Category: Non-fiction

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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Taking Submissions: Strange Horizons: Wuxia & Xianxia Special

Deadline: March 1st, 2023
Payment: Fiction: 10¢/word USD, Poetry: $50 per poem, Non-Fiction: $50 for a column, $40 for a reprinted essay, $150 for an original essay, $45 to an interviewer, and $45 to an interviewee, $20 to a roundtable moderator, and $20 to each other contributor
Theme: Stories that fit in wuxia and xianxia fiction

Imagine yourself as a sword fighter, a vigilante hero and upholder of justice. Imagine you are a xia in the world of jianghu—whether a solitary traveller on a mission, an outlaw on the run, or a member of a powerful sect or dying clan. Or imagine you are a Daoist cultivator, soaring across the sky atop swords and clouds, with a story that stretches across realms and even lifetimes.

Welcome to the Wuxia & Xianxia Special, fellow walkers of the jianghu.

Many of us have become fans of wuxia and xianxia fiction ever since we first encountered eminent wuxia and xianxia authors like Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Huan Zhu Lou Zhu. Others among us fell in love with these genres through films from the Shaw Brothers Studio, Pili puppet shows, drama adaptations, RPGs, manhua, and other kinds of popular media.

Over the past decade, there has also been a new and revived interest in the xianxia genre with the rise of web novels, and more recently, through the lens of danmei, as shown by the popularity of dramas like The Untamed.

For this special issue, we are interested in:

  • Traditional and new approaches to wuxia and xianxia fiction
  • Stories full of action, conflict, drama, and intrigue
  • Rich, diverse, colourful, and nuanced worldbuilding, whether featuring the jianghu, a xianxia world, the imperial court, or other kinds of setting
  • Unique approaches to classic wuxia themes like honour, free love, good versus evil, and individual choice versus fate
  • Re-imaginings of what these genres look like in the 21st century
  • Works that experiment with, subvert, and reinvent genre tropes, including in combination with other Sinophone literary traditions such as danmei, chuanyue (time travel), gong’an fiction (court case), and beyond

The editors for the Wuxia/Xianxia Special invite you to submit fictionpoetrytranslations, and nonfiction.
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Taking Submissions: Haven Speculative 2023 Limited Demographic Call #1

Submission Window: January 1st-31st, 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
Note: Limited Demographic: Authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups.

Submission Windows

General submission window
  • February 01-28
  • April 01-30
  • June 01-30
  • August 01-31
  • October 01-31
  • December 01-31
Limited demographic window
  • January 01-31
  • March 01-31
  • May 01-31
  • July 01-31
  • September 01-30
  • November 01-30

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.

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Taking Submissions: Solarpunk Magazine January 2023 Window

Submission Window: January 1st-14th, 2023
Payment: Fiction: 1500-7500 words ($.08 per word, $100 minimum), Poetry: up to 5 poems or 5 pages of poems, whichever is shorter. ($40 per poem), Nonfiction: 1000-2000 words ($75 per essay or article), Cover Art: $100 for reprints, $200 for original unpublished, Interior Art: $50 for reprints, $100 for original unpublished
Theme: Themes of defiance, change, and achievement. (Read below)

(At the moment, our nonfiction department is always open for submissions. If the fiction portal is closed and you submit fiction through the open nonfiction portal, your submission will be rejected.)

All submissions to Solarpunk Magazine are done via Moksha. Any submissions received via email will be deleted without a response. Please don’t email us to describe your story and ask if it’s something we’d be interested in before submitting. We appreciate the consideration, but its easier if you just submit the story through Moksha.

Please read the full submission guidelines on down below or on our Moksha page before submitting your work. All submission periods end at 11:59 pm PST on the 14th of their given month.

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Taking Submissions: Samjoko Winter Issue II 2022

Deadline: January 1st, 2023
Payment: $20
Theme: No set aesthetic, enjoys stories that stands out for its honesty and desire to take risks for the sake of artistic expression.

Winter Issue II submissions now OPEN

Submissions Deadline: 2023/01/15

Payment for Accepted Pieces: $20

WE are non-genre specific. Please read the previous issues to get an idea of what we publish.

If previously accepted, please wait 24 months before submitting again. Only submit once per reading cycle.

Submission Guidelines

Samjoko purchases first worldwide English-language serial and electronic rights from the date the contract is signed and paid for up until 4 months after publication date.
Bear in mind that most publications will not publish pieces that have been published in print, eBook, or on the web, so for all intents and purposes after your work is published by us it can only be marketed as a reprint, which severely limits the number of markets that will accept it, and drastically reduces the pay rate it can receive. It is up to you, the author, to decide if publishing your work in print and/or eBook formats and/or on the web, giving up your First Publishing Right for a token payment, is really what you want to do.

After initial publication date, Samjoko Magazine will maintain non-exclusive rights to publication. Paid submissions must not use the intellectual property of any other author or company.

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Taking Submissions: The Vampiricon

Deadline: October 31st, 2022
Payment: 1/2 cent per word for non-fiction, $10-$15 for poetry, $10-$15 for interior illustrations, $25 for cover illustration
Theme: Poetry, Illustration, and Non-Fiction related to vampires

SUBMISSIONS OPEN FROM September 1st through END OF DAY on Halloween (10/31/2022)

Must be directly relevant to the subject of THE VAMPIRE.

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Taking Submissions: Fantasy Magazine October 2022 Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: October 1st – 7th, 2022
Payment: 8 cents per word for fiction. $40 per poem. $75 per essay.
Theme: Original fantasy and dark fantasy stories. All types of fantasy and dark fantasy are welcome.
Note: This is an early listing to give you some time to plan ahead for next month or to remember to finish revising your story for the upcoming month!
Note: We are trusting that the submission windows listed in the ongoing call are valid for this publisher. If they are not, please let us know and we’ll look into revising accordingly.

Instructions for submitting to Fantasy Magazine follow. Please read everything on this page and read the magazine before submitting.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURES

Submission Periods: Fantasy is open to submissions the first week of every month (1st-7th). Please do not query about submitting outside our open submission periods.

Anonymous Submissions: Fantasy only accepts anonymous submissions. Do not include your name, address, phone number, or other similar identifiers on the manuscript. All original short fiction, flash fiction, and poetry submissions will be read anonymously on first read: moving out of slush depends on the merits of the story alone. Please make sure the title is on the manuscript.
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Ongoing Submissions: Illumen Magazine

Payment: 2 cents per word for original poems with a minimum payment of $3.00. Reprints receive 1 cent per word . Scifaiku and related forms will receive $1. If you are chosen as a Featured Poet, you will be paid a flat $15.00. Artwork: $5 for original illustrations, $3 for reprints, $12.00 for cover art. Articles: $12 for original articles, $5 for reprints. reviews is $7
Theme: Speculative poetry, art and non-fiction also related to speculative poetry.

Illumen publishes original poems sci-fi and fantasy genres, with some horror. We also include various art, articles, reviews, and interviews. Describe other worlds in poetic prose, challenge heroes and villains with eloquent words, show the nightmare of real life in all its disgusting mud and muck. We want your electric dreams, your fevered nightmares, your tales of magic, the wonder of a new robotic mind, and more.

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