Deadline: June 30th 2012
Payment: Undisclosed amount and contributor’s copy

Cast your minds back a couple of months, to when I announced that Spectral will be publishing an annual Christmas Ghost Story anthology, starting in December 2012, in the same tradition as the annuals of the Victorian/Edwardian era. In that same blog I said I would release details of the submission process this January, and that time has duly arrived – so interested parties please read the following carefully!!

Unlike the chapbooks, this is an open call for submissions from ALL authors (including those writers already published, or are due to be published, by Spectral). What we are looking for are ghostly/supernatural tales of between 5,000 and 10,000 words, set around the time of the Christmas/Mid-winter celebrations. Think of the kind of thing that MR James and Charles Dickens would have written at this time of year and you’ll be on the right track. The stories should primarily rely on atmosphere, tension, suspense, suggestion and implication to send shivers down peoples’ spines: whilst we are not averse to something of the more visceral kind (provided it works within the context of the story), we are not looking for slasher/unhinged psychopath with a sharp instrument/serial killer or gore-filled fiction.
The final format or formats has/have yet to be decided.
Please send submissions, in a Word attachment please, to spectralpress[AT]gmail[DOT]com, with the subject line ‘Spectral Christmas Ghost Story Annual 2012 – submission’. Please do NOT paste your story into the body of the email – if this happens then your submission will be ignored. The deadline for stories to reach us is June 30th 2012 – stories submitted after this date will not be considered. All stories must be original, with the copyright belonging to the author in question, and must not have been published or submitted elsewhere. The editor will endeavour to acknowledge receipt of stories received, but if there is a veritable deluge then you may not hear from us immediately. The authors of the chosen stories will be notified of their acceptance in the second-half of the year, when work on the book and editing begins.
So all you writers out there, even though 2012 has barely begun, get your thinking caps on and start coming up with ideas for this exciting new anthology. Who knows, this might be the start of a revival of a venerable tradition!!
Look forward to hearing from you!!
EDIT – there WILL be a small payment for each story accepted, plus copies of the physical book for each author.

[via: Spectral Press.]