AntipodeanSF is devoted to 'down under' science/speculative fiction stories of about 500-1000 words or less.
Yet while its intent is in part to highlight and promote Australian/NZ writers (who are, after all, resident in the antipodes), the meaning of antipodean is not limited by the editor to a mere description of locality. Thus AntipodeanSF is open to submissions from anywhere in the world, as long as the story has a surprise ending, twists normal notions of SF/F/H upside-down, is especially humorous, takes an oblique perspective on otherwise 'normal' events, or attempts to subvert the foundations of Western capitalist ideology (for example).
At this time AntipodeanSF is an online and electronic-reader/audio publication. It rewards its writers with web-space for published stories and short biographies, and promotion via a weekly radio show and podcast (this includes links to the author's web pages; if any exist). All material accepted for publication in AntipodeanSF will remain online for approximately four weeks, and will be available as an audio podcast in the following month. Subsequently, all material is archived by the National Library of Australia (see below), and the audio may be aired at any future time on the Australian community radio network (CRN). Copyright is otherwise retained by the author/s at all times, although archiving at the NLA means that every published story will remain accessible in perpetuity on the net.
Material accepted for publication will not be altered or edited for online presentation without the consent of the author/s. Reprints, as long as they are about 500-1000 words, and subject to editing, will also be considered for publication.
All material first published in AntipodeanSF by Australian authors is eligible to be submitted to the convenors of the Australian Aurealis Awards to be considered for an award in its year of publication. Authors are encouraged to submit their work to the Awards after publication.
Similarly, Australian works will be indexed by Austlit <www.austlit.edu.au> for scholarly citation purposes, and listed at the Australian SF site.
AntipodeanSF is considered to be of 'cultural significance' here in Australia and it is archived at the National Library of Australia. You may view past issues by visiting the library's PANDORA pages on the Internet. <http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/10063>.
Material appearing in AntipodeanSF may converted into Braille by the Royal Blind Society so that blind readers might experience the pleasure of reading SF.
Material appearing in AntipodeanSF is converted into tablet, e-reader and mobile phone formats and be distributed via various other service providers so that it can be easily read by all SF lovers.
Material appearing in AntipodeanSF is converted into audio format for distribution as a podcast/community radio broadcast under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.
Please note that the editor, Ion, is liable to make suggestions about how to make your story fit the theme of this website, or to improve it (in his subjective opinion). In other words, he might edit it. But please don't be afraid of that. Submit those stories. AntiSF needs them!
AntipodeanSF 'online' is firmly devoted to the shorter forms of SF. Therefore, all submissions must be of about five-hundred to one-thousand (500-1000) words or less. Longer works by authors with a publication history at AntipodeanSF will be considered for inclusion in the magazine, but these longer stories are still restricted to around 2000-3000 words. Please query the editor for more information, or to find out about the submission of longer items (which may be serialised across a number of issues).
Such dire restrictions on story size mean that character development and in-depth treatment of complex subjects are almost invariably precluded. In short-short (flash) stories such as those AntipodeanSF 'online' seeks, the idea is paramount.
Don't be fooled — writing fiction such as this is not as easy as it might seem — fewer words does not equal easier writing. Even so, AntipodeanSF urges you to take the challenge and "'ave a go".
Antipodean SF may also publish science-fact and science-fiction oriented cartoons, limericks, anecdotes, cryptic problems, rebuses and other 'trivia' of a shorter nature from time to time. Imagination and laconism are the keys to publication. But remember, our focus is on short-short stories.
Please do not submit more than one story at a time without seeking permission from the editor first (i.e. no multiple submissions).
Submissions are collected once or twice per week, and will be acknowledged soon after receipt. AntipodeanSF does not accept submissions via snail-mail on deceased trees.
AntipodeanSF will occasionally publish an anthology of material gathered from the best of the stories that have appeared on-line. These books will be available 'on-demand'. AntipodeanSF in itself will remain a non-profit entity, and aims only to promote excellent short-short speculative fiction. Longer works of fiction may also be published in future anthologies, but submission for that purpose will be restricted to those who have had stories published online by AntipodeanSF.
Don't forget — have fun! And keep them around 500 - 1000 words.
All queries and submissions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as a file attachment preferably in Rich Text Format (RTF) or MS Word (DOC) or (DOCX).
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
Timothy Dwyer is an American science-fiction writer living in New Zealand.
Haneko Takayama is an award-winning Japanese writer. In 2009, her short story “Udon, Kitsune tsuki no” was a runner-up for the Sogen SF Short Story Award. 
Kerrie Noor was born in Melbourne Australia in 1960 but has spent most of her adult life in Scotland.
Amy Logan's first work was published on October 29, 1970. It has been a bit of a dry spell since, so she is very excited to have the opportunity to contribute to AntipodeanSF.
Keech has been writing fiction and poetry for 40 years, and is currently working on a speculative novel of the Afterlife, focusing on Victorian literature, though it is technically set in the near future.
Bruce is an older Australian, living in Adelaide, who enjoys reading and writing, especially short stories and flash fiction.
Myna Chang writes flash and short stories in a variety of genres.
Umiyuri Katsuyama is a multiple-award-winning writer of fantasy and horror, often based on Asian folklore motifs.
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
Tim Borella has never lost his childhood passion for SF and writing in general and has been lucky enough to have worked most of his life as a pilot — in other words, he’s never properly grown up.
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
Sarah Pratt is an avid fiction writer and a Marketing Consultant.
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
Although a writer of the baby boom persuasion, Ed has not boomed for quite a while.
