Deadlines: January 15, 2020. Late submissions will not be considered. All submissions will be acknowledged. Acceptance/rejections will be emailed to all submitting authors on or before April 1, 2020. Please, no simultaneous submissions.
Publication Date: *June 18, 2020 (trade paperback/Kindle; Kobo, Nook, Apple to follow at publisher’s discretion)
*The Publisher reserves the right to postpone and/or cancel due to unforeseen circumstances or if an insufficient number of qualified stories are submitted/accepted.
Description: A multi-author anthology of 21 short stories of mystery and suspense, with an overarching theme of Heartbreaks and half-truths. Estimated length: 250-300 printed pages in trade paperback format. An introduction, acknowledgments, and author bios will be included.
Submission Guidelines: Both previously published and unpublished authors are welcome to submit. There is no entry fee.
Authors may submit 1 (one) reprint or 1 (one) previously unpublished short story, ideally ranging between 1,500 to 5,000 words (though great stories falling “slightly” outside this range will be considered). Preference will be given to new material; reprint material will not exceed 30% of the collection.
Note: Authors of new material will be expected to work with the Editor promptly on any requested revisions to ensure the timeline for release is met without delay. Failure to do so will result in exclusion from the anthology.
For Reprints: Author must own the print and digital copyright and provide complete details of any previous publication(s), including website/blogs. Stories must not currently be available online in any format. Any online availability will immediately disqualify the submission.
Sub Genres: Traditional, locked room, noir, historical and suspense will be considered; however, do not submit stories with overt sex, violence, or excessive bad language. Speculative fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal are not of interest for this collection. For an understanding of the type of stories that will be accepted, read The Best Laid Plans: 21 Stories of Mystery & Suspense.
Important: The premise (target theme of Heartbreaks & Half-Truths) must be an integral part of the plot, not necessarily the central theme but not merely incidental.
Formatting: Times New Roman 12, double spaced, 1” margins, .5” indent (no tabs), no header or footer. Word .doc or .docx only. Submissions that do not follow the formatting guidelines will be returned (if time permits) or disqualified.
Terms: Authors will be paid $10 USD for reprints and $20 USD for previously unpublished stories via PayPal within 10 (ten) business days of publication. No further payment or royalty will be paid.
Contract term will be 1 (one) year from the initial date of publication. After the contract period, rights to reprint the story will revert to the Author, however, the Publisher reserves the right to include the story in the anthology in perpetuity, or until the Publisher chooses to remove the anthology from print and vendor sites.
Author Copies: Authors will be provided with one PDF copy of the collection. They will also be offered the option of purchasing trade paperback books at 50% off list, plus shipping and any applicable state or provincial sales tax.
Submissions: should be sent to Judy Penz Sheluk at [email protected] Please put “Heartbreaks & Half-Truths” in the Subject Line.
Deadline: March 1st, 2020
Payment: Pro-order split and six contributor copies
Note: Must be a subscriber to Chris Morey’s free e-mail newsletter
As a lifelong fan of survival horror I’ve been aching for years to create a project in that vein. I’m very excited to announce to you Survive the Night – Three at Dusk, One at Dawn, a new survival horror anthology from Dark Regions Press. Now available for preorder at darkregions.com/survivethenight and 10% of the total preorder sales are added to the writing contest prize pool until the last day of the contest timeline.
Thanks to everyone who joins us for this fun and exciting new Dark Regions Press writing contest. If you have any questions or concerns please contact darkregions.com/contact
We can’t wait to read your survival horror stories!
SURVIVE THE NIGHT – THREE AT DUSK, ONE AT DAWN WRITING CONTEST GUIDELINES
THEME: Survival horror story involving three central characters (optional secondary characters) who become trapped at dusk with one or more forces outside that are capable of killing them. Only one of the three central characters survives until dawn.
WORD COUNT: 3,000 to 8,000
PAY: Contest with growable $3,000 prize pool (10% of Survive the Night preorder sales at darkregions.com/survivethenight get added to the prize pool until contest ends March 1st 2020) – Prize pool will be evenly divided among the selected authors. Editors will select at least 7 up to 10 winning stories from the open submissions contest. Selected authors receive 1 ebook and audio option, 5 trade paperbacks and 1 deluxe signed & numbered hardcover as free author copies.
ENTRY FEE: None but you must be a subscriber to Chris Morey’s free e-mail newsletter at chrismorey.com/newsletter to qualify.
SUBMISSION RULES: No reprints or stories published anywhere else before including author websites. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. Only one submission per author for the duration of the contest. Story must be survival horror and formatted chronologically starting at dusk and ending with dawn over the span of one night. One central character survives, two central characters die. Secondary characters are optional. Characters can kill each other but at least one of them must die from the outside force(s).
SUBMISSION TIPS: Stories submitted for Survive the Night should be intense and frightening with a psychological aspect to the storytelling between the characters who are trapped (reference John Carpenter’s The Thing). The outside force(s) that is trying to/can kill the characters can be anything that you choose from a natural disaster to humans to supernatural creatures or anything else as long as it poses a legitimate threat and is capable of killing the characters.
TIMELINE: all stories must be sent to Dark Regions Press by March 1st 2020. Our team will then read all of the stories, select the winners and issue prize money by Summer 2020. The winners will be announced first in this e-mail newsletter after being contacted personally. Survive the Night – Three at Dusk, One at Dawn is scheduled for a Q4 2020 publication.
RIGHTS: By entering this contest you agree that if you are selected as one of the winners Dark Regions Press has the right to publish your winning story in Survive the Night – Three at Dusk, One at Dawn in digital and physical formats and you agree to sign signature sheets for the book. Two year exclusive physical and digital rights. The story can be published in Best Of anthologies within our two year exclusive rights period. After the two year exclusivity period the author is free to publish the story anywhere else in any capacity.
HOW TO SEND US YOUR MANUSCRIPT: please send us an e-mail with a subject line reading: “MY STORY TITLE – Survive the Night” (replace MY STORY TITLE with your actual story title) then in the e-mail body please include a list of the following information:
Full legal name
Author name
Address
Primary e-mail
Phone
Payment information (PayPal preferred)
MANUSCRIPT MUST BE ATTACHED TO EMAIL AS A WORD DOCUMENT! .doc, .docx or .rtf are acceptable file types.
Please make sure you have read the above instructions carefully.
Send your Word Doc manuscript of no more than 8,000 words based on the guidelines above to our writing contest e-mail by March 1st 2020 at: [email protected]
Please only use that e-mail for story submissions for our currently active writing contests! Any other submissions/e-mails to that address will be marked as spam.
Thank you and we can’t wait to read everyone’s stories for Survive the Night!
SUPPORT THE WRITING CONTEST: a preorder page is live for Survive the Night – Three at Dusk, One at Dawn at darkregions.com/survivethenight
Preorder Survive the Night by March 1st 2020 and 10% of your total preorders (after discounts/gift cards) will be added to the writing contest prize pool!
Payment: FICTION, SHORT STORIES: 500-6,000 words — $10
The Literary Hatchet is a journal devoted to provocative fiction, poetry and prose. We are interested in well-written but digestible works in any genre (except erotica).
We will consider previously published material but prefer original works.
We accept short fiction, flash fiction, first-person narratives, speculative fiction, short stories, poetry, photography, art, cartoons, and illustrations.
The above is not exhaustive. If you don’t have an immediate idea for a piece, but you’d really like to write for us, let us know and be prepared to show us work you’ve done. We can always think of subjects!
WHAT WE DON’T WANT
We do not accept erotica, either as articles or images
We do not accept articles or images with excessive crude language or outlandish sexual humor
We cannot consider partial or incomplete stories or essays
We do not accept Haiku poetry, unless as a part of a collection of five or more
GUIDELINES BY TYPE OF SUBMISSION
SHORT STORIES:
We accept short stories from 500-7,500 words in length. Feel free to contact us with inquiries about the type of stories we might be interested in if you are in doubt. We appreciate the well-written work, and acceptance is determined by whether the piece grabs the editor and holds their interest.
POETRY:
We are looking for high-quality extraordinary poems (both serious and humorous) that explore the human condition. Personal pieces that offer a self-reflection are acceptable.
ART, PHOTOGRAPHY, CARTOONS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS:
All submitted art and illustrations must be in 300 dpi, JPG or TIFF formats and no larger than 1200 X 1200 pixels.
COMPENSATION, RIGHTS, AND LENGTH
RIGHTS: By submission of your work, you are agreeing to The Hatchet and its publisher PearTree Press holding exclusive first-printing world rights for a period of 6 months. While your piece is online, it may not appear anywhere else on the Internet, in print, or sold for profit. Rights revert back to the writer/artist at the end of 6 months.
We ask, but do not require, that you then give us non-exclusive electronic rights to include your work in our archives after it is rotated off the issue. You have the right to remove your article from the archives at any point after 6 months.
COMPENSATION AND LENGTH REQUIREMENTS: We pay compensation for almost all work accepted for publication. Payment is made upon publication. Checks are sent by mail. Foreign contributors can choose to be paid by check (US dollars), PayPal or Amazon Gift Card. Authors can also choose to take a hard copy of the issue in lieu of financial compensation.
FICTION, SHORT STORIES:
500-7,500 words — $10
INTERVIEWS and REVIEWS:
compensation is paid to the person conducting the interview — $5
POETRY:
we prefer poetry under 100 lines — $5
ART/ILLUSTRATIONS:
in JPG or GIF format only — $5
FIRST PERSON STORIES:
250-750 words — $1
HOW TO SUBMIT
We buy exclusive first-printing world rights for 6 months.
Electronic submissions should be as an attached Word or Txt file.s Do not include the text of your submission within the email.
Multiple submissions are accepted. One submission per entry, please
No simultaneous submissions accepted.
RESPONSE TIME
Average response time is about 30 days. If you don’t hear from us in 30 days, please query.
EDITING POLICY
We prefer not to edit heavily. If we like your idea, but feel that your article needs significant editing, we’ll send it back to you with lots of suggestions and recommendations. We will correct all typos, grammatical errors, and adjust punctuation to our house style. If we make any substantial changes we will contact you first for approval well in advance of publication.
If we cannot contact you or you do not return our emails, we will assume that you have withdrawn your submission. Feel free to resubmit it at a later date.
We prefer poetry under 100 lines. Please don’t send us poetry unless you have thoroughly proofread it. Accepted submissions may be edited for clarity or to correct minor errors. Poetry submissions which do not meet minimum standards for correct spelling will be rejected.
HOW TO CONTACT US
SUBMISSIONS: Submissions must be made via this link: Submittable.com
or write us at
PearTree Press
345 Charlotte White Road
Westport, MA 02700
The Literary Hatchet is open for submissions and we financially compensate our authors and artists for their works.
You can submit more than one work per issue, but please send each submission individually.
SUBMISSION DEADLINES: We have no submission deadlines. We publish three times a year and read submissions year round.
Prizes: £2000 for the winner and £150 and two complimentary for selected contributors
Nobrow is well-known for our visual publishing and our dedication to designing and producing beautiful books. This is something we are extremely proud of. At the heart of all we do is storytelling. We believe this is the foundation on which our publishing is built – we love all forms of storytelling, be it visual, lyrical or literary. It is all aimed at transporting a reader to another place and time and keeping them there; transfixed.
That is why we are delighted to announce we are running the Nobrow Short Story Competition for writers! Up to twelve winning entries will be published in our short story anthology, and this beautifully illustrated book will celebrate the best short fiction and non-fiction writing.
Our theme is ‘The Censor’. You can interpret this in any way you wish – it could represent censoring of the past, present and future; the self; the state; or the effects of censorship on everyday life. As a provocation we hope our theme can provide a rich vein of storytelling inspiration for anyone wishing to take part in the competition. We are looking for inclusive, surprising, ingenious and diverse responses that capture our minds and hold us until every word is devoured.
It is completely free to enter, and we welcome submissions that you may already have written as long as they have not been previously published and can be related to the theme of The Censor.
Prizes
An overall winner will receive £2000.
All selected contributors will receive £150 and two complimentary copies of the book, and will be invited to attend events including a launch and readings.
Deadline
9th December 2019, midnight BST time.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
A submission is defined as a short story of up to 3,000 words or a creative non-fiction piece of up to 3,000 words.No illustrations will be accepted.
Submissions should be sent via email attachment to [email protected]. The subject line of your email must contain “Nobrow Short Story Competition”. The attachment must be a Word document or PDF. Please ensure the title of the Word document or PDF is the official title of your submission. Your submission should clearly state if it is Non-Fiction or Fiction.
Your entry should have page numbers, and be double spaced in 12-point text. Submissions are read anonymously, so please do not include your name or any other identifying details anywhere in the file.
All entrants must have read the terms and conditions as outlined in theThe Censor T&Csdocument.
For a print version of our guidelines please follow this link.
Note: This publication opens and closes without known set deadlines.
What we’re looking for
We’re looking for original and previously unpublished fantasy and horror short fiction of maximum 1500 words, written in English. We particularly like honest and daring stories with strong characters pursuing goals, although we recognise that if a story is good, it’s good.
We’re realists, so we don’t need a happy ending. Send us those stories that other publishers rejected because they were too dark.
Having said that, we don’t want stories with gratuitous and/or over-the-top sex, violence or swearing. And it should go without saying, but we won’t allow discrimination either.
On a similar note, we’re also not very fond of preachy stories, where one character explains to another how terrible humans are. We get it, people suck.
The legal stuff
We’re a new website and won’t be able to pay you the big bucks (hopefully, this will change in the future). But we want to be fair as well. Because if it’s good enough for us to publish, it’s good enough for us to pay you for it. We’re therefore paying £20 for each published story (payment currently made only through PayPal). This is for exclusive first world electronic rights (stories published on our website and future email newsletters) and for nonexclusive reprint rights in our yearly anthologies containing stories from the previous 12 months (published on Amazon as paperback and ebook). We reserve the right to archive work on our website to keep it available to our readers.
We will also publish stories in a magazine directly on Amazon as paperback and ebook). We pay £20 for exclusive first world electronic rights (ebooks) and exclusive first world print rights (paperback). We will let authors know where their story will appear when we send out the contract.
How to submit
To submit your story, please email your file as an attachment (.doc or .docx) to . Please use the standard manuscript format (you can download a template here). Don’t forget to include in the body of the email the genre and the approximate word count. You can also add a short bio, including any previous publications, although this is not necessary.
We currently accept simultaneous submissions. But please let us know in the body of your email if you have submitted your story somewhere else or are planning to. Please also let us know immediately if your story has been accepted somewhere else.
We currently don’t accept multiple submissions.
What happens next
We aim to make a decision within 30 days.
Don’t forget to check the website for upcoming stories or follow us on Facebook.
Ultrablack will be publishing a collection of short stories based on the prompt below. We will publish in Ebook and Paperback format. Writers will be compensated with a copy and given a bonus of $20 for accepted submissions (PayPal, Cashapp, Venmo)
More details will follow if we chose your story.
TITLE:
“ULTRABLACK: the beasts”
PROMPT:
Short stories about original creatures.
OUR SOFT SPOTS:
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Realism, Gothic, Horror
NOT ALLOWED:
Furry, Fan Fic, Boring, Plagiarized Work, Unoriginal Creatures (Dragons, Werewolves, Big Foot)
FORMAT:
12 Point Font
New Times Roman
Double Spaced
2,500 – 5,000 Words
HOW TO SEND SUBMISSIONS:
(( EMAIL, SUBMITTABLE, or DUOTROPE))
All Emails must have this format.
SUBJECT
Author Name and Title
BODY
Story Name
Word Count
Age
Social Media or Website
Author Bio or Notes/Comments
