Amplify
We are looking for artists and writers from minority groups who we can pair together to create once off story/image pieces to publish on our Patreon. Every ten stories, we will release as an anthology.
The idea behind this project is to create a market for people of colour, LGBTQ+ artists and writers, people with disabilities and others whose stories tend not to get told.
Our goal is to be a means to amplify your voices.
This one has been knocking about in my brain for a while. I wanted to do something that would highlight the stories of people whose stories are not as frequently told - LGBTQ folks, people of colour, people with disabilities, neurodivergent humans, etc.
I fall into a couple of those categories myself, and I am well aware of that moment when you read a story that centres your own experience in a way you don't get to see that often and it MATTERS. I wanted to make a project that would actively aim to do this.
And thus, Amplify was born. It is, as is so much of what we do, a bit experimental. I am very much hoping some of you will come along for the ride with me. If you are a writer or an artist who fits one (or more) of these categories, please do read on to see if this is something that would interest you.
If you are interested in reading and supporting this, right now the best way to do that is to become a patron of the Raven.
Writers
If you’re a writer, you can submit a story by email. Your story should be between 1000 and 10000 words. I don’t want to be too prescriptive about subject matter, because I am interested in tales of lived experience, but I am also interested in characters who happen to be trans, Asian, asexual, blind, etc doing awesome interesting things without their belonging to one or more of these groups being The Main Thing about them.
I’m open to most genres, though I am, in the case of this project, unlikely to publish stories with graphic violence or erotica in them.
Please email me your story (thepatchworkraven@gmail.com) as a .doc, .docx or .rtf file with a subject line following this formula: Amplify submission - [Title of story] - [Author name]
It should be a clean copy, proofread for typos and grammar and spelling errors. It should be in a simple font, and 12-point sized. Please make sure you include your name and a short bio either at the start or the end of the story.
Artists
If you are an artist who is interested in this project, please send me an email with your name and either a link to an online portfolio, or a few pieces so I can get a sense of your style. If selected, I will send you an accepted story for for which you’ll create an A3 sized artwork.
Payment
Story and art packages will be released to patrons first. The writer and the artist will each receive 15% of our Patreon earnings for the month in which you are published.
We will then release them on the website as electronic and physical items to be bought. You will each receive 25% of all profits made from those items.
When we have ten sets, we will release an anthology of the stories. At this stage, you can choose between a one-off payment for the story/artwork (NZ$25) or a percentage of profits from the sale of the anthology.
This is a bit of an experimental model. If it doesn’t work, I will adapt it to the more standard once-off payment.