Events

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: $5 per printed page Geek Out! will be published in print & ebook (compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.) Submission Guidelines Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Geek Out. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at [email protected] and we will be happy to answer. Theme Where queer meets geek. Whatever you geek out about, we want to read it! Genres Genre Fiction (e.g. scifi, fantasy, western, noir, horror) Poetry: slam poems and non-traditional formats Creative Nonfiction (non-memoir based): opinion essays, topical articles, reviews, comedy Comics / Graphic short stories (black & white only) Scripts: short teleplays, screenplays, video scripts, etc. Not Looking For We are not looking for work in the following genres for this particular publication. (See our other Submission Guidelines homepage for other publications with upcoming deadlines seeking work in these genres.) Literary Fiction Memoir-based Nonfiction Traditional Poetry Additionally, we never accept work in the following genres: Erotica work intended for Children Length Prose: up to 5,000 words Flash Non-fiction: 1 page or less Poetry: up to 3 pages (per poem) Comics & Scripts: up to 10 pages Submissions of longer than 10 pages must be numbered. Formats All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted. If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions. Multiple Submissions Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got! Simultaneous Submissions Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too. Please just be sure...

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: Contributor's copy and 1st place: 100 dollars plus contributor’s copy, 2nd place: 50 dollars plus contributor’s copy, 3rd place: 25 dollars plus contributor’s copy OPQ Presents: The 2018 Spooky Samhain Stories Contest Do you have a scary story to share? Fiction, fact, or otherwise, share your prose with us and you, too, can win up to $100* and get your story printed. Enter your submission today! Contest will be judged by a panel of three impartial judges, all of whom have a vested interest in the unknown. Scare us, terrify us, and thrill us!   Contest Rules: Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please only send us one story at a time and if your story is accepted elsewhere please email us and let us know ASAP. Many will enter, few will win. Entrants cannot be related, legally or otherwise, to OPQ staff Entries must be emailed to [email protected] by August 31st, 2018 to qualify. Entries must match one of the following three themes: ‘True Tales of Terror,’ ‘Spooky Semi-True Stories,’ or ‘Fantastic Frights’ No entry fee necessary! Note: entries will be judged based on quality, thematic appropriateness, and writing chops. Though we want to be scared, there are some things that are off-limits. As with our normal morality policy, OPQ will automatically reject stories that involve pedophilia, excessive gore, violence for violence’s sake, and non-consensual sex. As always, we would prefer stories that use religion and/or spirituality as an uplifting theme or a bridge towards a larger, thematic discussion, rather than being derogatory towards one specific religion. That being said, we enjoy looking forward to what your twisted imaginations come up with!   Themes: Entries must follow one of the following themes: ‘True Tales of Terror’ are reserved for true experiences you’ve witnessed. Ritual gone...

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: Royalties We will be releasing a 4th volume of The Twilight Madhouse this fall. This is by far our most popular theme and we’re excited to return to it, this time with a bit of a twist – We are releasing The Twilight Madhouse: Dark Rooms Edition Reading Period: July 1 – August 31 Publication: October 1 Word Count: 3,000 – 12,000 preferred, 1,500-15,000 considered Theme: Madness and opposites We are looking for stories with big twists, stories that subvert expectations, stories that make you shiver. We want stories that explore some form of opposites and the grey spaces between them: madness/sanity, dark/light, day/night, good/evil, monster/hero, safety/danger, reality/illusion. And this time we want the weirdest of the weird. The strangest of the strange. The bizarre, the creep fests, the grimdark, the so far out there you don’t think anyone will read it. We encourage writers to download a copy of one of our previous volumes to get an idea of what we’re looking for, and what we’ve already seen. While we are looking for strange and out there we want to add that we prefer stories that scare without the use of graphic sexual violence. Ax murders, chainsaws, blood spraying everywhere? Sure, as long as it drives the story forward. Sex? Yup, no problem with that. Characters with tragic backstories? Great. But we believe there is a difference between putting your characters through hell, and exploitation. If you’re not sure where your story falls, query us. If you have any questions please use the contact form. Because the contact form strips formatting we are now accepting story submissions in the body of an email sent to schreyer _ ink _ publishing (at) outlook dot com (remove the spaces between the underscores and insert correct symbols)....

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: $6 Submissions open until August 31st... Send your story of between 666-1,000 words using one of the themes below. Include the name or number of the theme in the Subject of the email and send to [email protected] No reprints, thanks! We will pay a nominal fee for this fun fiction-magazine ($6 per story) or if you prefer we can donate your payment to a women's refuge. You can submit to 1 or more themes, but only 1 story per theme please. If sending multiple stories, please send them separately and include the theme in the subject of the email. Theme 1: Halloween House Photograph (Left) (C) Steve Dillon, 2018 Theme 2: Pumpkin Head Artwork (below) (C) Copyright Steve Dillon, 2018 Theme 3: Trick or Treat!  Photograph (below) licensed from Adobe.  Theme 4: Haunted Forests and Trees! Photograph (left) by Steve Dillon, 2018 Theme 5: Bob-Apple Artwork (below) (C) Copyright Steve Dillon, 2012 Theme 6: Fancy Dress Photo (Left) by Ellen Duffy, 2013 Via: Things In The Well.

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: $10 In anthropological terms, liminality is the midpoint of a ritual: the threshold where a person is no longer quite who they were, not yet who they might become. In between masks, what face might you have? What might you be in transit? Where will you go? Everything is possible in that moment; change is its own goal. Liminality is the space between. Liminality is an online quarterly magazine of speculative poetry edited by Shira Lipkin and Mattie Joiner. We are very pleased to meet you. We’re looking for speculative literary poems that touch the heart as much as the head; poems of the liminal, the fluid, and the fantastic. We’d love to see work that shifts shape, refuses to be to be easily pinned down or categorised. We actively welcome diversity; we want to hear new as well as established voices. Tell us tales we thought we knew, the way only you can tell them. Give us new myths. Liminality pays $10 per poem, for first worldwide publication rights and non-exclusive anthology rights. We are currently open to submissions. We will be open: April 1 – May 31 July 1 – August 31 October 1 – November 30 To submit, send up to three poems to liminalitypoetry AT gmail.com with the subject line “SUBMISSION – ”. Please include your poems in the body of the e-mail; if you have formatting that makes that untenable, you may attach the poem as an .rtf. You may send up to five poems per reading period. We do not accept reprints or simultaneous submissions. (If the poem has been publicly viewable online, yes, it would be a reprint.) “Dear Editors”, “Dear Mattie and Shira”, and “Dear Shira and Mattie” are all fine as forms of address. Via: Liminality.

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Prizes: US$1,000 for the winner, US$300 for the runner-up and US$100 for number 3. Throughout history doomsayers predicting the end of the world have always been met with howls of derisive laughter. Rightly so, because most of them were buffoons whose predictions were based on weird and implausible sources. So far they have all been completely wrong. But, alas, those days are behind us. Contemporary warnings of impending doom, the rapidly approaching end of our overdeveloped and unsustainable world, are based on reality and science, on cold, hard facts, matters of projection rather than prediction. And we are already seeing the end beginning. The signs are everywhere: environmentally and socially (check our fact sheet for details). We are going down, and most of us know, perhaps not consciously, not clearly spelled out, but we know, deep inside, that we are going down, in spite of all the comforting lies told by those who are profiting from our downfall and want us to go meekly. This contest is meant to raise people's awareness of what is happening to our (natural) world right now and what this may mean for the near future. We are looking for short stories dealing with the many existential issues facing us. No nonsense, no wild, impossible fantasies but strong, intelligent stories, based on realistic speculation, cautionary tales, plausible and thought-provoking.   Important update 25 June 2018: We are gratefully receiving a steady flow of entries but, sadly, too many are not relevant to the theme of this contest. Please check our fact sheet(s) to understand the issues that we want to see reflected in the stories. They offer an enormous range of subjects and also literary genres, from contemporary realism to futuristic science fiction (which describes the possible, contrary to fantasy, which describes the impossible)....

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: 1¢/word and a contributor's copy Extended issue for release in November 2018 Over the almost two years I've been running Unnerving, many stories very obviously inspired by Stephen King's work have landed in my inbox, most a bit too on the nose. I've usually rejected these stories, thinking it would be cool to have an entire issue of King-inspired tales. Though different, this issue follows all the same rules about topics (no cop dramas, no space operas, no wars, no Lovecraft). Again, each story must have been inspired by a Stephen King story (or mashing multiple Stephen King-ish scenerios) without simply rewriting King's stories. That said, no fan fiction: no Pennywise, no Overlook Hotel, no Cujo, no Derry, you get it. Do not infringe on copyright. Horror - Crime - Science-fiction - Suspense Unnerving Magazine accepts short story submissions of horror, dark science fiction (light), dark fantasy, crime, thriller, and suspense. Generally leaning toward horror over other genres. Sex, gore and violence are welcome in moderation (nothing gratuitous). The same goes for bizarro works, nothing too far gone (whatever that means). Please no hard science fiction, sword and sorcery fantasy, erotica, romance, humor that isn’t sinister or literary works that venture so far into experimental that they become nonsense, no cop dramas unless hard boiled gumshoe vs. supernatural, no fan fiction, no war stories, no stories where rape is the lead character's motivator (victim/victim spouse/rapist none of that stuff, it's burnt toast), and no blatant rip-offs. Moving forward, I am less interested in quiet horror, though still will print it, as there are significantly more paying markets for dark literary and dark weird than thrilling and commercial horror.  Payment is 1¢/word + paperback contributor copy. Original fiction only. Reprints by invitation only. I ask for...

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: 1000-3000 words will receive $5. Stories that are longer than that will receive $10 and a contributor's copy. Unfading Daydream is looking for unique and exceptional fiction to be showcased in our quarterly literary magazine. We strive to feature stories within the genres that have inspired us (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc) as well as stories that feature LGBTQ+ themes. We are currently not seeking submissions – but our next reading period starts in August which is for Issue 6 (published in Octoboer 2018). Basic Details We are open to established and new, emerging authors. In terms of length, we’re looking for stories between 1000 and 7000 words. Shorter or longer stories will be evaluated on a case by case basis. No previously published works. Please no simultaneous submissions Reading periods are May, August, November, and February. All submissions must be in by 11:59pm CST on the last day of the reading period (May, August, November, or February) Please do not send submissions outside of our reading periods. Submissions received outside of reading periods will not be considered. Expect a decision within four weeks See full guidelines below Payment Stories that are between 1000-3000 words will receive $5. Stories that are longer than that will receive $10. All contributors receive a hard copy of the magazine. In time, we would like to pay contributors more! Submissions We accept submissions only by email. Free to submit! Please send your submission to submit unfadingdaydream com with the title of ‘Unfading Daydream Submission’. Full Guidelines We want to see your unique sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc. We prefer stories that are between 1000-7000 words, but if you feel that your 8000 word story or your 700 word story is brilliant, we’d love to see it. The Submission Piece One submission...

Deadline: August 31st Payment: Short Stories are at 1 cent a word, to a maximum of $20 with Poetry at $5 per piece Note: NZ and Australian authors only We publish SF, horror and dark fantasy short fiction from NZ and Australian authors. We publish bimonthly and open for submissions for the month prior to release. Our submission periods for 2018 are as follows: Issue #08: August (to publish in September) Issue #09: October (to publish in November) Issue #10: December (to publish in January 2019) In the Zine All work must be original and previously unpublished. We pay for first worldwide publication rights and nonexclusive reprint rights. Copyright belongs to the author or artist. We simply ask for you to credit Breach as the site of first publication if your work is then subsequently reprinted elsewhere. Stories between 500 and 2000 words, in doc format. Poetry of a page length, doc format. Cover art in A4, 600dpi, RGB. Payment Short stories: 1 cent a word, to a maximum of $20. Poetry: $5 per piece. Cover art: $20 per piece. From August, 2018 we'll also accept submissions of longer works of novella (17,000 to 40,000 words) and novelette (7,500 to 17,000 words) length. Our short stories lean toward horror and the darker side of science fiction and we'd like to carry that over to longer works. If you're interested in publishing with us, please send the first chapter and a single-page synopsis as a Word doc using the form below. All work must be original and previously unpublished. Breach pays 50% royalties from all print and ebook sales - we don't offer advances. We pay for worldwide publication rights to any and all editions of the work, for the duration of the copyright. Via: Breach.

Deadline: August 31st, 2018 Payment: $0.01 per word, minimum of 10.00 Apparition Lit is open for poetry and short story submissions four times a year. February 15-28 May 15-31 August 15-31 November 15-30 Apparition Lit also holds monthly flash fiction contests. These stories will follow selected themes and be published online. For more information on themes and submission guidelines, please see the flash fiction drop down below. Our themes for 2018 will be: Apparition (Published January 2018) Delusion (Published April 2018) Vision (Published July 2018) Diversion (opens for submissions August 15-31, 2018, publishing October 2018) PAYMENT: Apparition is a semi-pro rate magazine, paying $0.01 per word, minimum of 10.00 dollars (excluding flash contest, a flat rate of 5.00 dollars to the winning flash). If we accept your story, we are purchasing the right to publish the story online and in the quarterly edition. Rights will revert back to the artist after one year. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR: SHORT FICTION: We will only accept stories between 1000-5000 words. If the story is complete with an extra hundred words, then it will still be considered. Any stories over 5,200 words will automatically be rejected. PAYMENT: Apparition is a token-rate magazine, paying $0.01 per word, minimum of 10.00 dollars (excluding flash contest). If we accept your story, we are purchasing the right to publish the story online and in the quarterly edition. Rights will revert back to the artist after one year. HOW TO SUBMIT: Format the story using the Shunn manuscript Please only use Times New Roman or Arial font in your document Save as an RTF file and attach to an email In the text of the email, provide a brief cover letter that includes your name, the title of the short story, word count, and any relevant publications Edit the email’s subject line so it reads: SUBMISSION: Title of Your Story Email your formatted email...