Violet Lichen Books

ECO25 Submission Guidelines

We are delighted to announce that nominations will soon open for ECO25: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction, the second edition of the annual  anthology. 

Submission Guidelines 

Editors and publishers are encouraged to nominate their best works of speculative ecofiction published in 2025.

Submission portal: https://apexbookcompany.moksha.io/publication/apex-book-company/guidelines

Important: This is a best-of anthology and nominations are open to previously published stories only. Ineligible stories will not be read. 

Authors may nominate their own works. If possible, please help us avoid duplicates by checking with your publisher first to see if they have already submitted your piece. 

Eligibility Criteria:
  1. The story must be ecofiction; e.g., the plot or main themes must be focused on ecology, climate, the environment, conservation, the natural world, our relationship to animals and other non-human life, or related themes. A story merely set in nature or in a climate-based scenario is not enough to qualify, if it does not engage with these themes.
  2. The story must contain speculative elements; e.g., eco-science fiction, eco-fantasy, climate fiction based in a future or secondary world, ecological Weird and New Weird, ecological magical realism, or any other genre blend.
  3. The original publication date must be between January 1 and December 31 of the eligibility year. If the story is a translation, the eligibility year is the English publication date.
  4. The story must have been published in an anthology, collection, journal, or magazine (online or print) by an editor or publisher that is not the author. Self-published works are not eligible. Unpublished works are not eligible.
  5. Stories published in Apex Magazine or in Apex Book Company anthologies or in works edited by staff are eligible.
  6. Stories authored by the paid staff of Apex Magazine, Apex Book Company, and Violet Lichen are not eligible.
  7. Stories must be complete (no excerpts) with a wordcount between 950 and 7,500 words.
Submission Guidelines
  • Nominations open: Dec 01, 2025
  • Nominations close: Jan 31, 2026
  • Word Count: 950 – 7,500
  • Rights: non-exclusive World anthology rights in English
  • Payment: $0.01 (USD) per word + 2 physical print copies and 1 ebook copy
  • Simultaneous submissions: yes
  • Multiple submissions: yes
  • Self-published: no
  • Translations: Yes, if the English version was first published in the eligible calendar year. Please include the translator’s name and email address in your cover letter.
  • Cover letter: Please include the name of the publisher, the publication date, and whether you are the publisher or the author. Include a link to the story if published online (optional).
  • Responses: Unfortunately, we will not be sending individual rejections to nominations or to ineligible stories. Authors of the final selected works will be contacted once all nominations have been considered.
  • Formats & Multiple Nominations: 
    • DIGITAL: Submit via Moksha as an EPUB or .DOC or .DOCX or RTF using Standard Manuscript Format (Modern or Classic). No PDFs please. Inclusion of your mailing address and phone number is not required. 
    • MULTIPLE FILES: To send multiple digital files, email them to marissa.vu at apexbookcompany.com or upload as a single collection to Moksha (use any number in the wordcount field, but please list the wordcount for each story in your cover letter). 
    • PHYSICAL: Email marissa.vu at apexbookcompany.com to request mailing address.

We welcome and encourage submissions from writers of all races, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, and military status. We want and value diverse voices. Saying that, please be aware that we do not collect any information that might clue our editors to any of these attributes other than your name, email, and cover letter before any decisions are made regarding your submission.