Submission Window: March 1st – March 31st 2024. Marginalized authors are invited to submit for an additional week, though April 7, 2024.
Payment: Contributors Copy
Theme: Literary cannibalism stories

We are looking for literary cannibalism stories to fill out our charity anthology, which is raising money for Philabundance. Philabundance distributes food throughout nine counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey. Learn more about their work here.

Submission window

March 1st – March 31st 2024. Marginalized authors are invited to submit for an additional week, though April 7, 2024.

Wordcount

500 – 5,000 words

Preferred word count is in the 2-4k range, but we’ll be considering longer stories and flash fiction if you can sell us on the piece.

Payment

As this is a charity anthology, we are looking for writers willing to donate their words to support a good cause.

Payment will be our eternal gratitude and a contributors copy (softcover and ebook).

The Cause

Tasteful is being created in the hopes of raising funds and awareness for local food shelters. While we’ll be running promotions to support various local food banks, the profits we make from sales will all be donated to Philabundance. You can read more about their good work here.

What we’re seeking

Curators Cassandra Daucus, Iseult Murphy, and Cat Voleur are looking for literary tales of cannibalism. We seek stories that have a focus on beautiful prose, unsettling metaphors, and transcendent themes. If you can make us question our morals or keep us up at night craving flesh, we’re interested in your work. Finally, we want stories that “punch up”, not ones that “punch down.”

While we appreciate both gore and sex, we are not interested in extremes for the sake of shock value.

Please don’t send

We will reject any offensive materials such as those containing racism, sexism, or any kind of bigotry. We are not seeking stories with graphic depictions of violent rape (though stories with “problematic consent” shall be considered.)

Absolutely NO AI submissions.

Reprints?

Yes, we’ll consider reprints.

Simultaneous Submissions?

We are happy to consider simultaneous submissions but please let us know as soon as your story gets accepted elsewhere so we can congratulate you.

Multiple Submissions?

We’re happy to read more than one story from a single author but keep in mind that we’ll only be publishing one piece per author.

Invited Authors?

YES we have some amazing authors who have already agreed to contribute stories to the anthology! We’ll be sharing their names leading up to the March 1 submission opening date. Keep your eyes peeled!

More information

We would love to see some new writers submitting, as well as some inventive formatting. Please send us epistolary and other experimental forms of flesh-eating fiction!

Formatting Guidelines

We’re not going to be too picky about your formatting, as long as the submission is legible.

We do ask that you send your submission as a .doc or .docx attachment with your submission email.

Submitting

• Send an email to [email protected]
• Subject title should read: TASTEFUL SUBMISSION, [STORY TITLE], [AUTHOR’S NAME]
• Don’t stress too much about the cover letter.
• Do include whatever name you publish under (we don’t need a legal name until it’s contract time), a short bio, publication history (if relevant) and a list of trigger warnings for our readers. (TW: Rape, Suicide, Animal Death, etc.)

Estimated Response Time

We will not be making final decisions until after the submission window closes. Response time may vary depending on the number of submissions we receive.

Rights Requested

We are requesting First Worldwide Publication Rights, exclusive for 6 months, with an exception made for accepted reprints.

Via: Tasteful Anthology.