Author: Stuart Conover

Taking Submissions: Cursed Cooking: A Horror Community Cookbook and Food Horror Anthology

Deadline: April 30th, 2024 and May 10th for writers of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other underrepresented groups
Payment: 5 cents per word for original fiction works and 1 cent per word for reprints. Accepted recipe submissions will receive $5
Theme: Real-world recipes and food horror fiction
Note: Not looking for cannibalism stories
Note: Reprints Welcome

Cursed Cooking: A Horror Community Cookbook and Food Horror Anthology

Open call submission window: March 15 – April 30, 2024.

Extended submission window exclusively for writers of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other underrepresented groups: May 1 -May 10, 2024

Cursed Cooking is a horror community cookbook and food horror anthology, featuring both real-world recipes and food horror fiction. This hybrid publication aims to feed not only your body with frighteningly good food, but also your imagination with cleverly crafted horror stories.

So, send us your tales of haunted hamburgers, killer chocolate chip cookies, monstrous manicotti, world-ending wontons, and everything in between. Cook up a story filled with genetically modified grossness, fast-food freakiness, or homemade horrors. Get creative. Get hungry. Think outside the pizza box. But also, send us the recipes that you love, recipes that make your mouth water and have people screaming for seconds (and thirds and fourths). We want it all!

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From Shadows to Manuscripts: Craft Your Horror Masterpiece in 8 Weeks With This Awesome Limited Course!

Stephen King once wrote, “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” But what if that moment could be the beginning of an unforgettable journey? Welcome to Crystal Lake Entertainment’s newest challenge: “Unleash Your Horror Novella in Just 8 Weeks,” a course designed not only to ignite the dark spark of creativity but to fan it into a blazing inferno.

Under the watchful eye of Joe Mynhardt, founder and CEO of Crystal Lake Publishing, you’re not merely signing up for a workshop; you’re enlisting in an expedition. With Joe and a team of professional editors as your guides, you’ll delve into the abyss, transforming the nebulous shadows of your imagination into a horror novella capable of chilling the very marrow of your readers.

Each week, you’ll gather around the virtual campfire for expert-led Zoom presentations, illuminating the dark arts of plot development, character creation, and more, all through the prism of horror writing. These sessions aren’t just about learning; they’re about applying, doing, and evolving. Seth Godin tells us, “The best way to complain is to make things,” and here, you’ll make something that whispers, screams, and lurks in the night.

Yet, what truly elevates this experience is the professional editing phase. It really is something you don’t see a lot of courses offer and is a unique selling point that really ups what Crystal Lake Publishing is bringing to life.

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Taking Submissions: The Lorelei Signal 2024 Oct – Dec Issue

Submission Window: April 15th – May 15th, 2024
Payment: $15.00 for short stories, $5.00 for poems and flash (<1000 wds) fiction pieces., $5.00 for reprints
Theme: SF/Fantasy (ideally fantasy) with strong and complex female characters
Note: Reprints Welcome

 

The Lorelei Signal is a quarterly SF/Fantasy electronic magazine – one that will feature strong / complex female characters. This does not mean your female character has to be the main hero or villain in the story. What it does mean is no shrinking violets, or women who serve only to get into trouble so the male hero can rescue them.


Each issue I hope to publish:
7 short stories, 1 flash fiction piece and 2 poems
that meet the following guidelines:

My primary guideline is simple:
Write a good fantasy story with strong/complex characters.



What I am NOT looking for – erotica / slash / or other such stories.
Although well written love scenes that are IMPORTANT to the story will be considered on a story-by-story basis.

1) Stories should be no longer than 10,000 words.
However, tell the story – if it takes more than 10,000 words to tell the story properly so be it.
Just try to cut it down if possible – but remember the story is the important part.

2) Stories must feature 3 dimensional / complex characters.

3) I will accept reprints as long as it has been at least 1 year since the story was previously published,
rights have reverted back and you tell me where it previously appeared.
These will be limited to 2 per issue.

4) Please keep the graphic gore down to a minimum
(only what’s needed for the story).

5) Please keep the obscene language to a bare minimum
(again, only what’s needed for the story).

6) Simultaneous Submissions will be considered IF:
a) You tell me up front
b) You inform me immediately if the story has been accepted elsewhere
If I have too many occurrences of finding out a story was accepted somewhere else when I contact an author to tell them I would like to accept their story for The Lorelei Signal – I will no longer accept simultaneous submissions.
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Taking Submissions: Steampunk Sleuths

Deadline: October 31st, 2024
Payment: $50
Theme: A novelette featuring detectives in a steampunk setting solving peculiar crimes.

Deadline: October 31st, 2024

The genre of mystery is designed to get the cogs cranking, but let’s not forget that steampunk is all about cogs too! Why not bring them together? Steampunk Sleuths will be an anthology of four novelettes (15 – 20,000 words) featuring detectives in a steampunk setting solving peculiar crimes. The only requirements for submission will be that the means of committing the crime (murder, theft, kidnapping…) must be clearly steampunk and the reader must be given the tools to crack the case before the solution is revealed. Think Agatha Christie and Jules Verne getting kinky together… um, actually, please don’t. 😉

* Previously unpublished only

* Double the standard rate for this one: $50 USD

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Taking Submissions: Haven Speculative 2024 General Submissions Call #2 (Early)

Submission Window: April 1st – 30th, 2024
Payment: 8 cent per word for fiction, $20 for poetry, 8 cent per word for non-fiction, $125 for cover art
Theme: Speculative fiction

It’s our goal to publish diverse voices from around the world, and to do that, we are actively seeking stories, poems, and non-fiction pieces by authors from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy canon. Our submission cycle is therefore split into two categories, where every other month is explicitly reserved for submissions by authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups. The interposing six months remain open to everyone.

As writers ourselves, we do our best to handle each submission with the care and attention it deserves. Every submission is an act of bravery, and we know that putting yourself out there as a writer can be tough. Just know that any submission we receive, unless it contains something illegal, will be kept in confidence.

When in doubt, don’t self reject! Submit submit submit!


Guidelines for Fiction

We like stories that are subtle in their telling and stick with us long after we’ve finished, and we’re more likely to buy stories that balance a sense of wonder with a bold plot and emotional depth. For our two issues focused on the climate crisis, we’re particularly interested in publishing stories from people displaced by or threatened by the climate emergency (see our themes below). For our other four issues, we’re open to a wide variety of stories across the SFF and weird spectra.

  • Pay: 8¢ per word for original fiction
  • Word limit: 6000 words
  • Language: English
  • Rights: We buy first serial print and electronic rights for publication of the story in the English language and throughout the world. We also buy non-exclusive archival rights for our website and non-exclusive anthology rights.

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Taking Submissions: Cosmic Roots And Eldritch Shores April 2024 (Early Listing)

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.

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Taking Submissions: Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers, Vol. 9

Deadline: May 15th, 2024
Payment: 1 cent per word and 5 contributors copies
Theme: Horror stories based in Texas by Texas-based authors

DEADLINE: MAY 15, 2024
Starkweather Imprints is pleased to announce plans for the 2024 edition of Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers, Vol. 9.
Road Kill co-creator Bret McCormick will edit Vol. 9 of the series, which has featured the works of Joe R. Lansdale, Katherine Anne Porter, Stephen Graham Jones, Robert E. Howard, O. Henry, Russell C. Conner, Madison Estes, Patrick C. Harrison, E. R. Bills and others. McCormick is looking for original horror stories 1,500-10,000 words in length.
The stories must be written and submitted by Texas authors and must be set (based) here – hence the title. One cent per word and contributing writers will receive five free copies. Writer stipends will look something like this: 10,000 words – $100, 7,500 words – $75, 5,000 words – $50, 2,500 words – $25, 1,500 words – $15.
All payments will be made after official acceptance, and when acceptance is communicated, each author will need to send a short bio.
Starkweather Imprints will be requesting one-year non-exclusive rights. This means we will use your story in this anthology and we can print excerpts of it online and otherwise (for promotional purposes, etc), but one year down the road you can do with it what you like.
The Submission Period begins on February 5, 2024. The deadline to turn in stories is May 15, 2024, and our intent is to have the book printed and available by October 1, 2024, in plenty of time for Halloween. Please send submissions to: [email protected]

Taking Submissions: Hemorrhaging Flowers: A Collection of 100% Femme Rage

Deadline: April 30th, 2024
Payment: $10 USD
Theme: Poems inspired by feminine rage. All speculative tropes are welcome

OpensMarch 1s 2024, midnight EST 

ClosesApril 30, 2024, midnight IDLW

Compensation: $10 USD

Theme: Adult speculative poetry

Submissions must be under 50 lines

OPEN to any and everyone that identifies (now or in the past) as femme in the most inclusive of definitions.

Expected release: March 2024

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