Category: Magazine

Taking Submissions: Electric Spec February Issue 2024

Deadline: January 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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Taking Submissions: midnight & indigo Fourth Quarter 2023 Call

Deadline: December 31, 2023
Payment: $0.07 per word
Theme: Character-driven fictional short stories written by Black women writers. All genres are welcome.

We’re Currently Accepting Submissions!

Next Deadline: December 31, 2023 at 11:59 pm ET
(short fiction – all genres and narrative essays)
*updated 10/1/23

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT!

short stories. essays. melanin. Whether you’re an established writer or are just starting out, we want to hear from you!

midnight & indigo, a literary journal celebrating Black women writers, has issued a call for submissions to review short stories and narrative essays. We publish content on our digital platform and in our literary journals (paperback/ebook/audiobook). In 2024, we will publish our first long-form anthology!

Writers are invited to share their original, fictional, or personal stories. Stories can funny, entertaining, serious, or sincere. Stories must be character-driven and leave readers with something to think about. All genres are welcome!

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Taking Submissions: Interstellar Flight Magazine Winter 2023 Window

Submission Window: November 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023
Payment: 8¢ per word
Theme: Speculative flash fiction

Interstellar Flight Press seeks speculative flash fiction for 2024 publication in our online magazine and yearly anthology. We will publish one piece of flash fiction a month in 2024, celebrating micro and small fictions. Submissions will be read by our team of readers and final selections will be made by flash series editor, Annika Barranti Klein. 
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Taking Submissions: The Crow’s Quill December 2023 Issue

Deadline: November 10th, 2023
Payment: $20
Theme: Darkest Endings

SUBMISSIONS CLOSE: November 10th
Theme: Darkest Endings

The Crow’s Quill is an online literary magazine, brought to you by Damon Barret Roe and the rest of Quill & Crow Publishing House’s editorial team, that boasts stories horrific, dark, and defiantly macabre.

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Taking Submissions: Haven Speculative 2023 Limited Submissions Call #6 (Early)

Submission Window: November 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.

Guidelines for Fiction

We are seeking stories in the English language up to 6,000 words by writers from around the world. We favor submisions that have not been published before (including on your own website), though we do accept a limited number of reprints not currently appearing anywhere online. For our two issues focused on the climate crisis, we’re particularly interested in publishing stories from people displaced by or threatened by the climate emergency (see our themes below). For our other four issues, we’re open to a wide variety of stories across the SFF and weird spectra.

We pay 1¢ per word for fiction, and we try to respond to all submissions within ten weeks. We will also accept a limited number of previously published stories, so please indicate on the form if your submission is a reprint. All submissions must use the Shunn manuscript format (we prefer Courier New) and be either .rtf, .doc, or .docx.

We like stories that are subtle in their telling and stick with us long after we’ve finished. We’re more likely to buy stories that balance a sense of wonder with a bold plot and emotional depth. Meditative stories that all take place in a single room, for example, are less likely to capture our imagination. Basically, we want it all: character, concept, dialogue, tone, plot, a strong opening and ending, and everything else!

Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please no multiple submissions. Also, please wait at least a week before you submit again after hearing from us about a story.

As writers ourselves, we do our best to handle each story with the care and attention it deserves. Every submission is an act of bravery, and we know that putting yourself out there as a writer can be tough. Just know that any story we receive, unless they contain something illegal, will be kept in confidence.

When in doubt, don’t self reject! Submit submit submit!

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Taking Submissions: The Ex-Puritan Winter 2023 Issue

Deadline: December 25th, 2023
Payment: (All in CAD) $100 per interview, $200 per essay, $100 per review, $150 per work of fiction, $35 per poem (or page, capped at $120 for poems running four pages or more), $50+ per experimental or hybrid work, at an increasing scale depending on the nature of the piece
Theme: Any genre, though best to see previously published work for a feel for the magazine.

Feel encouraged to push boundaries, play with form, and explore genre elements. Consider reading the fiction in our last few issues to familiarize yourself with work we’ve published. Please do not submit stories over 10,000 words, flash fiction (under 1,000 words), or novel excerpts. Please only send one story at a time. Note that all submissions must be previously unpublished and that we will not publish the same author more than once per year. We are especially interested in work by LGBTQ2S+ writers, BIPOC writers, and writing from other marginalized folks.


Please Note: All Austin Clarke Prize for Literary Excellence entries must be accompanied by a payment of $20; however, this category is free of charge! You also have the option of giving The Ex-Puritan a tip of $3, should you wish to contribute to the overall costs of running the magazine. But thanks for your submission regardless!

If submissions have been disabled on this category, it’s because we’ve reached our monthly limit. We can only accept a limited number of no-fee submissions each month. You can either submit to one of our fee submissions categories or wait until we reopen on the 1st of the next month. All of our submissions are considered equally.

Open until Dec 25th

A premier Canadian literary magazine, publishing the best in new writing. We award the annual Austin Clarke Prizes in fiction and poetry.

The Ex-Puritan seeks submissions all year round, from anywhere in the world.

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Taking Submissions: Fanatical Issue 5 (Early)

Submission Window: November 1st – December 17th, 2023
Payment:£20 per accepted story
Theme: Self-contained unpublished sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories of between 2,000 and 6,000 words.

Fanatical is currently OPEN for submissions.
We are looking for unpublished sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories of between 2,000 and 6,000 words.
Please only submit one story at a time and don’t submit if it’s already submitted somewhere else.
All stories should be self-contained, no “to be continued”.
Recurring characters across multiple stories will be considered, as long as each story is a solid read in its own right.
If you’ve already been published in an issue of Fanatical you are free to submit again, but we may hold your submission over so as not to publish the same author in back to back issues.
Fanatical will pay £20 per accepted story, paid upon publication. We pay via Paypal.
Upon acceptance, authors retain rights to the story but we ask they don’t publish/submit it anywhere else before it is published in Fanatical.

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Taking Submissions: Sundog Literature 2023 Window #2

Deadline: December 1st, 2023
Payment: $25
Theme: Writing that attempts to salvage something pure from the collision of warmth and cold, that says what it can about the world it finds itself in.

Schedule

We publish two issues a year, September 1 and March 1. We accept general submissions for poetry, nonfiction, and fiction between two reading periods, and the first 300 submissions to each are free. We also run a collaborative writing contest in August. We also accept visual art all year.

    • General Submissions: March 1 – May 1
    • General Submissions: October 1 – December 1
    • Collaboration Contest: July 15 –  August 31

Payment

We are thrilled to finally be able to say that, starting with issue 17, we will be able to offer our contributors a small payment of $25 upon publication. Hopefully, with time it will be more.

A Note on Our Aesthetic

We believe there is beauty in scars on smooth skin, in the small fissures where things begin to break apart. Sundogs are not the sun itself but phantom stars appearing on the horizon, illusions produced by the play of the sun’s heat with crystals of ice. They shed their light all the same. Many are tinged with color.

We look for this same quality in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. We want writing that attempts to salvage something pure from the collision of warmth and cold, that says what it can about the world it finds itself in. We seek a diversity of voices speaking from visceral, lived experience. We like truth we can stare at until our eyes water, words so carefully chosen we want to reread them as soon as we have finished.

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