Category: Online

Ongoing Submissions: The Literary Hatchet

Payment: FICTION, SHORT STORIES: 500-7,500 words — $10, Poetry: under 100 lines — $5. Artwork – $5
Theme: speculative fiction, flash fiction, poetry, prose

The Literary Hatchet is an indy international literary journal that publishes provocative contemporary short fiction, poetry, illustrations, interviews, and reviews by established and emerging writers and artists from around the world. All subjects (except erotica) are welcomed. We are run by a devoted group of volunteer writers and editors.

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Ongoing Submissions: Dream of Shadows

Payment: £20

Note: This publication opens and closes without known set deadlines.

 

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for original and previously unpublished fantasy and horror short fiction of maximum 1500 words, written in English. We particularly like honest and daring stories with strong characters pursuing goals, although we recognise that if a story is good, it’s good.

We’re realists, so we don’t need a happy ending. Send us those stories that other publishers rejected because they were too dark.

Having said that, we don’t want stories with gratuitous and/or over-the-top sex, violence or swearing. And it should go without saying, but we won’t allow discrimination either.

On a similar note, we’re also not very fond of preachy stories, where one character explains to another how terrible humans are. We get it, people suck.

The legal stuff

We’re a new website and won’t be able to pay you the big bucks (hopefully, this will change in the future). But we want to be fair as well. Because if it’s good enough for us to publish, it’s good enough for us to pay you for it. We’re therefore paying £20 for each published story (payment currently made only through PayPal). This is for exclusive first world electronic rights (stories published on our website and future email newsletters) and for nonexclusive reprint rights in our yearly anthologies containing stories from the previous 12 months (published on Amazon as paperback and ebook). We reserve the right to archive work on our website to keep it available to our readers.

We will also publish stories in a magazine directly on Amazon as paperback and ebook). We pay £20 for exclusive first world electronic rights (ebooks) and exclusive first world print rights (paperback). We will let authors know where their story will appear when we send out the contract.

How to submit

To submit your story, please email your file as an attachment (.doc or .docx) to . Please use the standard manuscript format  (you can download a template here). Don’t forget to include in the body of the email the genre and the approximate word count. You can also add a short bio, including any previous publications, although this is not necessary.

We currently accept simultaneous submissions. But please let us know in the body of your email if you have submitted your story somewhere else or are planning to. Please also let us know immediately if your story has been accepted somewhere else.

We currently don’t accept multiple submissions.

What happens next

We aim to make a decision within 30 days.

Don’t forget to check the website for upcoming stories or follow us on Facebook.

 

Via: Dream of Shadows

Ongoing Submissions: After Dinner Conversation

Payment: 1 cent per word

Do you accept unsolicited submissions?

Yes. Please see the information below on how to submit.

How do I submit?

  1. Email your submission to [email protected] with “After Dinner Conversation – Submission” in the Subject Line.
  2. Attach your story as .pdf document. If we can’t open it, it will be deleted.
  3. Assuming your story is accepted, we will send you a simple contract granting us the right to publish your story on our website. Additionally, your story will be considered for inclusion in future podcast discussions and/or as part of the Kindle Direct Publication “After Dinner Conversation” Series.
  4. No more than three submissions per six months.

What are your looking for?

Your writing can be any genre, and from any perspective. The important thing is that it spurs discussions and requires the reader to expand their mind. If you need an example, read “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by the amazing Ursula K. Le Guin or the convenience store scene from Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club.” The point is, the short story should be interesting as a short story, but also have a deeper point for a longer discussion. If you are hurting for deep ideas to write about, you might want to watch these Crash Course videos on Philosophy. Of course, the best thing to do is read other short stories on the website.

We do not accept novels, poems, or artwork.

What length are you looking for?

  1. Children’s Stories: Under 1,500 words
  2. Young Adult: Under 5,000 words
  3. Adult: 1,500-15,000 words

What does this pay?

Accepted short stories from unsolicited submissions are $0.01 per word (limit $50).

How long will it take to hear back from you?

Usually just 1-2 weeks, but certainly under 1 month.

Via: After Dinner Conversation.

Ongoing Submissions: Aggregate

Payment: 1 cent per word

Short Story Submissions

We are always looking for quality fiction. If you’ve got a story that you think might fit, please read on.

Aggregate is an upcoming fiction anthology, and we’re looking for solid, creative short stories. We tend toward science fiction and horror, but prefer to think of genre as a loose categorization at best. Experimental fiction is welcomed, and even strongly encouraged. Strong consideration will be given to stories that explore the sociological and psychological. We’re not particularly concerned about the location or time in which the story takes place, or the use of supernatural or non-supernatural elements.

Not sure if your story fits? That’s okay! Feel free to submit, even if you’re not sure. However, to help give you an idea of what we’re looking for, here is a partial list of movies and books that get us excited.

  • Movies: Get Out, The Babadook, Children of Men, 28 Days Later, The VVitch
  • Books: The Haunting of Hill House (Jackson), The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), House of Leaves (Danielewski), The Library of Babel (Borges), The Road (McCarthy)

How to submit

All submissions should be sent by e-mail. Please ensure that you follow the formatting guidelines below. Submissions that are not correctly formatted, include stories as attachments, or are otherwise inappropriate, may be politely turned away without review.

We accept stories in plain text pasted into the body of an email, sent to the address [email protected]. Please don’t attach your story as a Word document, PDF file, or any other marked-up format. If you’re sending an HTML formatted file, note that the story will be read as plain text, and that formatting will not be preserved. If you’re not sure what any of that means, don’t worry about it! Just copy and paste the story into the email message, and we’ll let you know if we can’t find your story.

Please be sure to include the word “Submission” AND the title of the story in the subject line of the message.

In the body of the message, we need to see the following:

Your real name.
Your pseudonym, optionally, if you would like to credit the story differently.
A brief cover letter giving us your biography and publication credits.
The word count of the story.
The title of the story.
The text of the story. Use single spacing, with blank lines between paragraphs and _underscores_ or *asterisks* (or whatever) for emphasis.

We prefer to see stories that are between 2,000 and 10,000 words in length. Please note that we do not consider novel excerpts.

There’s no deadline; when we’ve finished work on each short story anthology, we move straight on to the next. Just send us your work when you feel it’s ready.

Although we’re based in Canada, we accept English submissions from authors all over the world and pay in United States dollars.

It’s fine to send us more than one story at a time. However, please send them all separately, and not together in one email.

We understand if you want to submit to more than one venue at a time, and that’s alright. Please let us know if you’ve had the story accepted somewhere else.

And finally, thank you for considering us! We’ll do our best to respect your work, whether or not it ends up being a good fit for us. If we’re not meeting your expectations, please let us know, and we’ll try to do better. Authors are the reason that publishers exist. We won’t forget that.

Rights

We ask for first serial rights on any story we publish. This means that the story should not have appeared anywhere else, either in print or online. This includes publication on an author’s own website.

Payment

We pay at a rate of one US cent per word for stories we publish. Contributors receive a complimentary DRM-free copy of the anthology for personal use.

Response times

We aim to reply to all submissions within two weeks. If it’s been longer, and you’d like to double check that we received your submission, please email us at [email protected] with your name and story title.

Via: Writerfield.

Ongoing Submissions: Beestung

Payment: $20

Theme: Writing, Poetry, and Artwork from Non-binary and two-spirit writers 

Who are we?

beestung is a quarterly online micro-magazine for non-binary and two-spirit writers and readers, with an emphasis on intracommunity sensibilities. beestung resists the canon and all forms of bigotry.

beestung considers poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, hybrids, and art, by creators who fall under the non-binary umbrella. Multilingual work and work in translation is welcome. Historically underrepresented writers are encouraged to send work. beestung pays a $20 honorarium to writers and artists selected for publication.

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Ongoing Submissions: Terse

Payment: $10.00 USD

Theme: Worlding, futures, identity, technology, hyperreality, embodiment, healing, mourning, the tarot/divination, memory, small press culture, captivity/confinement/incarceration, disability

We have a rolling and open submissions policy (we accept unsolicited submissions year round). There are no fees associated with submissions. This is a volunteer run, not for profit publication.

Contributor Q & A

What topics/themes are you looking for?

worlding, futures, identity, technology, hyperreality, embodiment, healing, mourning, the tarot/divination, memory, small press culture, captivity/confinement/incarceration, disability

What mediums can I use in this space?

poetry (erasure poetry, found poetry, experimental poetry, all poetry!), collage, critical essays (academic-style essays are considered), reviews, interviews, mixed media, audio recordings, visual art (drawings, paintings, photographs), creative non-fiction, science fiction, flash fiction, letters, mix tapes

How do you accept audio files? Why would I consider submitting in audio format? 

In the past we’ve designed videos to accompany the work of poets. They turned out pretty cool! Here is one you can check out for yourself: Four Poems by Noelia Young. 

We’d like to do this more! Know that it takes time and we cannot do this for every writer, but let us know if it’s something that interests you.

Do I relinquish my rights to my piece once you publish it?

No. We actually don’t mind if you’d like to submit your work for consideration somewhere else after we’ve published it. However, we’d like to receive credit for publishing it first. We also understand people grow and change, so if there’s ever a time when you’d like us to remove a piece just let us know.

Do ya pay?

Yes. We don’t have much in the way of resources, but we feel writers should receive a show of good faith for publishing with us. We also do this to pressure outlets with more resources to pay their writers. We will pay $10.00 USD via PayPal for any work published with us.

What is the length requirement for essays to be considered?

For anything considered an essay we’d expect it to be however long it needs to be in order to do its job. We’re also volunteers, so please: nothing over 7,000 words. If it’s longer than that we’d maybe consider breaking it down into a series. Pitch us if you are toying with sending us a super long piece.

Who can submit?

Creative people who want opportunities in publishing and have an affinity to social justice and activist worlding technologies.

How much can I send at one time?

2-3 finished pieces of any medium.

How long do you usually spend reviewing submissions?

Due to the high volume of submissions coming our way we are unable to respond to each one in kind. When sending a submission you will receive an automated message letting you know your transmission got through to us.

What’s a sure way to be rejected immediately?

You’ll be rejected immediately if there are any racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, xenophobic, ableist or otherwise abusive issues. Your piece will also be removed without explanation if we find out you are publishing this trash elsewhere and we just didn’t know about it when we published you. This also goes for the email you send along with your submission.

Do you accept simultaneous submissions?

Yes. We think it is unrealistic to assume you only have eyes for us. Yet we’d like you to tell us RIGHT AWAY if your piece is accepted elsewhere. Like RIGHT when you get the email from another pub. This saves us from reviewing something you have no intention of publishing with us. Seems reasonable!

How often do you publish?

Monthly and as pieces are accepted.

Anything else I should add to my submission?

Yes. Please include biographical information along with any social media links or blog info. We like to know more about our contributors before we work with them.

Who are the editors?

Mauve Perle Tahat  {executive editor}

Wes Bishop {assistant editor}

Karissa Lang {poetry editor}

Ben Berman Ghan {prose editor}

Moriah M. Mylod {contributing editor}

How do I submit?

Sample submission:

“Dear [find editors’ names above for submission],

Here is my piece _______. It is [explain what your piece is about and what your intention was in writing it in one or two sentences].

This is my short bio:

Here are my social media links:”

Anything else I should know?

Submit via our email: [email protected]

We’ve been fortunate: over a short time we’ve worked with tremendous contributors who’ve written about art, technology, embodiment, critical theory, and self-discovery (among other topics). Take a look around to see what we’ve published to get a feel for TERSE. 

Via: Terse.

Ongoing Submissions: Every Day Fiction

Payment: $3
Theme: All genres accepted

Every Day Fiction is looking for very short (flash) fiction, of up to 1000 words. There’s no such thing as too short — if you can do the job in 50 words, have at it! — but our readers prefer pieces that tell or at least hint at a complete story (some sort of action or tension rising to a moment of climax, and at least a clue toward a resolution, though it doesn’t have to be all spelled out).

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Ongoing Submissions: Sirius Science Fiction

Payment: $25

Sirius Science Fiction is an on-line web site dedicated to publishing original speculative fiction – science fiction, fantasy, alternate history and horror. We like stories with a sense of wonder and excitement.

In a time when mainstream speculative fiction has been overrun by political correctness and identity politics, we offer a venue free of pretension and ideological litmus tests. We read the story free of preconceptions, and we do not ask for a biography from an author until and unless their story is accepted.
Sirius Science Fiction publishes one original short story a week, plus occasional reprints. Original stories are posted every Friday.

Guidelines

Stories must be between 1,000 and 4,000 words, original and unpublished. No multiple submissions; simultaneous submissions are fine.

Please submit RTF documents using standard manuscript format.

How to submit

Send your stories as an attachment to the following email address:

Please put your name and story title in the message line, i.e.
Lou Antonelli – A Rocket for the Republic
All emails will be acknowledged. Please allow 90 days before querying.
If your story is accepted, you will be asked to submit a short biography.

Payment

$25 for each original story upon publication.

Payment is by PayPal.

Via: Sirius Science Fiction.