Anthology2

The Second Hayven Celestia Anthology

Call for Submissions

Attention authors and artists! Rick Griffin is planning to publish another anthology set in his Hayven Celestia (HC) universe and wants you to submit your creations for inclusion in this book.

• The Hayven Celestia (HC) is a shared universe created by Rick Griffin and Gre7g Luterman. Though the universe features vast empires and amazing technologies, the stories set in HC tend to be about the slaves and underdogs that unwillingly prop those empires up with their labor.

Submission deadline is July 15th, 2025, acceptances/rejections should be out by September 15th, 2025. Publication will follow shortly thereafter.

Submission Form: HC Anthology 2 Submission Form

Inquiries Only: rickgriffinstudios@gmail.com

Submission Agreements

• Story submissions should be in the 3k-9k range. If you would like to submit a shorter or longer story, please inquire first.
• Art submissions should be either full-bleed, full-page spreads or full-bleed two-page spreads. Please consult the artwork layout templates first before you create your masterpiece!
• Accepted submissions will pay out 1¢/word on publication.
• Art submissions will pay out $40.00 on publication.
• Each contributor will receive one contributor copy, but you may purchase additional advance copies for a reduced price and resell them. (This is only available once, at time of first publication).

Rights

• By allowing us to publish your story, you assert that you hold publication rights to your story. The story submitter will solely be held liable for plagiarism or any other issues that may result from misrepresenting their rights.
• You agree to allow the anthology editors exclusive publication rights for one year following the date of publication, which will include physical print, ebook and audiobook/podcast rights, as well as the right to use said submissions for purposes of advertising, and non-exclusive publication rights indefinitely afterwards. If your story or artwork was previously made available publicly on the internet, for profit or otherwise, you agree to cease distribution of the story or artwork from the time of the story's submission to its rejection, or if accepted, until the exclusivity period has lapsed.
  • Audiobooks published under ACX will be held liable to their own rules, which includes seven-year exclusivity for distribution under Audible. As far as I understand it, there are no rules concerning commissioning a new audiobook elsewhere, so once the exclusivity period with the anthology has ended, you are free to commission and distribute your own audiobook of your submission.
• You agree that, other than the strict text of the story itself, or the exact composition of the image, any characters, species, locations, events, etc. introduced in your submission will be made fully and non-exclusively available for use in the Hayven Celestia universe by the Hayven Celestia community.
• Other than stated above, the author of the submission retains all copyright to their story and artwork. Once the exclusive publication has ended, the author may republish it, rewrite it, sell it, option it, etc. You may at any time refuse any further use of your work regarding any purpose not listed in the above stated cessions.

Guidelines

• Your story must be set in the Hayven Celestia universe. See Setting Bible below for further details.
• We are only accepting submissions in English and are unable to provide translations.
• AI generated submissions will not be considered and may result in blacklisting.
• Multiple submissions are allowed so long as the number of submissions is kept reasonable—like three, please, not ten. Send in your best, not everything you've ever produced.
• We are looking for character-focused stories. While stories revolving around ideas will not be rejected outright, they will be much less likely to be accepted for publication.
  • It is unwise to submit a story with a main character who can do no wrong and accomplishes tasks with ease. The point of character-based stories is to challenge your characters.
• We are looking for plot-driven stories. Action, adventure, romance, intrigue, mystery, and the like will all be considered for publication. We do not accept "literary" submissions (read: stories that make pretense that they are better than to have a coherent plot) or plotless stories (though low-plot stories will be considered).
• Stories may be serious or comedic, but comedic stories still must adhere to the constraints of the setting, metahumor is not likely to be permitted.
• We will assist you in editing your short story (we want it to reflect well on us, too!) but your initial submission should be relatively well-edited and free of obvious errors. If we feel like you have to be tutored on how to construct a sentence, we will not consider your story regardless of willingness to help with editing.
• Crossing over existing characters from other universes is acceptable, if you have rights to use the character and if the character's race is—or can be made—generally compatible with the other races of HC. You must treat the character as if it were a new HC character, and the story as if it were a new story and not linked to or derivative of any non-HC property.
• You are permitted to use characters, species, settings and events from any other published Hayven Celestia story or concept as you see fit. However, it will be considered polite, though not required, to at least get affirmation if not permission from the original creator. While stories do not necessarily need to be strictly canon to be considered, authors that do want canonicity need to write characters and species in line with their established behaviors.
• Knowledge of current canon is helpful but not required; you are allowed to ask in the discord for details concerning what fits in with canon. See Stories for the current published literature.
• The anthology will be targeted at an adult audience, so adult themes and situations are welcome. However, the following will not be considered for publication:
  • Anything strictly against Amazon KDP's terms of service at time of publication, whatever the hell that is.
  • Erotica/pornography. Sexual situations will be considered, but this is not a pornographic anthology (we'll see about the future...) so the stories cannot revolve around fully explicit sexual encounters, and the amount of explicit sexual contact in the submissions must be limited.
    • Please note we are talking about literal depictions of sexual contact with sex organs, sexually, and not "sexual themes". Content such as LGBT, non-normative relationships, nudity, PDA, discussions about sexuality, and including negative depictions such as abusive relationships are not considered inherently pornographic and are permitted.
  • Fetish material. Even if the submission is not strictly sexual in nature, any heavily pseudosexual fixations (vore, gore, bodily fluids, ageplay, etc) presented in place of or at the expense of plot will be considered similarly, or other clearly fetishistic scenarios unnecessary to the story.
    • Any latent psychosexual or pseudosexual content is permitted, since the requirements to become a fiction author in the first place means you already have something wrong in the head, and we will not judge your content based on that.
  • Bigotry toward real-world people or groups or thin stand-ins for such. This includes veiled symbology from real-world hate groups, no matter how much it might "fit" the narrative.
    • Given that one of the core themes of HC is slavery, especially the messiness of master-slave relationships, this might seem like a difficult line to walk, but it's really not. Characters are allowed to have opinions both positive and negative, justified and unjustified, about themselves, others and their predicaments. This is meant in terms of authorial perspective. A narrative overfixation on justifying hatred is likely going to come under scrutiny.
  • Any other greatly objectionable content will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Setting Bible

This is still a work in progress, as is the Hayven Celestia wiki in general, but there's a few dos and do nots when it comes to writing in the Hayven Celestia universe:

• The "story" of the universe is the huge, centuries-spanning galactic war between the lio and the krakun, as well as the turek and potentially other lesser-known species. The intent, however, is not to focus on this war; to the vast majority of the universe the war is a very far-away thing and they're all just suffering (or profiting) from the fallout. Your story should not affect the trajectory of this overarching story in any major way without significant justification.
• Without contraindications, it will be presumed that your story takes place in the "present" time of the setting. You are allowed to write stories that take place in the distant past or future, but it would be ideal to not "lock down" canon in this way without discussing this with other writers. See Timeline for more details.
• This is not Star Trek. There's no federation of good guys exploring just for the fun of science and discovery. Utopias do not exist even if they are yearned for. The majority of stories published thus far are of characters simply striving for a better life. This is not a requirement but it is the shape of the kinds of stories this universe prefers.
• Hayven Celestia is intended as semi-hard science fiction. Certain fantastic technologies are considered mundane, even if such technologies cannot be accessed by everyone. If you introduce a technology, it must be reasonable that this technology is adopted everywhere it would be useful, or else has reasons it cannot. For instance, the sourang DNA-altering formula would be life-changing were it to be pursued and studied, but it cannot because the sourang are living largely ignored under the krakun shadow. See Advanced Technologies for more details, limitations, and areas that can be expanded upon. Send inquiries if you have questions.
• Themes of faith and spirituality are encouraged, but not concrete incarnations of angels, demons, gods or magic except as myth and folklore (or via some other twist). Any story that is intended as myth should ideally have a framing device. Any other supernatural element such as possession, evil spirits, curses, etc should not be framed as the only reasonable explanation for a given event.
• Except for explicitly framed fables, it is a requirement to adhere to physical limitations of the species. There are many ways to get around these limitations, but they do need to be addressed. See Atmospheric Compatibility for one such example.
• You are allowed to invent new species as you see fit; we are nowhere near saturation.
  • This anthology is considered first and foremost a furry publication. The explicit use of animal-like physicality and traits for a given new species is heavily encouraged. Of course, the species does not have to be based strictly on a real-world animal, and it is suggested that the species be differentiated from a "standard" anthropomorphic animal of that variety in some significant manner.
  • Humans and the planet Earth are not known to exist in this setting. While it is not entirely ruled out that Earth may exist, the introduction of humans or the planet Earth would be a big deal and should not be dropped casually as their presence may be considered canonical and future stories would be pressured to use whatever setup is presented as canon. As of yet, we have not heard any concept compelling enough to canonize humans or Earth into the setting, and are not inclined to include either without one.
    • As such it is suggested that human-like aliens (think Star Trek aliens) not be included either because that might confuse things. Besides... we know what our audience wants.
  • To account for the writing styles of different authors, for descriptive purposes, you can casually refer to a species that is similar to an earth species by the name of that earth species, but it is preferred to refer to them obliquely by taxonomy. "Felid" or "feline" for cat species, "canid" or "canine" for dog species, etc.
  • For the sake of variety, it's suggested that you do not create a species that significantly overlaps with those that have been established or canonized. There are currently three canid species (anup, kyacaotl, hekiru) and two felid (geordian, lio) so no other canids or felids will be considered without significant justification. Other species have been proposed by discord members, so if you have ideas for species similar to earth animals not already listed, inquire about these on the discord server.
  • It is also suggested that the precise role of your species does not overlap too strongly with one already established--i.e. while a slavemaster species is fine, a giant slavemaster species or a corporate slavemaster species is already overlapping with the krakun.
  • You might notice a trend of casual nudity in the Hayven Celestia series. While you are not required to make your species naturist-friendly, it sure goes a long way toward pleasing the judges.
  • Multiple established species have writing tips and guidelines listed for them; see Races for more information.

Discord Server

Got questions about the HC or anthology? Want to discuss a project for it? You need to be in the Discord server where we do that sort of stuff all the time!