Category: Call Type

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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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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Events / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Stone’s Throw June 2023 Window

Submission Window: June 1st-7th, 2023
Payment: $25
Theme: The struggle for freedom

JULY SUBMISSIONS (opens June 1 – 7, 2023) — Freedom, in any sense, is rarely obtained without a struggle. From illness to interpersonal drama to all-out war, the object a person chooses freedom from sets the level of conflict encountered. And freedom itself, though touted in this country in a jingoistic sense, is much broader in ways we seek it than the American definition allows. We can seek freedom from any number of things—relationships, work environments, addiction, incarceration, even simply expectations. Help us celebrate this July in true RHP fashion, by sending us stories of characters engaged in personal bids for a freedom they desire. What happens when they get it? And can they ever truly be free?

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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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Audio / Events / Flash / Magazine / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: The Drabblecast 2023 Weird West Edition

Deadline: May 26th, 2023
Payment: 6 cents per word for original, 3 cents per word for reprints
Theme: Weird West Stories
Note: Reprints allowed

Starting next week, April 26, the Drabblecast will be accepting submissions for a special Weird West event. We want weird west (emphasis on the WEIRD) stories 500-4000 words and pay $.06/word for original fiction and $.03/word for reprints.

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Artwork / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions

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Ongoing Submissions: Nocturne Magazine

Payment: $10 per story, $25 per cover art
Theme: Stories that may *sort of* fit into the genres of horror, dark fantasy, or speculative.

Nocturne Magazine accepts work that may *sort of* fit into the genres of horror, dark fantasy, or speculative. However, we can be convinced of branching out as long as there’s something deeply unsettling about your submission.

We want something that makes us stay awake at night. Or have strange dreams. Or wake up still thinking about your piece while we drink our morning coffee. We don’t just want “eww,” or “yikes.” We want to scroll through your submission with trembling fingers.

We vibe with Stephen King’s weird dream scenes, Shirley Jackson’s “castles” and murderous young women, and Grady Hendrix’s fierce vampire-fighting book club, and anything else surreal, unusual, or downright terrifying.

But we also have some things we don’t love:
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Events / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Witch House Issue #3

Deadline: June 18th, 2023
Payment: $10
Theme: Atmospheric horror that emphasizes disturbing and suggestive settings

Submissions: OPEN (Issue 3)

• Submission deadline for our 3rd issue: Sunday, June 18, 2023 at 11:59 PM EDT.

• Editorial decisions: Sunday, August 20, 2023.

• Publication of Issue 3: Sunday, October 22, 2023.

Fiction Guidelines: We prefer short, compressed stories that are nevertheless complete and cohesive narratives (1500 to 2500 words). These limits are firm. No more, no less. Stories over or under the limit will not be read. We mean it, friends! This limit serves two functions: (1) the limit is an artistic challenge. It takes skill to tell a compressed, punchy story. (2) We are an amateur publication and only pay a token honorarium, so save your longer works for better paying markets. At this time, only a single submission per author can be considered for a given issue of Witch House. Additionally, we’re only seeking original, previously unpublished stories.

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Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Poetry / Semipro

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Ongoing Submissions: Star*Line

Payment: 4¢/word rounded to next dollar, minimum $4. One copy to all contributors. Non fiction that fits here of 1 cent per word
Theme: Science Fiction Poetry

Star*Line is the official print journal of the SFPA, established in 1978. It is a literary venue for speculative (including science-fiction, fantasy, and horror) poets and poetry enthusiasts, and features interviews, articles, reviews, member news and letters, association business, and poetry—by members and nonmembers.

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