Fireside will open to submissions April 1-30
with guest editor Daniel José Older

Fireside will be looking for original, unpublished flash fiction (1,000 words or less) and original, unpublished short stories up to 5,000 words. We do not ever accept unsolicited submissions of art, novels, novellas, novelettes, or anything else longer than 5,000 words. If you submit a novel or anything way over the word count limits, we’ll probably blacklist you.

We are thrilled to have Daniel on board as a guest editor for this submissions period. Daniel will be selecting stories that will be spread out over a number of issues. Daniel is a fantastic fiction writer and essayist, and he is an essential voice on both writing and social justice. We are lucky to have that reflected in Fireside.

Fireside is able to publish about 10,000 words a month and pay the writers well because of the generosity of our subscribers and Patreon backers. The more we raise each month, the more stories we can buy! (Note: Backers do not receive preferential consideration.)

Please read ALL the guidelines before submitting a story. You can find instructions on how to submit at the end of this page.

Payment, rules, etc.

Fireside pays 12.5 cents per word, with payment on completion of edits. We buy first world publication rights and six-month exclusivity, as well as the right to reprint the story once, non-exclusively, in a Fireside anthology.

 

Please DO NOT resubmit stories that we have previously rejected by Fireside, even if you have revised them. They will be rejected unread.

 

Please DO NOT submit a story that you have already submitted elsewhere but have not heard back from. (Often called simultaneous submission.)

 

You can only submit ONE flash story (up to 1,000 words) and ONE short story (1,000-5,000 words) at a time.

 

A story that you have posted on your blog or website is considered published, please do not submit such stories.

We are not looking for poetry, nonfiction, reviews, art, or anything but fiction.

A word from our guest editor

Greetings and welcome to Fireside Fiction! I’m ridiculously excited and honored to be editing this submissions period and looking forward to reading your stories. Fireside is one of my favorite publications — make sure you take a good look at the previous issues to get a feel for the kind of work we publish.
—Daniel José Older

What we are looking for

Fireside’s goal is to publish great storytelling, regardless of genre. What do we mean by great storytelling? We want stories that go somewhere, with plot and a beginning, middle, and end. We’re not looking for character studies or metafiction or hallucinatory visions. (We LIKE those things; it’s just not what we publish in Fireside.)

 

I’ll let Neil Gaiman say it again, as I have in our Kickstarters. This is from his introduction to his “Stories” anthology, writing of his response to a question about what quote he would want inscribed on the wall of the kids’ section in a public library. He captured the reason why we love good stories in his response:

 

I’m not sure I’d put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface. I think I’d just remind people of the power of stories, of why they exist in the first place. I’d put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear. The ones that show it’s working, and that pages will be turned: “and then what happened?”

 

And yes, we seriously mean any genre. We have published sci-fi, horror, romance, crime, fantasy, Westerns, near-future, and modern non-speculative fiction. The stories were all terrific, and we are looking for more of those and from all the many genres we haven’t explored. Just tell us a good story.

 

Vague? A little. But we think it’s exciting, too. No two issues of Fireside have the same feel, and we hope that makes every issue a little more surprising.

 

If you’re not quite sure if your story fits, please send it and our editors can decide. If you want to get an idea of what we’re looking for, all of our issues are free to read online (there’s links at the bottom of this page).

Diversity

Fireside wants to reflect the endless array of diversity in the world. We welcome stories from all writers, and we are especially interested in stories including (but not limited to) the lives, experiences, and viewpoints of women, people of color, QUILTBAG people, people with disabilities, members of religious minorities, and people outside the United States. We strongly encourage submissions from people of those backgrounds, and all others whom traditional publishing has historically excluded.

Here’s what you should not send

There are some things we absolutely do not want. If you send us stories with these, the story will be rejected and you will be blacklisted:

*Depictions of rape or sexual assault
*Depictions of child molestation or brutalization of children
*Depictions of brutalization of women
*Depictions of brutalization of people with disabilities
*Depictions of graphic torture
*Depictions of animal abuse

This is not saying stories cannot touch on, address, or talk about these issues. But we don’t want these acts illustrated in detail in Fireside.

 

This isn’t negotiable, so don’t ask. If you need to have these things in your story, find a different market. We really do have a blacklist.

What about sex, violence, and profanity?

Sexual content is OK, but we are not a market for erotica. We are also fine with profanity and violence. We’re not looking for gratuitous violence, though.

How to submit

Our system only accepts .doc or .rtf files. Please send the stories in something resembling standard manuscript format. (The SFWA has a good guide to manuscript format.)

There is a space to enter a cover letter, but it isn’t necessary. You can simply enter “n/a”. A cover letter, or lack of one, will not affect your chances either way.

If you have a story rejected, please wait 48 hours to send another.

We are aiming to respond to all stories by May 31. Please do not query about a submission before May 31. After May 31, you can email editor Brian White at [email protected] to query. (Please do NOT send submissions here. Any stories sent to this address will be deleted unread.)

To submit, visit our submissions site.

More questions?

If there’s something we haven’t addressed here, please feel free to email editor Brian White at [email protected]. (Please do NOT send submissions here. Any stories sent to this address will be deleted unread.)