Category: Flash

Artwork / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Poetry / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: Tower Magazine February Window

Deadline: February 28th, 2023
Payment: €20
Theme: horror, sci-fi, fantasy and erotica that grapple with the topic of Endings
Note: Reprints Welcome

Submissions are open from February 01-28 2023 for TOWER VOL. 1: END. We accept all genres and encourage submissions of horror, sci-fi, fantasy and erotica.
For VOL. 1: END we’re looking for work that grapples with endings, death, dissolution and finality; sudden, brutal endings; torturously slow breakdowns; how do things come to an end and who gets to decide?
Some inspirations:

  • The desperation for an ending to the tortures of Gretchen Felker-Martin’s No End Will Be Found
  • The cyclical violence in “Herbert White” by Frank Bidart
  • The clash between audience and artist’s expectations of an ending in ABC’s LOST
  • The desperate battle against a prophesied ending in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
  • The incomprehensible disappearance and abrupt end of an internet friendship in Lol Cuthbert’s “This journal has been deleted and purged”
  • How we go on after the end of the world in Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, Kentaro Miura’s Berserk and Torrey Peters’ Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
  • The role of geography and place in predetermining a life as in Cherie Priest’s Those Who Went Remain There Still
  • The endless scroll of Tiktok

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Events / Flash / Magazine / Pro

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Taking Submissions: Cosmic Roots And Eldritch Shores March 2023 (Early Listing)

Submission Window: March 1st – 3rd, 2023
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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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Non-fiction / Poetry

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Taking Submissions: The First Line – Summer 2023

Deadline: May 1st, 2023
Payment: $25.00 – $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 – $10.00 for poetry
Theme: Story must begin with: “All the lawns on Mentone Avenue are mowed on Wednesdays.”

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.

One more thing while I’ve got you here: Writers compete against one another for magazine space, so, technically, every literary magazine is running a contest. There are, however, literary magazines that run traditional contests, where they charge entry fees and rank the winners. We do not – nor will we ever – charge a submission fee, nor do we rank our stories in order of importance. Occasionally, we run contests to help come up with new first lines, or we run fun, gimmicky competitions for free stuff, but the actual journal is not a contest in the traditional sense.

Fiction: All stories must be written with the first line provided. The line cannot be altered in any way, unless otherwise noted by the editors. The story should be between 300 and 5,000 words (this is more like a guideline and not a hard-and-fast rule; going over or under the word count won’t get your story tossed from the slush pile). The sentences can be found on the home page of The First Line’s website, as well as in the prior issue. Note: We are open to all genres. We try to make TFL as eclectic as possible.

Poetry: We do accept poetry, though rarely. We have no restrictions on form or line count, but all poems must begin with the first line provided. The line cannot be altered in any way.

Non-Fiction: 500-800 word critical essays about your favorite first line from a literary work.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: The Devil Take You

Deadline: April 15th, 2023
Payment: $125 – $200
Theme: Original weird tales set in the medieval period that explore the human (and inhuman) experience through the lens of horror.

Sentinel Creatives has opened up for submissions for our “THE DEVIL TAKE YOU: TALES OF MEDIEVAL HORROR” anthology.

Deadline for Submissions: 15 April 2023
Wordcount: 3,000 – 6,000
Remuneration: $125 – $200
Simultaneous Submissions: Yes

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.

Some clarifications:

Weird: The term “weird” should be understood to mean a certain sense of breathless and unexplainable dread, of outer, unknown forces present, a suggestion of the defeat or suspension of the laws of nature which have hitherto served to protect our minds and bodies (and souls) from the assault of chaos. By its very nature, weird fiction should invoke in the reader a sense of profound uneasiness and dread, it should hint at the inability of the human mind to comprehend the true nature of existence, and it should cause us to question the stability of our faith in the established laws of nature.

Medieval: The term “medieval” denotes the period in Europe lasting from around 500AD to 1500AD and is typically divided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. There is a temptation here that often proves too powerful to ignore, to view Europe through a monist lens: to see all of Europe as Christian, white, and “Western”. But this is a strange way to view a continent and a period that saw so much strife and upheaval precisely because of the differences of those living within its borders. These are the differences—the tensions—that create the opportunity for compelling storytelling.
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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Non-fiction

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Taking Submissions: Cunning Folk #6

Deadline: March 1st, 2023
Payment: £100 per article, interview or short story and £50 for poetry and rituals
Theme: The Vampire

We are open to non-fiction pitches and short fiction and poetry submissions for issue 6 until 1 March 2023. The theme is THE VAMPIRE.

“Vampires are so nearly human that they are excellent to think with.”

–Professor Nick Groom, author of The Vampire: A New History

Vampires charm and terrify us. We fear them, envy them, and pity them, eternal witnesses to the passage of time, conquerors of impermanence, and creatures of the night. The vampire is a symbol of the shadow side, of the old world meeting modernity, and of the 19th-century preoccupation with mesmerism and blood; the vampire eludes, too, to the pitfalls of aestheticism, for behind this creature’s seductive glamour lies a ruthless – often narcissistic and nihilistic – consumer. Of course, the vampire also has roots in older, Eastern European folk beliefs, such as the Romanian strigoi – which had much in common with the witch of the witch trials – and this supernatural being converges with many other cultural beliefs around the undead. The modern vampire continues to haunt our collective imagination, from Count Dracula and Carmilla to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and True Blood, exposing our basest impulses and thoughts, and forcing us to confront the personal and collective shadow. Why does this monster appear to us in dreams and sleep paralysis? Why are we scared of – and fascinated by – the liminal space between life and death? What even is death? What is it to live forever? And what does the vampire’s infinite quest for blood tell us of our own lives? Are we, too, a little vampiric? How can we fend off the vampires exterior and interior to ourselves? We want your articles, interviews, rituals, poetry and short fiction pertaining to the vampiric, that intersect with our other themes and that shine light on what lies behind the vampire’s shiny façade – and what that tells us about the current age, the unconscious shadow and humanity. This question can be explored via journalism, art, literature, science, pop culture and the personal.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: We Fear Not the Sea

Deadline: March 30th, 2023
Payment: 2 cents per word
Theme: Stories inspired by sea shanties, more on that below!

This is a Call for Submissions for We Fear Not the Sea, an anthology of stories inspired by sea shanties.

Each tale should be based on, or somehow incorporate, one sea shanty and include a speculative element of some kind. Give us your adventures with ghosts, sea monsters, and mermaids! Put us in the salty sea boots of sailors, whalers, pirates, and privateers!

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Token Payment

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Taking Submissions: Jane Nightshade’s Serial Encounters

Deadline: August 30th, 2023
Payment: $5
Theme: Short stories about casual encounters of fictional people with serial killers

Have you ever wondered about the ordinary people who came in contact with famous serial killers before everyone knew them for their depraved, murderous acts?

What did Jeffrey Dahmer’s plumber experience when he unclogged the notorious cannibal’s toilet? Or how about the guy who worked in the music shop where Charles Manson had his guitars strung? The girl who waited on Ted Bundy at his favorite coffee shop? Jack the Ripper’s neighborhood bartender? How about one of the kids who had John Wayne Gacey perform as a clown at their birthday party?

For this anthology, we’re looking for short stories about casual encounters of fictional people with serial killers, that turned creepy or deadly. Stories can be straight crime/thriller stories or ones with a supernatural bent (haunted objects, ghosts, demons, etc.).

Characters and victims, aside from the serial killers, must be fictional—real names of victims or family members can not be used. Also, feel free to use lesser-known killers like Richard Speck or The Boston Strangler, in case the Bundy and Manson stories start piling up like the bodies of their victims…

Note: Stories should not lionize or celebrate the serial killers, or promote racism, bigotry, or depictions of violence against children.

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Artwork / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Electric Spec May Issue 2023

Deadline: April 15th, 2023
Payment: $20 per story or artwork
Theme: Electric Spec prefers science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre, but we’re willing to push the limits of traditional forms of these genres.

submissions at electricspec (dot) com
Please don’t query us about your story submission. We don’t have the manpower to answer such queries. An editor will email you back as soon as possible with the decision about your story. This can take a few days, or, up to three months. We make every effort to get back to authors in a timely manner but we get a lot of submissions so sometimes it’s not possible.

A note on our editorial policy: before publication we may work with the author to edit the story for length or readability. However, we always remain true to the spirit of the story and the author has final approval.

Issues are published at the end of February, May, August, and November. We reserve the right to shift publication date slightly, as necessary.

We have reading periods for each issue, though we never close to submissions.

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