Category: Flash

Artwork / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Non-fiction / Poetry / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Haven Speculative 2023 General Submissions Call #3 (Early)

Submission Window: June 1st – 30th, 2023
Payment: 1 cent per word for fiction, $5 for poetry, 1 cent per word for non-fiction, $35 for cover art
Theme: Speculative fiction

It’s our goal to publish diverse voices from around the world, and to do that, we are actively seeking stories, poems, and non-fiction pieces by authors from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy canon. Our submission cycle is therefore split into two categories, where every other month is explicitly reserved for submissions by authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups. The interposing six months remain open to everyone.

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Taking Submissions: Allegory Volume 44

Deadline: June 30th, 2023
Payment: $15
Theme: Speculative fiction, primarily horror, science fiction, and fantasy.
Note: Reprints welcome

Formatting Guidelines

This is proving to be a recurring problem, so we’re putting it up front. Please, for all our sakes, read this next part carefully.

All submissions should be sent by e-mail (no letters or telephone calls please) to [email protected]. Below are some formatting rules to help us process your submission more quickly.

EMAIL AND COVER LETTERS

Email is accepted in both text and HTML formats. When submitting, please put this in the subject line:

Submission: (Title) – (First and Last name)

Include the following in the body of the email and in the attached submission:

Your name
Name to use on the story (byline), if different
Your preferred email address
Your mailing address
The story’s title
The story’s word count
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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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Artwork / Events / Flash / Magazine / Poetry

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Taking Submissions: NonBinary Review #33

Deadline: July 29th, 2023
Payment: Short Stories: 1 cent per word, Poetry, $10 flat fee, Artwork: $25 flat fee or $50 if chosen for cover art
Theme: World Tour

NonBinary Review is open for submissions on the theme of “world tour.” From the first migration of our ancestors out of Africa to the globe trotting of the jet set, our planet and our culture have been shaped by people traveling vast distances. Some traveled for survival, some for wealth, some for power, and some traveled to satisfy their curiosity. We’re looking for stories about epic journeys over vast distances with many destinations. We’re looking for travels that have changed the way people have viewed their world. We’re looking for travels that have broadened the outlook, not just of the traveler, but of civilization.

We’re not looking for personal travelogues, unless you’re Columbus, Magellan, etc., in which case, we have some questions. We’re also not looking for stories of family’s moves to the new world. We also don’t want interplanetary travel-type science fiction.
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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Poetry

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Taking Submissions: The First Line – Fall 2023

Deadline: August 1st, 2023
Payment: $25.00 – $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 – $10.00 for poetry
Theme: Story must begin with: “As soon as Harriet entered the building, she headed to the seventh floor.”

Fall:
As soon as Harriet entered the building, she headed to the seventh floor.
Due date: August 1, 2023

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.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Poetry / Pro

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Taking Submissions: Qualia Nous Volume 2

Deadline: July 31st, 2023
Payment: 10 cents per word up to 3,000 words, $500 for novelettes, $50 for short poems, $100 for longer poems
Theme: Qualia: instances of subjective, conscious experience; the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena; the way it feels to have mental states. Nous: intellections; awareness; perception; understanding; reason; thought; intuition; the faculty of the human mind; having the ability to understand what is true or real; practical intelligence.

The first volume of Qualia Nous (2014), edited by Michael Bailey, won the Benjamin Franklin Award for science fiction and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology. It was a Foreword Reviews Book of the Year finalist in horror, science fiction, and a bronze winner for anthologies, as well as a silver medal finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Awards, a finalist for the Indie Book Awards, and a winner of the International Book Award. It was also the first Written Backwards anthology (of eventually many) to contain work by Stephen King.

Usman T. Malik’s “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” was a finalist for the Nebula Award and tied to win the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction with Rena Mason’s “Ruminations.” And Marge Simon’s poem “Shutdown” (the only poem in the anthology) won the Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. So, a second volume of Qualia Nous was inevitable, albeit 10 years later, and will again not only feature legends of the craft but showcase today’s emerging talent.

What does the title mean? It’s up to interpretation.

Qualia: instances of subjective, conscious experience; the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena; the way it feels to have mental states.

Nous: intellections; awareness; perception; understanding; reason; thought; intuition; the faculty of the human mind; having the ability to understand what is true or real; practical intelligence.
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Anthology / Events / Flash / Poetry / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Alternative Leadership

Deadline: August 1st, 2023
Payment: $.03 per word
Theme: Alternative Leadership

B Cubed Press is pleased announce an Open Call for Alternative Leadership.   

An anthology about leadership. Leadership by the under-represented, by those too often forced to watch as those less qualified, less capable rise in a system that cannot see the value of diversity and change.

We’re looking for broken barriers of all kinds.  Can a man lead the National Organization of Women? Can a woman lead the NFL Players Association?  Not in our current world, perhaps, but maybe in alternative worlds?

This will be a book about those things, in government, in the PTA, in the Horde, in the town or village.  In the world. About the Orc would be King of the Goblins, the woman who would be Pope.  The only limits are those of your own imagination.

So understand there is no magic formula for sex, orientation or race of your protagonist.  We want our readers to enjoy the story, sometimes laugh, but always think.

The Alternatives series often uses humor and satire as a way of looking at issues.  You don’t have to write satire or humor to sell us a story, but it sometimes helps.

We are unabashedly social justice fans and love redemption.  Your story doesn’t have to reflect progressive perspectives, but again, it helps.

But most of all, we want our readers to think about the story after they’ve put down the book.

We are looking for good writing, first and foremost. We also want imaginative scenarios, and a good bit of humor in stories, essays or poetry is always appreciated.

Write of successes.

Write of failures.

Write of the perfect, the imperfect, the noble, and the wretched.

Write the story of the person who said, “I can be more.”

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Bon Appetit!

Deadline: August 1st, 2023
Payment: $10
Theme: High-End Cannibals

It’s that time again. PsychoToxin Press is issuing an open call for our next anthology. What we’re looking for this time is cannibal stories. Now when we say cannibal stories, we’re not looking for stereotypes like headhunters or TCM style hillbillies. What we’re looking for is elevated cannibals. Stories that occur in places like high-end restaurants or secret societies. Maybe it’s a cannibal cooking show on the darkweb. Maybe it’s an exclusive invitation to a dinner. Anything outside of the same tired stories. Submissions should be between 2,000-10,000 words. Pay is $10 plus a digital contributors copy. Please include contact information both in your email and on the first page of your submission. Given that we’re asking for cannibal stories, our guidelines are a little more relaxed for this one, however please keep the following in mind…

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