Deadline: June 30th, 2015
Payment: €10 plus royalties and Micro-stories will be paid €5 plus royalties

Quivering mirages, ghost ships, glossy scales slipping away beneath the waves; we are seeking progressive and inclusive short stories about wonders, terrors, omens, sea-monsters, apparitions and other folk creatures and horrors from throughout the Mediterranean region. You might find inspiration in medieval bestiaries and the margins of maps and manuscripts; stories whispered by pirates in the long nights at sail; horrible and marvellous visions shaken travellers barely dare to recall; names of creatures known by everyone in the streets around the harbour; particularly troubled nightmares you had or someone shared with you.

This anthology, subtitled Fae Visions of the Mediterranean, could be seen as a postcolonial, Borgesian travelogue by a many-gendered, multiracial, polyglot and polymath sailor (i.e. stories may feature any nature of protagonist[s]) recounting their fantastic adventures on naval journeys between Taranto, via Algiers, Latakia and Eluària, to Split (your TALES need not take place at any of these sites).

The more fantastic, abyssal, weird, wonderful, paradoxical, unsettling and tempestuous stories the better. Horrors and beasts in the stories may be based on Mediterranean folklore, or may be invented for the purpose (and any position in between), but a connection to one of the Mediterranean countries, languages or cultures is a must, as we expect the reader to follow the route with their finger on an antique atlas. The stories should taste like salt and wonder.

The rules:
We are looking for uncanny stories up to 5 000 words, fiendish illustrations/comics up to 12 pages, and briny poems up to 40 lines.
We’re also interested in micro-stories up to 500 words written in all languages of the Mediterranean (i.e. other than English). Please send a cover letter in English, Italian, French, Arabic or Spanish (so we can read it!) alongside any such stories.
Stories may be horror/fantasy, magical realist, surreal, absurdist, pirate stories, ghost stories, folk tales or fairy tales, but they must all be set on the Mediterranean Sea or in a country with a Mediterranean coastline.
We welcome ghoulish fiction by authors from the Mediterranean region, particularly including North Africa and the Near East, as well as other under-represented groups (such as women, queer/trans/nonbinary, non-anglophones, people of color, people with disabilities, etc.).
Submissions should be sent as a .doc, .docx or .rtf attachment to [email protected] by Monday June 30, 2015.
Reprints and multiple submissions are welcome, but please do not submit stories that are simultaneously under consideration elsewhere. We shall attempt to get back to you with a decision about your story as quickly as possible. We are NOT interested in fan-fiction.
We shall pay €10 plus royalties for first world print (or reprint) and e-book publication rights for stories, comics and poems. Micro-stories will be paid €5 plus royalties.*
The anthology will be edited by Valeria Vitale and Djibril al-Ayad, and published in print and e-book by Futurefire.net Publishing in late 2015.

* Note that unless this anthology sells unusually well, this is likely to remain a relatively token pay rate, so you need to decide whether you want to sell first print rights for such a low rate; you will only be able to sell a story again as a reprint after it has appeared in this anthology.

Via: The Future Fire.