Category: Call Type

Anthology / Events / Flat Amount / Royalties

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Taking Submissions: Science Fiction Is a Drag!

Deadline: October 1st, 2024
Payment: $50 and royalties
Theme: Original, previously unpublished, science fiction stories that are, first and foremost, drag

Science Fiction Is a Drag! is a drag anthology.

We’re looking for original, previously unpublished, science fiction stories that are, first and foremost, drag.  This is an anthology where those of us in the drag community can gather and tell the stories that we’d never be able to publish anywhere else.  Stories up to 10,000 words will be considered.

Publication date is sometime in 2025.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Children of the Blind Owl

Deadline: August 31st, 2024
Payment: $150 – $250
Theme: Original weird tales and essays set in the Middle East that explore the human (and inhuman) experience through the lens of weird fiction and horror

Sentinel Creatives has opened up for submissions for our anthology of Middle Eastern Horror: “Children of the Blind Owl”.

Deadline for Submissions: 31 August 2024
Wordcount: 3,000 – 6,000
Remuneration: $150 – $250
Simultaneous Submissions: Yes

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

We’re looking for original weird tales and essays set in the Middle East that explore the human (and inhuman) experience through the lens of weird fiction and horror.

We are looking to secure 11-13 tales of weird fiction and 1-3 essays (any length). Submissions should delve into the history, folklore, ideas, experiences, identities, religion, and philosophies of the region in some way.

Time Period: We are looking for stories in both historical and contemporary settings.

As the title of this anthology suggests, one of the inspirations behind this project is Sadegh Hedayat’s “The Blind Owl,” a surrealist, horror, weird fiction, novella completed in the 1930s. Though we hope the stories in this anthology take inspiration from Hedayat’s work, we are not looking for stories set in or derived from his novella or other works. Rather, we are hoping writers will take cues from the themes Hedayat grappled with: alienation, futility, despair, rage, transgression, to name a few.

Ahmed Saadawi’s “Frankenstein in Baghdad” is another work that serves as a good example of what we’d like to see from the stories in this anthology. Saadawi uses, to great effect, some of the vocabulary and motifs from horror to illustrate the problems facing modern-day Iraq, with the corpse itself representing, in some ways, the various ethnic and religious groups and ideologies sewn together as Iraqi pluralism.

Give us your tales of the uncanny, of the monstrous and surreal!

Contributing editors, voice artists, and artists will be announced for this project at a later date.

While this is by no means an exclusive call, we hope to attract writers who are either from the region or have some relationship with it.

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Anthology / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Untitled Anthology About Dogs

Deadline: July 1st, 2024
Payment: $20 USD
Theme: A story about dogs in any of the following genres: Literary, Romance, Sci-Fi & Spec Fic, Mystery, Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retellings, Historical Fiction, Humor/Satire, Paranormal, Magical Realism, and others. (NOT Horror.)

  • Theme: Dogs (A dog or dogs should figure prominently in the story in some way.)
  • Deadline: July 1, 2024. Submissions are considered on a rolling basis, meaning that acceptance/rejection decisions are made as submissions come in. Authors can generally expect an initial response to their submission within 72 hours.
  • Anthology Release Date: Fall 2024 (exact date TBD)
  • Genres and categories accepted:
    Literary, Romance, Sci-Fi & Spec Fic, Mystery, Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retellings, Historical Fiction, Humor/Satire, Paranormal, Magical Realism, and others.
    No horror (spooky is okay), gratuitous violence, or erotica, please. No essays, CNF, poetry, or anything that isn’t fiction.
    No AI-generated or AI-assisted stories. All submissions should be original stories that have never been published elsewhere (including, but not limited to, social media, a personal blog or website, etc.).
  • Reader Demographic: YA to adult
  • Word count: Between 1,500-2,000 words
  • Payment for accepted submissions: $20 USD (via PayPal, Zelle, or another, mutually agreed upon electronic payment method)

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Flash / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Semipro

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Ongoing Submissions: Frontier Tales

Payment: 1 cent per word
Theme: Stories of action and conflict. Open to some mixed genres, so it can include horror, etc, if it captures the theme and time period of a Western.

Short stories up to 10,000 words in length. Finished and edited.

Our top priority stories are what we like to call “strait shooters”. These are stories of action and conflict. We want gunslingers dueling in saloons, cowboys taking on bandits, Lawmen bringing order to the chaos of the West, bounty hunters going to the ends of the continent to catch their man, a Comanche warrior making his last stand on the open plains, Settlers defending their home from raiders, etc.

While these sorts of yarns are our preference we are still open to other varieties. Romantic western tales of love triumphing or dying on the frontier, ghost stories of the lost souls doomed to wander the among western winds, or weird westerns featuring deep ancient horrors revealing themselves to unsuspecting victims.

What are we not looking for

Smut/pornographic stories

Space/science fiction with western themes

Neo-westerns taking place in a contemporary setting

Stories set outside of America, in the future we may open up this to include other locales but for now it will be exclusively stories set in the US

Serialized stories, we may open this up in the future but for the time being we strictly want stand alone tales

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Events / Flat Amount / Online

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Taking Submissions: Short Story Substack April 2024 Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: April 1st – 30th, 2024
Payment: $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue
Theme: Any genre, short story

Mission = Revive the art of the short story, support artists, and produce something wonderful.

Payout = Base Pay of $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue to be sent by Paypal, Zelle, or check.

Wait, you mean if this substack gets thousands of subscribers, the winner would get thousands of dollars?

Yes! The New Yorker pays roughly $7,500 per story and I sincerely hope to go way past that.

What does the timeline look like?

Submit stories by the end of the month, winner to be announced on the 15th. There is ONE story that wins and receives the full payout.

Where do I send submissions?
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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Non-fiction / Poetry / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Last Girls Club Summer Issue 2024 (Early)

Submission Window: April 1st -May 1st, 2024
Payment: Short Story-2,500 words or less. $0.015 USD per word/$37.50 USD max, Poems-less than 200 words $10, Flash Fiction-less than a 1,000 words $0.015 USD per word/$15 USD max
Theme: Fire!

Last Girls Club Summer Issue Theme is Fire Season. The world is on fire, environmentally and politically. On the US West coast we have rains of ash in the fall from all the forest fires. The Canadian border was plagued with smoke pollution from raging fires. It’s a thing now. Your characters can be fleeing a fire, starting one, or surviving one. Take it where you want. Acceptances will be notified on May 15.

  • No more than two fiction or flash fiction stories per author per submission period.
  • Fiction is limited to 2,500 words or less. Authors are paid $0.015 USD per word upon acceptance ($37.50 USD max).
  • Flash fiction is limited to under 1,000 words. Authors are paid $0.015 USD per word upon acceptance ($15 USD max).
  • No more than three poems per poet.
  • Poems are limited to 200 words or less for each poem. Poets are paid $10 USD upon acceptance.
  • I prefer to use PayPal to pay authors, but will work with authors where PayPal is not available.
  • Nonfiction columns will must be pitched to editor in chief before submission. Email your idea to [email protected]

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Hentai Ectoplasm (April 2024 Window)

Submission Window: April 1st – 30th, 2024
Payment: $100
Theme: Telling the cannibus-positive tales of the last survivors of a specific neighborhood. Details found below

Opens: April 1, 2024, midnight est 

Closes: April 30, 2024, midnight IDLW

Compensation: $100 USD

Theme: Adult horror, including genre-chimeras

Submissions must be between 3,000 and 6,000 words

Expected release April 2024

Submit to hentai.ectoplasm@bookslayerpress.com

On the night of April 19, 2021, something happened in the suburban town of Brookhaven that changed the course of humanity. In the fancy Southtown gated community, The Sanctuary at Lemongrass Lake, a cosmic event occurs, destroying most of it in the impact. Over on the North end, middle-aged, overweight, cannabis grower, Pam Goodall, determined to save her holy holiday—4/20, bands with unlikely neighbors to not just survive the night, but save humankind.

HENTAI ECTOPLASM is not your average anthology. Twelve – fifteen authors will tell a story of survival as their neighborhood is cut off by the destruction, each delivering the perspective of their respective home.

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Events / Flash / Magazine / Pro

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Taking Submissions: Solidarity Forever Zine

Submission Window: April 1st – 7th, 2024
Payment: 10 cents per word
Theme: Solidarity Forever – fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. (See below for specifics)

The Solidarity Forever zine will be included with all preorders of The Nightmare Box and Other Stories by Cynthia Gómez placed through the Cursed Morsels store.

Cynthia Gómez and Eric Raglin will be coediting this zine. See submission details below.

Theme: Solidarity Forever – fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.
Word Count: up to 500 words
Pay: 10¢ per word
Dates: April 1st through 7th
Send to: cursedmorsels@ericraglin1992
Simultaneous submissions are fine.
No multiple submissions.
Absolutely no AI submissions.

FAQ
Does my story/poem/nonfiction have to be horror?
No. We welcome varied creative approaches to the theme.

What does “solidarity forever” mean?
It refers to the old union song of the same name. This song explores the workers’ struggles, triumphs, and collective power against oppressive capitalism when organized as a union. However, your submission does not have to be specifically about unions. It could be about all sorts of problems solved through collective resistance and people standing together.

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