurb of your choice, custom stories and artwork, dinner with the editors and a writer workshop, and if you're really rich you can get a private performance from a soul quartet!

Seriously, how can you not back it?!

The link again!