Author: Stuart Conover

Events / Flash / Magazine / Pro

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Taking Submissions: Planet Scumm Fall 2025 Issue

Deadline: May 7th, 2025
Payment: 8 cents per word and a contributor’s copy
Theme: Speculative Fiction, ideally with sci-fi elements if not sci-fi itself

People of the World!
Planet Scumm accepts submissions from writers across the world. Our pages have hosted the imaginative work of authors from every contintent but Antartica. We want to hear from writers with as various experiences, identities, and points of view as possible.

Please do not busy our big-hearted slush readers with AI-generated tripe. Stories generated in part or whole by AI are in violation of our author contract.

Specs

WHAT TO SUBMIT

  • Hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, sci-fi that melts in your mouth-brain not your hand-brain

  • Speculative fiction, weird fiction, slipstream

  • Basically anything that pleases Scummy, our megaphone-toting slime buddy, will be considered for entry to the interstellar archive aboard Scummy’s saucer

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Anthology / Events / Pro

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Taking Submissions: Other: The 2025 fantasy short story anthology

Art by Anwen O’Driscoll

Deadline: August 31st, 2025
Payment: $0.08 CAD per word
Theme: Fantasy short stories

OTHER: the 2025 fantasy short story anthology (Book 2 of the Other Anthology series)

We are seeking short stories by international writers. The story can be visually evocative or character/narrative focused as long as it leaves the reader thinking about the story long after closing the book. We don’t want a lesson, we want an experience that makes us come alive.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: The Book Eaters
Author: Sunyi Dean
Genre: Horror Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: 2nd August, 2022
Synopsis: Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

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Articles

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Writing the Future: How to Predict Emerging Trends for More Realistic Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Speculative fiction isn’t just a genre; it’s a playground for possibilities. From envisioning future technologies to exploring societal shifts, it allows authors to shape worlds that feel plausible—and sometimes prophetic. By tracking emerging trends and weaving them into your storytelling, you can create immersive worlds that resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore how you can predict and leverage these trends for your next sci-fi or fantasy masterpiece.

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Poetry

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Taking Submissions: The First Line – Summer 2025

Deadline: May 1st, 2025
Payment: $25.00 – $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 – $10.00 for poetry
Theme: Story must begin with: No one really knows why restoration stopped on the abandoned St. Julian hotel, where commoners and kings once came to relax in luxury.

We love that writers around the world are inspired by our first lines, and we know that not every story will be sent to us. However, we ask that you do not submit stories starting with our first lines to other journals (or post them online on public sites) until we’ve notified you as to our decision (usually four weeks after the deadline). When the entire premise of the publication revolves around one sentence, we don’t want it to look as if we stole that sentence from another writer. If you have questions, feel free to drop us a line.

Also, we understand that writers may add our first line to a story they are currently working on or have already completed, and that’s cool. But please do not add our first line to a previously published story and submit it to us. We do not accept previously published stories, even if they have been repurposed for our first lines. And, just to be clear, we do not accept simultaneous submissions.

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Articles

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The Horror of Aging: Vision Loss as Theme

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-a-blind-eye-6608260/

The Horror of Aging: Vision Loss as Theme

 

Aging is a universal experience, yet it is one that many fear and resist, especially as it brings with it a gradual and sometimes terrifying loss of control.

 

The physical and mental deterioration that comes with time can be a horrifying prospect, and one of the most unsettling ways this manifests is in vision loss. From the creeping frustration of blurred words on a page to the complete isolation of blindness, the loss of sight is not only a medical condition; it can also be a source of profound psychological terror.

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Events / Flat Amount / Novel / Royalties

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Taking Submissions: Medieval Horror Novel Proposals

Deadline: April 30th, 2025
Payment: $2,000 advance with 25% Royalties upon completion and final approval of the manuscript
Theme: Medieval Horror

Medieval Horror Novel Proposals

Sentinel Creatives is now accepting book proposals for 2025 in the genre of Medieval Horror.

Deadline for Submissions: 30 April 2025

Proposal Pagecount: 1–2 pages

Remuneration: $2,000 advance with 25% Royalties upon completion and final approval of the manuscript

Novel Length: 50,000–75,000 words

 

We do not expect the proposed novel to be completed or even started yet. This is an opportunity to pitch your idea and work with us to bring it to life. 

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

We’re looking for original weird tales set in the medieval period that explore the human (and inhuman) experience through the lens of horror.

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Sundog Literature 2025 Window #1

Deadline: March 1st – May 1st, 2025
Payment: $50
Theme: Writing that attempts to salvage something pure from the collision of warmth and cold, that says what it can about the world it finds itself in.

Schedule

We publish two issues a year, September 1 and March 1. We accept general submissions for poetry, nonfiction, and fiction between two reading periods, and the first 300 submissions to each are free. We also run a collaborative writing contest in August. We also accept visual art all year.

    • General Submissions: March 1 – May 1
    • General Submissions: October 1 – December 1
    • Collaboration Contest: July 15 –  August 31

Payment

We are thrilled to finally be able to say that, starting with issue 17, we will be able to offer our contributors a small payment of $50 upon publication.

A Note on Our Aesthetic

We believe there is beauty in scars on smooth skin, in the small fissures where things begin to break apart. Sundogs are not the sun itself but phantom stars appearing on the horizon, illusions produced by the play of the sun’s heat with crystals of ice. They shed their light all the same. Many are tinged with color.

We look for this same quality in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. We want writing that attempts to salvage something pure from the collision of warmth and cold, that says what it can about the world it finds itself in. We seek a diversity of voices speaking from visceral, lived experience. We like truth we can stare at until our eyes water, words so carefully chosen we want to reread them as soon as we have finished.

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