Disturbing the Beast is a collection of weird fiction stories by some of the best women writers in the UK, featuring Kirsty Logan and Aliya Whiteley.

These fictional often tales explore lesser talked about female centred topics including sexual abuse, pregnancy issues and body image. We’re keen to unearth these subjects in a healthy and respectful way, something that we feel is not often considered in mainstream contemporary literature.

We want you to join us! We’re looking for short stories from women of all ages in the UK (we include all people who identify as women). Your stories should be in the genre of weird and literary fiction. We encourage submissions on lesser talked about female centred topics such as sexual abuse, pregnancy issues and body image. Your work should be fiction, and not so on-the-nose of the issue. In fact, we encourage you to choose an issue to explore, and then side-step it a few times until the fiction is stronger than the theme.

We love:

• Strong female-led stories
• Stories that are filled with carefully considered, breath-taking prose
• Stories that contain depth and reflection

Submission guidelines: 

• Only one entry per person
• Stories should be 500 – 6000 words  
• Submitted in a Word doc with Ariel or Times New Roman, 12pt minimum, double spaced, page numbered
• DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME IN YOUR WORD DOCUMENT SUBMISSION
• Email your submission to boudiccapress@gmail.com with the subject line SUBMISSION FOR DISTURBING THE BEAST, a 50-word biography and the title of your piece
• Deadline: Stories must be received by midnight on Friday 14th September
• Late submissions or those that don’t follow the guidelines will not be considered

Support and fund the anthology

Disturbing the Beast is a Kickstarter funded project. It’s our debut collection of weird short stories by women, featuring Aliya Whiteley, Kirsty Logan and many more talented up-and-coming writers. Launching in early 2019, we’re looking for £2500 to help cover the cost of the book. Back the project here.

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