Deadline: October 31st, 2020
Payment: $0.10/word up to 3,000 words for fiction. $300 flat rate above that. $5/poem flat rate for poetry.
Theme: Speculative fiction that astute readers should be able to see how your story addresses the world we live in right now.

What we Publish: Original fiction and poetry, all of which must be broadly “speculative fiction” (science fiction, fantasy, alt-history, magical realism, slipstream, or in some other way altered reality).

Length: 12,000 words or less preferred, but you may submit stories up to 20,000 words. 30 lines or fewer for poetry.

Rights Purchased: First worldwide English-language rights.

Payment: $0.10/word up to 3,000 words for fiction. $300 flat rate above that. $5/poem flat rate for poetry.

Simultaneous Submissions: Accepted. Please let us know immediately if your work sells elsewhere.

Multiple Submissions: Accepted on a trial basis. Please do not dump your entire trunk on us or this will change. For fiction, we recommend not sending us multiple submissions unless there is a compelling reason to do so (in case we send feedback). Please submit each story separately. For poetry, please submit up to 10 poems in a single file.

Reprints: By solicitation only. Query if your work was previously published but obscurely enough that you think it should not count.

Translations: Accepted for first worldwide English publication.

Response Time: We strive to respond to all submissions in less than 90 days.

Query address: departuremirror [at] gmail

Departure Mirror Quarterly stories are:

• Current. Astute readers should be able to see how your story addresses the world we live in right now.
• Well written.
• Accessible to a mainstream American audience.
• Diverse. We mean this not only in terms of the types of stories we publish, but also in terms of the types of authors we publish. Writers from historically underrepresented and oppressed groups are especially encouraged to submit.
• Anti-violence. We do not publish anything that promotes or glorifies violence, including threats of violence and coercion. (Minimum necessary force in self-defense can be acceptable if it is portrayed as regrettable rather than triumphant.) Stories certainly can contain violence (it is a fact of life), but violence should not be shown as the correct solution to the problem. Government-sanctioned violence is violence, so resolution through military action, police use-of-force, capital punishment, etc. is included in this policy. In societies in which laws are enforced through coercion and violence (such as ours), passing a law would also be included in this policy. We accept stories that highlight the inappropriateness violence. We particularly like stories that show us a better way.
• Unexpected. Speak truth to power. Invent something new. Advance a conversation. Subvert a trope. Bring us an unheard voice. Surprise us.

Departure Mirror Quarterly poems are:

• Readable by someone with no formal training in poetry.
• Reflowable. Poems that depend on typography for their meaning do not fare well in two of our three formats. Visual poetry does not work at all.
• Evocative.
• Speculative. Make sure there is a clear SF/F element, please.

We will be closing for submissions on Oct. 31, 2020. We will re-open January 2, 2021 and remain open for the month of January.

Submit via Moksha.

If the link above does not work, we are temporary closed for submissions. In that event, we will post a note here of when we will be reopening. Do not send e-mail submissions to the query address while we are closed for submissions.

Last updated 09 October 2020.

Via: Departure Mirror.