Category: Token Payment

Less than Semi-Pro rates

Taking Submissions: The Lost Poetry Club – September 2024 Window

Deadline: October 31st, 2024
Payment: Over 300 words: £0.015 per word, Under 300 words: £5 flat rate.
Theme: Reverse Mermaid
Note: This is only for audio rights

Reverse Mermaid
Under the moon’s glow, I cast my line into dark, choppy waters, fishing for stories. Something stirs beneath—a ripple, a glint—something waits to be caught. Two eyes break the surface; its scales reflecting the moonlight. Is that a fish… or a man? It’s impossible to say.

Reverse mermaids, strange and unsettling, haunt these depths. Unlike their traditional counterparts, they defy expectations, caught between two worlds in a form that exemplifies the absurd. They are symbols of transgression and transformation, urging us to embrace the parts of ourselves that don’t fit neatly into established categories.

Stories are out there, waiting to be reeled in. With a bucket of maggot sandwiches and the patience to wait, we’re ready for whatever surfaces —absurd scenarios, monstrous creatures in mundane lives, or vice versa, powerful transformations, quirky individuals, nightmares and hallucinations out in the daylight, worlds flipped upside down, and tales of two halves that proudly let our freak flag fly.

The Catch of the Day includes stories, scripts, poems, flash fiction, and songs that champion the eccentric, unique, and unexpected, leaping from the surface level, and pulling us, kicking and screaming, down, down, down into the realm of the extraordinary.

Current Deadline: October 30th, 2024
(more…)

Taking Submissions: How the Sausage is Made!

Deadline: October 31st, 2024
Payment: $5
Theme: Gore, extreme horror, splatterpunk, and horror with sexual elements to it.

We want solid entertaining writing. That has to be clearly stated because we are open to gore, extreme horror, splatterpunk, and horror with sexual elements to it.

Sounds great?

Like anything too good to be true, there is a catch. We have some hard “Nos.” Before you go off about the freedom of expression, remember, this is a web ‘zine, not a government. We donate our time to it and if we’re not getting joy from reading your story we’re not going to publish it.

This website runs on our love of horror. We offer a token payment of $5 USD to support your drug habit, paid upon publication. However, you keep your rights –we don’t want them.

(more…)

Ongoing Submissions: StoSo Times and StoSo Ink

Payment: Contributor’s Copy and $5
Theme: Speculative fiction – that is stories and poems and art in the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, and any combination thereof.

StoSo Press is currently seeking submissions for our new publications StoSo Times and StoSo Ink.

StoSo Times is a monthly online publication that specializes in the genres of Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Horror. StoSo Times will be sent first as a newsletter edition, then shared on our website as part of StoSo Ink. Our goal is to publish at least one story and one poem per genre on our online editions. Every 12 months we will include the year’s publications in a print anthology.

Eventually we plan to expand into publishing novels and nonfiction as it relates to SFFH, such as thought-provoking essays, book reviews and recommendations, author interviews, excerpts from forthcoming books, and other noteworthy industry news. Additionally, we intend to release more SFFH anthologies, video and audio content to further explore the realms of speculative fiction.

If you’re interested in volunteering as a slush reader (or other role) please reach out.

Detailed instructions for submitting to StoSo Press follow.

 

(more…)

Taking Submissions: The Quarterly Journal – In The Dark

Deadline: January 31st, 2024
Payment: $5
Theme: What happens in the dark? What lurks there? Show me those intimate moments—or the ones that will freak me the fuck out. Or any combination therein.

A Literary Journal with Some Art, Comics, and Analysis Thrown in for Good Measure
As Quarter Press continues to grow, we’re adding another coin to our pocketful of change. We want to offer a space for shorter works to mingle with art and other bits of nonsense, so we bring you The Quarter(ly): It just makes cents.

Issues are themed; however, we consider all interpretations.
Please Note: All submission windows may be closed early if “full.”

2024’s Themes and Deadlines:

In the Dark (Jan. 31)

(more…)

Ongoing Submissions: StoSo Times

Payment: $5
Theme: Speculative fiction – that is stories and poems and art in the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, and any combination thereof.

StoSo accepts submissions on a rolling basis — no reading periods and no reading/submission fees!

All submissions will be considered for both StoSo Times and StoSo Ink.

All submissions should follow proper manuscript format (modern edition, preferably). Submissions should be emailed to [email protected]. Please attach all submissions in .doc format—we will not accept submissions embedded in the body of email. Include your bio in your cover letter. The subject line of your email should follow this format: SUBMISSION: [TITLE] (GENRE) (PROSE/POEM)

If your submission is selected for publication, you may receive an email from the Editor-in-Chief with suggested edits. Once edits are agreed upon, the piece will be scheduled for publication.

What We Publish: We’re looking for speculative fiction – that is stories and poems and art in the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, and any combination thereof.

(more…)

Contest: The Drabble Harvest Contest

Deadline: June 30th, 2023
Prizes: $5 for first place, $2 for second place, all others accepted are $1 per drabble
Theme: A drabble with the idea of: Space Station Duty-Free

A “drabble” is defined as a short story containing exactly precisely no more and no fewer than 100 words. It has a title, which can be from 1 to 15 words– but no more than 15. That’s a drabble.

You have to count each word. Hyphenated words, such as tete-a-tete, count as one word. Don’t use your word count tool to count the words, because that tool will count an ellipsis ( . . . ) as three words, which really should not be counted at all. It will also count dashes ( – ) as words, which is wrong. So count each word by sight, not by tool.


Our drabble contests have themes. For each contest, we will simply throw the theme out there. Whatever the theme inspires you to write, that’s what you write.


The theme of this contest is:

Space Station Duty-Free

This should be self-explanatory. What would people/aliens try to smuggle in? Or out?

(more…)

Taking Submissions: The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen & Other Things that Should Not Be

Deadline: March 15th, 2023
Payment: $5 USD per 1000 words
Theme: Lovecraftian Inspired Cosmic Horror

What lurks in the deep? Who listens from the shadows? What sorts of abominable experiments are taking place at the mysterious ivy-covered university? We want your Lovecraftian tales.

Deadline: March 15, 2023.

(more…)

Taking Submissions: Jane Nightshade’s Serial Encounters

Deadline: August 30th, 2023
Payment: $5
Theme: Short stories about casual encounters of fictional people with serial killers

Have you ever wondered about the ordinary people who came in contact with famous serial killers before everyone knew them for their depraved, murderous acts?

What did Jeffrey Dahmer’s plumber experience when he unclogged the notorious cannibal’s toilet? Or how about the guy who worked in the music shop where Charles Manson had his guitars strung? The girl who waited on Ted Bundy at his favorite coffee shop? Jack the Ripper’s neighborhood bartender? How about one of the kids who had John Wayne Gacey perform as a clown at their birthday party?

For this anthology, we’re looking for short stories about casual encounters of fictional people with serial killers, that turned creepy or deadly. Stories can be straight crime/thriller stories or ones with a supernatural bent (haunted objects, ghosts, demons, etc.).

Characters and victims, aside from the serial killers, must be fictional—real names of victims or family members can not be used. Also, feel free to use lesser-known killers like Richard Speck or The Boston Strangler, in case the Bundy and Manson stories start piling up like the bodies of their victims…

Note: Stories should not lionize or celebrate the serial killers, or promote racism, bigotry, or depictions of violence against children.

(more…)