Launching the Stop Surveillance Copaganda short story showcase
September 5, 2024 • Program • 3 min read
Luis Eduardo Garrido
Senior Coordinator, Program Building & Engagement
Stop Surveillance Copaganda – Fictional literature showcase for RightsCon 2025
We are thrilled to launch the Call for Short Stories: Stop Surveillance Copaganda, our first-ever literature showcase, for RightsCon 2025 (Taipei and online, Feb 24-27)! Share your original short fiction on countering surveillance, and help inspire the creation of a new anti-surveillance toolkit!
In partnership with Fight for the Future, Strange Horizons, and COMPOST Magazine, the Call for Short Stories invites our digital rights community to showcase their creativity by bringing stories that highlight the realities and harms of surveillance technologies, which are used to oppress communities and limit freedoms worldwide. You can submit unpublished, original pieces of fiction in English or 5,000 words or less.
The five selected stories will be:
- Purchased and published in a special issue of Strange Horizons, a weekly magazine of and about speculative fiction
- Used to inspire and guide anti-surveillance activists and summit participants to develop a toolkit at RightsCon 2025, to be published by COMPOST Magazine in May 2024
Additionally, one author will receive an expenses-paid trip to RightsCon 2025, including a flight to and from Taipei, hotel accommodation, a stipend, and a ticket to access the RightsCon venue as well as the RightsCon Summit Platform. They will also be invited to join sessions on creating the toolkit. This author will be chosen by a panel that includes acclaimed authors Seanan McGuire, T.R. Napper, Chen Quifan, and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne—as well as literary agent DongWon Song.
Send your submissions by November 21, 2024. Authors of the five selected stories will be contacted by December 2024. See the full prompt, story guidelines, how to submit, and more at StopCopaganda.org.
We can’t wait to read all the incredible stories, bring our community together, and explore the tactics and frameworks that will emerge from the toolkit during RightsCon 2025 in Taipei!
