Deadline: July 15th, 2019
Payment: 6 cents per word, 1 cent per word for reprints
Note: Reprints accepted

Frozen Wavelets is an e-zine of speculative flash fiction and poetry, offspring of The Earthian Hivemind. This means that some of the accepted pieces will appear on a dedicated section of this blog, before being included in one of the e-zine issues (published quarterly). Issue #1 is set for publication in November 2019.

When: the first submission period will run between 1 – 15 July 2019. Anything sent before or after will be deleted unread. I’ll communicate future dates as soon as I can.

Where: submissions have to be sent to: submissions AT frozenwavelets DOT com. Please submit your piece indicating the typology in the subject line. For instance: SUBMISSION: [STORY / POETRY – TITLE].

What: Original flash fiction of 750 words or less. No minimum. If you can write a (convincing) story in six words (and Hemingway showed it’s possible), go for it. Twitterfiction, Drabbles, 50 words, all welcome. I love haiku, tanka, senryu, and short poetry in general, but no more than 10 lines anyway. [I welcome speculative art too, even though I’ll commission most of the initial stuff. Please contact me with proposals.]

Rights asked: First Worldwide exclusive electronic/print rights for 6 months from the first appearance, be it on the blog or in the ezine; non-exclusive electronic rights afterwards (archival and for possible inclusion in thematic / Best of anthologies). All other rights remain with you.

Payment: I pay pro-rate (0.06 $ as for SFWA rates until September 2019, 0.08 $ afterwards) with fix amounts for microfiction & poetry (I don’t want headaches. Just to be clear, the amount is equal or higher than pro-rate in word count terms). I pay on acceptance.

Reprints: While I prefer original fiction, I do accept reprints for fiction pieces between 500-1500 words, paid at semi-pro rate (0.01 $), provided you own the rights and let me know the publication history. Please add “REPRINT” in the subject line. Reprints for microfiction and poetry by invitation only.

Simultaneous and multiple submissions: no simultaneous, please. I’ll get back to you with a hold or a pass within 30 days at the latest (but generally sooner than that). No multiple in the same category. One original and one reprint are allowed at the same time for fiction. Up to 5 poems/haiku can be submitted in the same document.

Topics, Language & Hard Sells: nothing is forbidden here, provided is original (i.e., NO fanfiction) and remains in the SSF&H domain. I encourage writers to push boundaries, in format and topics. Tell me something I haven’t thought of (yet), and tell it well.

Hard Sells:

• Torture
• Vampires
• Gore and splatter for the sake of it (I had too much of that in my teen years as any true horror fan). Incidentally, I am a HWA Active Member, so I read every year submissions for the Stoker Awards. You need to do pretty well to sell me this stuff.
• Romance
• Racist / misogynist / white-supremacist discourse. No comments here, but you get my drift. If I want to hear any of it, I’d tune on my BBC channel: plenty of assholes who offer it for free. Needless to say, this e-zine is a QUILTBAG safe place. If you don’t like it or it offends your sensibilities, it’s your own business. Don’t read, don’t submit.
• Vampires (I know I’ve already written it. It’s to impress on you how much I *don’t* like them). Unless you’re Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

On the other hand, I love dry humour, and foul language doesn’t put me off. I prefer rigorous science in my SF, but I read everything and like even other types. I appreciate (good) horror in all forms and declinations, while I’m definitively pickier for fantasy, and I tend to favour dark fantasy above all. Genre-bending and slipstream welcome, and so they are mystery and thriller in a speculative context. Oh, and I love speculative fiction in translation. You’re welcome to send your translated pieces, but in this case, also include the original.

Submission guidelines: the usual stuff. 12-p Times New Roman or Arial, double-spaced, indentation, 1-inch margins, no header or footer. However, only .RTF or .PAGES (if you use Mac).

Please DO NOT put your name on the manuscript. Add anything you deem necessary for me to know on the cover letter, but I encourage you to keep it short and to the point (no idea how to write one? Have a look at this post by Alex Shvartsman). I’m buying (or rejecting) your story, not you; there’s not a lot I need to know anyway. If you make a sale, I’ll ask for a proper bio and social media links.

Rejection letters: I use forms, so don’t read anything in them apart from the fact that I have time constraints (i.e. a full-time job and young kids to take care of). Remember: I buy what I think it’s right for this particular zine, not a piece of literature, as good as it can be. Like many things in life, it’s a matter of (personal) taste, nothing more, nothing different.

If you need to query, please put QUERY on the subject line, otherwise it will land straight into my trash folder once the submission period is closed.

I look forward to reading your work!

Via: Frozen Wavelets.