Deadline: November 26th, 2019
Payment: $0.05 U.S. per word
Bronzeville is now open to submissions for an anthology called Twisted Love. Twisted Love will feature stories with unsettling and unconventional relationships. Give us stories of toxic relationships or lovers bound by crime or fetish. Think Soldier and Angel from Hap and Leonard, season 1:
Payment Policy
We pay $0.05 U.S. per word for first Worldwide English publication rights for stories up to 3,000 words in length. We have no minimum length requirements for submissions; however, we will not consider submissions that exceed 3,150 words.
Preferred Genres
Preferred genres include crime, sci fi, fantasy, horror and YA.
Simultaneous and Multiple Submissions
Writers may submit one story to all open Bronzeville platforms. Those who submit a story to Twisted Love may also, for example, submit a story to Bronzeville Bee if it is open to submissions.
Writers may not submit more than one story to Twisted Love.
Writers may simultaneously submit to other venues. We ask that you notify us if the story is accepted elsewhere and withdraw the story from consideration.
Formatting
Format your subject line as follows: Twisted Love Submission – Story Name – word count – genre
Example: Twisted Love Submission – ‘This is My Story’s Title’ – 2725 words – horror
Your story should be sent as an attached Word Document. We will not read PDFs, shared Google Doc files, RTF documents or any other type of document. Submissions that do not include an attached .doc or .docx file will not be processed.
The text in your story should be black.
The font should be a standard font, such as Times New Roman.
The text should be 12 pt or 14 pt.
The first line of every paragraph should either be flush left, with a blank line between paragraphs, or it should be indented half an inch using the format settings feature, not space-space-space-space-space or tab.
Do not underline text in your story. If text is intended to be in italics, put it in italics.
Refer to the guidelines found here for the information to present at the top of your story document.
Submissions that do not include the word count will be deprioritized for review.
Take time to study submission guidelines. Many publications use comparable guidelines; there is nothing unusual about ours, but we receive many submissions that have sloppy formatting (with some paragraphs indented and others not) and other abnormalities. Presentation matters. We’re paying pro rates per Duotrope guidelines; we expect writers to strive for professional presentation.
The best submissions include:
the story title in the subject line with the word count and genre
the words Bee Fiction Submission in the subject line
no more than a short introductory line or paragraph citing the word count and genre of the story — NOTE: multiple paragraph queries for short fiction will not be read. You do not need to tell us about the inspiration for the story, which authors inspire you, what size shoes you wear, or anything else.
again, the word count of the story in the email and/or subject line
the author’s bio (approx. 100 words written in third person)
Absolutely no adults having sex with minors or anyone having sex with animals.
We will not publish works that appear to promote hate towards people based on their religion, race, gender or orientation. While we may publish a story about racism, or that has sexism or bigotry as a component, there’s a line between writing about something and endorsing it. When necessary, we will hire a sensitivity editor to review content.
“While we will consider stories that deal with sexual abuse, the acts should be alluded to but not detailed. We are not interested in publishing stories that would appeal to pedophiles or abusers.” – Sandra Ruttan
Word Count Limit
3,150 words
Checklist
Include your story as a .doc or .docx attachment, a bio written in third person that is 80 words or less, and a high resolution photograph you own the rights to that can be published with your work.
An auto-reply will be sent to every email received at the appropriate email account. Receiving the auto-reply is confirmation that your submission has been delivered.
Please read the auto-reply and double-check your submission to ensure that you included your attachment and all the requested material.
Reprints
We are not currently considering reprints for Twisted Love.
Please note: Submissions with multiple stories or sent to the wrong address or that exceed the word count will not be processed. Writers will not be notified.
Deadline: January 1st, 2020
Payment: $.05/word advance + royalties.
Vernacular Books is pleased to announce we are currently accepting submissions for our anthology The Way of the Laser: Future Crime stories.
What we’re looking for:
Crime stories that take place in the future. Preferably these stories will go beyond simple murders or capers to reveal something about how technology and the powers that wield it have changed our world. Is poisoning the nanobots responsible for programming the ads in your neural feed a crime? Is organized crime society’s only hope or responsible for its downfall? Consider what will constitute a crime and what unique problems it poses for your characters.
Keep in mind what is criminal behavior one day may be legal the next and vice versa. We want to see people caught up in the pitfalls of society ruled by corporations, ideologies, and demagogues and what lengths people will go to when there simply is no other choice.
Wow us with your original idea and blow us away with your writing.
Length: 4,000-8,000 words
Payment: $.05/word advance + royalties.
Rights: World English in print, digital, and audio, exclusive for five years.
Deadline: January 1, 2020/TBD
Send submissions to vernacularbookssubmissions at gmail dot com.
Deadline: January 1st, 2019
Payment: 1 cent per word
The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges. As a type of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined. Therefore, we’re interested in stories by writers who write about what they don’t know, take us places we couldn’t possibly go, and don’t try to make us care about the characters. We would also suggest you take a look at the current issue, archives, and theory (especially the essay, “What is irrealism?”) pages on this web site.
We accept unsolicited fiction up to 2,000 words in length. Translations are welcome. There is no minimum length. We accept only electronic submissions via e-mail at [email protected] We cannot, due to the various computer viruses and worms, accept attachments anymore, so please paste your story into the body of the e-mail. Also include your name, address, e-mail address, and a short bio in the text of the submission; please put the word “submission” in the subject heading of the e-mail to ensure that your submission doesn’t get lost among all the spam. We pay an honorarium of one cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) to buy first-time internet rights (the story will then be archived). Payment is made upon publication. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DON’T ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS and are only interested in reprints in unusual cases (e.g., the story has appeared in print but not on the internet). Therefore, if the story or translation has been published before, please specify where and when. Regarding submission of more than one story at a time, we will consider up to 2,000 words submitted by a single author at a given time, either one story or a number of short shorts. Please note, however, that if you submit several short shorts, they must be enclosed within a single e-mail. We do not publish the same author in consecutive issues, except when we have specifically solicited the material. We accept submissions year-round and usually respond in two months, though it can take as long as four months.
The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly publication, publishing on February 1, May 1, August 1, and November 1 of each year. The deadline for submissions for each issue will be one month before the date of publication.
Deadline: October 31st, 2019
Payment: 1 cent per word, a flat rate of $20 if under 2,000 words.
The Overcast is currently open to submissions three times a year, during the months of January, April, and October. (Note we are no longer reading during July. Our summers have just gotten too hectic. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding.)
What We Want
We are interested in speculative fiction, whatever that means to you, be it Science Fiction, Fantasy, Steampunk, Magical Realism, Slipstream, or an as-yet-unnamed genre. Anything that looks at the world and life from an unexpected angle. We want the original vision of William Gibson. The magic and beauty of Erin Morgenstern. The uncompromising voice of Margaret Atwood. The technical brilliance of Ted Chiang. We want to read stories that transport us to places that we’ve never imagined. We want to still be thinking about a story days after reading it. Be original. Be amazing.
We are based in Portland, OR, and shine a spotlight on writers hailing from, living in, or connected in some way to the Pacific Northwest, as loosely defined by the bioregion of Cascadia. We feel there is an exceptionally strong talent pool of speculative writers in Cascadia, and we want to celebrate and promote them to a larger audience. Roughly half the stories we publish are by PNW writers. That said, we are not exclusive, and the other half of our stories come from authors all over the globe. So no matter where you live, send us your stories. If they make us laugh, cry, or turn cartwheels of astonishment, preferably all at once, we will find a place for them on The Overcast.
This is an audio format publication. We feel that stories of around 20-30 minutes in length are the best fit for our podcast. While we will consider submission between 1,000-5,000 words, we read at around 100 words per minute, so the sweet spot for submissions is 2,000-3,000 words. If it comes to a choice between two stories of equal merit, we will generally choose the one that is closer to the sweet spot.
Reprints are welcome, so long as they have not been previously produced in an audio format.
What We Don’t Want
Fan Fiction
Generic settings or characters we’ve seen a million times before (lithe elves, dour dwarves, charming vampires, etc)
Horror. Dark, gritty fiction is fine, but straight horror really isn’t our thing.
What We Pay
Our authors are the soul of our podcast. We strongly believe that creators should get paid for their work. Period. We would love to pay pro rates, but alas that is beyond our current financial reach. At the moment, we pay a semi-pro rate of $0.01 per word. Because we think it’s insulting to pay less than $20 for any story, we pay a flat rate of $20 for all stories less than 2,000 words. We hope, however, that our podcast will soon bring us fame, fortune, and success beyond our wildest dreams, as well as the ability to pay pro rates. We’d also like a pony. A genetically modified pony with six legs that runs 100mph and urinates a rich, tasty stout.
All payments made via Paypal.
(Our rates are directly tied to our Patreon funding goals. As we reach our goals, our rates will go up. Simple! If you want our authors to get paid more, please help spread the word!)
How To Submit
Please attach your story in standard manuscript format to a brief email containing the following information: Story Title, Word Count, and what, if any, connection you have to Cascadia. Please DO NOT include a bio or list of credits. We do not care how many degrees, awards, or publications you have. We want your fiction to speak for itself. If we love your story, we will ask for a bio upon acceptance.
Please make the Subject line: “Submission: (Story Title)”
We do not accept multiple or simultaneous submissions.
If you have not heard back from us by the beginning of the submissions period following the one in which you submitted your story, please query.
For some reason, we have had numerous problems responding to submissions from AOL users. Most of our responses get bounced back as undeliverable. To prevent future frustration on all sides, please do not send submissions from AOL mailboxes. Thank you.
Rights
We purchase first worldwide exclusive audio rights, as well as the right to keep the episode in which your story is produced available in our archives for as long as The Overcast remains in operation. We do not own your story, nor do we wish to. You are free to publish and sell it elsewhere in any other format.
Deadline: June 1st, 2020
Payment: $0.02/word or $25/story, whichever is greater.
Genre: Horror
Deadline: June 1, 2020
Release Date: October 21, 2020
Word Count:
* Flash Fiction (500-1,500 words)
* Short Stories (3,000-8,000 words)
* Novella (12,000-25,000 words)
Pay: $0.02/word or $25/story, whichever is greater.
Wanted: Send me your chilling horror, your stories that are set firmly in the genre, tagging the tropes and atmospherics of things that will cause you to have nightmares and not be able to escape the dark, even when you pull the covers over your head and sleep with the light on.
Submission Guidelines
Send all submissions to: [email protected], addressed to the Editor, Rachel A. Brune.
Follow submission guidelines and use the Crone Girls Press Style Guide to format your manuscript before submitting. Please.
If you have any questions, a good place to get a feel for who we are is the Crone Girls Press Facebook Group. Come on in. We won’t bite. Most of us won’t, anyway.
Each anthology will be anchored by one novella, with a mix of short stories and flash fiction. I am primarily looking for short stories to make up the bulk of each anthology, but don’t let that discourage you from submitting.
Reprints and simultaneous submissions are absolutely welcome! If it is a reprint, please be prepared to let us know where it was previously published so we can include that correctly in the anthology. If it is accepted elsewhere, congrats! (But please, let us know.)
One note about diverse protagonists (and characters in general): I find as a writer, sometimes it helps for the anthology call to explicitly indicate their inclusive status. That is what I am doing here.
The determining factors in acceptance or rejection will always be quality of writing, adherence to genre, and general fit with the other stories selected for publication. If you have a story that fits those parameters, send it my way.
Cover letters are not necessary, but if you would like to include one, what I would like to see is a one-sentence logline, word count, and genre. We publish debut and established authors, so I don’t need to see any previous publications; however, if you have any bona fides in the genre, such as membership in HWA, feel free to include those as well.
Deadline: January 6th, 2019
Payment: $0.02/word or $25/story, whichever is greater.
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Supernatural, Eerie Horror
Deadline: January 6, 2020
Release Date: March 19, 2020
Word Count:
* Flash Fiction (500-1,500 words)
* Short Stories (3,000-8,000 words)
* Novella (12,000-25,000 words)
Pay: $0.02/word or $25/story, whichever is greater.
Wanted: Seeking stories that explore the darker side of speculative fiction. We want stories that are scary or disturbing or upsetting, or that wouldn’t be out of place in a collection of Gothic prose or Grimm folktales or dark contemporary fantasy or a dark forest as night comes on … While horror is the name of the game, this anthology is for those stories that might not hit all of the tropes, but still leave us unsettled when the night settles in.
Submission Guidelines
Send all submissions to: [email protected], addressed to the Editor, Rachel A. Brune.
Follow submission guidelines and use the Crone Girls Press Style Guide to format your manuscript before submitting. Please.
If you have any questions, a good place to get a feel for who we are is the Crone Girls Press Facebook Group. Come on in. We won’t bite. Most of us won’t, anyway.
Each anthology will be anchored by one novella, with a mix of short stories and flash fiction. I am primarily looking for short stories to make up the bulk of each anthology, but don’t let that discourage you from submitting.
Reprints and simultaneous submissions are absolutely welcome! If it is a reprint, please be prepared to let us know where it was previously published so we can include that correctly in the anthology. If it is accepted elsewhere, congrats! (But please, let us know.)
One note about diverse protagonists (and characters in general): I find as a writer, sometimes it helps for the anthology call to explicitly indicate their inclusive status. That is what I am doing here.
The determining factors in acceptance or rejection will always be quality of writing, adherence to genre, and general fit with the other stories selected for publication. If you have a story that fits those parameters, send it my way.
Cover letters are not necessary, but if you would like to include one, what I would like to see is a one-sentence logline, word count, and genre. We publish debut and established authors, so I don’t need to see any previous publications; however, if you have any bona fides in the genre, such as membership in HWA, feel free to include those as well.
