Introduction
Purple Unicorns? Really?
Bookstores are filled with theme anthologies, some of them with terrific concepts, while others fall under the “What were they thinking?” category.
Purple unicorns? Really?
What were they thinking?
For almost twenty years now, my wife, Rebecca Moesta, and I have given classes and lectures on professionalism and building a writing career. We tell both established and aspiring writers that they must always deliver their best work, no matter what the project is. Whether it’s an obscure story, an article, an interview, that piece will be some reader’s introduction to your work, and you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Don’t phone it in—put 100% into the story, and if you can’t do that, don’t accept the job in the first place.
For instance, if you agree to contribute a story to an anthology about purple unicorns, don’t just roll your eyes and whip off something mediocre because, well, who cares about purple unicorns? Maybe the theme of the anthology makes you roll your eyes, but don’t think that gives you an excuse to deliver a bad story. The people who buy an anthology about purple unicorns really want to read about purple unicorns, and if you accept the assignment then you are obligated to deliver your best possible story about a purple unicorn. And if you do write a terrific purple unicorn story, the readers of that anthology may well remember your name and seek out your other work.
It’s one of our most important lessons. But it’s become more than that, too.
Over the years, various writers have come up to me after we give that lecture. “You know, Kevin, I’m going to write a purple unicorn story for you. I accept the challenge.” It was always a joke, but then it got more and more serious.
In 2010, Rebecca and I launched our intensive business-related Superstars Writing Seminars with fellow writers Brandon Sanderson, David Farland, and Eric Flint. Every year, Rebecca would give our professionalism talk, using the purple unicorn example. And more and more students would offer to write stories for the now-legendary Purple Unicorn Anthology.
At the 2014 Superstars Writing Seminar, one of our guest lecturers was Lisa Mangum, an editor for Shadow Mountain Publishing, and she heard our professionalism talk. A few weeks after the seminar, she wrote me to say she couldn’t get the idea out of her head—and she proposed that we do the anthology. For real. Something that would be open to submissions from all the past Superstars attendees. She offered her services as editor if WordFire Press would be interested in publishing the book.
Hmmm.
We continued discussions and realized that we could do the volume as a benefit for Superstars, with all profits going toward a new scholarship fund that would allow a disadvantaged person to attend the writing seminar. Bestselling YA author and artist James Artimus Owen, one of our Superstar instructors, offered to do an original cover for the anthology. The WordFire team would publish it—and our Superstars tribe would get behind it.
Lisa developed the guidelines, opened herself to a flood of submissions, and our students got to work. But word leaked out, too.
Todd J. McCaffrey, well known for the Dragonriders of Pern novels coauthored with Anne McCaffrey, sent me a story out of the blue, which we were delighted to include. Delighted that we were so delighted, Todd sent us a second story, with which we could bracket the anthology.
I told him, “You know we’re not paying anything for this, right?”
“Yes, but it’s for a good cause.”
Then New York Times bestselling author Jody Lynn Nye offered to write us a new story.
Then the legendary Peter S. Beagle, author of the classic The Last Unicorn, gave us a story. Free. For the scholarship.
Cool.
None of these big names took slots away from the students; with well-known authors in the table of contents, I just added extra pages to the book. (As WordFire Press publisher, I can do that!)
The submissions came in, and Lisa received about four times as many stories as she could use, and the Superstars students cheered each other on, knowing that most of them wouldn’t make the cut.
And now you have in your hands One Horn to Rule Them All: A Purple Unicorn Anthology, and I venture to say that these are the very best purple unicorn stories ever written.
Until the next volume.
Kevin J. Anderson, publisher
WordFire Press
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