Deadline: July 31st, 2018
Payment: 6 cents per word for original work and 3 cents per word for reprints.
Note: Reprints allowed

We are looking for speculative stories–science fiction, fantasy, horror–with Christian themes, characters, or cosmology, and for artwork for this site.

Fiction Guidelines

Technical details

• Stories can be up to 8000 9000 words (thanks, Patreon supporters!). This is a hard limit–our submission system will enforce it.
• We pay 6 cents/word for original stories (or original translations of stories that have not previously appeared in English), and 3 cents/word for reprints.
  • Authors are paid once we’ve agreed on edits and signed a contract, prior to earliest publication (generally on our Patreon page).
• We are seeking 6 months’ exclusive worldwide publication rights for original works (with exceptions for established Best of the Year anthologies), and non-exclusive worldwide print and electronic rights thereafter for both original works and reprints.
  • We want to publish your story online in our webzine and keep it there indefinitely.
  • We’re also acquiring the right to offer ebook versions of the stories we publish, as Patreon rewards or for purchase; and to publish a print and ebook anthology of all the stories that appeared in the webzine over a given 1- or 2-year period.
  • For original fiction, we want to be the only place publishing it for the first 6 months; after that, you’re welcome to publish it anywhere else in any format you like.
• No multiple or simultaneous submissions.
• Don’t resubmit a story we’ve rejected unless we request revisions.
  • However, if we rejected a story of yours for the Mysterion anthology, you can send it to us again, once, if we held your story for further consideration, or we rejected it with specific critiques of the story and you revised the story to address those critiques. (But if we’ve already rejected your story twice, it’s probably not worth sending it to us a third time.)
• We hope to have responded to everyone within one month of the submission window’s closing. Feel free to query ([email protected]) if it’s been longer than two months.
  • Update: We have now responded to everything received during our January submission window, so if you haven’t heard from us, please let us know ASAP!
• Format requirements:
  • Stories must be double spaced, in 12-point Courier or Times New Roman font.
  • The story title, your byline, a word count, and contact information should appear on the first page, and your last name, story title, and page number should appear in the header information of all other pages.
  • We’re not particular about whether you use italics or underlining for emphasis, how many spaces are after the period, or whether you use straight or smart quotes.
• Stories should be submitted via the Moksha submissions system: https://mysterion.moksha.io/publication/mysterion.
• Submit your stories in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format.
• Your cover letter should contain a list of your three or four most prestigious publications (if any), and any pertinent biographical details: tell us if you’re an astronaut writing about space travel, but not if you’re an astronaut writing about the elf-dwarf war. Invert that if you’re an elf. If you’ve met us in person, feel free to mention it. Finally, let us know if the story is previously published and where it first appeared–even if it appeared on your blog or Twitter feed. Don’t try to summarize your story or explain why it’s a good fit for our anthology (if it’s a good fit, we should be able to tell by reading it).

Theme guidelines

• The story must have a speculative element. It needs something beyond the everyday. We love science fiction and fantasy, enjoy good ghost stories, and think there’s great fiction material hidden in the mysteries of Christian theology–cherubim, leviathan, nephilim, visions, prophecy, and more.
• The story must engage with Christianity. We want stories with Christian characters whose faith affects their actions, with Christian themes such as grace and redemption, or with a Christian view of the supernatural. Note that we’re not saying that you must be a Christian. We are not in a position to judge your faith and won’t try, and we welcome submissions from authors of all backgrounds and perspectives. Nor does your story need to be unambiguously pro-Christian. If you can tell a good story that meaningfully engages with Christianity, we want to read it.
• Read more about what we’re looking for in our Theme Guidelines.
• For even more information, see our posts on what we want.

Via: Mysterion.