Call for Submissions: Absolute Pleasure Anthology

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an iconic cult-classic film that has resonated with fans of all ages, birthing community engagement, homages, and remakes since 1975. It has been the longest-running film release in the United States, sustained by midnight and participatory screenings. In these immersive events, each first-time viewer’s forehead is marked with a lipstick “V” to prepare them for the vulgar, violent, and vivacious world that awaits them in this unique film.

After Rocky Horror was released, it was called a “horror-rock-transvestite-camp- omnisexual-musical parody” by Roger Ebert (1976) and, more recently, a “godawful movie that, despite its general badness, nevertheless casts a spell of sorts” by James Berardinelli (2021). It has inspired, provoked, baffled, and delighted audiences for nearly five decades.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the film’s debut, Margot Atwell is working with Feminist Press to create an anthology of nonfiction essays by queer and trans writers about The Rocky Horror Picture Show, what it means to you, its place in the culture and film history, and more. We want this book to contend with the film and its full legacy, in all its messy, problematic, murderous glory. The anthology will be published in 2025 by Feminist Press under the name Absolute Pleasure: Queer Reflections on Five Messy Decades of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Themes we hope to see explored in relation to the film:

Rocky Horror’s place and role in queer communities, in the past and today
Representations of race, disability, gender identity, sexuality, and internalized queerphobia (positive and problematic)
Language from the film, both what it meant in the original context and looking at it through a present moment lens
Analysis of the genres and tropes the film draws from
How queer people from different generations relate to the film, or don’t, and why
Personal stories and reflections
And more!

To be considered, please submit your essay of 1,500–7,000 words via this Google form no later than March 29, 2024. We are very grateful for earlier submissions. Writers whose work is selected for inclusion will be paid 8 cents per word after the essay is edited and accepted for publication, plus possible bonuses. You can send any questions you have to rockyhorroranthology [at] gmail.com.

Don’t dream it—write it. Then submit to us. 💋

About the editor

Margot Atwell (she/her/hers) is a writer, editor, publisher, speaker, and community funding expert, and the Executive Director and Publisher of Feminist Press. In 2019 she was selected as a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree and received the Digital Book World Outstanding Achievement Award for The Next Page virtual conference. She’s the coauthor of The Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing Success and author of Derby Life. Her writing has been published in outlets such as the Creative Independent, Clarkesworld Magazine, Moviefone, and Publishers Weekly. You can find her on Twitter or Instagram at @MargotAtwell, and read her writing in her On the Books newsletter.

About Feminist Press

The Feminist Press publishes books that ignite movements and social transformation. Celebrating our legacy, we lift up insurgent and marginalized voices from around the world to build a more just future. Our vision is to create a world where everyone recognizes themselves in a book. We were founded in 1970 as a crucial publishing component of second wave feminism, reprinting feminist classics by writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and providing much-needed texts for the developing field of women’s studies with books by Barbara Ehrenreich and Grace Paley. We publish feminist literature from around the world, and North American writers of diverse race and class experience. We have become the vanguard for books on contemporary feminist issues of equality and gender identity.