Category: Semipro

Taking Submissions: Weird Horror Magazine March 2024 Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: March 2nd – March 15th, 2024
Payment: 2¢ (2-cents) per word , with a $25 minimum and $100 maximum and 2 contributor’s copies
Theme: Horror and weird fiction from 500 to 5,000 words, firm.

OPENS: March 2, 2024

CLOSES: March 15, 2024

We are seeking horror and weird fiction from 500 to 5,000 words, firm. Query first if your story is over 5,000 words. We are a home for the strange, the macabre, the eerie, the esoteric, the fabulist, and the gothic. The darkly numinous. The odd. We are not interested in extreme horror. Do not send science fiction or fantasy.

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Ongoing Submissions: Interzone

Payment: (EUR) 1.5¢ per word (one and one-half euro cents)
Theme: Fantastika (“the fantastic in literature as a whole, encompassing science fiction, Fantasy, fantastic horror and their various subgenres (see also Gothic SF; Horror in SF; SF Megatext), but not Proto SF. It is a concept normally restricted to narratives.”)

Hello.

First of all, —Interzone is always open to unsolicited submissions of fantastika of between 2,000 and 17,500 words from everyone, whoever or wherever you are.

If you aren’t sure what is included under the umbrella of fantastika, check out the fabulous entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

I want to read stories that tell of change and transformation; stories that describe the boundlessness of the human soul. I want to see writers experiment and take risks with stories that wend their way through the labyrinth of this world, and with stories that string bridges of their own creation to places I have never seen.

Submit stories that rend the heart, shock the brain, and leave the world a different place.

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Taking Submissions: Dracula Beyond Stoker Issue #5

Submission Window: May 1st – June 15th, 2024
Payment: Contributors copies, 5 cents per word for original work, $55 for reprints, undisclosed sum for cover artwork
Theme: Lucy’s Suitors – Quincey, Jack, and/or Arthur

Issue 5: Lucy’s Suitors – Quincey, Jack, and/or Arthur (To be published November, 2024)
Quincey was a cowboy who may or may not have been in cahoots with the count.

Seward was a drug addicted custodian of a lunatic asylum.

And Arthur was there, too!

Let’s read some stories of these men – together, individually, in combination – before, during, and after the events of the novel. Did Quincey survive as the undead? How did Jack treat his other patients? When the dust settled, did Holmwood completely break down? Stoker tells us these three men adventured together prior. What might that look like?

Currently this is planned as a single book, but quantity and quality may dictate a book for each man.

Submissions open May 1, 2024-June 15, 2024. Submissions received earlier will be read and considered but will not be responded to until the window opens.
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Ongoing Submissions: Heathen Magazine

Payment: $0.05 per word
Theme: Horror and dark fantasy fiction

Heathen is a new literary magazine and multimedia platform spotlighting the best in horror and dark fantasy fiction. Released quarterly in a digital medium, the stories you’ll find in Heathen will be available in both text and audio formats. Once a year, the most-read (and listened to) stories will be collected in a physical annual.

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Ongoing Submissions: Mystery Magazine

Payment: 2 cents CAD per word
Theme: Crime mystery of every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries.
Note: Not to be confused with Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

Use the form below (link at the bottom) to send us your 1000-7500 word story or You-Solve-It mystery. Multiple submissions are not allowed. Submissions must be original works of short fiction that have never appeared online or in print in any form. Avoid scenes of animal cruelty or excessive profanity/violence. We pay 2¢/word USD for accepted stories. Our average response time is 4-6 weeks.

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Taking Submissions: Diet Milk Magazine Spring/Summer 2023 Issue Window

Submission Window: December 1st 2023 – January 8th, 2024
Payment: $15 per poem, $0.01 per word ($40 minimum) for short stories, and $50 per art piece via PayPal
Theme: Gothic stories, no set genre

Opens on Friday, December 1, 2023 12:00 AM UTC (in 24 days)

From December 1st – January 8th, Diet Milk Magazine will be accepting submissions for its Spring/Summer issue. We will be open to poetry, prose, and visual art of all kinds. While the most detailed information can be found on our website, here’s a quick rundown of what potential contributors need to know!

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

  • All submissions must fall under the Gothic umbrella, but aren’t required to be a specific genre
  • No reprints or multiple submissions
  • Simultaneous submissions permitted, though we ask to be informed promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere!
  • Poetry/Prose submissions should be .doc.docx, or .pdf // Art submissions should be .jpeg or .png
  • If you receive a rejection, you may submit again (with new work) immediately

P O E T R Y :

Poets may submit up to three poems at a time. No single poem should exceed five pages in length.

P R O S E :

Authors may submit one short story at a time, up to 5000 words. This doesn’t have to be on the dot, but stories exceeding 5025 words will be rejected automatically.

A R T :

Artists may submit up to two pieces at a time. We’ll consider any type of visual art. If you’re unsure whether or not your work falls into this category, query us first. Reach out to [email protected] using the subject line “QUERY: YourName [ART SUB]”. We’ll let you know within 24 hours if your preferred medium is eligible.

Responses, Rights, & Payment

  • Please allow up to three weeks for a response. After that, send a gentle nudge via email
  • Diet Milk Magazine asks for first serial rights. Upon publication, all rights revert back to the creator. A contract will be provided upon acceptance
  • All payments made via PayPal.

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Taking Submissions: Diet Milk Magazine In The Bleak Midwinter

Submission Window: October 1st – 31st, 2023
Payment: Microfiction: $3 per piece, Flash Fiction $5 per piece
Theme: Gothic stories

From October 1st – 31st, Diet Milk Magazine will be accepting micro and flash fiction for its December series, IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER. Twenty-five works will be chosen to be posted from December 1st through Christmas to our website and boosted on twitter.

At the end of the month, all pieces will be compiled into an easy-to-read .PDF and made available for free (though donations are appreciated!) on our issues shop.

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

  • All submissions must fall under the Gothic umbrella, but aren’t required to be a specific genre
  • No reprints or multiple submissions
  • Simultaneous submissions permitted, though we ask to be informed promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere!
  • Submissions should be .doc.docx, or .pdf format
  • If you receive a rejection, you may submit again (with new work) immediately

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Taking Submissions: NonBinary Review #35

Deadline: February 1st, 2023
Payment: Fiction: 1¢ per word, Poetry: $10 flat fee, Artwork: $25 flat fee (Cover art is $50)
Theme: Lies for Children

NonBinary Review is open for submissions on the theme of “lies for children.”

“If you keep making that face, it’ll freeze that way.” “We found you under a cabbage leaf.” “If you drink coffee, it’ll stunt your growth.” “If you go to sleep with wet hair, you’ll catch pneumonia.”

Adults tell children some outrageous lies. Think back to your own childhood and explanations your parents gave you for things you didn’t understand or superstitions they perpetuated. Why do adults feel that children need credulity-straining fictions rather than objective truths? What things do we find so uncomfortable that we can’t explain them to children? How do those lies affect our relationship with the children we lied to, or the adults who lied to us? Some of these lies are benevolent (although kind of weird), but some can be trauma-inducing. We want to hear the stories behind those lies, and the consequences they engendered.

We’re NOT looking for fairy tales, re-tellings of children’s bedtime stories, tall tales, Santa Claus/Easter bunny/tooth fairy origin stories, or any other fictions that even children know are stories told for fun.

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