Deadline: October 15th
Payment: 6 cents per word, receive a free 12-month subscription to Apex Magazine and a short story critique from an Apex editor. Stories for critique can be up to 5,000 words long.

Halloween is coming and with it the vampire, zombie, witch, and ghost stories will creep into your hands and whisper “Boo” in your ear. Now I love a good ghost story. Witches are wicked. Zombies give me the chills. And vampires are grand. But…

But there’s more out there. Monsters waiting in the wings to give you a fright. And they want their moment to shine!

I went to Twitter to ask you, the Apex readers, what monsters you’d like to see steal the spotlight, and did you ever have suggestions. Everything from wendigos to banshees to Jekyll and Hyde.

So tell me a story.

After the huge success of our Christmas micro fiction contest last year (over 500 submissions!), we’ve decided to do it again. This time with the monsters that are often forgotten. The ones who’s stories don’t get told.

Here’s the nitty-gritty:

There will be five categories: sea monsters, black dog/Hellhounds, banshees, science experiments gone wrong, and demons (this can include wendigos, succubus, be creative). Write a story to fit one of these five categories, then submit it to [email protected] with the subject line formatted as Title, Author, Category.
This is a micro fiction contest. Stories must be 250 words or less. If a story is more than 250 words, it will be deleted unread.
You can submit one story per category, five stories total. If you submit two banshee stories, we will consider the first story your submission.
Send each story as a separate email with the story in the body of the email. No attachments, please.
Submissions are open September 1st through October 15th. Submissions will be read by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner.
Winners will be announced on Halloween on the Apex blog. There will be one winner per category.
We’re going to give every writer who submits a free issue of Apex Magazine. Head over to the Apex Magazine website and check out our back catalog. Let me know which issue peaks your fancy when you submit and I’ll send you a download link.

So that’s what I need from you, but I’m sure you want to know what you get if you win. The winning stories will get the spotlight turned on them in the November issue of Apex Magazine. The authors will be paid 6 cents per word, receive a free 12-month subscription to Apex Magazine and a short story critique from an Apex editor. Stories for critique can be up to 5,000 words long.

And that’s it. Write me a story. Bring me your Halloween best and scare me. And see if you win.

If you have any questions send them to me (Lesley) at [email protected].

Via: Apex Book Company.