Spark and Fizz Books is accepting submissions to the inaugural issue of its quarterly science and speculative fiction zine Planet Scumm. We’ll be accepting submissions January 5th to February 5th, or until we fill the collection.
What We’re Looking For
Previously unpublished short fiction that doesn’t lean heavily on genre tropes. Hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, sci-fi that melts in your mouth-brain not your hand-brain. Speculative fiction, weird fiction, slipstream, glitterlit, analogpunk. Basically anything that pleases Scummy, our megaphone-toting slime buddy.
Include submissions as an .RTF or .DOC attachment sent to [email protected] along with a brief cover letter in the email body. Stories, or collections of flash fiction, should be 1000-7500 words in length, and submitted in standard manuscript format. Use the subject line “Planet Scumm Submission” followed by your story title.
Submit only one short story or flash collection. We will not accept multiple submissions from the same author in one reading period.
Simultaneous submissions are okay, as long as you promptly withdraw a story accepted elsewhere. Submissions that are too long or short will be rejected immediately, as will those that are incorrectly formatted. In addition, submissions covering the topics below aren’t likely to play well with our slush readers.
The No-No List
- Zombies, vampires, werewolves, pirates, ninjas
- Cthuloid/Mythos tales
- Straight horror without a clear speculative element
- Erotica
- Fan fiction
- Sword-and-spell fantasy
- Steampunk
- Anthropomorphic animals
- Stories that end with “It was all a dream” or “Turns out they were in a simulation”
Use With Caution
- Time travel
- Political allegory
- Satire/Comedy
- Lasers (pew-pew handheld ones, and big blue planet-killers)
- FTL travel
Schedule, Rights and Payment
Issue 001 will be released July 4th, 2017 as an e-book with a limited print run. Most accepted stories will also be published on our blog.For accepted stories, we’re asking for first world print and electronic publishing rights for six months and non-exclusive rights thereafter. Profits will be split 50/50 between the publisher and all contributing authors, after production costs have been paid.
Authors will receive their first payment within 6 months of their issue’s release date, and an annual residuals check. Contributors will also receive a free digital copy of the issue.
