The Horror Tree

Category: Flat Amount

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Events / Flat Amount / Magazine / Poetry / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: NonBinary Review #25 Prohibition

Deadline: July 31st, 2021
Payment: 1 cent per word for prose, $10 for poetry
Theme: Prohibition

NonBinary Review is a quarterly digital literary journal that joins poetry, fiction, essays, and art around each issue’s theme. We invite  authors to explore each theme in any way that speaks to them: re-write a  familiar story from a new point of view, mash genres together, give us a personal essay about some aspect of our theme that has haunted you all  your life. We also invite art that will accompany the literature. All submissions must have a clear and obvious relationship to our theme. Submissions with no clear relationship to the theme will be rejected. Although you may submit more than once, we can only accept ONE piece per author/artist per issue.

We are open to submissions which relate to the idea of PROHIBITION.  
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Events / Flat Amount / Magazine / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: Deadly Love

Deadline: July 9th, 2021
Payment: Two-Sentence Stories: $10, Flash Fiction: $25 per story, Short Stories: $50 per story
Theme: Deadly Love
Note: Reprints welcome at a lower, undisclosed pay rate.

The second issue of Dark Dispatch will be a themed issue, featuring stories on Deadly Love. Let your mind wander to the dark places and share your horror love stories about relationships gone wrong. This submission call opens May 5, and will be open until July 9, 2021.

Submission Guidelines

Opens May 5 to submissions of original works focusing on the theme of deadly love.

Clarification: romantic horror should be an element in the story. It should focus on love gone wrong. The stories can fall within the dark fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and crime genres.

Submission window closes July 9 at midnight EDST. We accept submission of the following: (more…)

Events / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Enchanted Conversation: 2021 July Issue (Early Listing)

Submission Window: June 1st-3rd 2021
Payment: $50
Theme: Healers, Midwives and Cunning Folk.

Hi there! We’ll no doubt write more about this later in the next year, but for now, what follows below will tell you all you need to know.

And the theme? It’s “Healers, Midwives and Cunning Folk.”

(No more submissions are being accepted for publication in December of 2020–but we will be publishing stories that have already been accepted.)

The following is relevant to all submissions for 2021, and the first submission window opens Jan. 1. More below.

 

Writing opportunities for 2021 include:

 

New Fairy Tales: Fairy tales that are almost or entirely new or are just new takes on old tales are all welcome. Mashups of existing fairy tales are welcome as well. Submissions must follow the theme below to be considered.

 

Essays: Nonfiction articles about any aspect fairy tales and folklore are being sought. The term “essay” just means you’ll be writing about fairy-tale related matters in a nonfiction article.  Creative nonfiction is welcome. You do not have to stick to the theme, but you can.

 

Poetry: Poetry inspired by fairy tales and that follows the theme is also welcome.

 

Please read the following in its entirety before submitting.

 

Want to know what is likely to get published here? There are well over 10 years of stories, essays and art on this current site. It’s the best place to start if you want to be published here.

 

HERE IS HOW YOU SUBMIT AND FORMAT

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Events / Flat Amount / Online / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: Flash Fiction Online: One Hundred

Deadline: October 21st, 2021 [READ THE DETAILS FOR SPECIFICS ON THIS]
Payment: $80
Theme: A story that somehow includes the concept of one hundred
Note: Reprints Welcome

In January 2022, we’ll be celebrating our 100th issue of Flash Fiction Online! As part of our celebration, we’re looking for stories on the theme of “ONE HUNDRED.” Give us stories of centenarians on adventures! Tell us tales of a hundred-year storm! Raise the temperature to 100 degrees (Fahrenheit? Celsius?)! Write us a story that takes place in 100 seconds! The possibilities are endless — they just have to somehow involve the number 100 in a way that’s integral to the story.
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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Starward Shadows Quarterly Issue #1

Deadline: August 6th, 2021
Payment: $0.01 per word for each accepted short story, $10 for each accepted flash piece.
Theme: All forms of dark speculative fiction, see below

Starward Shadows Quarterly is an online dark speculative fiction magazine seeking stories between 500 and 8,000 words. We’re interested in exploring the wicked, strange places that walk the line between reality and nightmare—the alien, the absurd, and above all else, the weird.

Short fiction, flash, and artwork submissions are currently OPEN!

Genres We Accept:

Cosmic Horror, Sword and Sorcery, Sword and Planet, High/Epic Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos inspired tales, Gothic Horror, Space Opera, Dark Science Fiction, Science Fantasy, New Weird, Grimdark, Slipstream, and Cyberpunk. However, feel free to send us anything that falls under the incredibly broad umbrella of “speculative fiction.”

Inspirational authors:

H. P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Michael Moorcock, J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Ruocchio, Tamsyn Muir, Robert E. Howard

Things we love:

Monsters, vampires, aliens, psychological horror, first-person unreliable narrators, eloquence, themes of neurodivergence, angst done right (think “Interview with the Vampire), death cults, weird religious undertones, wraiths, trickster kings, black metal, stories where the bad guys win, character-driven narratives, and stories that take place somewhere strange and far away where humanity isn’t even mentioned at all.

Anything with a Dark Souls, Morrowind, or Oblivion vibe will have us foaming at the mouth. Also, one of the editors has also had a lifelong, questionable obsession with A Clockwork Orange and those old Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comics . . .

Things we hate:

Post-apocalyptic settings, dystopian fiction, parodies, rock-hard SF, zombies, mermaids, sirens, pandemic stories (we lived it and we’re sick of it), and political and/or moral soapboxes. If you’re going to send us anything falling into these categories, you’d better have completely and utterly reinvented it for it not to get auto-rejected.
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Events / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Fairy Tale Review – The Lilac Issue

Deadline: July 7th, 2021
Payment: $50
Theme: Sleep and dreams: the forgotten language of fairy tales.

This category is for prose submissions to our eighteen print issue, The Lilac Issue, which will be published by Wayne State University Press in March 2022.

“There is no ‘as-if’ in the dream.” –Erich Fromm, The Forgotten Language

Theme: The Lilac Issue is themed around sleep and dreams: the forgotten language of fairy tales.

For prose: Writers may submit a single piece up to 1,000 words. We welcome short fiction, essays, lyric nonfiction, and scholarship. Scholarship will go through a standard peer review process. Prose submissions should be formatted with standard margins, double-spaced, 12-point serif font, and include page numbers.

Payment: For the first time, we will offer a flat payment of $50 to each contributor upon publication. Contributors also receive two (2) issues of The Lilac Issue. We welcome submissions directly from authors or agents.

GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
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Anthology / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Autumn Noir

Deadline: July 11th, 2021
Payment: $20
Theme: Stories about the other, moodier season of change from Summer to Fall

AUTUMN NOIR: A Crime, Mystery, Noir, Suspense & Thriller Anthology

Announcing our FALL anthology!

The slide from Summer into Fall can sneak up on you, like footsteps keeping pace until they speed up and overtake you. We’re inviting fellow writers and artists to create original pieces that sweep us up in stories about the other, moodier season of change. Send us work that skews toward the gritty, the atmospheric, the strangely, dangerously beguiling. Whether the mystery unfolds as gently as a wisp of chimney smoke or brings the heart-thumping thrills of an end-of-summer storm is up to you. Just make sure to bring your creations to life with language as vibrant as Fall foliage and dialogue as crisp as Autumn air.

*We’re looking for stories, poems, and/or artwork that follow these THREE guidelines:

  1. Respect the genre norms from the Crime, Mystery, Noir, Suspense, and/or Thriller genres (and their associated sub-genres).

  2. Feature the Autumn season prominently in the setting of their story or are depicted in their poem or artwork.

  3. Are inspired by and/or incorporate an element* from any ONE of the following (four) quotations in a way that is important to your storyline, poem, or image:

    • “In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb.” (Dennis Lehane)

    • “The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.” (Unknown)

    • “Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids.” (Gillian Flynn)

    • In the autumn of a woman’s life, there comes always one mad moment when she longs for romance, for adventure—before it is too late.” (Agatha Christie, The Underdog and Other Stories)

*NOTE: The actual quote does NOT need to be included in the story itself. If you would like to incorporate the quote in some way, that’s fine. However, we will be equally excited to see stories that include elements of the quotations (Greek tragedy, curb, trees, dead things, dark sides, black orchids, mad moments, Dennis Lehane, Gillian Flynn, Agatha Christie, etc.) or that capture the spirit of the quote in some way throughout their story, poem, or artwork.

Submission Info:

  • Don’t forget to follow the THREE genre and thematic guidelines listed at the top of this page!

  • Word/Entry Limits:

    • Short Stories (English only): Between 1,500 words and 7,500 words

    • Poems (English only): Up to 3 poems per entry in one file

    • Artwork: Up to 3 pieces per entry in one file

  • Submit your story in the official entry form.

    • Opens May 1, 2021

    • Final Submission Deadline: July 11, 2021 (or until full)

  • Reprints: No

  • Multiple Submissions: Yes

  • Simultaneous Submissions: Yes

  • While it will not affect an entrant’s chances of acceptance, those entrants who tip will receive a digital copy of the Autumn Noir anthology when it is released.

  • A word on response times: Having been on the receiving end of things, we know what it’s like to eagerly await word about submissions. We promise to do our level best to get back in touch with people as quickly as possible. However, at a minimum know that the anthology is set to release on October 13, 2021. You should definitely hear back from us ahead of the release date.

NOTE: Send us your stories that unsettle, unnerve, frighten, discomfit, challenge, and/or just generally entertain. Please do not send us stories that glorify rape or abuse — especially of children or animals. We also will not include stories that promote bigoted thinking. While we recognize that some amount of violence is often seminal to these genres, we’re not interested in scenes that painstakingly, even lovingly, describe extreme violence.

Enter Here:

Submit through Duosuma

Contributors Selected:

  • Will be notified by Wednesday, September 22, 2021

  • Will receive full publishing credit in the Autumn Noir anthology

  • One (1) free digital copy

  • $20 payment

Copyright:

UNSETTLING READS, LLC was founded by two authors. We very much respect the rights of creators and do our best to promote both the works included in our anthologies and their creators. For more questions about copyrights, etc. please check out this sample contract.

 

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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Navigating Ruins

Deadline: June 30th, 2021
Payment: $30, a contributor’s copy, potential royalties
Theme: Navigating Ruins

WriteHive has grown so much since it’s started. We are excited to announce this new projects as another step toward Writing the Future We Need. In a collaboration with Inked in Gray we will be hosting our first ever anthology collection! As we come out of this last year and seek for ways to grow better and stronger, we felt that this theme would be a good first foray to showcase our writing community. More specifically the topic of navigating ruins.

This open call opens May 1st, 2021 and closes on June 30, 2021.

Writing the Future We Need: Navigating Ruins

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