Category: Pro

Taking Submissions: Diabolical Plots July 2023 Window

Submission Window: July 17th-31st, 2023
Payment: 10 cents per word
Theme: science fiction, fantasy, horror (everything must have a speculative element, even horror).

Our planned windows are:

  • July 17-31, 2023: General submission window

David Steffen is the editor, who you may also know from reading The Long List Anthology series or from the Submission Grinder, which you can use to find markets for your writing and track your submissions.  Diabolical Plots is a SFWA-qualifying market, so if you have a personal goal to join SFWA, making a sale here would help you toward that goal.

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Taking Submissions: Solarpunk Magazine July 2023 Window

Submission Window: July 1st – 14th, 2023
Payment: Fiction: 1500-7500 words ($.08 per word, $100 minimum), Poetry: up to 5 poems or 5 pages of poems, whichever is shorter. ($40 per poem), Nonfiction: 1000-2000 words ($75 per essay or article), Cover Art: $100 for reprints, $200 for original unpublished, Interior Art: $50 for reprints, $100 for original unpublished
Theme: Hopeful short stories and poetry that strive for a utopian ideal, that are set in futures where communities are optimistically struggling to solve or adapt to climate change, to create or maintain a world in which humanity, technology, and nature coexist in harmony rather than in conflict.

All submissions to Solarpunk Magazine are done via Moksha. Any submissions received via email will be deleted without a response. Please don’t email us to describe your story and ask if it’s something we’d be interested in before submitting. We appreciate the consideration, but its easier if you just submit the story through Moksha.

Please read the full submission guidelines on down below or on our Moksha page before submitting your work. All submission periods end at 11:59 pm PST on the 14th of their given month.

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Taking Submissions: khōréō July 2023 (Early Listing)

Submission Window: July 1st – 30th, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word and $500 for custom cover art and $100 for cover art drawn from an artist’s existing portfolio.
Theme: Fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and any genre in between or around it, as long as there’s a speculative element.
Note: You must identify as an immigrant or member of a diaspora in the broadest definitions of the terms. This includes, but is not limited to, first- and second-generation immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, persons who identify with one or more diaspora communities, persons who have been displaced or whose heritage has been erased due to colonialism/imperialism, and anyone whose heritage and history includes ‘here and elsewhere’.

khōréō is a quarterly publication of stories, essays, and art: fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and any genre in between or around it, as long as there’s a speculative element. We’re especially interested in writing and art that explore some aspect of migration, whether explicitly (themes of immigration, colonialism, etc.), metaphorically, or with a sly nod and a wink. Most importantly, we’re a new magazine and we’re still finding our identity: therefore, please don’t self-reject because you’re not sure if your work is a good fit. We won’t know until we see it, so please give us a chance to look!

See submission requirements & how to submit at the following pages:

Who can submit?

khōréō is dedicated to diversity and amplifying the voices of immigrant and diaspora authors and artists. We welcome, but do not require, a brief description of the author’s/artist’s identity in their cover letter.

We invite you to submit if you identify as an immigrant or member of a diaspora in the broadest definitions of the terms. This includes, but is not limited to, first- and second-generation immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, persons who identify with one or more diaspora communities, persons who have been displaced or whose heritage has been erased due to colonialism/imperialism, and anyone whose heritage and history includes ‘here and elsewhere’. We especially encourage BIPOC creators who identify as the above to submit their work.

When reading submissions, we take in good faith that you identify as an immigrant or member of a diaspora as described above. If you still aren’t sure if you should submit, please email [email protected].

We kindly request individuals who do not identify as such to support the magazine by reading our stories, subscribing, and helping spread the word instead.

Submission Periods

Our next submission period will open at midnight Eastern time on January 1, 2021. We will close submissions at 11:59pm on January 31, 2021.

In our first year, we will have the following reading periods:

  • January 1-January 31
  • April 1-April 30
  • July 1-July 30
  • October 1-October 31

Via: khōréō.

Taking Submissions: Mysterion July 2023 Window

Deadline: July 31st, 2023
Payment: 8 cents/word and 4 cents/word for reprints
Theme: Speculative stories–science fiction, fantasy, horror–with Christian themes, characters, or cosmology
Note: Reprints Welcome

We are looking for speculative stories–science fiction, fantasy, horror–with Christian themes, characters, or cosmology, and for artwork for this site.

Fiction Guidelines

Technical details

  • Stories can be up to 9000 words (thanks, Patreon supporters!). This is a hard limit–our submission system will enforce it.
  • We pay 8 cents/word for original stories (or original translations of stories that have not previously appeared in English), and 4 cents/word for reprints (thanks again, Patreon!).
    • Authors are paid once we’ve agreed on edits and signed a contract, prior to earliest publication (generally on our Patreon page).
  • We are seeking 6 months’ exclusive worldwide publication rights for original works (with exceptions for established Best of the Year anthologies), and non-exclusive worldwide print and electronic rights thereafter for both original works and reprints.
    • We want to publish your story online in our webzine and keep it there indefinitely.
    • We’re also acquiring the right to offer ebook versions of the stories we publish, as Patreon rewards or for purchase; and to publish a print and ebook anthology of all the stories that appeared in the webzine over a given 1- or 2-year period.
    • For original fiction, we want to be the only place publishing it for the first 6 months; after that, you’re welcome to publish it anywhere else in any format you like.
  • No multiple or simultaneous submissions.
    • If multiple writers co-write a story, we consider each distinct group of writers a different submitter. In other words, if two people co-write a story, and they submit the co-written story, and each of them also submits a story written on their own, that would not violate our no multiple submissions policy. Submitting two stories co-written by the same two people would violate our no multiple submissions policy.
  • Don’t resubmit a story we’ve rejected unless we request revisions.
  • We usually manage to respond to everyone within four months of the submission window’s closing. Feel free to query ([email protected]) if it’s been longer than four months since the end of the submission period.
  • Format requirements:
    • Stories must be double spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman or Courier font.
    • The story title, your byline, a word count, and contact information should appear on the first page, and your last name, story title, and page number should appear in the header information of all other pages.
    • If you want to make our lives easier, our preferred format is Times New Roman, italics for emphasis, one space after periods and colons, smart quotes, m-dashes instead of double hyphens, and first line of paragraph indented 0.5″ in Paragraph formatting instead of with the Tab key. But we aren’t that particular about any of this when evaluating your stories.
  • Stories should be submitted via the Moksha submissions system: https://mysterion.moksha.io/publication/mysterion.
  • Submit your stories in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format.
  • Your cover letter should contain a list of your three or four most prestigious publications (if any), and any pertinent biographical details: tell us if you’re an astronaut writing about space travel, but not if you’re an astronaut writing about the elf-dwarf war. Invert that if you’re an elf. If you’ve met us in person, feel free to mention it. Finally, let us know if the story is previously published and where it first appeared–even if it appeared on your blog or Twitter feed. Don’t try to summarize your story or explain why it’s a good fit for our publication (if it’s a good fit, we should be able to tell by reading it).

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Taking Submissions: The Cast of Wonders: Banned Books Week (Early)

Submission Window: June 1st – 14th, 2023
Payment: 8 cents/word for originals, $100/short story or $20/flash piece for reprints
Theme: Guiding Sparks Between the Words: How Stories Illuminate the World Around Us

Every year in September, Cast of Wonders celebrates Banned Books Week, an annual international event celebrating the freedom to read and raising awareness of the immense social value of free and open access to information.

Joining the editorial team for this year’s call is Cast of Wonders Associate Editor, Simon Pan. Thank you, Simon, for the wonderful theme this year!

Guiding Sparks Between the Words: How Stories Illuminate the World Around Us

In times of conflict, division and change, it is more important than ever to build bridges of understanding.  We most commonly encounter the stories of others through news articles or in classrooms, kept at a scholarly or journalistic distance and often biased to favour privileged perspectives. Our own truths may also remain unvoiced and unknown, misunderstood even by those around us.

When it comes to illuminating these truths, stories have a key part to play: they help us to learn and appreciate things from perspectives we might never otherwise consider, and allow us to reshape our own experiences within the transformative lens of fiction. When we share our stories, we guide sparks of kinship and understanding, using narrative and emotion to help others experience a small window into another’s reality.

For Banned Books Week 2023, we want to see stories of discovery, of learning, of misconceptions unraveled, and how stories can serve as a guiding light to help us understand a new perspective, or to teach us valuable lessons when all other methods fail us. What that something is…well, that is up to you!

At Cast of Wonders, we welcome stories that portray the full spectrum of human experience. We don’t challenge stories; we want stories to challenge us! Cast of Wonders looks for stories that evoke a sense of wonder, have deep emotional resonance, and have something unreal about them. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without gratuitous or explicit sex, violence, or pervasive obscene language.

Preference for this submission window is under 5,000 words with an absolute limit of 6,000 words. Flash submissions under 1.5k are also very welcome!

Submissions must adhere to Cast of Wonders guidelines.  Submissions will be accepted from June 1 to June 14 through our Moksha Portal – we can’t wait to read what you send in!

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Taking Submissions: If There’s Anyone Left Volume 4 Window

Submission Window: June 1st, 2023 – July 15th, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word
Theme: Science fiction and speculative fiction
Note: Open to writers that are marginalized members of the sci-fi/spec community

GENERAL (i.e. non micro-fiction) GUIDELINES

We are currently closed to GENERAL flash submissions. We will open June 1, 2023 for Volume 4 submissions and remain open until July 15, 2023.

We want science fiction and speculative fiction. So long as it falls into one of these categories, we will happily read it. If other elements are present, that is fine, but it must include science or speculative fiction.

  • No more than 1000 words. This is a firm limit. Please no queries about longer pieces.

  • NO AI-GENERATED/ASSISTED STORIES

  • Pay rate is professional – $0.08 US/word

  • This is for marginalized members of the sci-fi/spec community—this includes people of color, the LGBTQ2S+ community, members of marginalized genders, and disabled and neurodiverse people. If you are not a person of color, LGBTQ2S+, neurodiverse, disabled, or of a marginalized gender, please DO NOT send us your work. Authors of all accepted pieces will have the option to include a short bio in the anthology. We understand the sensitive nature of gender identity and sexual orientation, so if you wish this status to remain unwritten and/or if you prefer to be anonymous, we will print only what you wish to be printed. If you would like your piece published under a pseudonym, please indicate this on your submission. If you would like your pronouns included, please indicate those as well.

  • DO NOT send us anything hateful. No gratuitous violence, torture, rape, or any work that promotes an ideology unbecoming of an inclusive society – no stories supporting racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, or any other of the many forms of hate.

Minutiae

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Taking Submissions: Rhapsody of the Spheres (Early Listing)

Submission Window: May 19th – June 1st, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word
Theme: “An effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling” in the SF, fantasy, space opera, hopepunk genres

Theme: Rhapsody of the Spheres – SF, fantasy, space opera, hopepunk

The dictionary defines a rhapsody as “an effusively enthusiastic or  ecstatic expression of feeling.” In ancient Greece, a rhapsody was also part of an epic poem of a suitable length for reciting.

Edie Brickell waxed rhapsodic about a smile on a dog, and Queen and Liszt gave us their musical Bohemian and Hungarian rhapsodies, respectively.

Please give us a speculative fiction story or poem about what would make us happy right now.

Reading Period (open): May 19 – June 1, 2023
Writer Deadline: June 1, 2023
Publication Date: August 2023

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Taking Submissions: Qualia Nous Volume 2

Deadline: July 31st, 2023
Payment: 10 cents per word up to 3,000 words, $500 for novelettes, $50 for short poems, $100 for longer poems
Theme: Qualia: instances of subjective, conscious experience; the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena; the way it feels to have mental states. Nous: intellections; awareness; perception; understanding; reason; thought; intuition; the faculty of the human mind; having the ability to understand what is true or real; practical intelligence.

The first volume of Qualia Nous (2014), edited by Michael Bailey, won the Benjamin Franklin Award for science fiction and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology. It was a Foreword Reviews Book of the Year finalist in horror, science fiction, and a bronze winner for anthologies, as well as a silver medal finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Awards, a finalist for the Indie Book Awards, and a winner of the International Book Award. It was also the first Written Backwards anthology (of eventually many) to contain work by Stephen King.

Usman T. Malik’s “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” was a finalist for the Nebula Award and tied to win the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction with Rena Mason’s “Ruminations.” And Marge Simon’s poem “Shutdown” (the only poem in the anthology) won the Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. So, a second volume of Qualia Nous was inevitable, albeit 10 years later, and will again not only feature legends of the craft but showcase today’s emerging talent.

What does the title mean? It’s up to interpretation.

Qualia: instances of subjective, conscious experience; the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena; the way it feels to have mental states.

Nous: intellections; awareness; perception; understanding; reason; thought; intuition; the faculty of the human mind; having the ability to understand what is true or real; practical intelligence.
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