Category: Semipro

Taking Submissions: Don’t Ask, Ghosts Tell

Submission Window: March 1st – April 30th, 2024
Payment: $0.03/word
Theme: Strong, character-driven stories where your main characters struggle in some way with their ghosts—or the ghosts of others—against truths being either suppressed or exposed
Note: Open to those who identify as LGBTQ+

Theme: “Truths can be hidden, pushed down, and repressed, from those around us. But the ghosts—of our past, our present, and our future—know our most intimate truths. We cannot hide from our ghosts. For Don’t Ask, Ghosts Tell, we’re looking for strong, character-driven stories where your main characters struggle in some way with their ghosts—or the ghosts of others—against truths being either suppressed or exposed. In these stories, the outcomes can be varied—truths remain hidden, or truths exposed—to whatever consequence(s) to the main character. Will your character(s) be silenced by their ghosts? Will the truth set them free—or doom them to some horrible fate? Your latitude with this basic theme is wide and interpretation is strongly encouraged.” ~ Vince A. Liaguno

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Taking Submissions: The Cafe Irreal May 2024 Issue

Deadline: April 1st, 2024
Payment: One cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum)
Theme: Fantastic Fiction You really NEED to read the description below.

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.

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Taking Submissions: Weird Horror Magazine March 2024 Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: March 2nd – March 15th, 2024
Payment: 2¢ (2-cents) per word , with a $25 minimum and $100 maximum and 2 contributor’s copies
Theme: Horror and weird fiction from 500 to 5,000 words, firm.

OPENS: March 2, 2024

CLOSES: March 15, 2024

We are seeking horror and weird fiction from 500 to 5,000 words, firm. Query first if your story is over 5,000 words. We are a home for the strange, the macabre, the eerie, the esoteric, the fabulist, and the gothic. The darkly numinous. The odd. We are not interested in extreme horror. Do not send science fiction or fantasy.

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Taking Submissions: Hearth Stories 2024 Spring Window (Early Listing)

Submission Window: March 1st–31st, 2024
Payment: 1¢ per word for accepted stories (with a minimum of $20 regardless of length).
Theme: Speculative fiction that explores connection, family, relationships, comfort, and the natural world.

Reading periods/When to send

Submissions will be open as follows:

  • March 1st–31st (closing at 10pm PST on the 31st), for a June release
  • September 1st–30th (closing at 10pm PST on the 30th), for a December release

What to send

Hearth Stories publishes speculative fiction slice-of-life stories with a focus on connection, family, relationships, comfort, and the natural world.

We accept works from 1,000 words up to 10,000. However, the ideal length may be something in the 1,500-3,500 word range. We do not currently accept poetry, non-fiction, or non-speculative work (there needs to be a fantasy or science fiction element present in the work).

Some things we like:

  • Cozy, sweet, cute, kind, hopeful stories
  • Caregiving, parenting, friendship, relationship, and partnership stories
  • Rural/pastoral life and less technologically advanced settings
  • Works that take place in nature
  • Stories involving food and cooking (we are vegan; stories that feature animal products will result in a pass or a request for removal of the animal products)
  • Stories involving hermits, issolated places, or wandering in the woods
  • Bonus points for stories backed by vegan, anarchist, eco-conscious, and anti-capitalist themes (while still fitting the above)

You may notice that none of those things have anything to do with science fiction or fantasy. We would like speculative stories with the above themes and settings. We are very into slice of life stories, the ruralism of Richard Jefferies (ruralism in general, extending to so-called “cottagecore”), and stories in general that take place in wooded places. We like witches and magic, new world stories (usually terraformed planets), alien worlds, and the small adventures of daily life. We accept simultaneous submissions (but we do not accept multiple submissions at the same time, unless specifically requested).

 

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Ongoing Submissions: Interzone

Payment: (EUR) 1.5¢ per word (one and one-half euro cents)
Theme: Fantastika (“the fantastic in literature as a whole, encompassing science fiction, Fantasy, fantastic horror and their various subgenres (see also Gothic SF; Horror in SF; SF Megatext), but not Proto SF. It is a concept normally restricted to narratives.”)

Hello.

First of all, —Interzone is always open to unsolicited submissions of fantastika of between 2,000 and 17,500 words from everyone, whoever or wherever you are.

If you aren’t sure what is included under the umbrella of fantastika, check out the fabulous entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

I want to read stories that tell of change and transformation; stories that describe the boundlessness of the human soul. I want to see writers experiment and take risks with stories that wend their way through the labyrinth of this world, and with stories that string bridges of their own creation to places I have never seen.

Submit stories that rend the heart, shock the brain, and leave the world a different place.

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Taking Submissions: Dracula Beyond Stoker Issue #5

Submission Window: May 1st – June 15th, 2024
Payment: Contributors copies, 5 cents per word for original work, $55 for reprints, undisclosed sum for cover artwork
Theme: Lucy’s Suitors – Quincey, Jack, and/or Arthur

Issue 5: Lucy’s Suitors – Quincey, Jack, and/or Arthur (To be published November, 2024)
Quincey was a cowboy who may or may not have been in cahoots with the count.

Seward was a drug addicted custodian of a lunatic asylum.

And Arthur was there, too!

Let’s read some stories of these men – together, individually, in combination – before, during, and after the events of the novel. Did Quincey survive as the undead? How did Jack treat his other patients? When the dust settled, did Holmwood completely break down? Stoker tells us these three men adventured together prior. What might that look like?

Currently this is planned as a single book, but quantity and quality may dictate a book for each man.

Submissions open May 1, 2024-June 15, 2024. Submissions received earlier will be read and considered but will not be responded to until the window opens.
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Ongoing Submissions: Heathen Magazine

Payment: $0.05 per word
Theme: Horror and dark fantasy fiction

Heathen is a new literary magazine and multimedia platform spotlighting the best in horror and dark fantasy fiction. Released quarterly in a digital medium, the stories you’ll find in Heathen will be available in both text and audio formats. Once a year, the most-read (and listened to) stories will be collected in a physical annual.

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Taking Submissions: Flashpoint Science Fiction 2024 Open Window #1

Submission Window: January 15th – March 31st, 2024
Payment: $0.02 per word
Theme: Science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between
Note: Reprints Welcome

We are open to submissions:
Jan. 15 – Mar. 31
May 15 – Jul. 31
Sep. 15 – Nov. 30

Before submitting, please read the writer’s guidelines below.

Story Guidelines

Flash Point Science Fiction wants speculative fiction stories from 100 to 1,000 words in length. Send us your science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between, so long as it’s short. We here at FPSF are partial to flash fiction and want to see the flash market grow. So as much as it pains us, please take your 10,000 word tour de force elsewhere. We’re not looking for the next Brandon Sanderson. (Unless you are, in fact, Brandon Sanderson, in which case we’d be delighted!)

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