Events

Deadline: April 1st, 2024 Payment: Royalties Theme: Monsters have feelings too, even if it’s used to rage against the machine. Genre: Speculative Fiction Theme: Monsters have feelings too, even if it’s used to rage against the machine. Concept: Sometimes we’re all misunderstood… and this is doubly true when you are a monster living in a human’s world. We want you to tell the story of one creature’s struggle to survive in an uncaring world. Word Count: 5,000 – 10,000 (standard word count) Opening by: TBD Edited by: JR Handley & Bayonet Books Anchor Author: TBD Due Date: April 1, 2024 Email Submissions to: [email protected] with “Beast Hunt” in the subject line Payment: Stories selected for publication in the upcoming Anthology(ies), will receive a percentage of sales divided equally between the contributing authors. We are looking for amazing stories from any genre that are fun to read and will take us on an adventure of epic proportions. Please download our standards template by clicking here ***NOTE*** We publish genre fiction with aspects of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. If your work does not include one of these aspects, we are less likely to pick up the title unless it is of exceptional quality.   What we are NOT currently accepting: Poetry Single-author collections of short stories. Hard and fast rules of what not to send: Fan-fiction: Just simply don’t. It will be immediately deleted or tossed into the recycle bin. Gratuitous Sexuality: (i.e. smut, softcore porn) (Please, we know that there is a market out there for stories in this genre, but it’s not for us. Contact our affiliate, Tanglewood press for submissions in this genre at tanglewoodromance (at) gmail.com Gratuitous Abuse/Violence: While we at Three Ravens Publishing understand that graphic situations can alter or otherwise move the plot forward in ways that the reader may not expect when properly used, these elements should...

Deadline: April 1st, 2024 Payment: $.08 per word Theme: Clowns Kangas Kahn Publishing is seeking unpublished horror short stories for an upcoming anthology titled Fear of Clowns: A Horror Anthology to be published in September of 2024. We've brought back editor extraordinaire Kenneth W. Cain who did such a great job on our first hit anthology October Screams. As usual, we're less concerned with theme than we are with entertaining stories. We're not necessarily looking for a clown-murdering-people story--if that's your story, it better bring something new to the table. Ask yourself, does this story belong in a book called Fear of Clowns? If the answer is yes, send it! Length: 1,000-4,000 words. Note: We are the same people that put out the movies "Fear of Clowns" and "Fear of Clowns 2", but we're not looking for stories that have anything to do with that, so please don't send movie tie-ins. We will accept up to two submissions per author. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable but please let us know if it's sold elsewhere. If a story is accepted or rejected, notification will be within sixty days of submission(if 60 days have passed and you have not heard from us, check your spam folder--if nothing is there, feel free to reach out.) Please attach your story in .doc or .docx format and email it to [email protected] with the subject "Fear of Clowns Anthology Submission". In the body of the email, please give us a short bio with credits, if any. Not having credits doesn't mean anything to us; the story is what counts. Make sure your story is in proper format(Shunn)--you can find details here: https://www.shunn.net/format/ We're buying global first print and digital publication rights for one year exclusively from the date of print(Sept 2024). After that, all rights revert to the...

Deadline: April 1st, 2024 Payment: Royalties Theme: Speculative Fiction about Tarot Tarot cards have long been looked upon as a window to the past and future of human existence. Fortune tellers of old have utilized the power within the cards to advise or warn away inquisitive souls from the potential folly of their choices. What happens when the power of the cards escapes into the realm of humanity with the desire to play out their core intentions on the unsuspecting? A mortal once controlled the power of the past, present, and future. In his innocent desire for companionship, he made a mistake: he got too close to his creation and lost control. The foolish mortal’s artistic magic escaped the confines of the cards and trapped their maker to pursue their magical intent. Walking carnations of the major arcana of the tarot are free to roam and manipulate the mortal world without the constraints of their maker, who has been recreated as The Fool. The Magician, the first excommunicated card, will do anything to free his friend from the confines of art. But can he convince the others to put aside their petty urges and use their magic to help, even if it puts their livelihood at risk? Or have the cards become too accustomed to life in the modern world to allow anything, or anyone, to send them back to a one-dimensional life? The tarot is the only magic left in the mortal world, and they’ve had their way with it for a long time… We’re looking for new, previously unpublished stories that take us on an adventure and leave us wanting more. Genre: Speculative Fiction Word Count: 5,000 – 10,000 Opening Essay by: TBD Edited by: Charity Ayres Anchor Author: TBD Due Date: April 1, 2024 Email submissions to:...

Deadline: April 1st, 2024 Payment: £20 & 3 author copies Theme: Lycanthropy Currently accepting submissions for Creature Feature Classics #1 Lycanthropy ​ Creature Features #1 will launch an anthology series exploring everybody's favourite horror monsters. We're starting off with a classic; the full-moon afflicted lycanthropes.  We're looking for a variety of stories so feel free to go in any direction your brain might wander - tales set in the medieval ages, tales set in a dystopian nuclear fall-out, tales set in a robot-dominated 2050 where werewolves live underground in the sewers and hunt survivors of the robot revolution, literally any sub-genre and time goes. ​ Hard word limits of 3,000-8,000 ​ Follow the guidelines found under the 'submissions' page for formatting, content and how-to-submit guidelines. Include in the body of your email the amount of times the work has been rejected thus far. The subject line should read SUB/LYCAN - TITLE - SUBGENRE - WORDCOUNT - SURNAME ​ Compensation: £20 & 3 author copies ​ Submissions close April 1st 2024 ​ Via: Snake Bite Books.

Deadline: April 1st, 2024 Payment: $10 and a contributors copy Theme: The kiddos are ready for their night of mischief and mayhem as the evening of Trick 'r Treating gets started. Write a horror story that takes place on Halloween night and centers around a child/children visiting the neighborhood's houses. The horror element can be from either angle: either there is something spooky going on in the house or with the child/children. Location details below Deadline: April 1st, 2024 at 11:59pm CST Length: 2,000-6,000 words   Format: Must be submitted as a Google Doc file which must have [email protected] as an owner with editing turned on. You will provide the shareable link in the form upon submission. Use only one tab and do not use spaces to start a new paragraph. Do not write "The End" at the end of the story. In the header, please include the following: 1) your name, 2) the title of the story, and 3) the word count of the story. Submissions that do not follow these guidelines will not be read. The title of your story cannot include "Doors of Darkness" in it or the house number.   Eligibility: If you were published in the first volume of Doors of Darkness, please note that this is not a continuation of what happened on Fern Street. There should be absolutely no connections to characters from that volume. Compensation: Selected authors will receive (1) contributor mass market paperback copy of the anthology as well as a one-time payment of $10. The $10 may be used in order to purchase additional author copies to be shipped at the same time as the complimentary contributor copy. The $10 will buy up to an additional 2 copies of the book. Please refer to the chart below:  Printed Copies Compensation 1 Copy $10 2 Copies $5 3 Copies $0 For additional author copies beyond the compensation value, you will...

Deadline: April 1st, 2024 Payment: One cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) Theme: Fantastic Fiction You really NEED to read the description below. The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges. As a type of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined. Therefore, we're interested in stories by writers who write about what they don't know, take us places we couldn't possibly go, and don't try to make us care about the characters. We would also suggest you take a look at the current issue, archives, and theory (especially the essay, "What is irrealism?") pages on this web site. We accept unsolicited fiction up to 2,000 words in length. Translations are welcome. There is no minimum length. We accept only electronic submissions via e-mail at [email protected]. We cannot, due to the various computer viruses and worms, accept attachments anymore, so please paste your story into the body of the e-mail. Also include your name, address, e-mail address, and a short bio in the text of the submission; please put the word "submission" in the subject heading of the e-mail to ensure that your submission doesn't get lost among all the spam. We pay an honorarium of one cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) to buy first-time internet rights (the story will then be archived). Payment is made upon publication. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DON'T ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS and are only interested in reprints in unusual cases (e.g., the story has appeared in print but...

Submission Window: March 15th-April 1st, 2024 Payment: 1 cent per word Theme: Stories set in the taiga or boreal forest biome (details below) A conservationist stumbles into a part of the forest untouched by humans for centuries. A hiker encounters a bear and her cubs on a lonely section of a trail. Two lovers abandon their tents when they hear screams calling across a Northern Light-filled sky. A dilapidated, forgotten cabin becomes temporary refuge for a documentary film crew in the midst of a violent snow storm. The taiga or boreal forest biome is one of the largest land biomes in the world. Norway, Scandinavia, Iceland, Canada, Russia, and even Japan have locations where these wild, dark woods and the creatures that inhabit them roam. Strange Wilds Press is looking for stories cemented in the taiga biome for its first anthology. I love stories that are character-driven, gothic, gloomy, and full of grief or existential horror. The idea of the lost and the unknown nestled in those deep, dark woods is something I get really excited about. Some other things I like include: eco-horror, supernatural, creature, cult, ghost, and cosmic horror. Hard sells are extreme, splatterpunk and slasher. Stories should be firmly 2000-5000 words. Traditional Shunn format. Payment is 1¢ per word. Unpublished stories at this time; no reprints please. Multiple submissions are okay. Maximum of 2 stories, please. Simultaneous submissions are okay. If it gets published elsewhere, please let me know. I will not accept anything that involves sexual assault. I will not accept anything with gratuitous animal violence. I understand some may be necessary to tell a creature horror story but I do not need excessive violence represented. I will not accept stories that promote hate, bigotry, antisemitism, transphobia, racism, or sexism. I DO NOT accept AI generated...

Submission Window: April 1st - 2nd, 2024 Payment: 8 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints, For artwork: $10 for the non-exclusive right to use each image, for as long as the site is online.  If we publish a print collection we will pay a pro-rata share for each image used. Theme: Well written original work in science fiction, fantasy, myth, legend, fairy tales, and eldritch, in written, podcast, video, and/or graphic story form, and from around the world. Note: Reprints welcome     Submissions Schedule We have a new submissions schedule as of June 1, 2020: The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T. Only one submission per person. For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers. We pay 8¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 6¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles. For new poetry, we pay $1 a line, reprints would be 50¢ a line, up to 40 lines. We’ll look at longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 6¢ per word. We began The Kepler Award to recognize and encourage writers of excellent science fiction and fantasy stories that creatively extrapolate on known science in constructive and exciting ways. You can learn about The Kepler Award here. You can read a copy of our standard contract here.   It can be varied as needed to include the rights of translators, voice actors, etc. Writers Guidelines We accept new work as well as reprints, prose and poetry, anywhere from 1000 word flash fiction on up, but all else being equal,...

Submission Window: April 2nd, 2024 Payment: 8 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints, For artwork: $10 for the non-exclusive right to use each image, for as long as the site is online.  If we publish a print collection we will pay a pro-rata share for each image used. Theme: Well written original work in science fiction, fantasy, myth, legend, fairy tales, and eldritch, in written, podcast, video, and/or graphic story form, and from around the world. Note: Reprints welcome     Submissions Schedule We have a new submissions schedule as of June 1, 2020: The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T. Only one submission per person. For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers. We pay 8¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 6¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles. For new poetry, we pay $1 a line, reprints would be 50¢ a line, up to 40 lines. We’ll look at longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 6¢ per word. We began The Kepler Award to recognize and encourage writers of excellent science fiction and fantasy stories that creatively extrapolate on known science in constructive and exciting ways. You can learn about The Kepler Award here. You can read a copy of our standard contract here.   It can be varied as needed to include the rights of translators, voice actors, etc. Writers Guidelines We accept new work as well as reprints, prose and poetry, anywhere from 1000 word flash fiction on up, but all else being equal, shorter pieces...

Deadline: April 7th, 2024 Payment: £10 per 500 words, up to £55. Theme: humorous science-fiction stories Laughs in Space – an anthology of humorous science-fiction stories. August 2024. Science fiction is often a very serious genre, but it shares something with comedy in that it can reflect the world back to us, inspire us, evoke our curiosity, and help us to appreciate human creativity and wit. Many of us find our route to a love of science fiction via comedy, too, be it through the books or radio plays of Douglas Adams, watching Red Dwarf or Doctor Who(or reading the books), or getting into the MCU. As an editor, I’ve been championing science fiction for many years. As a stand-up comedian, much the same! So naturally I wanted to bring out an anthology of humorous science fiction. What I’m looking for: Short fiction stories from 2000 words to 9000 words. I’m looking for great stories first and foremost, with relatable characters. They do not need to be riddled with dad jokes or puns. They do not need to be set in space! They do need to fit the broad remit of science fiction, but any kind of science fiction or humour is welcome, be it silly, generic parody*, grotesque, or black humour. No punching down in your humour though, please. * Generic parody is fine, but please, no utilising other people’s content for the sake of parody, regardless of whether that content has entered public domain due to age. No AI-generated content. If you are unsure whether a story will fit, you are welcome to send a query email. Submissions: please send stories between 1st March 2024 and 7th April 2024 only. Payment: £10 per 500 words, up to £55. Via: The Slab Press.