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
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
Deadline: July 1st, 2024
Payment: Royalties
Theme: Creature Feature Horror Comedy
After the success of the previous Trailer Park anthologies, we’ve decided to bring it back for another release of fun Creature Feature Horror.
Stories should be original creature-feature, horror-comedy with the same feel as The Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Shaun of the Dead, or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. And of course, our heroes winning the day in all of their redneck glory.
The added challenge this year, should you choose to accept it, volume 4 submissions can have a “Holiday or Vacation” (depending on where in the world you are from) twist to it.
Submission Window: December 1st – 31st, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word and a contributors copy
Theme: Stories about places where weird things happen
Editors Sheree Renée Thomas and Lesley Conner are looking for stories about places where weird things happen. Places that have strange histories, their own traditions and customs, their own dangers. These can be based off real folk tales or old wives tales – think the Mothman in Point Pleasant, WV – or ones that you come up with all on your own. But your story should tell of someone going to one of these places – either intentionally or they just stumble across it – and what happens when they encounter the frightening/strange thing that is in or occurs in that location.
Depending on the Map of Lost Places Kickstarter funding level, we expect to fill the anthology with eight to twelve original stories selected from an open reading period. The Kickstarter will launch on October 10 – click here to be notified as soon as it happens!
In order to avoid duplicates in the open submission call, locations already chosen by the featured authors are listed below. This list will be updated as the authors make their decisions, so be sure to check back!
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Deadline: June 1st, 2024
Payment: Royalties
Theme: Dark Fantasy
Do you love dark and gritty fantasy settings? What about situations of overwhelming odds?
Then you may want to submit to Darkest Shadow, Brightest Light. A Dark Fantasy anthology where the situation can be as grim as you want it to be, even ending in personal tragedy (Death of the heroes), but they need to succeed in the end.
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.
Submission Window: July 17th-31st, 2023
Payment: 10 cents per word
Theme: science fiction, fantasy, horror (everything must have a speculative element, even horror).
Our planned windows are:
David Steffen is the editor, who you may also know from reading The Long List Anthology series or from the Submission Grinder, which you can use to find markets for your writing and track your submissions. Diabolical Plots is a SFWA-qualifying market, so if you have a personal goal to join SFWA, making a sale here would help you toward that goal.
Deadline: October 1st, 2023
Payment: Contributor’s Copies
Theme: Six calls set in different decades with different themes that all have 4 requirements that you can see below
Most people would agree that technical advancements have made our lives easier or, at the very least, more entertaining. But, what about the flip side? What horrors were unleashed for the sake of creation? What monsters emerged as technology evolved?
We invite you to travel back in time with us as we discover the dark side of six decades.
Get creative with the themes. Bring us thrills and chills. Just remember to adhere to the basic guidelines. We can’t wait to experience it.
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?
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