Category: Anthology

Anthologies

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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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* Previously unpublished only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: 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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Taking Submissions: Moon Falling

Deadline: April 7th, 2024
Payment: 8 cents/6 pence per word for original stories, 6 cents/4 pence for reprints.
Theme: New interpretations and visions of moon-based fantasy, folklore or supernatural settings.
Note: Reprints Welcome

We’re delighted to let you know this new call for submissions is open! Please read through the submission details carefully as we’ve changed some of our guidelines and it could result in your submission not being acknowledged if you do not follow them.

Supernatural, Fantasy, Folklore and Myth

This collection will bring a potent mix of superstition and belief that reaches back to the gods of Babylon, Ancient Egypt and Greece. Khonsu, Innana, Artemis and Thoth are just a few of the deities who brought a mix of love, sensuality and war to the ancient perceptions of the world. In one tradition regarding the Ancient Japanese Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the moon, he was the estranged husband of the sun goddess Amaterasu, ever to chase her across the sky. From the Cherokee there are tales of the Moon being held captive, with Coyote hurling the moon each night out of reach of rescue, and for the Celts of Ireland the Moon Goddess Rhiannon was a symbol of rest and wisdom, the Queen of the Fairies. And of course the moon brings to mind curses, howling wolves, the wolf moon and the harvest moon, while offering a guiding light at night for the weary traveller. There are so many inspirations for the modern storyteller, whether ancient, gothic, fantastical or futuristic, to contribute to this intimate portrait of the seductive, powerful moon. Submissions can explore new interpretations and visions of moon-based fantasy, folklore or supernatural settings. 

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Taking Submissions: Sun Rising Short Stories

Deadline: April 7th, 2024
Payment: 8 cents/6 pence per word for original stories, 6 cents/4 pence for reprints
Theme: Modern fiction, folklore and mythology, and ancient tales about the sun
Note: Reprints Welcome

We’re delighted to let you know this new call for submissions is open! Please read through the submission details carefully as we’ve changed some of our guidelines and it could result in your submission not being acknowledged if you do not follow them.

Science Fiction, Fantasy, Folklore and Myth

This will be a feast of modern fiction, folklore and mythology, and ancient tales of the looming, life-giving, eye-burning solar entity that dominates our sky. The sun has inspired many stories – tales of its origins, in the myths and traditions of the ancient world, to modern storytellers who employ technology and deep space exploration to discover the many suns of the universe. For ancient Egyptians, the sun deity Ra was the first Pharaoh; in the ancient Vedic culture the sun, Surya, was guarded against the darkness by Usha and Pratyusha; for the Norse, the beautiful siblings Sol and Mani drove the sun ahead of the snarling wolf Sköll; for the ancient Chinese, it was a demon or dragon who threatened the sun and an eclipse was a sign of near success; for the Cherokee, the Sun was jealous of the moon because the people could only squint during the day, but looked adoringly at the pale moon light of the night. The Maori of New Zealand tell of the sun being ambushed by Maui, and for the Romans, Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn, brought renewal and relief across the lands. Such stories reveal the foundations of humanity, with modern writers who explore the other worlds and many stars that dispense both life and fear to civilizations on our own and so many other planets. Submissions can thus explore new interpretations and visions of sun-based mythology or interstellar, future and fantastical settings.

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Taking Submissions: Fear’s Accomplice Volume 2

Deadline: June 1st, 2024
Payment: £5
Theme: All styles or horror, likes the types of tales you’d see in Tales from the Crypt, Twilight Zone, and similar

There is no theme. As long as your story is in the horror genre, I’m interested. Check out Fear’s Accomplice Volume 1 or Fear’s Accomplice: Halloween to get an idea of style. Think of Tales from the Crypt, Twighlight Zone, and similar. I want variation. Don’t be afraid of violence or strong language, though. You’re free to write any style of horror you choose.

Zombies, werewolves, vampires, etc, are more than welcome, but they are something of a hard sell. Make it unique or interesting.

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Taking Submissions: The Whumpboratory

Deadline: May 31, 2024
Payment: Contributor’s Copy
Theme: Whumpy stories that involve a laboratory

Whump, closely related to hurt/comfort, is a genre of fiction that involves hurting fictional characters. It often also involves the comforting of those characters, but not necessarily. It originated in fan fiction, but has now branched out into original fiction. If you are unfamiliar with the genre, make sure to familiarize yourself with it before submitting. Check out #whump on tumblr, or pick up a copy of one of our previous anthologies!

Calling all whump writers! The Whumpy Printing Press is looking for stories for its third anthology, to be published in paperback and ebook formats in 2024.

Theme: Lab whump. For this anthology, we’re looking for whumpy stories that involve a laboratory. Maybe your whumpee is a lab rat. Maybe they’re on the run from the ethically questionable organization that has been holding them prisoner. Maybe the whumpee has finally flipped the script on their whumper. As long as a lab is incorporated into the story in some way, it counts!

We take a broad view of whump- it can be physical or emotional. Your stories can be hurt no comfort or comfort no hurt, just as long as they touch on whump in some way.

Word Count: Up to 17,500 words

For this anthology, we are looking for stories in the following categories:

Micro-fiction: 250 words or less

Flash fiction: 251-1,000 words

Short Story: 1,001-7,499 words

Novelette: 7,500-17,500 words

Compensation: ebook contributor’s copy, one free paperback, and discounts on additional paperbacks

50% of proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to charity, with the remainder going to support future WPP projects.

Submissions Open: October 28, 2023 Submit Here!

Submissions Close: May 31, 2024 (hard deadline)

Expected Publication Date: October 2024

The Nitty-Gritty

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