Submission Window: October 1st – December 1st, 2023
Payment: $0.10 CAD per word
Theme: horror/dark fiction anthology in the vein of previous anthologies of Canadian speculative fiction
Note: Canadian Authors Only

“Deep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously in the jaws of the wilderness. The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass beneath the stars. The cold air pricked. In the draughts of night that poured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messages from distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there lay already the faint, bleak odors of coming winter.” — Algernon Blackwood, The Wendigo

“Canadians are fond of a good disaster, especially if it has ice, water, or snow in it. You thought the national flag was about a leaf, didn’t you? Look harder. It’s where someone got axed in the snow.” — Margaret Atwood, Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature

Northern Nights is a proposed horror/dark fiction anthology in the vein of previous anthologies of Canadian speculative fiction — Northern Stars (Hartwell & Grant, eds.); Northern Suns (Hartwell & Grant, eds.) — and the 5 volume Northern Frights series (Don Hutchison, ed).

Black glassy lakes. Dark woods. Ancient pines and maples. Abandoned highways. Ghost towns. Preternatural light. The Midnight Sun. Uncanny valleys. An indigo sky spiked with bright white stars. The darkening garden. The sting of the whooshing north wind. The killing cold. A cry in the dark. It’s another night in the Canadian north. Night and all its torments.

 OPENS: Oct. 1, 2023

 CLOSES: Dec. 1, 2023

 Anticipated publication date: Fall 2024

 Who Can Submit

Canadian citizens / permanent residents / those residing within lands claimed by Canada / expats.

What We Want

Looking for horror and horror-adjacent dark weird fiction, ideally set in Canada and incorporating a motif of night / nighttime/ dusk/ darkness.

We will consider all facets and subsets of dark fiction: the horrific, the weird, the strange, the macabre, the eerie, the esoteric, the fabulist, and the gothic. The darkly numinous. The odd. The criminal.

NOTE – We are not considering stories written, co-written, created, or assisted by AI and machine-learning languages such as ChatGPT. Do not send them.

Stories should be between 500 and 5,000 words.

We are seeking first English-language publication rights. Fiction must be in English, and previously unpublished in English anywhere, in any format (including audio), on any platform, including your blog, website, newsletter, Patreon, etc. Please do not query about reprints.

We will consider works translated to English, as long as you are offering first English-language publication rights.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please inform us if your story is accepted elsewhere. No multiple submissions.

We ask for a 6-month exclusivity. Non-exclusive thereafter. Copyright remains with the author, and a contract will be provided.

Submit stories as an attachment to: [email protected]

Payment is $0.10 CAD (ten-cents) per word and a contributor copy for first worldwide English-language rights, for use in the print and digital editions.

Responses will go out Dec. / Jan.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Michael Kelly is the former Series Editor for the Year’s Best Weird Fiction. He’s a Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award-winning editor, and a six-time World Fantasy Award nominee. His fiction has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, The Dark, Best New Horror, Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror; and has been previously collected in Scratching the Surface, Undertow & Other Laments, and All the Things We Never See. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Undertow Publications, and editor of Weird Horror magazine.

Via: Undertow Publications.