Category: Contributor’s Copy

Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Pro

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Taking Submissions: The Map of Lost Places (Early)

Submission Window: December 1st – 31st, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word and a contributors copy
Theme: Stories about places where weird things happen

Editors Sheree Renée Thomas and Lesley Conner are looking for stories about places where weird things happen. Places that have strange histories, their own traditions and customs, their own dangers. These can be based off real folk tales or old wives tales – think the Mothman in Point Pleasant, WV – or ones that you come up with all on your own. But your story should tell of someone going to one of these places – either intentionally or they just stumble across it – and what happens when they encounter the frightening/strange thing that is in or occurs in that location.

Depending on the Map of Lost Places Kickstarter funding level, we expect to fill the anthology with eight to twelve original stories selected from an open reading period. The Kickstarter will launch on October 10 – click here to be notified as soon as it happens!

In order to avoid duplicates in the open submission call, locations already chosen by the featured authors are listed below. This list will be updated as the authors make their decisions, so be sure to check back!
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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Reprints Allowed / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Afterlives: Year’s Best Death Stories, 2023

Deadline: January 15th, 2024
Payment: 1 cent per word and a contributors copy
Theme: short stories to novelettes that are about death
Note: Reprints from 2023 ONLY

We want to read your death-related fiction!

Psychopomp will be publishing Afterlives: The Year’s Best Death Stories 2023, curated by Vajra Chandrasekera

Please read the full guidelines before submitting so you can learn about:

  • what we’re looking for
  • how much we’re paying
  • what rights we are buying
  • and how to submit

Submission link below the guidelines.

What We’re Looking For:

We’re looking for stories specifically that have been published on and between January 1st 2023 through December 31st 2023, with a word count between 1,000 words and 19,000 words (so: short stories and novelettes) that are about death.

This could mean exploring what happens to us after we die, traveling to the Underworld, Death gods, Death personified, metaphors for death, grieving, funerals, graves, stories based on death myths from cultures across the world, death magic, ghosts, resurrection, and so on.

We specifically are not interested in stories that are centered around:

  • the traditional Christian afterlife/pearly gates
  • zombies

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Artwork / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Broken Antler #1

 

Deadline: August 31st, 2023
Payment: $20 + a contributor copy of the magazine. We pay $10 (per piece) for work published in our online venues.
Theme: ALL genres of horror, as well as sci-fi and dark fantasy

Broken Antler is a literary magazine and publisher of work that is dark, speculative, experimental, unsettling, and absurd.

BAM Quarterly, Broken Antler’s online journal, publishes creative work four times a year (during the months of October, January, April, and July). Submissions for Issue 1 open June 1 and close August 31.

The Marrow, Broken Antler’s blog and home of our LGBTQIA+ creator series, is updated biweekly and currently accepting pitches for interviews, reviews, and essays, as well as creative submissions of micro fiction, poetry, and art.

And Broken Antler Magazine is our annual print publication, featuring creative and critical work from emerging and established writers, artists, creators, and individuals working within the horror space.

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events

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Taking Submissions: Dark Decades – 6 Anthologies

Deadline: October 1st, 2023
Payment: Contributor’s Copies
Theme: Six calls set in different decades with different themes that all have 4 requirements that you can see below

Most people would agree that technical advancements have made our lives easier or, at the very least, more entertaining. But, what about the flip side? What horrors were unleashed for the sake of creation? What monsters emerged as technology evolved?

We invite you to travel back in time with us as we discover the dark side of six decades.

Get creative with the themes. Bring us thrills and chills. Just remember to adhere to the basic guidelines. We can’t wait to experience it.

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Unnerving Books Untitled Crime Anthology

Deadline: May 15th, 2023
Payment: 1 cent per word and a contributors copy
Theme: Crime Fiction

In the near future, Unnerving will be dipping its claws into CRIME fiction, and to launch into this avenue, I’m compiling an anthology. Meaning, I need stories. Short ones: 1,500-8,000 words, preference being 2,500-4,000 words in length. Renumeration is $0.01/word USD + a paperback copy. I’m asking for six months exclusivity. Reprints are okay, as long as they were last printed more than five years ago (personal collections excluded in this period) and are not available to read online (Audio excluded from this request).

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Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: The One Percent: Tales of the Super Wealthy and Depraved

Deadline: May 1st, 2023
Payment: $35 or $25 with a contributor copy.
Theme: Taking a look at the super Wealthy and Depraved

Issuing layoffs from their yachts. Making idiotic business decisions while others pay the price. Keeping their riches via tax loopholes for the super wealthy. Profiting from the hard work and suffering of others. Sending dick-shaped rockets into space. Evading punishment.

It goes on and on. The details range from the banal to the scandalous. The uber wealthy play an outsized role in our society — determining or demanding too much and contributing too little.

With The One Percent: Tales of the Super Wealthy and Depraved (our previous working title was Rich People Being Shitty, so that should give you a target to aim for), Rock and a Hard Place Press changes it up a little bit from their established pattern. Instead of stories about desperate protagonists in tough positions, we’ll explore the privileged and elite, and how they traffic in, revel in, and benefit from the desperation that they cause. Hopefully, some of these characters get the comeuppance they so richly deserve . . . but we wouldn’t count on it.

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash / Royalties

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Taking Submissions: A Darker Continent: Strange Tales of Europe at War

Deadline: August 31st, 2023
Payment: Royalties and a contributors copy
Theme: An anthology of new, original weird and strange fiction set between 1938 and 1946

CORE CONCEPT: An anthology of new, original weird and strange fiction set between 1938 and 1946 – from (and including) the Spanish Civil War to the immediate winding down of conflicts after World War Two. Weird fiction is a mode of writing which includes the subversion of many standard tropes, or more imaginative interpretations, and has a strong psychological component, so please bear that in mind.

SETTING: Geographically, stories should fall in the zone from Ireland to Russia, the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean shores. Stories can be set during direct military conflicts or far from battle, where distant wars have local repercussions for society or individuals. We’re not looking for ‘war stories’ so much as stories set DURING the war across Europe and showing some awareness of its impact. This was a bleak time for most. Go inventive with this one, such as (a few throwaway illustrations):

  • Something unnatural walking through the fires of the London Blitz
  • German occupiers learning terror in an isolated Norwegian village
  • Dread and disquiet amongst the Free French in Tunisia
  • US troops lost in the Ardennes
  • Families in Britain sensing a wrongness about returnees
  • Torn loyalties and minds in Ireland
  • Horror in the snows of the Eastern Front
  • An Italian soldier dealing with fear by disassociating from reality
  • Balkan partisans trapped in the mountains
  • Communities trying to pretend that there is no war

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flat Amount / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: Strange Aeon: 2023

Deadline: April 14th, 2023
Payment: US authors: $20 and a contributors copy, Non-US authors: $35
Theme: Wonder
Note: Reprints Allowed

Strange Aeon: 2023 (Wonder) is a continuation of the Strange Aeon anthology series. As always, I want good, solid stories in a cosmic horror/Lovecraftian vein.  I specifically say Lovecraftian rather than Cthulu because I’d like stories across the entire Mythos, including additions by the original group of Mythos authors like Robert Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. [1]. In fact, I’d like to use more stories that do not have specific Lovecraftian references and that move away from the traditional Lovecraft style and voice. Try to avoid pastiche and tell fresh new stories in your own settings. Style preference applies to gore and sex as well: think early Weird Tales, no excessive language or explicit sexual references. (You do not have to remove all profanity from your submission—I can read around it—but, if your story is accepted, you will be required to remove it from the final version.)

I am especially interested in stories of mad science, monster-based horror, weird western, and stories that “peel the onion.” Indeed, I cannot emphasize strongly enough the need for these categories. Victoriana and Lovecraft era period pieces will have a much harder time finding acceptance.

The theme of this year’s anthology is wonder and I am specifically looking for stories that have a sense of grandeur and discovery. That being said, please send anything you consider a good story. Feel free to query for any questions. If you are planning to write a story especially for this anthology, by all means query the idea first.
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