Squidpunk--the New Movement

Given the rise of squidpunk, we're proud to announce the following:SQUIDPUNK: The AnthologyA 300,000-word anthology from Bloomsbury in 2009 featuring squidpunk stories, essays, and interviews. In addition to my work, there will be fiction by Stephen Baxter, Peter Watts, Mike Moorcock, and Caitlin Kiernan. (More on this to follow.) John Coulthart will be creating the design and cover from his collection of twenty-five thousand squid images. Bloomsbury will be notified about their role in all of this sometime in the next month.SQUIDPUNK: THE MANIFESTOFiction that unlike New Weird, Steampunk, or Slipstream, is at its core not only about squid, but about the symbolism of squid as color-changing, highly-mobile, alien-looking, intelligent ocean-goers. As a powerful ecosystem indicator, the squid is a potent symbol for environmental rejuvenation. Squidpunk is almost exclusively set at sea and must contain some reference to either cephalopods or to anything that thematically relates to squid, in terms of world iconography and tropes. Squidpunk is never escapist or whimsical. It is always serious and edgy. This combination of a hard punk aesthetic with the fluid propulsion system common to the squid has produced a unique literary hybrid beloved by Mundanes and Surrealists alike.