Submission Window: January 23rd-30th, 2024
Payment: €0.01 per word, with a €20 minimum.
Theme: Diverse sci-fi and fantasy fiction.

We are open to submissions within the following periods:

• January 23rd-30th
• April 23rd-30th
• July 23rd-30th
• October 23rd-30th

Submissions received outside of these dates will unfortunately be lost and therefore not responded to. When open, we seek and offer the following:

• Length: 1,000-5,000 words. These are firm limits. Shorter or longer works will be considered, but the further a story goes outside these bounds the more it will need to impress.
• Compensation: €0.01 per word, with a €20 minimum. Please be aware that payment is via PayPal only.

If you do not receive an acknowledgment within 24 hours of submission, please get in touch. We aim to accept or reject within 14 days of acknowledgment, but rl (real life) and rl (reading load) can get in the way. If you do not hear from us after 30 days, feel free to query.

REQUIREMENTS

We acquire First Print and Digital rights with a six month period of exclusivity from the date of publication. We also ask permission to potentially include accepted pieces in future anthologies; in event of agreement, an additional payment and digital copy will be offered in compensation. All other rights remain entirely with the author.

Simultaneous submissions are not only accepted, they are encouraged. Please tell us if you sim-sub, and we merely ask that you notify us of acceptance at another market as soon as possible. In the event that we accept first, we expect a positive and timely confirmation. Therefore we recommend sim-subbing to markets of equivalent status – we won’t wait for someone else you’d like better to turn you down.

We do not accept multiple submissions. Please wait until your first submission has been rejected before submitting another work.

If a story has previously been rejected by Mythaxis, please do not resubmit or inquire regarding doing so, unless explicitly invited to by the editor during the original rejection.

Feedback: Unfortunately, due to increased submission volume, it is no longer possible for us to offer feedback to all authors requesting it. This is a regretful necessity, but without the time required to say something meaningful feedback loses its value. We may, however, offer some comments when rejecting strong candidate pieces along with an invitation to revise and resubmit.

If you absolutely do not want to receive feedback in the event of rejection, informing us during submission is absolutely acceptable.

Reprints: We do not currently invite reprint submissions.

All submissions must be the original work of the author. This is not a market for fan fiction. If your story is a retelling, pastiche, or homage to an existing work, please mention in your email the source you are alluding to.

Content note: We anticipate an adult readership in the sense of maturity, so reasonable depictions of violence, sexuality, philosophy, or bad language are acceptable. However, this is not a market for pornographic or offensively extreme content, categorisation of which is at the editor’s discretion.

We welcome writers of any and all backgrounds and invite submissions exploring diverse perspectives and experiences both cultural and personal, provided they do not seek to attack or demean those of others.

Finally, if you would like to know more about our editorial policy, read on here. Any inquiries can be directed to the editor at the following email address.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Email files as an attachment to: [email protected]

Please use an email subject line like MYTHAXIS SUBMISSION – YOUR STORY TITLE to evade spam filters (and when we say “your story title”, we don’t mean that literally…).

Feel free to include a concise cover letter and/or author bio, though neither is mandatory. Mythaxis welcomes authors of all levels of experience. We have a history of publishing first-time authors, and we mean to continue this tradition.

If you track your submissions, you can find Mythaxis Magazine on The Submissions Grinder and Duotrope.

FORMATTING GUIDELINES

File types: Acceptable attachments are DOC, DOCX, and ODT (plus RTF, if you absolutely have to). Do not submit in PDF format.

Manuscript formatting: We recommend using Shunn’s excellent Modern Manuscript formatting guide, but in particular consider the following:

• Please use an easy-reading font (Times New Roman 12pt is preferred).
• Use automatic paragraph formatting to set indents or paragraph breaks. Do not manually insert lines between paragraphs. Do not use tabs or hit the space bar some number of times for first-line indents.
• Use a single centred # to represent essential section breaks.
• Use italics for italics, don’t underline. Smart (“curly”) punctuation is preferred, but consistency is preferred more.
• If your manuscript includes any unusual formatting, please alert the editors when submitting and have a really good, story-related reason.

Attachment filenames: Please consider using the format < title >< authorname >.doc for your attachment filename. This aids greatly in alphabetical document management. Examples of good filenames are:

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle
• TheVeryHungryCaterpillar_Carle
• the-very-hungry-caterpillar (including the author in the filename is entirely optional)
• VeryHungryCaterpillar (omitting “the” is not a disaster, but for the sake of three letters why not keep it?)

Filenames that lead with the author’s name, use an abbreviated title or other weird variations make them harder to find. This risks annoying the editor moments before he reads your story. Examples of bad filenames are:

• Carle – The Very Hungry Caterpillar (you know who you are)
• Mythaxis – The Very Hungry Caterpillar (we know who we are)
• Caterpillar / Hungry_draft3 / submission_copy caterpillar / april2023-caterpillar / etc
• Before the Butter Flies (use the same title as in your email, damnit)

The editor knows he is wasting his time suggesting this, but is allowed to dream of a better world.

A NOTE ON “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE”

We do not invite submissions featuring prose created by generative “artificial intelligence”, algorithmic systems, large language models, or similar tools.

We recognise the importance of authorial ownership when it comes to an individual’s rights. The questionable provenance of AI-derived content, and the uncertain legality of claiming “authorship” of the output of AI tools, means that knowingly signing a contract of sale for an AI-generated submission would be inappropriate. We hope that submitting authors will respect our position.

In the past, Mythaxis has experimented with generative image tools and used data analytics to investigate the nature of the stories submitted to us. We documented these experiences in a number of editorials (see Issue 28 for art, Issues 31, 32, and 33 for data analysis, plus our final round up here). All data analysed was always fully anonymised and never employed tools capable of producing derivative creative works.

Via: Mythaxis.