Category: Call Type

Taking Submissions: 100 Word Project May 2025

Deadline: May 31st, 2025
Payment: $1
Theme: 100-word drabble involving: Troll

Submissions for the 100 Word Project from Manawaker Studio are open January thru May and July thru November.

The 100 Word Project is an ongoing project focused on 100 word stories which will be published as a monthly, themed online journal and in a yearly print anthology. Each month (except for June and December) will bring a new prompt, and in the first half of the next month nine of the submitted drabbles for that prompt will be posted in the public-facing section of the Manawaker Patreon alongside one drabble from Manawaker EiC, CB Droege (An audio edition will be available to Patreon patrons as a subscriber perk). At the end of the year, the ten stories from each of the ten prompts will be assembled into the next volume of the 100 x 100 series to be published as a print, digital, and audio book. The project is curated and edited by CB Droege. 100 x 100 is published by Manawaker Studio as part of their regular line of anthologies.

Current prompt
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Taking Submissions: Heartlines Spec Summer 2025 Issue

Deadline: May 31st, 2025
Payment: $0.08 CAD per word for short fiction (500-3,500 words) and $60 CAD flat per poem
Theme: Speculative fiction focused on long-term friendships and relationships.

We’re looking for short fiction and poetry focused on long-term relationships: platonic, romantic, or familial. We don’t want the blaze of new love or the obsession of a new friend. We want pieces that show that comfort that develops when people know each other for years.

Give us deep space, dusty frontiers, or dreamy fantasy. We want stories and poetry with strong, confident relationships amid all the sci-fi/fantasy. While we are primarily looking for stories with happy endings (yeah, yeah), we also want endings that are earned. If things get a little teary or gory, that’s ok.

We are especially interested in stories featuring queer platonic relationships, ace/aro love stories, and polycules.

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Taking Submissions: Beyond

Deadline: June 10th, 2025
Payment: Royalties
Theme: Straightforward science fiction with great characters

A Science Fiction Anthology

Submission Period: March 10, 2025 to June 10, 2025

Theme: Beyond – Science Fiction.
Editor likes: characters, emotion. Dislikes: difficult words to pronounce. Faves: Dune, Expanse, Fifth Element, Foundation

Stories that contain infanticide, rape, or gratuitous gore will not be accepted.

Submission Period: March 10, 2025 to June 10, 2025

Submissions: No AI, 1 per author; no reprints, no simultaneous submissions;

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Taking Submissions: Anomaly June 2025 Window

Submission Window: June 1st – 7th, 2025
Payment: 8 cents per word
Theme: Dark and disruptive SF stories that have strong emotional resonance under 300 words in length

We open from the 1st-7th of each month, beginning April 2025.

What we want: Anomaly is interested in science fiction stories under 300 words in length, for publication on their Patreon, with the right to collect stories into a future anthology. We’re looking for dark and disruptive stories that have strong emotional resonance. We like stories that stick with us after reading, that get us thinking about the twisted use of technologies, the way the world may be, or how characters might react to an evolving technological future.

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Taking Submissions: The First Line – Fall 2025

Deadline: August 1st, 2025
Payment: $25.00 – $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 – $10.00 for poetry
Theme: Story must begin with: Her truck took the sharp turns of the mountain road with ease.

Fall:
Her truck took the sharp turns of the mountain road with ease.
Due date: August 1, 2025

We love that writers around the world are inspired by our first lines, and we know that not every story will be sent to us. However, we ask that you do not submit stories starting with our first lines to other journals (or post them online on public sites) until we’ve notified you as to our decision (usually four weeks after the deadline). When the entire premise of the publication revolves around one sentence, we don’t want it to look as if we stole that sentence from another writer. If you have questions, feel free to drop us a line.

Also, we understand that writers may add our first line to a story they are currently working on or have already completed, and that’s cool. But please do not add our first line to a previously published story and submit it to us. We do not accept previously published stories, even if they have been repurposed for our first lines. And, just to be clear, we do not accept simultaneous submissions.

One more thing while I’ve got you here: Writers compete against one another for magazine space, so, technically, every literary magazine is running a contest. There are, however, literary magazines that run traditional contests, where they charge entry fees and rank the winners. We do not – nor will we ever – charge a submission fee, nor do we rank our stories in order of importance. Occasionally, we run contests to help come up with new first lines, or we run fun, gimmicky competitions for free stuff, but the actual journal is not a contest in the traditional sense.

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Taking Submissions: Radon Journal October 2025 Issue

Submission Window: May 1st – August 31st
Payment: Fiction: 2¢ per word for original, 1¢ per word for reprints. Poetry: $20 per original poem and $10 for reprints. Artwork: $100 for issue cover art, $30 for back cover art, and $20 for art used on our site
Theme: Stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia.
Note: Reprints Welcome

Radon welcomes short stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia.

We publish quality literature the first of every February, June, and October.

  • Submissions are accepted year-round.

  • Simultaneous submissions are welcome.

  • Reprints no longer accepted as of 2025.

  • AI submissions are not allowed at Radon.

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Taking Submissions: Taking Submissions: Allegory Volume 48

Submission Window: May 1st, 2025 – June 30th, 2025
Payment: $15
Theme: Speculative fiction, primarily horror, science fiction, and fantasy.
Note: Reprints welcome

Formatting Guidelines

This is proving to be a recurring problem, so we’re putting it up front. Please, for all our sakes, read this next part carefully.

All submissions should be sent by e-mail (no letters or telephone calls please) to [email protected]. Below are some formatting rules to help us process your submission more quickly.

EMAIL AND COVER LETTERS

Email is accepted in both text and HTML formats. When submitting, please put this in the subject line:

Submission: (Title) – (First and Last name)

Include the following in the body of the email and in the attached submission:

Your name
Name to use on the story (byline), if different
Your preferred email address
Your mailing address
The story’s title
The story’s word count

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Taking Submissions: Flashpoint Science Fiction Spring 2025 Window

Submission Window: June 1st – July 31st, 2025
Payment: $0.02 per word
Theme: Science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between
Note: Reprints Welcome

Flash Point Science Fiction wants speculative fiction stories from 100 to 1,000 words in length. Send us your science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between, so long as it’s short. We here at FPSF are partial to flash fiction and want to see the flash market grow. So as much as it pains us, please take your 10,000 word tour de force elsewhere. We’re not looking for the next Brandon Sanderson. (Unless you are, in fact, Brandon Sanderson, in which case we’d be delighted!)

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