Category: Semipro

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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Ongoing Submissions: Mystery Magazine

Payment: 2 cents CAD per word
Theme: Crime mystery of every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries.
Note: Not to be confused with Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

Use the form below (link at the bottom) to send us your 1000-7500 word story or You-Solve-It mystery. Multiple submissions are not allowed. Submissions must be original works of short fiction that have never appeared online or in print in any form. Avoid scenes of animal cruelty or excessive profanity/violence. We pay 2¢/word USD for accepted stories. Our average response time is 4-6 weeks.

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Taking Submissions: Diet Milk Magazine Spring/Summer 2023 Issue Window

Submission Window: December 1st 2023 – January 8th, 2024
Payment: $15 per poem, $0.01 per word ($40 minimum) for short stories, and $50 per art piece via PayPal
Theme: Gothic stories, no set genre

Opens on Friday, December 1, 2023 12:00 AM UTC (in 24 days)

From December 1st – January 8th, Diet Milk Magazine will be accepting submissions for its Spring/Summer issue. We will be open to poetry, prose, and visual art of all kinds. While the most detailed information can be found on our website, here’s a quick rundown of what potential contributors need to know!

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

  • All submissions must fall under the Gothic umbrella, but aren’t required to be a specific genre
  • No reprints or multiple submissions
  • Simultaneous submissions permitted, though we ask to be informed promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere!
  • Poetry/Prose submissions should be .doc.docx, or .pdf // Art submissions should be .jpeg or .png
  • If you receive a rejection, you may submit again (with new work) immediately

P O E T R Y :

Poets may submit up to three poems at a time. No single poem should exceed five pages in length.

P R O S E :

Authors may submit one short story at a time, up to 5000 words. This doesn’t have to be on the dot, but stories exceeding 5025 words will be rejected automatically.

A R T :

Artists may submit up to two pieces at a time. We’ll consider any type of visual art. If you’re unsure whether or not your work falls into this category, query us first. Reach out to [email protected] using the subject line “QUERY: YourName [ART SUB]”. We’ll let you know within 24 hours if your preferred medium is eligible.

Responses, Rights, & Payment

  • Please allow up to three weeks for a response. After that, send a gentle nudge via email
  • Diet Milk Magazine asks for first serial rights. Upon publication, all rights revert back to the creator. A contract will be provided upon acceptance
  • All payments made via PayPal.

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Taking Submissions: Diet Milk Magazine In The Bleak Midwinter

Submission Window: October 1st – 31st, 2023
Payment: Microfiction: $3 per piece, Flash Fiction $5 per piece
Theme: Gothic stories

From October 1st – 31st, Diet Milk Magazine will be accepting micro and flash fiction for its December series, IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER. Twenty-five works will be chosen to be posted from December 1st through Christmas to our website and boosted on twitter.

At the end of the month, all pieces will be compiled into an easy-to-read .PDF and made available for free (though donations are appreciated!) on our issues shop.

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

  • All submissions must fall under the Gothic umbrella, but aren’t required to be a specific genre
  • No reprints or multiple submissions
  • Simultaneous submissions permitted, though we ask to be informed promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere!
  • Submissions should be .doc.docx, or .pdf format
  • If you receive a rejection, you may submit again (with new work) immediately

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Taking Submissions: NonBinary Review #35

Deadline: February 1st, 2023
Payment: Fiction: 1¢ per word, Poetry: $10 flat fee, Artwork: $25 flat fee (Cover art is $50)
Theme: Lies for Children

NonBinary Review is open for submissions on the theme of “lies for children.”

“If you keep making that face, it’ll freeze that way.” “We found you under a cabbage leaf.” “If you drink coffee, it’ll stunt your growth.” “If you go to sleep with wet hair, you’ll catch pneumonia.”

Adults tell children some outrageous lies. Think back to your own childhood and explanations your parents gave you for things you didn’t understand or superstitions they perpetuated. Why do adults feel that children need credulity-straining fictions rather than objective truths? What things do we find so uncomfortable that we can’t explain them to children? How do those lies affect our relationship with the children we lied to, or the adults who lied to us? Some of these lies are benevolent (although kind of weird), but some can be trauma-inducing. We want to hear the stories behind those lies, and the consequences they engendered.

We’re NOT looking for fairy tales, re-tellings of children’s bedtime stories, tall tales, Santa Claus/Easter bunny/tooth fairy origin stories, or any other fictions that even children know are stories told for fun.

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Taking Submissions: Best of British Science Fiction 2023

Deadline: December 17th, 2023
Payment: 1p a word up to £50.00 and a contributors copy
Theme: Science fiction stories published by British authors in 2023

Best of British Science Fiction 2023
is now open for submissions.
We are seeking science fiction stories (not fantasy or any other flavour of genre in this instance) that were first published during 2023. Authors must be British, Irish, British-based or ex-pats.
This is a reprint anthology, so we are not interested in seeing previously unpublished work on this occasion.

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Taking Submissions: Year of the Tarot: Blades/Swords (Early)

Submission Window: September 1st – 30th, 2023
Payment: 1 cent per word Canadian
Theme: Blades/Swords

Welcome to our four-book series, dedicated to horror inspired by the Tarot. 

Does the story have to be about Tarot Cards… NO. Think cups, knives, wands, and pentacles. We are looking for the theme to be the element, not necessarily the card itself, although we would love to read that as well. 

Chalice – Pentacles – Blades – Wands

**Patron Members get an extended submission window**

March 1- 31: Chalice  (Patron dates Feb 21 – April 7)

June 1- July 7 Pentacles (Patron dates May 23 – July 14)

Sept 1- 30: Blades/Swords  (Patron dates August 24 – October 7)

Dec 1- 31: Wands (Patron dates November 23 – January 7)

Each book will have an overriding theme of a Tarot suit and be between 50k – 60k words in length. They will be stand-alone books but will make up a four-book series.

​​Word count: 1500 – 7000 firm.

Payment: Flat rate payment ¢1 per word CAD after approved edits.

Reprints? No

​Multiple Submission? No 💀 Only one submission per author per theme/quarter. 

​Formatting:

  • Please use 12 pt Times New Roman, 1.5 line spacing, set auto-indent new paragraphs.

  • Add the story title to the top of the manuscript.

  • Do not include your name or email in the manuscript. These stories will be read “blind” by our reading team.

  • Title your manuscript “Title of Story – Theme” for example “Borderline Nuisance – Tarot Wands”
    Please make sure the title of the story and the title on the manuscript match.

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Ongoing Submissions: Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond

Payment: 4 cents per word
Theme: Short fiction is back in Eric Flint’s 1632 universe
Note: Yes the magazine claims to have rights to be able to produce fiction set in the 1632 universe!

Short fiction is back in the 1632 Universe!

 

Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond will publish six issues per year,

on the first day of odd-numbered months.

 

Is this from Ring of Fire Press or 1632 Inc.?

It’s from a new company, Flint’s Shards Inc.

 

Do you have permission?

Yes, we have a contract with Lucille Robbins, Eric Flint’s widow and heir.

We will also coordinate closely with Baen Books to maintain the canon continuity for which the 1632 series is known.

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