Category: Payment Type

Anthology / Events / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Deep Anthology (Title TBD)

Deadline: July 31st, 2025
Payment: 5 cents per word
Theme: Stories for lovers of the unexplored depths of our planet and universe

💥OPEN CALL: DEEP ANTHOLOGY (Title TBD) with Death’s Head Press
Anticipated Release: Late Spring 2027💥

Death’s Head Press continues its exploration of dark horizons. This time we seek the abyss.

We’re putting together an anthology for lovers of the unexplored depths of our planet and the universe. We are looking for stories between 2,500 and 10,000 words that dive into the dark.
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Anthology / Contributor's Copy / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: After Dark, Volume 2

Deadline: September 15th, 2025
Payment: $20 and 5 contributors copies
Theme: Vampire and/or Werewolf themed horror stories

The sun sets. With it, light fades as though it were a mere background character in a sinister plot as the stories within “After Dark, Volume 2” cast their shadows, and darkness comes to life.

Campfire Publishing is excited to announce that we are currently accepting submissions for, “After Dark, Volume 2”, the second volume in our collection of Vampire and Werewolf themed horror stories!

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: Slugger Summer 2025 Window

Submission Window: June 15th – July 15th, 2025
Payment: $25
Theme: All subgenres of horror (dark fantasy, sci-fi, noir all accepted as long as horror plays a central role).

SLUGGER is the creative effort of two horror writer pals.

Send us: 

  • In general, we are open to all subgenres of horror (dark fantasy, sci-fi, noir all accepted as long as horror plays a central role).
  • Body horror tickles our fancy the most if we had to pick a subgenre, but SLUGGER will be open to all horror stories.
  • We love subversive and transgressive fiction. Anything that fits the punk ethos is likely to get our attention.
  • Stories can be speculative or not.
  • Our guidelines may change over time, but we are open to the full spectrum of genre to literary fiction, conventional storytelling to experimental, and plot driven to vibes only.

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Events / Flat Amount / Magazine

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Taking Submissions: manywor(l)ds June/July 2025 Window

Submission Window: June 1st – July 31st, 2025
Payment: $10
Theme: Stories of any genre by writers who identify with and as any of the following descriptors: trans, two-spirit, disabled, neurodivergent, Mad, queer, crip, nonbinary, genderqueer, intersex.

We welcome submissions by those who identify with and as any of the following descriptors: trans, two-spirit, disabled, neurodivergent, Mad, queer, crip, nonbinary, genderqueer, intersex. This is a space for the words, works, and worlds of and by those whose bodyminds defy social expectations and invite new ways of thinking and knowing.

We do not need to know the specifics of your identity/diagnosis/experience unless you want us to. We invite closeted and questioning people to share their work, as well as those whose experiences fall outside the confines of the language we used above.

We welcome submissions from creators of all ages. We particularly encourage unpublished/emerging/young creators to submit. If you know an incarcerated/institutionalized creator who would like to submit, email us for information as to where to mail the submission, or clearly indicate in your message that you are submitting on their behalf.

We publish on a quarterly schedule, with issues coming out on:

  • February 15
  • May 15
  • August 15
  • November 15

We are open for all submissions EXCEPT during publication months. That is to say, we are open for submissions January, March, April, June, July, September, October, and December.

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Contributor's Copy / Events / Magazine / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Dracula Beyond Stoker Issue 8

Submission Window: November 1st – December 31st, 2025
Payment: 5 cents per word and contributor’s copies
Theme: Van Helsing

Issue 8: Van Helsing(To Be Published May, 2026)

The one everybody has been waiting for. What adventures did he have before the novel? Where did he go after? Are more monster battles in store? Tell us your tale of the world’s most famous vampire hunter.

Submissions open November 1, 2025-December 31, 2025. Submissions received earlier will be read and considered but will not be responded to until the window opens

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Reprints Allowed

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Taking Submissions: parABnormal Magazine 2025 – Second Call

Submission Window: June 1st – July 31st, 2025
Payment: Fiction: $25.00 for original stories, $7.00 for reprints, $6.00 for each poem, $20.00 for original articles, $6.00 for reprints. $7.00 for reviews and interviews.
Theme: Paranormal – this includes ghosts, spectres, haunts, various whisperers, and so forth. It also includes shapeshifters and creatures from various folklores.

Submissions are accepted Feb 1 – Mar 31, Jun 1 – Jul 31, Oct 1 – Nov 30.

Anything submitted outside those periods will be deleted unread.

We no longer accept simultaneous or multiple submissions.

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No matter how far we move forward as humans, we are still bound by the instincts and ancestral memories of our animalistic past. None of these are so strong as the fight or flight response. However, there are times when we seem to be perfectly safe, completely at ease and comfortable, when that urge to run from something sneaks up on us. What causes these sensations? Is there something lurking in the darkness? Why is that man giving you the creeps, he’s not even looking at you? And yet, there is something odd. Something instinctual, something you know without fully understanding. We may have moved on, we may have forgotten and left behind those old stories and legends of beasts, voracious monsters, and dark spirits… But they have not forgotten or left us…

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

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Taking Submissions: Family, Fae, Fiend, Friend, and Foe

Submission Window: June 1st – July 31st, 2025
Payment: $10 or a contributors copy
Theme: Speculative stories featuring a family with at least one type of supernatural family member

THREE COUSINS PUBLISHING, an imprint of WEST MESA PRESS, will be accepting submissions for its fourth annual anthology with the working title, Family, Fae, Fiend, Friend, and Foe from June 1, 2025 until midnight July 31, 2025. Stories submitted before or after the submission period will not be considered.
This is a themed anthology and stories that don’t fit the theme will be rejected. Submissions must be speculative and feature a family with some type of supernatural family member or members. Vampires and fairies, gnomes and zombies, leprechauns, bigfeet, ghouls, and poltergeists are all welcome. Horror, humor, fantasy, science fiction, or even an entertaining, but bizarre mashup of genres that we haven’t considered. Your characters may be young or old and the time frame may be from the dawn of mankind to the far future. Here’s the short list of guidelines. Pay attention, please. These are important.

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Non-fiction / Poetry

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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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