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Taking Submissions: Monstrous Outlines

Deadline: November 31st, 2018 Payment: .03CAD per word and a contributor's copy “Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold.” — H. P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror Monstrous Outlines will be an anthology of horror and weird fiction with a focus on the theme of camouflage: people, entities, monsters, gods, even concepts, that masquerade as things other than themselves. Predators in plain sight, deities on their down time, sublime extra-dimensional terrors slumming in 4D. We want to see stories of exceptionally well done camouflage, all the more baffling and frightening for its seamless nature. We want to see stories of seeming where the hidden thing is poorly hidden for a number of reasons: perhaps there are layers to its camouflage, or perhaps it doesn’t care how well it hides. Imagine the moment when the perfectly hidden thing reveals itself. When the poorly hidden thing reveals itself. We’re also interested in duplicates, doppelgangers, and shapeshifters. Think John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? and its cinematic offspring, The Thing, for the latter. The seed story for this anthology will be Algernon Blackwood’s classic tale, The Willows, a story of two worlds touching, of men meeting the unnameable through the medium of the nearest natural analogue, the titular willow trees. Submission period closes 31 NOVEMBER 2018. The anthology will be released in trade paperback and electronic book formats in early March 2019. SUBMITTING Please use Standard Manuscript format when submitting. That’s double spaced, left justified, Times New Roman or Courier or something at least readable, a header on the first page (at least) with your author info and word count and… well, you know the drill. RTF or DOC files preferred, but DOCx and text files also accepted. Obviously, you could send us something that’s not in Standard Manuscript format, but it will lower your chances of it being looked...

Taking Submissions: Mickey Finn

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: Royalties Mickey Finn isn’t watered-down mysteries for dilettantes; it’s a crime-fiction cocktail that will knock readers into a literary stupor. An annual anthology of hardboiled and noir crime fiction to be released each fall beginning in 2020, Mickey Finnwill pick up where the three-volume Fedora anthology series left off, pushing hard against the boundaries of crime fiction. Contributors will be encouraged to push their work into places short crime fiction doesn’t often go, into a world where the mean streets seem gentrified by comparison and happy endings are the exception rather than the rule. The ideal submission will be approximately 5,000 words—less than 3,000 is likely too short, more than 8,000 is likely too long. Originals only. No reprints. The first Mickey Finn is scheduled for release fall 2020. Submissions: Use standard manuscript format. Include name, address, telephone number, and email address on the manuscript. Save as a Word document (.doc preferred) and send as an attachment to [email protected]. Deadline: Submissions open September 1–November 30, 2018. Though rejections may occur at any point during the process, do not expect acceptance and rejection decisions until February 2019. Payment: A pro-rata share of royalties. About the editor: Michael Bracken has edited six crime fiction anthologies, including the three-volume Fedoraseries and The Eyes of Texas (Down & Out Books, Fall 2019). Stories from his anthologies have been short-listed for Anthony, Derringer, Edgar, and Shamus awards, and have been named among the year’s best by the editors of The Best American Mystery Stories and the editors of The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories. He is the author of eleven books and more than 1,200 short stories, including crime fiction in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea, Down & Out: The Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Espionage Magazine, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and The Best American Mystery Stories. In 2016 he...

Twelfth Planet Press Is Open To Submissions For Novellas

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: $300 and royalties of 40% of all monies received by the publisher, paid twice yearly. We are looking to build a kickass series of novellas that defines and redefines the Twelfth Planet Press brand. We want gritty pieces that challenge the system and punch the patriarchy in the face. We want stories that resist and rebel… and maybe also books that comfort & inspire. For when things are bad out there in the world. We are looking for books that feed the angry soul. We’re interested in hearing from marginalised writers more generally: for example, people under the QUILTBAG umbrella, including intersex people; people of colour, including Indigenous and Native writers from around the world; and disabled people. That said, we also welcome stories from authors who aren’t marginalised. Please don’t self-reject – we want your stories! If you feel your intersections are relevant to your story, you may mention them in your cover letter, but this is not required. We respect your privacy. We’re looking for a diverse range of authors, story settings, time periods, cultural backgrounds and protagonists. Magic, history, fantasy, steampunk and science fiction are all welcome. We are also looking for fun, light crime novellas that fit within our Deadlines imprint. Your novella should be between 17 000 and 40 000 words. It should be considered fantasy, science fiction, horror, or crime and not published previously in any medium, including limited audience media such as Patreon. Publication is by ebook in the first instance. Payment is by way of an advance of US$300 and royalties of 40% of all monies received by the publisher, paid twice yearly. Submissions will open on 1 September 2018 and close on 30 November 2018 No multiple submissions or simultaneous submissions. We aim to respond to...

Taking Submissions: Lost Gods, Unexpected Heroines, & Forgotten Sidekicks

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: £15 and a contributor's copy Unexpected Heroines: Why is it always the teenage girl who is the heroine? These are the stories of female protagonists who are never cast in the feature films. The awkward, the old, the forgotten, the different. Their adventures were never meant to be. Their save-the-world expeditions shouldn’t have happened. They are the ones who stepped forward when no-one else would. Our unexpected heroines. Forgotten Sidekicks: We all know what happens when the hero saves the day, but what about their sidekicks? Too often the hero is held high and celebrated whilst their sidekicks and comrades are brushed to the side; their own battles forgotten, and their actions airbrushed to nothingness from the tales of victory. These are the stories of the ones who aren’t remembered; the ones who helped save the day, and got cast aside; the ones who don’t want the applause, and the ones who deserved the applause and never received it. These stories didn’t make the headlines – but they happened, and they’re glorious. Lost Gods: They have slept for centuries. Buried. Forgotten. Lost. Until they awake. Or are awoken. When the deities of old return, will they bring blessings or destruction to a time that no long remembers them? Should they be left to lie in peace, or used for our own ends? Are they gods, or monsters? What lies out there in the realms of the lost gods? Submission Guidelines: The submission window will run from 1st September until the 30th November inclusive. Submissions to be emailed to: Lost Gods – [email protected] Forgotten Sidekicks – [email protected] Unexpected Heroines – [email protected] All sub-genre and styles will be considered – comedic, epic, grimdark, noblebright etc. We are particularly keen on diversity – think older characters, LGBTQ, ethnic...

Taking Submissions: Third Point Press December 2018 Issue

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: $10/contributor via PayPal. Note: While they do have pay submissions options, generall submissions ARE free which is why this is being included. 2018 Submission Periods All submissions through Submittable. February 1 – April 30 (issue 10 published in May) June 1 – July 31 (issue 11 published in September) NOTE: Submission period closed early due to volume. September 1 – November 30 (issue 12 published in December)   Important Information Read our past issues to see what we like. Please do not submit the same piece to multiple categories. Please review your piece carefully before submitting – every time we receive a submission that is withdrawn for resubmittal, it counts towards our overall per-month submittal count. If you notice a small mistake, let us know. Otherwise, please do not attempt to resubmit. We pay $10/contributor via PayPal. If we publish your work, wait one calendar year before submitting again. If we decline your work, please wait until the next submission period to submit again (don’t submit within the same issue’s reading period) Simultaneous submissions are fine, just keep us in the loop. Withdraw your work (congrats!) or leave us a comment in Submittable. Previously published work cannot be considered (this include blogs, Facebook, Wattpad, etc). We retain first serial rights on work we accept and then all rights revert to the author. If the work is reprinted, we ask that Third Point Press be acknowledged as the place of initial publication. Expedited Reading ($5) If you use the expedited reading option in Submittable for poetry or fiction, we’ll put your work at the very top of our reading pile. You won’t get anything more than that (no preferential treatment, no instant acceptance). Think of it as a way of patting us on the back while...

Taking Submissions: Liminality Poetry Magazine

Deadline: November 30th, 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 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.

Taking Submissions: Triskaidekaphilia Volume 4: Haunted

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: $20 USD and a contributor's copy Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned Give me your scorned women–jilted brides, protective mothers, vengeful servants. As long as the ghost doing the haunting is female, it’s fair game. She can be trying to keep her husband from finding love again, she could be protecting her children, she could be out to ruin someone’s life in retaliation for a long-standing done-her-wrong. Why is she doomed to remain among the living? What’s her unfinished business? That ghost has a story and I want to know what it is and what she’s doing about it. But wait, there’s more. It’s gotta be a romance. Are the ghost-hunters trying to suppress a burning attraction? Is a grieving husband falling for someone new? All I ask is that there’s no banging corpses or ghosts. (What fun would either of those be?) The details: Stories 4,000 words or more Reprints accepted but not preferred. When submitting a reprint include information about its original publication in your submission email. Open to all gender pairings and multiple partners Contemporary setting preferred, but not required. Simultaneous & multiple submissions = No Payment: $20 USD and a paperback copy of the anthology in exchange for the non-exclusive right to include the story in both the print and electronic versions of the anthology. Open Submission Period: September 1, 2018 – November 30, 2018 To submit: Please submit a .doc or .rtf in something approximating standard manuscript format to [email protected] Please note: It may be several days between submitting and receiving a confirmation email because the editor is sending them manually rather than automating the process. About the Editor: Trysh Thompson has written just about every form of non-fiction you can think of–everything from news, movie reviews, magazine...

Taking Submissions: Broadswords And Blasters

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: $15.00 What We Want – Fiction SUBMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY OPEN FROM NOVEMBER 1, 2018 to NOVEMBER 30, 2018! BROADSWORDS AND BLASTERS is looking for quality submissions in the pulp magazine tradition. What does that mean? We want your tales of: sword and sorcery; westerns (Weird or otherwise); horror (Cosmic, Southern Gothic, visceral, and psychological); detective tales; two-fisted action; retro science fiction. Tales should feature strong characters and visceral action. No navel-gazing. Despite having great action, detailed settings, and iconic characters, much of old-school pulp is unfortunately emblematic of limited cultural ideals that we have no interest in propagating. As such, we encourage diverse characters and welcome stories that subvert the standard pulp formula. We prefer clear descriptions. While we appreciate poetic prose, the reader has to be able to understand what is happening. For rating guidelines (language, descriptions) we are looking at a hard R-rating as the maximum we will publish. That is to say, we don’t shy away from cursing, gore, or sex, but such content needs to serve the story, not be there for the sake of being there. Word count: Submissions must be between 2,000 to 5,000 words. Anything outside these limits will be rejected. Please submit stories in either .rtf, .doc, or .docx. Please use standard submission format. http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html We do not accept reprints. We do not accept multiple submissions. Please submit only one story at a time. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please tell us in the body of the email that you are submitting to more than one publication. If the story is accepted elsewhere, please let us know as soon as possible. Payment and terms We pay a flat $15.00 per story upon publication. All payments will be made through paypal. All published contributors will receive a...

Taking Submissions: EconoClash Review

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: $10 usd EconoClash Review (Quality Cheap Thrills) is a biannual print journal of Genre Fiction. We accept only the best contemporary pulp submissions. Which includes quality Crime, Noir, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Weird, Humor and Other Words for Uplifting Gormandizers. EconoClash Review believes in free speech and wants to provide our readers with a much needed escape into other worlds. We like stories about Weirdos, Criminals and Pregnant Prom Queens going to great lengths to destroy or keep the status quo. HOWEVER, we don't want erotica, or adult, or torture between characters of any age, race, species both real or fictional. Nothing gratuitous. Avoid the tropes best you can. Just because we want GENRE doesn't mean we want STALE. Above all else--EconoClash Review wants fiction full of energy that feels real. We encourage our writers to submit short fiction between 1,500 and 4,500 words. That word limit is FIRM and STRICTLY ENFORCED. SUBMISSIONS will OPEN November 1st through November 30th. Any manuscripts sent outside the open submission window will be deleted unread. Follow us on Twitter @econoclashrevue for updates. EconoClash Review claims the following publishing rights: First English Language Rights, English Language Periodical Rights, World Periodical Rights, First Audio Distribution Rights, Subsidiary Rights and Electronic Distribution Rights. All Rights revert back to the writer six months after initial publication. Should EconoClash Review choose to create an anthology of previously published work, new rights will be negotiated. Bear in mind that most publications will not publish pieces that have been published in print, eBook, or on the web, so for all intents and purposes after your work is published by us it can only be marketed as a reprint, which severely limits the number of markets that will accept it, and drastically reduces the pay rate it...

Taking Submissions: Paper Butterfly

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: $10 CA YES, PLEASE: Flash fiction stories only.  Word count: 1,000 or less. English language only. Original work only. Genre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, humour, western, mystery, literary…and any variation or combination thereof.  If in doubt, send it along – you never know. Multiple submissions:  feel free to send as many submissions as you wish to during the reading period.  Please send each submission in separate emails. Simultaneous submissions: all good. If your story is selected for publication elsewhere, please contact me right away to withdraw it from my consideration. NO, THANK YOU: Word count over the limit. Poetry, non-fiction, essays, children’s stories, anything other than flash fiction. Erotica, excessive gore, abuse, or ‘isms such as racism, sexism, etc.. Overly saucy language.  I don’t mind swear words, I just would prefer to keep the content on the site closer to the PG side of things. Reprints. Stories sent outside of the reading period. Artwork. Queries. They’re not necessary.  Send me your work if you think there’s a chance I might like it.  Please don’t ask me about your submission after you’ve sent it. I will get back to you by December 31, 2018. FORMATTING: I’m not picky about fonts or font sizes or margins or paragraph indentations or anything of the sort.  I will format your work to fit the site if it is accepted for publication.  If your story has an experimental form and I accept it, we’ll work together to ensure it is posted properly. Cover letters are not required. Your contact information (name, email address) MUST be included somewhere in your submission. Please watch your spelling and grammar – if your story is littered with errors, I am likely to give it less of a chance.  Don’t worry about American/Canadian/British spelling;...

Taking Submissions: Unfading Daydream

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: A contributor copies and stories 1000-3000 words will receive $5. Stories that are longer than that will receive $10. Submission Guidelines 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 seeking submissions for Issue 7 (published in January 2019). This issue is unthemed, meaning that any speculative fiction story that follows our guidelines is welcome. 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 per author per reading...

Taking Submissions: Apparition Lit Magazine (Short Window!)

Deadline: November 30th, 2018 Payment: $0.03 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 Our themes for 2019 will be: Resistance (Submission period November 15-30, 2018, Publishing January 2019) Ambition (Submission period February 15-28, 2019, Publishing April 2019) Retribution (Submission period May 15-31, 2019, Publishing July 2019) Euphoria (Submission period August 15-31, 2019, Publishing October 2019) Our themes for 2018: Apparition (Published January 2018) – Delusion (PublishedApril 2018) – Vision (Published July 2018) – Diversion (Published October 2018) 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. PAYMENT: Apparition is a semi-pro rate magazine, paying $0.03 per word, minimum of 10.00 dollars (excluding flash contest. See details in the Flash Fiction dropdown for flash rates). 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 $0.03 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...