September 27, 2022

Taking Submissions: Game On!

Deadline: December 31st, 2022
Payment: 0.08 USD / word plus royalties
Theme: Unique science fiction and fantasy takes on games, game playing, and games in culture.

Games played in fiction often symbolize more than winning and losing. Games represent risk and reward, wealth and class, strategy and blind fortune. In science fiction and fantasy, games can be matters of cosmic importance and of literal life and death—whether the idle pastimes of Star Trek’s 3D chess, the all-consuming TTRPG of the Gamearth trilogy, a frenetic quest as in Ready Player One, the lethal reality TV shows of The Hunger Games, or choosing a new interstellar emperor as in The Player of Games.

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Events / Flash / Magazine / Poetry / Pro / Reprints Allowed

September 13, 2022

by Stuart Conover

Taking Submissions: DreamForge Magazine Fall 2022 Window (Early)

Submission Window: September 22nd to October 15th, 2022
Payment: $0.07/word. Payment for reprints is $0.03/word, Poems are paid at the rate of $25 to $100
Theme: All SF and Fantasy genres, but horror is unlikely to find a home here. Ideally stories with a message of hope.
Note: Reprints are welcome

To accept submissions, DreamForge uses our own “Submissions Portal.” The link to that portal will be supplied on this page at about Midnight on 9/21/22 and remain open through Midnight 10/15/22.

When you submit stories through our portal, you will be able to provide a brief cover letter, tell us why you feel the story is right for DreamForge, and upload your manuscript doc.

Our response time? At DreamForge, all staff and readers are volunteers. While we’re all set to devote time to this, our day jobs and personal lives can set us back. So, expect 2-3 weeks minimum for us to get back to you. If we respond more quickly, or take significantly longer, those are just the breaks and don’t necessarily mean anything specifically regarding your story.

Because submitting stories can sometimes feel like you’ve dropped your manuscript into a time warp, we don’t mind simultaneous submissions. If your story sells elsewhere, we’ll help you celebrate!

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Artwork / Events / Magazine / Pro

September 6, 2022

by Stuart Conover

Taking Submissions: khōréō October 2022 (Early Listing)

Submission Window: October 1st-31st, 2022
Payment: 8 cents per word and $500 for custom cover art and $100 for cover art drawn from an artist’s existing portfolio.
Theme: Fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and any genre in between or around it, as long as there’s a speculative element.
Note: You must identify as an immigrant or member of a diaspora in the broadest definitions of the terms. This includes, but is not limited to, first- and second-generation immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, persons who identify with one or more diaspora communities, persons who have been displaced or whose heritage has been erased due to colonialism/imperialism, and anyone whose heritage and history includes ‘here and elsewhere’.

khōréō is a quarterly publication of stories, essays, and art: fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and any genre in between or around it, as long as there’s a speculative element. We’re especially interested in writing and art that explore some aspect of migration, whether explicitly (themes of immigration, colonialism, etc.), metaphorically, or with a sly nod and a wink. Most importantly, we’re a new magazine and we’re still finding our identity: therefore, please don’t self-reject because you’re not sure if your work is a good fit. We won’t know until we see it, so please give us a chance to look!

See submission requirements & how to submit at the following pages:

Who can submit?

khōréō is dedicated to diversity and amplifying the voices of immigrant and diaspora authors and artists. We welcome, but do not require, a brief description of the author’s/artist’s identity in their cover letter.

We invite you to submit if you identify as an immigrant or member of a diaspora in the broadest definitions of the terms. This includes, but is not limited to, first- and second-generation immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, persons who identify with one or more diaspora communities, persons who have been displaced or whose heritage has been erased due to colonialism/imperialism, and anyone whose heritage and history includes ‘here and elsewhere’. We especially encourage BIPOC creators who identify as the above to submit their work.

When reading submissions, we take in good faith that you identify as an immigrant or member of a diaspora as described above. If you still aren’t sure if you should submit, please email [email protected].

We kindly request individuals who do not identify as such to support the magazine by reading our stories, subscribing, and helping spread the word instead.

Submission Periods

Our next submission period will open at midnight Eastern time on January 1, 2021. We will close submissions at 11:59pm on January 31, 2021.

In our first year, we will have the following reading periods:

January 1-January 31
April 1-April 30
July 1-July 30
October 1-October 31

Via: khōréō.

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

September 1, 2022

by Stuart Conover

Taking Submissions: Fantasy Magazine October 2022 Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: October 1st – 7th, 2022
Payment: 8 cents per word for fiction. $40 per poem. $75 per essay.
Theme: Original fantasy and dark fantasy stories. All types of fantasy and dark fantasy are welcome.
Note: This is an early listing to give you some time to plan ahead for next month or to remember to finish revising your story for the upcoming month!
Note: We are trusting that the submission windows listed in the ongoing call are valid for this publisher. If they are not, please let us know and we’ll look into revising accordingly.

Instructions for submitting to Fantasy Magazine follow. Please read everything on this page and read the magazine before submitting.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURES

Submission Periods: Fantasy is open to submissions the first week of every month (1st-7th). Please do not query about submitting outside our open submission periods.

Anonymous Submissions: Fantasy only accepts anonymous submissions. Do not include your name, address, phone number, or other similar identifiers on the manuscript. All original short fiction, flash fiction, and poetry submissions will be read anonymously on first read: moving out of slush depends on the merits of the story alone. Please make sure the title is on the manuscript.
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Ongoing Submissions / Online / Pro

August 18, 2022

by Stuart Conover

Ongoing Submissions: Bullet Points Blog

Payment: The lesser of $0.10 per word or $500 (in US dollars)
Theme: Speculative military fiction

Bullet Points publishes speculative military fiction that is sensitive to the complexity, tragedy, and hope of warfare and violence in human (and nonhuman) society. The editor considers fiction stories from any author. Original stories run between 100 and 5,000 words, although reprints can deviate from this guideline. Authors retain all rights not specified in the publication agreement (signed only upon acceptance for publication). Payment is $30 for original stories and $20 for reprints, upon digital publication, via PayPal.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Pro / Reprints Allowed

August 15, 2022

by Stuart Conover

Taking Submissions: Immigrant Sci-Fi Short Stories

Deadline: August 30th, 2022
Payment: 8 cents/6 pence per word for original stories, 6 cents/4 pence for reprints
Theme: stories from a diverse range of writers who have direct or familial experience of immigration and migration and its complex issues.
Note: Reprints Welcome

We are seeking stories from a diverse range of writers who have direct or familial experience of immigration and migration and its complex issues. Writers with origins from all over the world, including but not limited to Latinx, Caribbean, Asian, African, Arabic, North American and East European, are invited to challenge the reader with stories that spill out into space, parallel realms or just hidden in plain sight. The stories will explore the world from the gaze of the incoming, whether forced through slavery, economic choice, necessitated through war or oppression, or hope for a better future, examining the perspectives of displacement in a future or fantastical setting. The new stories will be set alongside older narratives – real and speculative – by Frederick Douglass, Sutton Elbert Griggs, Harriet E. Wilson, Sui Sin Far and more. An intriguing view of the conflict and anxiety between the settled and the unsettled.

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Anthology / Events / Pro

July 13, 2022

by Stuart Conover

Taking Submissions: Real Stories of the US Space Force

Deadline: January 22nd, 2023
Payment: New stories pay pro rate, $0.08 per word, to 10,000 words. Verse pays $50.
Theme: Science fiction short stories and fact articles illustrating current and future near-Earth space-related threats

The US Space Force has a PR problem. Several, in fact. It was not Donald Trump’s idea. It did not steal its iconography from Star Trek. It is not just a lunatic scheme to expand the military-industrial complex by sending battleships into space. Yet judging from social media, many think all these things and more.

Space has become critical not only to the military but to the economy and all aspects of daily life, and as we stand at the dawn of a new age of space commerce, that’s only going to intensify. Several nations have already developed capabilities to deny, degrade, and disrupt access to and utilization of space–based assets, whether to degrade US military capability or as a direct economic attack.

Like it or not, the militarization of space started long ago, threats are already up there, and wherever people and their interests go next, so too will go conflict, intrigue, heroes and villains, everything that comprises good stories.

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Events / Flash / Magazine / Pro

July 12, 2022

by Stuart Conover