Category: Call Type

Artwork / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Non-fiction / Poetry / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: parABnormal Magazine 2023 – Second Call

Deadline: July 31st, 2023
Payment: $25.00 for original stories, $7.00 for reprints. $6.00 for each poem. $20.00 for original articles, $6.00 for reprints. $7.00 for reviews and interviews. $5.00 for interior art
Theme: The paranormal

Submissions are accepted Feb 1 – Mar 31, Jun 1 – Jul 31, Oct 1 – Nov 30.

Anything submitted outside those periods will be deleted unread.

We no longer accept simultaneous or multiple submissions.

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No matter how far we move forward as humans, we are still bound by the instincts and ancestral memories of our animalistic past. None of these are so strong as the fight or flight response. However, there are times when we seem to be perfectly safe, completely at ease and comfortable, when that urge to run from something sneaks up on us. What causes these sensations? Is there something lurking in the darkness? Why is that man giving you the creeps, he’s not even looking at you? And yet, there is something odd. Something instinctual, something you know without fully understanding. We may have moved on, we may have forgotten and left behind those old stories and legends of beasts, voracious monsters, and dark spirits… But they have not forgotten or left us…

What We Want

The subject matter of parABnormal Magazine is, yes, the paranormal. For us, this includes ghosts, spectres, haunts, various whisperers, and so forth. It also includes shapeshifters and creatures from various folklores.

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Novel / Ongoing Submissions / Royalties

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Epic Publishing Seeks Orphaned Novels

Payment: Royalties
Theme: Speculative Fiction Novels that recently lost a publisher.

It’s come to our attention recently that several small and medium publishers have decided to close their doors, leaving the authors they once published out in the cold. Such announcements are sad for me to hear, as I’ve always felt like it was less a competition among smaller publishers than a community that we at Epic Publishing are a part of. Obviously, not all publishers feel that way, but I’ve done my best to help other publishers, as they have helped me, so why not keep paying it forward? We all love books, right? And that’s what publishing is all about: loving books and supporting others’ love of books and those who write them.

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Yabblins #1

Deadline: August 31st, 2023
Payment: AU$5.00 – under 3.000 words,. AU$10.00 – between 3,000 and 7,000 words, AU$15.00 – between 8,000 and 11,000 words, AU$20.00 – between 11,000 and 20, 000 words
Theme: All genres, all themes!

Yabblins is our theme-free collection.
All themes, all genres, all the time.

Deadline:
August 31 2023
Word count:
1000 – 20,000 words

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Flat Amount / Novel / Ongoing Submissions / Royalties

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Cemetery Gates Media Is Open For Debut Horror Novel Series

Payment: Paying $500 signing bonus + $500 advance upon publication, and a 60% (author) royalty share on physical and electronic editions of the book.
Theme: Horror

We’re looking for submissions for 40k+ word manuscripts from authors who’ve never published a novel. Paying $500 signing bonus + $500 advance upon publication, and a 60% (author) royalty share on physical and electronic editions of the book.

You’re welcome to submit (1) complete, original, and unpublished 40k+ word manuscript to [email protected] if you have at least (2) paid horror writing credits and have never published a novel. If you have novellas and short story collections in print, you’re still eligible.

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Audio / Events / Flat Amount / Pro / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: The Cast of Wonders: Banned Books Week (Early)

Submission Window: June 1st – 14th, 2023
Payment: 8 cents/word for originals, $100/short story or $20/flash piece for reprints
Theme: Guiding Sparks Between the Words: How Stories Illuminate the World Around Us

Every year in September, Cast of Wonders celebrates Banned Books Week, an annual international event celebrating the freedom to read and raising awareness of the immense social value of free and open access to information.

Joining the editorial team for this year’s call is Cast of Wonders Associate Editor, Simon Pan. Thank you, Simon, for the wonderful theme this year!

Guiding Sparks Between the Words: How Stories Illuminate the World Around Us

In times of conflict, division and change, it is more important than ever to build bridges of understanding.  We most commonly encounter the stories of others through news articles or in classrooms, kept at a scholarly or journalistic distance and often biased to favour privileged perspectives. Our own truths may also remain unvoiced and unknown, misunderstood even by those around us.

When it comes to illuminating these truths, stories have a key part to play: they help us to learn and appreciate things from perspectives we might never otherwise consider, and allow us to reshape our own experiences within the transformative lens of fiction. When we share our stories, we guide sparks of kinship and understanding, using narrative and emotion to help others experience a small window into another’s reality.

For Banned Books Week 2023, we want to see stories of discovery, of learning, of misconceptions unraveled, and how stories can serve as a guiding light to help us understand a new perspective, or to teach us valuable lessons when all other methods fail us. What that something is…well, that is up to you!

At Cast of Wonders, we welcome stories that portray the full spectrum of human experience. We don’t challenge stories; we want stories to challenge us! Cast of Wonders looks for stories that evoke a sense of wonder, have deep emotional resonance, and have something unreal about them. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without gratuitous or explicit sex, violence, or pervasive obscene language.

Preference for this submission window is under 5,000 words with an absolute limit of 6,000 words. Flash submissions under 1.5k are also very welcome!

Submissions must adhere to Cast of Wonders guidelines.  Submissions will be accepted from June 1 to June 14 through our Moksha Portal – we can’t wait to read what you send in!

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Contest / Events / Semipro

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Contest: Shallow Waters’ May Flash Fiction Window

Deadline: May 31st, 2023
Payment: 3 cents per word for the winner, 2 cents per word for second place, and 1 cent per word for third place
Theme: Red

The theme for next month’s flash contest is…

“RED! The colour of blood, and love, and danger. Flashing lights, glowing eyes, cooking flesh; the blinding hue of rage, the windswept locks of a Celtic warrior princess. Give us something red – serve us something raw and dripping, a fresh cut that only you can deliver.” This theme is courtesy of last month’s winner, Matthew R. Davis, who will also read all the submissions and pick the finalists.

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Anthology / Contest / Events / Flat Amount / Token Payment

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Contest: The Drabble Harvest Contest

Deadline: June 30th, 2023
Prizes: $5 for first place, $2 for second place, all others accepted are $1 per drabble
Theme: A drabble with the idea of: Space Station Duty-Free

A “drabble” is defined as a short story containing exactly precisely no more and no fewer than 100 words. It has a title, which can be from 1 to 15 words– but no more than 15. That’s a drabble.

You have to count each word. Hyphenated words, such as tete-a-tete, count as one word. Don’t use your word count tool to count the words, because that tool will count an ellipsis ( . . . ) as three words, which really should not be counted at all. It will also count dashes ( – ) as words, which is wrong. So count each word by sight, not by tool.


Our drabble contests have themes. For each contest, we will simply throw the theme out there. Whatever the theme inspires you to write, that’s what you write.


The theme of this contest is:

Space Station Duty-Free

This should be self-explanatory. What would people/aliens try to smuggle in? Or out?

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Events / Flash / Magazine / Pro

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Taking Submissions: If There’s Anyone Left Volume 4 Window

Submission Window: June 1st, 2023 – July 15th, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word
Theme: Science fiction and speculative fiction
Note: Open to writers that are marginalized members of the sci-fi/spec community

GENERAL (i.e. non micro-fiction) GUIDELINES

We are currently closed to GENERAL flash submissions. We will open June 1, 2023 for Volume 4 submissions and remain open until July 15, 2023.

We want science fiction and speculative fiction. So long as it falls into one of these categories, we will happily read it. If other elements are present, that is fine, but it must include science or speculative fiction.

  • No more than 1000 words. This is a firm limit. Please no queries about longer pieces.

  • NO AI-GENERATED/ASSISTED STORIES

  • Pay rate is professional – $0.08 US/word

  • This is for marginalized members of the sci-fi/spec community—this includes people of color, the LGBTQ2S+ community, members of marginalized genders, and disabled and neurodiverse people. If you are not a person of color, LGBTQ2S+, neurodiverse, disabled, or of a marginalized gender, please DO NOT send us your work. Authors of all accepted pieces will have the option to include a short bio in the anthology. We understand the sensitive nature of gender identity and sexual orientation, so if you wish this status to remain unwritten and/or if you prefer to be anonymous, we will print only what you wish to be printed. If you would like your piece published under a pseudonym, please indicate this on your submission. If you would like your pronouns included, please indicate those as well.

  • DO NOT send us anything hateful. No gratuitous violence, torture, rape, or any work that promotes an ideology unbecoming of an inclusive society – no stories supporting racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, or any other of the many forms of hate.

Minutiae

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