Call for Submissions for FEISTY DEEDS III

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

Feisty Deeds III: Historical Tales of Departure and Change

Departures are bittersweet, and change is often brought about by actions beyond one’s control. Throughout history, carefully laid plans are disrupted—and feisty women must adapt. 

We are looking for creative stories of departure, change, and what lies beyond. The action can be prompted by something like a sudden injury or the death of a loved one. It can be personal, like leaving home or being fired from a job. It can be communal, as in immigration and diaspora. 

Some examples: 

• Odysseus’ departure from Ithaca lasted two decades, but resulted in one of the greatest adventures of all time. Penelope at home had to adapt in her own way to his absence, weaving her protection from rival suitors.
• Jane Austen’s heroines are forced to depart family homes entailed to distant male relatives, but their struggles to create new lives for themselves drive their stories.
• Countless individuals across centuries have been forced from their homes due to war, invasions, natural disasters, or plague. They’ve been kidnapped, enslaved, or actively running from the law, forced to begin again in their new destination.
• Eager students, reluctant brides, young graduates drawn to big city lights, and hopeful girls aiming for Hollywood stardom all break with a life they’ve always known for whatever their future may hold. But all does not transpire as planned . . .

In this anthology, before your story begins, something essential that defined your heroine’s life has been lost. Your heroine did not plan to have to make this change or undertake this departure; rather, circumstances have made it necessary.  Perhaps the plans were joyful, and their loss is a tragedy — or perhaps the plans were something our feisty heroine hated, and now is her chance to claim the destiny she always wanted. But where will she turn? What skills does she have? Whom can she trust? The story should concern what happens next, not primarily the character’s reaction to the loss. 

As always, we are looking for variety in every way: time periods, locations, story moods, heroine ages, and plot devices—presented with clear story movement and character arc. 

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Other requirements:

• Main character must be female, although a second main character or narrator can be any gender.
• Not biographical fiction; main character must be fictional.
• Word count: maximum 3,000 words.
• “Historical” is defined as taking place 50 years or more in the past.
• Stories need a beginning, rising action, and conclusion. They do not have to be happy endings but must have a clear story structure.
• Chapters from novels are not acceptable. 

When you submit, please note the following:

• Your story should begin with (a) the title (b) author’s name (c) time and place of setting.
• Please affirm that no portion of your story was generated by AI.
• We recommend you send your story to one or two beta readers for feedback before submitting. 

►In the interest of fairness, please do not ask any of the editors to act as beta readers. We need to approach final versions with fresh eyes.

Publication details: 

As before, we plan to self-publish the volume via PubShare and to distribute all profits from sales to the WFWA Scholarship Fund. Therefore, all authors will be required to contribute to production and promotion costs, including cover design, graphic art for promotion, editorial reviews, contest submissions, etc. Based on our experience with Feisty Deeds I and II, we anticipate the cost will be $150 per participant.

Submissions process:

• Submissions will open on August 15, 2026 and close on September 16, 2026.
• Send to histficanthology@gmail.com 
  • Title the email: "Submission, {name of your story}"
  • The body of the email should be a brief cover letter. In it, include:
    • your proposal & network for helping to promote the anthology
    • the year and location your story is set
  • Your story included as an attachment
• Stories must be cleanly formatted and, in your own opinion, in final, publishable form.
   
  • Prepare the story in Word in standard manuscript form: 12 point font and double-spaced. 
  • Proofread carefully and correct typos and grammatical errors before submitting.
  • Indicate scene breaks with a space marked with ### or ***.
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More information will follow, but for now, we hope that you will begin thinking about the story you might write! We look forward to hearing from you,

The editorial committee: (Elaine Schroller, Kimberly Sullivan, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Christy Matheson, Kay Smith-Blum)