Category: Anthology

Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events

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Taking Submissions: Dark Decades – 6 Anthologies

Deadline: October 1st, 2023
Payment: Contributor’s Copies
Theme: Six calls set in different decades with different themes that all have 4 requirements that you can see below

Most people would agree that technical advancements have made our lives easier or, at the very least, more entertaining. But, what about the flip side? What horrors were unleashed for the sake of creation? What monsters emerged as technology evolved?

We invite you to travel back in time with us as we discover the dark side of six decades.

Get creative with the themes. Bring us thrills and chills. Just remember to adhere to the basic guidelines. We can’t wait to experience it.

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Anthology / Contest / Events / Flat Amount / Token Payment

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Contest: The Drabble Harvest Contest

Deadline: June 30th, 2023
Prizes: $5 for first place, $2 for second place, all others accepted are $1 per drabble
Theme: A drabble with the idea of: Space Station Duty-Free

A “drabble” is defined as a short story containing exactly precisely no more and no fewer than 100 words. It has a title, which can be from 1 to 15 words– but no more than 15. That’s a drabble.

You have to count each word. Hyphenated words, such as tete-a-tete, count as one word. Don’t use your word count tool to count the words, because that tool will count an ellipsis ( . . . ) as three words, which really should not be counted at all. It will also count dashes ( – ) as words, which is wrong. So count each word by sight, not by tool.


Our drabble contests have themes. For each contest, we will simply throw the theme out there. Whatever the theme inspires you to write, that’s what you write.


The theme of this contest is:

Space Station Duty-Free

This should be self-explanatory. What would people/aliens try to smuggle in? Or out?

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Year of the Tarot: Pentacles

Submission Window: June 1st – 30th, 2023
Payment: 1 cent CAD per word
Theme: Horror inspired by the Tarot: Pentacles

Welcome to our four-book series, dedicated to horror inspired by the Tarot. 

Does the story have to be about Tarot Cards… NO. Think cups, knives, wands, and pentacles. We are looking for the theme to be the element, not necessarily the card itself, although we would love to read that as well. 

Chalice – Pentacles – Blades – Wands

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**Patron Members get an extended submission window**

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March 1- 31: Chalice  (Patron dates Feb 21 – April 7)

June 1- 30: Pentacles (Patron dates May 23 – July 7)

Sept 1- 30: Blades/Swords  (Patron dates August 24 – October 7)

Dec 1- 31: Wands (Patron dates November 23 – January 7)

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Each book will have an overriding theme of a Tarot suit and be between 50k – 60k words in length. They will be stand-alone books but will make up a four-book series.

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Anthology / Events / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: It Was All A Dream: Vol. 2 (Early Listing)

Submission Window: July 1st-15th, 2023
Payment: $0.03 per word
Theme: An Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right with a focus on “It Was All A Dream”

What is your least favorite horror trope? Why? Has it been overdone? Is it predictable? Is it unrealistic?
Here’s your chance to fix it.

Open call submission window open July 1 – July 15, 2023.

Extended submission window exclusively for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and marginalized writers open July 16 – July 22, 2023.

The anthology will be a mix of solicited stories and stories selected from the open call submission period.

What are we looking for?

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Anthology / Events / Royalties

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Taking Submissions: The Dance

Deadline: August 1st, 2023
Payment: Royalties: one (1%) per cent of net sales
Theme: “Life is the dance between choice and chance.”

“Life is the dance between choice and chance.”

How did you come to the point in life where you now find yourself? Two factors were likely in play: choice and chance.

The choices you make are clearly a factor in shaping your life. For example: a woman in one universe elopes with her high school sweetheart, but they are too young to make the marriage work and divorce at any early age; in a second universe, she marries him after they graduate from university and happily becomes a stay-at-home mom; in a third universe, she doesn’t marry him and pursues a successful career. Making different choices about the same life goal can lead to very different lives.

It’s also true, though, that chance, forces that are out of our control, shapes the choices that are available to us. This may be because of the choices of others which directly affect us, or it may because of the society into which we are born. For instance: a black man sleeps in his car in the drive-thru lane of a fast food restaurant. In one universe, two white cops are sent to deal with him; forty-five minutes later, one of them has shot him dead. In a second universe, one of the white cops and a psychiatrist are sent to deal with him; after a tense confrontation, he is arrested and his car impounded. In a third universe, the psychiatrist and a social worker droid are sent to deal with him; he is sent home to sleep it off and told he can pick up his impounded car the next day. The different outcomes are a product of chance, the different structures of the societies in which the main character finds himself.

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Anthology / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Witch, Wizard, Warlock

Submission Window: June 1st – July 31st, 2023
Payment: $10
Theme: Stories of any genre as long as they have a witch, wizard, warlock, or combination of them within!

THREE COUSINS PUBLISHING, an imprint of WEST MESA PRESS, will be accepting submissions for its next anthology, WITCH WIZARD WARLOCK from June 1, 2023 until midnight July 31, 2023. Stories submitted before or after the submission period will not be considered.
We’re looking for stories that fit the anthology title. Submissions must feature a witch, wizard, warlock, two of those, or even all three. Horror, humor, fantasy, science fiction, or even some entertaining, but bizarre mashup of genres that we haven’t considered. Your characters may be young or old and the time frame may be from the dawn of mankind to the far future. Here’s the short list of guidelines. Pay attention, please. These are important.

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Anthology / Events / Pro

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Taking Submissions: Rhapsody of the Spheres (Early Listing)

Submission Window: May 19th – June 1st, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word
Theme: “An effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling” in the SF, fantasy, space opera, hopepunk genres

Theme: Rhapsody of the Spheres – SF, fantasy, space opera, hopepunk

The dictionary defines a rhapsody as “an effusively enthusiastic or  ecstatic expression of feeling.” In ancient Greece, a rhapsody was also part of an epic poem of a suitable length for reciting.

Edie Brickell waxed rhapsodic about a smile on a dog, and Queen and Liszt gave us their musical Bohemian and Hungarian rhapsodies, respectively.

Please give us a speculative fiction story or poem about what would make us happy right now.

Reading Period (open): May 19 – June 1, 2023
Writer Deadline: June 1, 2023
Publication Date: August 2023

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Poetry / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Alternative Truths, Southern Edition: Bless Their Hearts

Deadline: June 30th, 2023
Payment: 3 cents per word
Theme: A look at the south of the United States through the lens of speculative fiction

B Cubed press is proud to announce our latest Open Call:  Alternative Truths. Southern Edition: Bless their Hearts (working title).

Edited by K.G.  Anderson and Bob Brown and the next in B Cubed Press’s best-selling Alternative Truths series.

This book will examine the South, a place where politicians and their followers compete to peg the outrage meter. Why—and how—are they turning the United States into a cauldron of bigotry and hate?

  • They are banning books.
  • They are controlling free speech (“Don’t Say Gay”).
  • They have placed bounties on abortion seekers.
  • They have declared war on Mickey Mouse.
  • They promote state takeovers of local prosecutors’ offices, election boards, college governing boards, and school curricula.
  • They think no one is too young or too unbalanced to have a gun and are In full retreat on gun-safety laws.
  • They would make your gender identity a crime.

It goes on and on.

This book will look at the mindset behind these and other efforts to bring back the Old South, a mythical place and time when everyone knew their place.

We want you give us stories that speak to the consequences of such a mindset and where it may be taking us as individuals and  as a culture. What, if left unfettered, would they make of America, the world, and the future. And more important, how will we fight to stop them.

 What we are looking for:
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