Deadline: August 8th, 2015
Payment: 3¢/word max $100

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” — Ernest Shackleton

The small press anthology Tales from the Miskatonic Library is now soliciting stories for submission.  This is an anthology of tales about, found in, inspired by, or stolen from the Miskatonic University Library.

Your editors are Darrell Schweitzer & myself, and we are looking for tales that:

1. Are good stories.
2. Can be included in an anthology titled Tales From the Miskatonic Librarywithout involving us in elaborate explanations.
3. Aren’t “Boy Reads Book; Book Eats Boy.”

So, your chance to have a bit of grim fun:

• What sort of tales might be found in the Miskatonic University Library?  Kept perhaps in the secure reading room?  Shared by Chief Librarian Henry Armitage over faculty sherry with only a trusted few?
• And how did Dr. Henry Armitage acquire his position as Chief Librarian?  And what of his successor(s)?
• What unexpected problems might be faced by an acquisitions librarian at Miskatonic University?  Or a cataloger? Is the Necronomicon quite as rare as it is made out to be?
• What is the real explanation for the curious gaps in the Dewey Decimal System?
• What might it take to see the unexpurgated account of the Pabodie’s 1930 expedition to The Mountains of Madness?  Together with their troubling cross-correlations with Shackleton’s private diary? The US Treasury Departments internal report on the incident at Devil Reef off Innsmouth?
• Why are no students allowed within the stacks?  Are rumors of non-Euclidean spaces within merely rumors?  Why was Einstein called in for a consult in 1944?  And his frequent correspondent Schrödinger brought over  secretly from Ireland that same year?
• And are series like Warehouse 13 or The Librarian or Charlie Stross’s The Laundry really just cover stories for the MUL? precautions taken to make sure if a bit of the truth gets out, it will be seen as merely a publicity stunt?
• …

And, there is absolutely no requirement to mention the Necronomicon or even the Cthulhu Mythos at all!  So long as its appearance in our anthology makes sense, we’re good with it.

Our publisher is PS Publishing, which has just published Darrell’s That is Not Dead:  Tales of the Cthulhu Mythose Through the Centuries, and which has a very strong line of Lovecraftian titles.  As this is small press, maximum 1000 copies, the rate is — alas — correspondingly small:  3¢/word max $100.  Sigh.  But, Honour & recognition!  Or, even better, a chance to warn the world of untimely horrors!

Please send stories in electronic form only!  RTF, Word, or Pages are OK.  Not PDF, which is not editable.

No reprints.  Your original work only.  Deadline:  August 8th, 2015.

Send to me, John Ashmead, at [email protected].

Any questions, ask!

And if even if you don’t have a Tale from the Miskatonic Library bubbling up inside you, perhaps a friend does.  Please pass this link along to any who might be interested.  Word of tentacle is our best advertisement!

Via: Time And Quantum Mechanics