Call for Submissions from Authors with Los Angeles Ties on Theme of "SolarPunk": Angel City Review

For issue 14, Angel City Review is going solarpunk. For this next issue we wanted to do something a little different and explore an area of writing that we don’t normally publish. Genre writing has an ability to explore serious themes in ways that literary fiction or nonfiction sometimes cannot. Octavia Butler was able to challenge issues of race, gender, stereotypes, and white privilege both inside and outside the written word while also making the work she produced both specific and universal. She was able to imagine future worlds where people could look like her, and also succeed. They weren’t held down by the narrow minds of bigotry. They could flourish in the Black imagination. Silvia Moreno-Garcia has been able to subvert the tropes of genre where the people who were generally considered the “other” in books, could take the center stage as they battle to not just survive, but thrive against the literal and figurative monsters of neo and post-colonialism in a gothic landscape that was in some ways familiar, but wholly new. Her work criticizes the cost and aftermath of settler colonialism, especially when the territories are no longer of value or are too resistant to be kept under tyrannical rule. Her writing examines and reckons with these very ghosts in ways that are thought provoking, yet also approachable to a large audience for many reasons. Science fiction, fantasy, and all their sub genres of speculative work have the ability to imagine a past, present, or future that works for not just the White Western European norm. This challenging and necessary work ultimately has opened the doors for writers of color to not always write about struggle or produce trauma porn for white readers. Their American fiction can be one where the whole of their lives can be shared. Not just the parts that fit neatly into stereotypes.

So, for our next issue we are dedicating the pages completely to the genre of solarpunk. Many of you may already be familiar with the genre of cyberpunk: a speculative form of futuristic science fiction that examines a world that has become overly saturated with technology. Rather than embrace the preservation of humanity, or the earth, people have worked to interface with the machine. Topics surrounding AI, dystopian worlds where man reached too far into the stars, and it cost humanity dearly. There are many famous examples of this, Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Akira, Cowboy Bebob, Cyberpunk 2077, and the list goes on. But what is solarpunk?

Solarpunk is a genre of speculative writing that imagines a world where humanity has worked to coexist with nature rather than destroy it. For some authors this may be in an effort to prevent a catastrophic world event, but for others, as we are already experiencing in the world now, it is how humanity chooses to recover in the face of climate devastation. While cyberpunk sets forth to imagine this wild East meets West dystopian future scape (and the stereotypes that come from it), solarpunk wishes to imagine a world where people are at least attempting to create a utopia. The Bosco Vertical building in Italy is one example of solarpunk ideas coming to life in our modern world. A building that chooses to become a part of nature as much as it is part of a city. Singapore also comes to mind in regards to modern attempts to create bio villages that work to restore nature. But there is so much more. Many Studio Ghibli films bring about the essence of solarpunk as well as the Avatar films and Fantastic Planet. We would like to see your interpretation of the genre and give us an exploration that looks deeply at social and natural issues that humanity is facing today. The stories, poems, essays, can be works of celebration and joy, but they can also be ones of fear or darkness. It is up to you to imagine. We want to reiterate that solarpunk is not simply climate writing or eco poetry. While those genres are important in their own right, we will kindly pass on work that falls firmly on those shoulders.

• For more information and examples of the genre, please visit our friends at Solarpunk magazine. BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ writers are particularly encouraged to submit.

• Experienced writers new to this genre are also particularly encouraged to submit.

• This issue will have a limited special print release available in spring 2025, and digital release in July 2025.

• Submissions should be by artists with L.A. ties, and / or about an L.A.-area region or community. A limited number of submissions from writers outside of L.A. will be considered but priority will be given to people living in or from Los Angeles.

• As we have received outside funding for this special project: contributors will be given a modest honorarium that will range depending on the budget and pieces accepted. Note: This applies to the Solarpunk issue only and can not offer honorariums for other sections/issues as we do not charge sub fees or sell anything and give away the content for free.

• Contributors of visual art will be paid $50 for work featured inside the issue, and $75 if their image is selected for the cover.

• Visual art can be previously featured elsewhere, with proper credit and permissions to use.

• Contributors will be paid up to $150 for prose and up to $75 for poetry.

• Please submit no more than two stories, with a maximum word count of 6,000 words per story.

• Please submit no more than five poems at a time. We welcome short and long-form poetry.

• All submitted prose or poetry must be previously unpublished.

• No AI.

Please email your submissions to:

submissions (at) angelcityreview.com ( Change (at) to @ )

with SOLARPUNK and your piece’s title in the subject line, a cover letter that includes your address and a third-person bio, and your work attached as a Word file (no PDFs).
Please include your address in your cover letter.

Book Reviews: Open year round: Send to:

bookreviews at angelcityreview dot com

If you have a new book of poems, novel, or a short story collection you would like to have considered for review feel free to email us. If you would like to submit a book review for publication you can do so at any time during the year. We have no specific style requirements, but we do prefer that your review is well thought out and overall positive (you can be critical of some aspects of the work). Please title your email appropriately.

Series on music:

Music has an incredible ability to transcend time, space, and culture. A song can have the unique power to transport you to a moment in history, the future, a particular setting, or to a certain feeling that holds emotional weight. Music can also be a catalyst or companion for social movements and signify a change in society. At times it can be a great unifier and is found as a crucial means of expression in all corners of the globe. For a new web series on music, we are interested in publishing essays, short fiction, and poetry that explore the poetics of music and/or music composition. We are looking for pieces that burrow deep into music’s connection to places and peoples and movements. Like The Velvet Underground’s connection to New York, or the work of João Gilberto and his contribution to the bossa nova sounds of Brazil, we are looking for pieces that speak to the music that shapes us.

Additionally we are publishing music reviews, criticism, live photo sets, and any other form of music journalism that you are interested in having published. We are mainly focusing our music journalism on Los Angeles based bands, but will make the occasional exception for something especially interesting or timely.

Send your music themed work to Angel City Review to:

zachjensen at angelcityreview.com (acting music editor until a new editor is brought on).