Category: Contributor’s Copy

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

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Taking Submissions: Strange Legacy: 2025

Deadline: April 30th, 2025
Payment: $20 and a contributor copy for US authors or $35 for non-US authors
Theme: “Classic” monsters creature feature story (think all of the old Universal Monsters for inspiration.)
Note: Reprints welcome

Strange Legacy: 2025 (Creature Feature) is actually a continuation of the Strange Aeon anthology series. We are going in a slightly different direction this year thematically with a bit of a break from purely cosmic horror and focusing instead on the creatures, both traditional and original. The editorial style will remain the same. As usual, these style preferences apply 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.)

The theme of this year’s anthology is the “classic” monster story—from old favorites like vampires and werewolves to Lovecraftian creatures [1] to the byproducts of insane science experiments. 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.

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.

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Something Out There

Deadline: April 30th, 2025
Payment: $25 and a contributor’s copy
Theme: Stories taking place in a specific area based around a UFO festival

Welcome to Bellflower, a sleepy (fictional) Nevada town where nothing much happens. Well, except for the influx of tourists asking about Area 51, which lies to the southwest, and the annual UFO festival, which happens every August. For years, man watched the skies. In Bellflower…the skies watched back.

We’re looking for submissions that take place during or around this festival, a town-wide event where locals dress up, set up telescopes, take tourists on shady desert tours, and stay up all hours of the night, hoping for a glimpse of something from the great beyond.

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Where Legends Walk

Deadline: April 30th, 2025
Payment: $10.00 USD and a contributor copy
Theme: Superhero stories featuring heroic feats of derring-do in the face of immeasurable evil

Oddity Prodigy Productions is proud to announce that we are open for submissions on our latest anthology: Where Legends Walk!
These superhero stories will be an exciting tribute to extraordinary feats in the day-to-day. There is a planned Kickstarter to cover publishing costs. Publishing date and distribution is as yet undecided.
The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2025.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Look to the skies! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to leave the bonds of earth and soar through the clouds? Do you have a tale of glory, justice and honor waiting to be unleashed? In our follow up to the Utopian world of Bright Mirror, Oddity Prodigy is proud to announce our newest project, Where Legends Walk, An Anthology of Superhero Stories.
We are looking for your best stories featuring heroic feats of derring-do in the face of immeasurable evil. So channel your inner hero, lace up your boots, and join us in the fight for justice.
If you need direction or inspiration, we recommend delving into the world of comics of all genres. We will be looking at the full range of stories, from Golden Age of mystery men such as the Justice Society of America, Silver Age of heroes like the Fantastic Four, the Bronze Age wonders like the New Gods, the grime and grit of the Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, all the way through to the Modern Age.

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

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Taking Submissions: Tales from the Turning Leaf Tavern

Deadline: March 31st, 2025
Payment: $25 and a contributors copy
Theme: Fantasy stories that take place, in full or partially, within the Turning Leaf Tavern and a recipe for food mentioned within the story

The Turning Leaf Tavern is a way-station for people travelling throughout the fantasy realms. Here, you can find Hobbits and Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Half-feet, and representatives of a hundred different races and fictional worlds. They find themselves at the tavern’s door when need calls, and within its walls they find succor and good cheer. The tavern itself is in its own universe, designed by M. Allyson Szabo, and has its own stories to tell.

Tales from the Turning Leaf Tavern will not be just about the tavern, though. The stories within its pages will come from you, the writers of the world. The anthology will be comprised of somewhere between 15 and 25 stories, each with a recipe or four at the end, so that readers may share in the glory of the story’s victuals. That said, Allyson has decided to provide some preliminary tales about the tavern and its denizens for writers to riff off of. You, the authors, have permission to use the Turning Leaf Tavern and its people in your writing, though M. Allyson Szabo retains the copyright to the tavern itself and the characters she created to go with it. Your stories, even the ones with Turning Leaf and the folk within, belong to you, the original authors. 

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash

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Taking Submissions: Robert’s Recurring Nightmares

Deadline: March 31st, 2025
Payment: Contributor’s Copy (charity anthology)
Theme: A story with a main character named Robert that also must reference a mechanical watch

Robert’s Recurring Nightmares guidelines

Thank you for choosing to submit to the seventh annual Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers (GLAHW) mini-anthology.

We are looking for horror fiction, between 2,000 and 5,000 words, along with the following requirements.

1. A character named Robert. The character can be the protagonist, antagonist, monster, victim, friend, etc. As long as he, she, it, or they play a significant, if not pivotal, role in the story.

2. The story must make a reference to Mechanical Watch. Whether it is the setting of the story, part of the backstory for a character, or a passing reference, A mechanical watch and Robert should have some importance to the story.

We will be editing the stories, but we will not make any changes without first discussing them with you, the writer. We’re writers, too, and we know what it’s like to have our stories altered without our consent. We won’t do that to you.

Having said that, however, we will try our best to make each of the stories in this anthology the best they can be. So, if we give you notes, we’d appreciate it if you’d consider them carefully.

We’re not saying you have to agree with us (We’ve had plenty of writers argue with us, and sometimes, we see their point and concede the edit). Just that you listen.

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: The Joining: Scenes of Wedding Terror

Submission Window: January 1st – March 1st, 2025
Payment: 2 cents per word and a contributors copy
Theme: Mixing horror and weddings

From Jacob Steven Mohr and Crystal Lake Publishing comes The Joining: Scenes of Wedding Terror, a new anthology set to debut (tentatively) September of 2025.

We’re looking for stories between 2,500 and 5,000 words in length concerning the rite of matrimony. Weddings are unusual events, bringing together masses of humanity that might never interact under any other circumstance, requiring them to travel great distances or take part in bizarre rituals ranging from the solemn to the frenzied and sometimes even dangerous…

But: stories submitted to The Joining need not concern only the event itself. They might take place at any time, so long as nuptials are central to the narrative. Imagine it: proposals gone wrong, literal bride-zillas, unsettling in-laws, bachelor parties that end in bloodshed—and of course, trips to destination weddings held just north of Hell itself…

We will be accepting 10-15 stories from this open call. Accepted tales will appear alongside original yarns from a cast of invited authors, including Gemma Files, Joe Koch, J.A.W. McCarthy, Gordon B. White, Jack Lothian, Rae Wilde, and Scott J. Moses… and one mystery guest, as all weddings should no doubt have!

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flash

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Taking Submissions: Trash Tales

Deadline: December 31st, 2024
Payment: Contributor’s copy
Theme: The stories must be ‘trashy’ in some way (ideas below.)

Deadline for submissions: midnight, 31 December 2024

We are excited to invite submissions for a new anthology of trashy fiction – TRASH TALES – due to be published in August 2025!

All profits (after expenses) will be donated to literacy charities in the UK and US.

The full submission guidelines are available below.

The collection will be produced by me (CriminOlly) and Alex from micro press Kilter and Rammel. Check out Kilter and Rammel’s site here.

We’re looking for short story submissions, no longer than 5000 words and previously unpublished. It can be in any category or genre you like, as long as it’s what we might all consider of a trashy nature!

Some ideas (this list is non-exhaustive):

  • Naughty nurses and sexy shifters: spicy or sweet category romance
  • One man armies: men’s adventure
  • The Wild, and sometimes Weird West: westerns
  • Trashy Tales of Terror : cheesy horror fiction featuring creepy kids, killer animals, mutants and monsters, etc.
  • Science Fiction Shenanigans: Alien invaders, technology gone haywire
  • Crime, Pulp, That Sort of Thing: Gritty detective fiction, real world or with an added twist of the supernatural/paranormal/occult
  • Mystery-solving Moggies: Cosy crime involving animals, baked goods and such like
  • Level Up: LitRPG (Literary Roleplaying Game) stories.

So get thinking up those trashy stories, and we look forward to seeing what you’ve got for us to read!

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

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Taking Submissions: Book Worms Horror Zine Issue #7

Deadline: December 15th, 2024
Payment: 8 cents a word for fiction and essays (1500 words or less). $25 for short poems (ten lines or less), $50 for longer poems. Includes one contributor copy.
Theme: Space and Science Fiction Horror (must have horror elements, not just sci-fi.)

Seeking original short stories, essays, and poems for our Winter 2025 issue.

THEME: Space and Science Fiction Horror (must have horror elements, not just sci-fi.)

DEADLINE: December 15, 2024

PAYMENT: 8 cents a word for fiction and essays (1500 words or less). $25 for short poems (ten lines or less), $50 for longer poems. Includes one contributor copy.

No reprints or multiple submissions, please. Exclusive rights for six months after publication.

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