Author: Stuart Conover

Boozhoo Books with Bindery Books Are Open For Horror Novels By Women

Deadline: June 1st, 2025
Payment: $10k advance and 50% of net royalties
Theme: Novel length horror written by women. (BIPOC especially encouraged to submit): haunted house, gothic, cults, social, grief, feral women, feminine rage, historical

Boozhoo Books with Bindery Books has expanded and has an open call for novel length horror written by women. (BIPOC especially encouraged to submit): haunted house, gothic, cults, social, grief, feral women, feminine rage, historical

Deadline: June 1.

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Taking Submissions: Electric Spec August Issue 2025

Deadline: July 15th, 2025
Payment: $20 per story or artwork
Theme: Electric Spec prefers science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre, but we’re willing to push the limits of traditional forms of these genres.

Fiction Submission Guidelinessubmissions at electricspec (dot) com
Issues are published at the end of February, May, August, and November. We reserve the right to shift publication date slightly, as necessary.

We have reading periods for each issue, though we never close to submissions.

February closes January 15

May closes April 15

August closes July 15

November closes October 15

We do not consider stories or art created, or partially created, by A.I.

We consider stories between 250 and 7000 words with speculative fiction elements. We prefer science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre, but we’re willing to push the limits of traditional forms of these genres.

We do not consider poetry, stories with over-the-top sex or violence, serials, novels, fan fiction, or non-fiction. We don’t accept multiple submissions; in other words, only submit one story at a time and wait for a response before submitting another. We accept simultaneous submissions as long as you let us know up front and tell us as soon as it’s accepted elsewhere. We do not publish reprints, including anything that has appeared on a website.

We pay $20 for each story we publish. We buy first-printing world exclusive rights for four months. Payment will be made shortly after publication using PayPal. We encourage our authors to establish a PayPal account if they don’t already have one.

We prefer to read submissions in traditional manuscript format. This means indented paragraphs instead of left justification, and Courier or Times New Roman font in 12 pt, double-spaced. Also, please include the title, your name, address, and word length on the first page of your story.

To submit your story to Electric Spec, e-mail it as an attachment in Rich Text Format (RTF) to submissions at electricspec (dot) com. Use the following subject line: SUBMISSION: Story Title by Author’s Name (Word Count). In the body of the e-mail, include writing credits, if any, and the word count of the story. We do not generally open attachments unaccompanied by a cover letter.

If you submit, please put our email address on you approved email list so you receive our reply. There’s some info about whitelisting on the Electric Spec Blog.

Please do not submit the same story more than once, and please submit only one story at a time.

A note on our editorial policy: before publication we may work with the author to edit the story for length or readability. However, we always remain true to the spirit of the story and the author has final approval.

Please don’t query us about your story submission. We don’t have the manpower to answer such queries. An editor will email you back as soon as possible with the decision about your story. This can take a few days, or, a few months. We make every effort to get back to authors in a timely manner but we get a lot of submissions so sometimes it’s not possible.

Because we are a quarterly magazine, it may take us up to three and a half months to make a final decision, but we will let you know if your story is being held for voting. Please note we do not send out messages upon receipt of stories.

If you want to withdraw a story from consideration, please e-mail us at submissions at electricspec (dot) com and include the word WITHDRAW in the subject line. If you have urgent questions or comments (not a query about the status of your story), please e-mail us at our submissions address and include the word QUERY in the subject line.

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Taking Submissions: Taco Bell Quarterly #8

Deadline: July 31st, 2025
Payment: $150
Theme: works of literature that intersect with Taco Bell

My kids make books all the time for fun. Both of them want to be writers and artists when they grow up. I feel like this is my fault. I’ve made it look too fun. They bring me their stacks of pages, begging for the stapler, as if the stapler contains magical powers, as if the act of binding together the book is what makes it real. I staple three neat clicks and I’ve made it look real. Something more real to pretend with, at least.

We are back, pretending to make our literary magazine again. We are the Taco Bell Quarterly, a Prestigious Literary Magazine that is opening for submissions on 4/20/25.

We are looking for prose, poetry, art, and beyond for our eighth issue, which will be available to read for free online, and to buy in print in the late fall. We will pay $150.

What are we looking for: works of literature that intersect with Taco Bell

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Taking Submissions: 100-Foot Crow Spring 2025 Window

Submission Window: May 15th – June 15th, 2025
Payment: $8.00 ($0.08 per word)
Theme: Scifi and/or Fantasy 100-word stories (can include horror but must have a SF or F element) that focus on the theme of ‘Train” – any meaning of the word Train is valid.

We’ll be opening again for submissions May 15 to June 15 for the theme TRAIN. We will allow one themed and one un-themed submission per writer. All submissions must be submitted via our Google form, which will be available here when we are open.

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Taking Submissions: Neurodiversity and the More-Than-Human

Deadline: August 31st, 2025
Payment: $50 AUD
Theme: Neurodiversity and the More-Than-Human

Our second anthology will gather a wide range of creative responses on the theme of Neurodiversity and the More-Than-Human.

We want to foster neurodivergent situated knowledge that is not limited to the traditional academic essay: engage in autotheory, autoethnography, creative essay, poetry, short story, speculative sci-fi, visual art, and more.

While the close bond between neurodivergent humans and other living beings are often put forward, little thematic focus has been placed on the intersection of neurodiversity and the more-than-human in academic and creative writing. This anthology seeks to fill this gap and foster a more-than-human turn in neurodiversity with an emphasis on creative responses.

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Taking Submissions: It Takes a Village

Deadline: June 1st, 2025
Payment: $5 for poetry sets (up to 5 pages), $10 for flash fiction (up to 1000 words), $25 for fiction stories up to 5000 words, +$2/1000 words for over 5000 for fictions stories up to 10,000 words
Theme: Canadian authors telling stories about community: finding it, building it, maintaining it, being expelled from it. SF and F are called out as acceptable, no word on H so probably a hard sell

This anthology’s theme is “It Takes a Village” – I’m looking for stories about community: finding it, building it, maintaining it, being expelled from it. How do we build our villages as adults? How do we grow connections with those around us? What do we do when we’ve lost them? We’ve heard the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child” but also “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” How do we tackle these emotions as adults?

As this is a bit trickier of an anthology theme than the last one, the reading period is going to be much longer, and the final evolution of the anthology’s theme will come from what the overarching theme and tone from the submitted and accepted pieces create.
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Taking Submissions: Carnage House Issue 7

Deadline: May 1st, 2025
Payment: $5 usd
Theme: Splatter Friendly Horror

How the Sausage is Made!

Submissions:

We want solid entertaining writing. That has to be clearly stated because we are open to gore, extreme horror, splatterpunk, and horror with sexual elements to it.

Sounds great?

Like anything too good to be true, there is a catch. We have some hard “Nos.” Before you go off about the freedom of expression, remember, this is a web ‘zine, not a government. We donate our time to it and if we’re not getting joy from reading your story we’re not going to publish it.

This website runs on our love of horror. We offer a token payment of $5 USD to support your drug habit, paid upon publication. However, you keep your rights –we don’t want them.

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Taking Submissions: HamLit Issue #9

Deadline: May 15th, 2025
Payment: $5
Theme: Flood Memory
Note: Must live in: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, or British Columbia

The theme for our Monsoon Issue is Flood Memory. Our original inspiration comes from a river that is straightened for the ease of those who live around it. When the river floods, however, it reclaims its original pattern. The water remembers. What else is water trying to tell us these days? What memories rush forward when the dam can no longer hold? Most importantly, how will you bend and mold and reclaim this theme for your own?

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