We have been running counter-factual essays on this blog for over a year now. And we've had some really intelligent eloquent people sharing their experiences and knowledge with us. But we could always do with more.
In this blog here we put up four articles a week, which are primarily historical essays from a counter factual perspective. So an essay may well be on the 1994 South African Elections or the Black Hawk War. The first two thirds of that essay would be to explain the historical situation and the last third would be to look at the 'what ifs' of how it might have gone differently'. Some of the people contributing work in academia, with history degrees, some are just keen well read amateurs. Generally speaking all we want is for the essay writer to know what they're talking about.
And we cover any topic from the stone age to last year and from war to pop culture. So for instance this one is about the Anglo-Zulu War and how it might have gone differently, this is about a proposed buyout of DC comics by Marvel comics and this is a series about different possible outcomes of Operation Barbarossa.
And I am happily accepting any new entries anyone is willing to send me. Whether you want to talk about specific historical events and possible 'what ifs', or you want to review published AH and talk about what the genre can be, we'd be happy to hear from you. Often you just need one interesting thing you want to say, one historical fact, one what if and then you can expand it into an essay.
I don't want to squash creativity by suggesting too much what you should write. There are a lot of people out there who know a lot of stuff and I'd be delighted to see them write that down. But contact me either by emailing me at sealionpressblogeditor at gmail dot com or by PMing on me the forums and I'll happily talk you through any ideas and offer any help I can.
So why would you want to do this? Well personally I've really found writing essays for the magazine rewarding because it allows you to get your thoughts in order and it results in really good historical conversations with people riffing on you. And there's no pressure to it, you're not going to be given a deadline. Write something up when you can, nobody's going to force you to do an all-nighter.
And from the readers point of view it means you have texts you can refer to when you're looking at subjects. It's a pool of knowledge. I'm glad that if I want to write something about an area of history, I can refer to my own thoughts all written up and in one place. You also get an audience for your thoughts, we share these on twitter and facebook and hundreds of people will see them, and so a chance to educate and share your wisdom a bit.
We'd be looking at 1,000 to 4,000 words per essay though I'd be happy to publish a longer essay in parts. I also reserve the right to reject articles and to edit them in terms of spelling, grammar etc. You would probably see them on the site within a couple of weeks though it depends how many essays I receive. This isn't a short term offer, we've been running essays for over a year and will continue doing so for the foreseeable future. if you can't do anything now but might be able to later, I'd be just as happy to hear from you in August.
And Sea Lion press do sometimes collect essays into non fiction anthologies and publish them. That, obviously, won't happen without your permission but if both sides wanted it, you would get some money in royalties for that.
There are a lot of people out there who know things I don't. Who have experienced things I haven't, studied areas I'm ignorant on and read books I've never heard of. I'd love to hear a little from people who can teach me new things.
If that intrigues you please email me at sealionpressblogeditor at gmail dot com.
Thank you for reading,
Gary Oswald