Are you ready to be published? Goldendark is looking for astounding short fiction for the forthcoming anthology of thrutopian fiction.So, not bland utopias or predictable dystopias, but stories that offer a ‘way through’ the multiple challenges we face (what has been called the ‘Age of Polycrisis’).
These can be tales of ecofiction, speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, weird, or even horror – as long as there is a glimmer of hope at the end of it all (what we call ‘Goldendark’).
See Professor Rupert Read’s definition of Thrutopia below, and the Goldendark criteria:
1. Chiaroscuro.
2. An interrogative sense of realism.
3. Embracing the difficulty of representation.
4. Slaying the monomyth.
5. Immanence.
6. Ambiguity.
7. The re-enchantment of language.
8. Redemptive causality
(Defining Goldendark: towards an ethical aesthetics, Manwaring, 2018)
For a full analysis of the above, see the blog on goldendark.co.uk
Conditions of Entry:
• No more than 2000 words (excluding title) in length.
• Original, unpublished short fiction with a tangible ‘thrutopian’ &/or Goldendark flavour.
• UK English spelling.
• Cover sheet to include: Title, Name, Word Count, Address, Email.
• Double-spaced, 12 point font, editable Word document.
• No space between paragraphs. Use a line space only for section-breaks. Indent 1st lines, except 1st line of story and after section-breaks. Single speech marks for dialogue.
• The subject title of your email: SUBMISSION: GOLDENDARK ANTHOLOGY
• The file name should be as follows: SURNAME_INITIAL_TITLE_GOLDENDARK ANTHOLOGY_DATE
• Deadline for submissions: 30th April 2026. Entries submitted after this date will not be considered.
• Authors retain copyright, but Goldendark retain exclusive rights of publication for 2 years from publication (22nd September 2026).
• All authors will receive a printed comp copy and the option to purchase copies with an author discount. A willingness to contribute to online and in-person marketing events is encouraged.
• Send to: mailto:kevanmanwaring@yahoo.co.uk
Thrutopia: a definition – a term by Professor Rupert Read in 2017:
‘What are desperately needed, but as yet barely exist, are what I term thrutopias. Thrutopias would be about how to get from here to there, where ‘there’ is far far away in time. How to live and love and vision and carve out a future, through pressed times that will endure. The climate crisis is going to be a long emergency, probably lasting hundreds of years. It is useless to fantasise a shining sheer escape from it to utopia. But it’s similarly useless, dangerously defeatist, to wallow around in dystopias. We need ways of seeing, understanding, inhabiting, creating what will be needed for the very long haul. Visioning the politics and ecology of getting through.’
‘THRUTOPIA: Why Neither Dystopias Nor Utopias Are Enough To Get Us Through The Climate Crisis, And How A ‘Thrutopia’ Could Be’ Rupert Read, Huffington Post 2017