New Rules Are In Place And Are Frequently Changing

SUBMISSIONS FOR NEW RULES HAVE NOW CLOSED. If you sent in a proposal, thank you! You’ll hear back by 27 September.

New Rules will be a small booklet of writing about play during the current pandemic.

This writing can be in any form: essays, poems, game rulesets, dialogues, cheerful lists, morose lists, diagrams, whatever.

And the play can be in any form as well: online, on your phone, on a table, on a balcony, even entirely imagined. (We’re specifically interested in the play itself, rather than in the design process of making a game, but of course that’s not always a clear line.)

For example: maybe you’d like to write a list of twenty differently awkward ways that professional sports have adapted to socially distanced play. Or maybe you’d like to write about that time when suddenly everyone was doing jigsaw puzzles. Or maybe you’d like to write about trying to play board games over video chat. Or about tiny made-up games you played by yourself while you were in hotel quarantine for a fortnight. Or the coronavirus-themed chase game you heard your children invent. Or the week you lost to replaying videogames from a decade ago, when your work closed down and you needed something to do to distract you from panicking. Maybe you want to write up a set of rules for having “mild” coronavirus. Or document the comings and goings on the football field behind your house that you see people sneaking out onto even though it’s meant to be closed. Or, probably, something else entirely.

We’re interested in anything that is in some way about specific details or experiences of play during the pandemic.

(No Animal Crossing though, sry.)

QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT WANT ANSWERS TO

What form will New Rules take?

It’ll be a little paper booklet; most work will also go online, on a dedicated website.

How many pieces will be in it?

That depends on their length, but we anticipate maybe 8-12. Most of them will be selected from this call, though we may approach a few people directly.

When will you choose them by?

27 September.

Does my piece have to be in English?

It has to be moderately comprehensible to English-language readers. So for example a poem in another language with an English translation would be fine (and it’s also fine if there’s something specific to the experience of reading both versions of the poem that English-only readers will miss); or you could use several languages if it’s a piece that works even when most readers will not be able to understand everything.

Are you interested in illustrations?

Probably not; if you’ve got something already existing you want to tell us about then feel free to send it in, especially if it works in black and white, but we’re expecting to have no-to-few illustrations.

What does it pay?

Short works (under 500 words): £75. Longer works (around 1000 to 2500 words): £150. Really long (longer than 2500 or so): £200, but we’re only after one or two of these at most. Reprints (any length): £50.

We’ll also send you a copy of the booklet.

Can I put in more than one idea?

Sure! Ideally not more than two or three though.

If you decide you want my essay or poem or diagram or whatever-it-is, what happens then?

We’ll get in touch. We’ll mutually agree a deadline for a first draft (we hope to have first drafts of most work in by mid-October). You’ll write a draft; we’ll read it; we’ll discuss any edits or revisions. We’ll pay within a week of you submitting an invoice and any revisions.

You continue to own the copyright to your work, but we’ll ask you not to publish it elsewhere before March next year.

What if you say yes but then you don’t want my essay/poem/etc once I’ve written it?

We’ll pay 50% of the agreed fee and you can do what you like with your work.

Why does this project exist?

We think that the play that’s been going on during the pandemic is pretty interesting now and that it’s going to be really interesting in twenty years, and really really interesting in a hundred. Imagine having something like this that we could read now, dating from the 1918 pandemic.

How is it funded?

Quite haphazardly tbh. If you’d like to sponsor New Rules so we can include another essay or two, absolutely get in touch. We can do you a tasteful mention in the credits, a garish full-page ad, an embarrassingly effusive SPONSORED CONTENT writeup of how your game is the perfect game to play during any pandemic [nb it’s extra if you want us to guarantee to actually play your game], or if you’re particularly generous even a measured but ultimately damning critique of the work of your professional rivals. email me: holly@hollygramazio.net

When will New Rules come out?

Early December, I reckon? We’ll see.

I have another question that’s not answered here.

Email me: holly@hollygramazio.net