CLOSED: Hungur

Hunger no longer appears under the submission guidelines from this publisher.

Payment: $12.00 for your original accepted story [$5.00 for reprints]; $4.00 for your accepted original flash fiction [under 1000 words]; $4.00 for your original accepted poem [$2.00 for reprints][$1.00 for scifaiku and related forms]

HUNGUR is edited by Terrie Leigh Relf, and is under our Sam’s Dot Publishing imprint.

HUNGUR is an 8 1/2 by 11 perfect bound magazine devoted to original vampire stories, poems, and illustrations, with special and extreme emphasis on alien vampires. HUNGUR is published twice a year, on All Souls Night [1 November] and on Walpurgisnacht [30 April].

HUNGUR is looking for original works in a rich, decadent, literary artery…er, vein. Blood may be drunk, sucked, siphoned, or otherwise imbibed, but that drinking is only tangential to the successful HUNGUR story. The relationships between characters, and especially between vampires and their milieux, are of primary importance here. It is not necessary that the vampire be killed. He, or she, may be abated, or lionized, as the writer wishes. The successful HUNGUR story considers motivations, of the vampire and his, or her, victims and pursuers, including psychological, emotional, and sociological, among others. The successful HUNGUR story seeks to understand the vampire in his or her milieux.

MOST IMPORTANT NOTE: Character development and plot development matter greatly to us. Making the characters connect with the readers emotionally and experientially matters greatly to us. Capisce? In other words, if the reader does not care what happens to your characters, why should the editor?

ANOTHER MOST IMPORTANT NOTE: The really really successful HUNGUR vampire story deals with ALIEN or EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL vampires, in whatever form, and their relationships, or lack thereof, with Earthlings. In other words, we really want to see science fiction and fantasy vampires, more than horror Earth vampires. The really really successful HUNGUR story seeks to understand the ALIEN vampire in his or her milieux.

For example: red blood is iron-based, but not all blood is red. Some, like that of arthopods, is copper-based, and greenish. What would be the effect of copper-based blood on an alien vampire? What would be the blood’s nutritional value? Would it produce weaker vampires, or vampires with special skills?

See what I mean? And that’s just one possibility . . .

LAST IMPORTANT NOTE: If you can set your story convincingly in Roman times, Etruscan times, or in settings of some other ancient civilizations, such as Maya, Aztec, Hittite, Egyptian, Sumerian…we’d really like to see it. Really.

Guidelines:

Stories for HUNGUR should be between 2500 and 6000 words long. Poems for HUNGUR should be no more than 100 lines long. Illustrations for HUNGUR must be black and white. The cover illustration for HUNGUR can be color or black and white. Articles and reviews for HUNGUR should be no more than 2000 words.

Response Times:

Because of the length of time between publications, response times could be up to about 4 months. However, we will send you an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within 2 weeks of receipt. If you haven’t heard anything after 3 weeks, query!

Payment:

You will be paid $12.00 for your original accepted story [$5.00 for reprints]; $4.00 for your accepted original flash fiction [under 1000 words]; $4.00 for your original accepted poem [$2.00 for reprints][$1.00 for scifaiku and related forms]; $15.00 for your accepted cover illustration; and $6.00 for your accepted interior art. You will be paid $10.00 for your article [$3.00 for reprints]; and $7.00 for your reviews. All payments will be made on publication, and include a contributor’s copy of the issue in which your work appears.

How to submit:

Submit all works to [email protected]. [You’ll have to remove the NOSPAM for the address to work]. Please put “HUNGUR Submission” in the subject line of your e-mail, plus the title of your work [if you don’t, your submission could be deleted without notice]. All submissions must include your snail mail address and a brief [100-150 word] bio written in the third person, more about you, less about where you’ve been published–we’re buying your story, not your bibliography.

Submit all stories as RTF attachments or in the body of the e-mail. If you submit a story in the body of the e-mail, be sure to indicate italics with underscores, like _this_, and be sure to mention any other special formatting requirements. If you submit your story as an RTF attachment, be sure to include your snail mail address and e-mail address on the attachment as well as in the submission e-mail.

Submit all poems in the body of the e-mail.

Submit illustrations as jpeg attachments. If you are submitting more than one illustration, please submit one illustration at a time, thank you.

Final note: Peeves–pet and undomesticated.

1. Do not send first drafts. Do not send second drafts, or fifth drafts. Send us a polished, final story. Workshop it if you wish. Have friends, Romans, and countrymen critique it if you wish. Do whatever it takes to send us your best effort, not your first effort.

2. Do not begin your story with “He” or “She” unless there is some clear and present reason for concealing the identity of this individual from the reader [and from the editor]. And in 99.44% of the cases, there is no such reason.

2a. Pronouns require . . . nay, demand . . . antecedents. Please. Do not make your editors any crazier than they already is. Are.

3. Do not overuse dialogue tags. A simple “he said” or “she asked” usually suffices.

4. Use dialogue, not conversation. Dialogue conveys information to the reader. Conversation is what you hear in a tavern. Sometimes.

5. Use a spellchecker. Proofread. Also, read the story aloud. Often this helps you catch errors. Better yet, have someone else read it aloud while you listen to it. This really helps you catch errors.

Okay, off you go. And if you have any questions about any of this, please query. The only stupid question is the one that didn’t get asked

[via: White Cat Publications.]