No one can say with any reasonable certainty when the United States of America began to fall apart. Many point to the presidential election of 2016, but most believe the breakup started long before this. Now, in the year 2110, the former United States is made up of 13 nation-states and The Wastelands. Some of the nation-states have prospered under self-rule, while others have declined. Some nation-states are very accepting of outsiders, while others trust no one…sometimes not even their fellow citizens. There is chaos in some places, and order in others…sometimes too much order.
The first state to break away from the USA was, not unexpectedly, Texas, and from there, things continued to spiral out of control as the national government tried to hold on to control that the state governments wanted back, and eventually, the federal government was no longer able to control the states, and the break-up came about.
Some of the nation-states kept the name “America” in their new names. Some did this as a tribute to where they had come from, while others did it to remind their citizens of what they were breaking away from. Others adopted new names, or took on names that were given to them.
Borders in some areas are heavily patrolled, even walled in places, while other borders have no protection at all…mostly it depends on the views of the new government and its citizens, even though sometimes those two groups still don’t agree. Let’s face it, greed and independence are bred into the human race, and even allying with others that have similar viewpoints does not necessarily mean that they will always get along.
What we’re looking for: Stories must be at least 2,500 words…with no upper limit. Stories must be science fiction, in the sense that they take place in the future, but depending on the nation-state that you’re writing about, the science may or may not be as important. Obviously, we’ll be focusing more on “soft” sf, but we certainly have room for “hard” sf.
How we will publish: This will not be an anthology (at first). We will be publishing each story as an individual e-story, and these stories will be distributed to all of the usual sales markets.
Pay: This will depend entirely on how the story sells. We will be doing a 50/50 split with each author of the profits from the story, with royalties being paid on our normal quarterly schedule. If this project takes off, we will be doing a print anthology, or possibly many print anthologies, and then there will be further payment at that point for reprint rights.
Rights: We are looking for first rights on any story. This probably makes sense, since this is a unique setting, and we doubt that you have stories written about any of these nation-states lying around in your desk.
Price of stories: The pricing of stories will depend on their length. Stories from 2,500 words to 5,000 words will be priced at 99 cents. Stories that are 5,001 words to 10,000 words will be priced at $1.49, and stories that are over 10,000 words will be priced at $1.99. Obviously the longer the story, the higher the royalty, but we prefer quality over length.
Overall theme: We are not looking for an overall theme to the stories. We want quality stories. If you write a story with a conservative slant, or a story with a liberal slant, we don’t care. We just want good stories. Some places are more likely to have liberal stories, while others are more likely to have conservative stories, but that doesn’t mean you have to write that way. You don’t even have to have a political agenda in your story because we’re more interested in how people are surviving in these new nation states.
Where to send your gems: Once you have your amazing stories written, we ask that you send them to editor (at) nomadicdeliriumpress (dot) com. Please include “Divided States” in the subject line.
Further questions: If you have any questions please send them to the same address.
J Alan Erwine’s Divided States of America short story, “It’s In the Water” is now available as an audio book at 
