Deadline: March 301th 2013
Payment: 5 cents per word

Penumbra is looking for original, unpublished stories of 3500 words or less. We prefer that writers use Standard Manuscript Format for submissions. (You can read this article by Chuck Rothman on the SFWA site on preparing a manuscript for submission if you are unfamiliar with SMF.)

Please send your stories as file attachments in .rtf or .doc formats only. Please include a cover letter in the body of your email, with the manuscript title, you pen name if applicable, the exact word count of the story not including title and byline, and a publication history if applicable.

Penumbra is a professional rates paying publisher, paying 5 cents per word.

We will evaluate poetry submissions for each issue. We will also consider previously published stories with rights reverted to the author.

Penumbra has multiple issue calls open at the same time, therefore it is imperative that you include the issue theme in the subject line of your email. Submissions that do not include this information risk getting lost in our queue and not read before the deadline.

Penumbra uses Musa Publishing’s house style guide, which relies upon the Chicago Manual of Style. All accepted stories will be edited to reflect Musa house style.

If you have never been published before, please tell us. Penumbra likes publishing new authors as much as we like publishing experienced authors. Every month, we select one of the best stories from an author with little or no publishing experience and feature that story and author as our Rising Talent recipient for the month. The Rising Talent author’s story, biography, and a non-fiction essay will be featured on our website for a full year, as well as spotlighted in the Penumbra issue for that month.

We absolutely do not accept fan fiction.

Penumbra accepts both agented and unagented submissions. If you have any questions or need further information, please contact us at [email protected]..

I don’t know about you, but there’s something so wonderful and amazing about the stories of HG Wells. Without his contributions to literature, speculative fiction would be far, far different today. Don’t get so caught up in War Between the Worlds or The Time Machine that you don’t consider his lesser known works. We’re more inclined to see stories like A New Accelerator than The Invisible Man. And just as with our other author themes, we’re not looking for fan fiction. We’re looking for something new in a Wellsian style—just like the Father of Science Fiction did with every story he wrote.

CALL ENDS ON MARCH 30, 2013

PLEASE DO NOT SEND SUBMISSIONS PRIOR TO THE OPENING DATE FOR THE CALL.

Initial response time to queries is expected to be short, within 2-3 weeks. This is likely to change and any such submission changes will be listed here. Once your story is passed to a higher round of evaluation, response times may vary but they will be long. We go through an extensive review process that may take several months. If you submit during the first month of a call and your story makes it past the initial reader, you can expect a wait time of 4-5 months. We do not select our stories until the month BEFORE release–usually 4-6 weeks before publication.

[via: Penumbra.]