Category: Anthology

Anthologies

Taking Submissions: Behind the Revolving Door, an Anthology of Choices

Deadline: June 1st, 2025
Payment: 1 cent per word or a flat $10 for reprints
Theme: A story with a choice being made is central to the entire plot of the tale
Note: Reprints welcome

Behind the Revolving Door, an Anthology of Choices is the fifth anthology from Celestial Echo Press. The theme is the choices we make.

Each of us makes a multitude of choices daily, some minor and some with major consequences. Do you or don’t you wear your lucky shirt to the sports event? What do you think the consequences would be if you didn’t wear your lucky shirt?

This anthology will be a collection of stories that take the reader on a journey with the author’s protagonist as they go through a trial and are forced to take an action, to make a choice. For example, does the character find a wallet on the ground? Do they open it? Return it to the owner, or keep it? What are the consequences? Do they encounter a second choice, thus going back through the revolving door? Do they find classified information, implicating a family member in a coup? What do they do with it? Is the character hiking through the woods only to find a portal, not knowing where it will take them if they enter? What happens? Is it so bad that they try to return, hence going through the revolving door? There are many, many ways this theme can be interpreted.

We believe authors can give us a great story by fleshing out the characters and plot. We’re asking for a minimum of 500 words, maximum 4,000 words.

The revolving door on the cover will not be required in the story. If a door and/or a revolving door is in the story, that will be a plus. All fiction (humor, horror, romance, fantasy, etc.) is welcome, except erotica. Send us well-written stories that make us think about the choice the protagonist made, that make us think about the story after we’ve closed the book. Give us new, fresh stories. Authors have free rein how to interpret this theme. We can’t wait to read your story.

Uninvited are screenplays, poetry, and nonfiction. Also uninvited are stories that are publicly available on any website, such as a Facebook page. We will not accept stories with graphic porn and yes, we’ll know bad taste when we see it. We want YA readers to enjoy the published anthology without parental balking. Also uninvited are stories over the maximum of 4000 words. They will be rejected immediately. Don’t write on the Google form that your story is 4000 words and send us one that’s 10K. We’ll know.
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Taking Submissions Self (S)care Anthology May Window

Submission Window: May 15th-31st, 2025
Payment: 2 cents per word
Theme: Reprints of self-published horror stories

Calling all self-published horror authors! Get those short stories ready! Open submissions begin next week for this brand-new anthology geared toward spotlighting the best in indie horror!

In this unique collaboration project, Paul Carro and Candace Nola have teamed up to create a new opportunity for self-published authors! The incredibly talented Laurel Hightower is on-board to write the foreword, and the book will be published in all formats by Uncomfortably Dark Horror.

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Taking Submissions: Beyond

Deadline: June 10th, 2025
Payment: Royalties
Theme: Straightforward science fiction with great characters

A Science Fiction Anthology

Submission Period: March 10, 2025 to June 10, 2025

Theme: Beyond – Science Fiction.
Editor likes: characters, emotion. Dislikes: difficult words to pronounce. Faves: Dune, Expanse, Fifth Element, Foundation

Stories that contain infanticide, rape, or gratuitous gore will not be accepted.

Submission Period: March 10, 2025 to June 10, 2025

Submissions: No AI, 1 per author; no reprints, no simultaneous submissions;

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Taking Submissions: Fearmoji: Queer Emoji Horror

Deadline: August 1st, 2025
Payment: $25 USD and a contributors copy
Theme: Adult queer body horror that somehow strongly incorporates the use of emoji

 

Emojis carry a lot of weight in contemporary societies drenched by social media interactions. This theme is very open, but must feature emojis as the primary driving force of the narrative. Give me sentient emojis, cursed emojis, a secret combination of emojis that unlocks a demon, a serial killer whose signature is the love heart reaction, disaffected youths whose use of the shrug emoji comes back to haunt them, a coder with an emoji axe to grind… The potential here is limitless.

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Taking Submissions: Stellar Parallax: Hope in A Grimdark World

Deadline: June 30th, 2025
Payment: $50
Theme: Science fiction that follows the title of the book

We at Inked in Gray Press are excited to announce a new anthology in collaboration with AJ Van Belle!

STELLAR PARALLAX: HUMAN HOPE IN GRIMDARK WORLDS.

Let’s not sugarcoat it — things are rough, and we don’t know what the next year or even month will bring.

This is why we need stories in which hope shines through the darkness. Give us your grimdark in space, in a near-future dystopia, in a far-future galaxy, or in a sci-fi version of the present day.

This anthology will feature gritty sci-fi in which the personal message is hopeful while the external world is dark. We want world-building that’s vivid, immersive, and believable, with the focus on the characters’ direct experience. Sweeping spans of time and vast civilizations aren’t necessary here, nor are nifty tech or clever political machinations — but feel free to include any of these if they serve the story.

Regardless of scale or time period, show us the characters’ sensory perceptions, physical experience, and emotional arc. Sci-fi is a genre uniquely equipped to allow expression of character growth because it lets us explore universal human experience within specific, sharply imagined futures.

STELLAR PARALLAX will sit at the place where seemingly impossible circumstances meet the inventiveness of human agency, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Taking Submissions: Yay! all queer: Free and Queer

Deadline: June 30th, 2025
Payment: Royalties
Theme: Stories where the main character falls in the LGBTQ+ community in any genre

Submission Period: April 1, 2025, to June 30, 2025

Theme: Yay! all queer II – An LGBTQ+ anthology. We’re searching for LGBTQ+ characters who have a central position within the story. This will be a diverse and inclusive anthology.

There are no restrictions on gender or sexuality. Feel free to create an engaging story with your favorite genre or setting. Mystery, romance, fantasy, or sci-fi are all welcome if the story and characters grab the reader’s interest.

Stories that contain infanticide, gratuitous gore, or rape, including dubious consent, will not be considered. Explicit romance will not be appropriate for this anthology, bring it down a notch, and we’ll certainly give it a look.

Submission Period: April 1, 2025, to June 30, 2025

Submissions: No AI, 1 per author; no reprints, no simultaneous submissions;

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Taking Submissions: Lesser Cryptids of Appalachia

Deadline: September 15th, 2025
Payment: $50 and 2 contributors copies
Theme: Lesser known (lost or undiscovered) cryptids of Appalachia

Cicada Books / Brood XIV Books is planning a horror anthology about the lesser (lost or undiscovered) cryptids of Appalachia. We are seeking stories about lesser known creatures from regional authors: no Mothman or Bigfoot, please.

If you are a new or established fiction writer we invite you to submit your original short fiction (3-5k words) for inclusion in this anthology. We are seeking thrills, suspense, and horror! We would add weird, but it feels unnecessary for cryptid tales.

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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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