Events

Deadline: July 30th, 2019 Payment: $10 Note: Reprints Only Pole to Pole Publishing is seeking short, re-print fiction for the Re-Haunt anthology to be published in late 2019.  Re-Haunt will join our previous submission calls (now closed) for Re-Launch, Re-Enchant, Re-Quest and Re-Terrify in the Re-Imagined Series of anthologies. Re-Haunt requires dark stories about ghosts and hauntings. Payment: Payment is $10 per story, paid on acceptance  (contract must be signed), via PayPal only; plus, one electronic and one print copy of the antho.  (If you do not have a PayPal account, please do not submit your work.) Right Purchased: – The non-exclusive right to collect the stories into an anthology, published in 2019 and sold thereafter. Re-Haunt may be included in book bundles with the other books in the series. – The non-exclusive right to publish the story to the new Pole to  Pole Publishing Patreon blog (for patron’s eyes only). General: Stories should be 3,000-5,000 words and meet  the central theme of the anthology. Reprints currently available on line  are not eligible. Preference is for stories that haven’t been published in at least a year.  Older reprints will carry more weight than new  ones.  Author must possess the right to offer the story for submission. Hard Sells: Profane and vulgar language — because we market to both adult and YA  readers. If we are interested in your story, we may ask you to edit  profane and vulgar language as a condition of publication. First Person and Present Tense. We’ve published both: when the  stories were very, very good. We want to let you know up front that  we’re going to reject this most of the time. It’s just not our  preference. Excessive Gore and/or violence. Blood and guts are fine—as long as they’re part of the story and not the story itself. Sex. See above about...

Deadline: July 30th, 2019 Payment: 2¢ per word (Working Cover. Fonts/colors subject to change.) Pole to Pole Publishing is seeking short, original fiction for its upcoming anthology, Not Far from Roswell,  to be published October 2019. Not Far From Roswell will contain dark stories of aliens, alien abduction, alien experimentation, cows, paranormal investigation and more -- let your imagination be your guide.  We may also include one or two humorous pieces as long as the material is dark. Stories should be 3,000-5,000 words (firm). Hard Sells: Profane and vulgar language. Because we market to both adult and YA  readers, if you use an F-Bomb, and we accept your story, we’ll probably ask you to change it. First person and Present Tense. We’ve published both: when the  stories were very, very good. We want to let you know up front that we’re going to reject this most of the time. It’s just not our preference. Excessive Gore and/or violence. Blood and guts are fine—as long as they’re part of the story and not the story itself. Sex. See above about marketing to a wider audience. Edition and Rights: Not Far From Roswell will be published in electronic and trade paperback in English. We are asking for exclusive, worldwide rights to your work for both electronic and print for six months only, and a  non-exclusive right to keep your story in the anthology after that. The anthology may be included with other "Dark Stories Anthologies" in bundles. Payment:  Payment is 2¢ per word, paid at publication, via PayPal only. If you do not have a PayPal account, please do not submit your work. Authors will also receive one copy of both the electronic and  paperback versions of the anthology. (Authors can buy additional books  at a discount.) What We Don’t Want: No rape, torture, etc. of children. No...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: 3 cents per word and a contributor's copy. 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest horror movies of all time: Alien. Yes, it is a horror movie, but set in space. There are also plans for a new branch of the military -- in space. We’ve explored loneliness, isolation, and solitude in our first anthology. We Put the Love Back in Lovecraft in our second anthology. We explored the creatures of cryptozoology in our recent pair of anthologies. Now we will go where all good series eventually go... ...to space. What We Want: Finely crafted works of Dark Speculative fiction which feature one (or more) classic monsters. Vampires, mummies, creatures built from dead body parts, lycanthropes, mad scientists, and zombies -- yes, even zombies -- but we want to see them in space. We want to see these creatures floating around in zero g, attacking astronauts and colonists, and generally menacing those brave enough to go beyond the confines of our pale blue dot. Each story must take place somewhere other than the Earth. It can happen on a spaceship, on a colony, on a new terraformed planet. There should be humans involved, but they do not have to be the protagonists. Each story must also feature (at least) one classic monster. We are looking for new takes on the old classics. Feel free to explore, but they should still be recognizable to the average reader. What We Don’t Want: Actual characters from other books or films. As much as we love the idea of Dracula in Space, we are pretty sure that Universal owns the rights to that particular vampire. The vampire doesn’t have to be Dracula in particular (for example: Bubba Ho-Tep has a great mummy, but not THE mummy). We don’t like...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties, 4 contributor copies if story is over 40k Creature Feature — LGBTQIA Collection Call — MONSTERS OUT OF MYTH AND LEGEND WITH INTENTIONS MOST FOUL! THEY CRAWL OUT OF YOUR NIGHTMARES WITH UNSPEAKABLE DESIRES! Some call them monsters; some call them imaginary; and some call them misunderstood. But what is the truth behind the creatures we find ourselves so fascinated by? LESS THAN THREE PRESS invites you to send your most scintillating, subversive, and scary monster stories for consideration as part of our CREATURE FEATURE collection. Editor’s note: This collection is an homage to movie monsters of yore and the popularity of paranormal fiction. We’re happy to see stories queered and subverted about classic monsters or those of your own creation—and we suggest authors using classic movie or pulp monsters make sure their creature is in the public domain. Here’s a list to start with. Also, authors should note works accepted for publication from this call will have covers designed to fit the collection’s theme of B-movie nostalgia. THE DETAILS: Deadline is July 31, 2019 Stories should be at least 20,000 words and should not exceed approx 60,000 words in length. Please put “Submission – Creature Feature” in the subject line Stories must feature at least one monster/creature as part of a relationship (romantic, sexual, platonic, etc.). Stories must have a happily ever after (HEA) or happy for now (HFN) end. The primary genre is by nature speculative, but can contain any sub-genre or genre mashup: mystery, historical, contemporary, space opera, cyberpunk, etc. All usual LT3 submission guidelines apply. Creature Feature is a collection, meaning stories will be sold individually and authors paid royalties. Examples: For the Hoard, Peacock, Intertwined. Authors will receive one copy each of the ebook formats LT3 produces. Authors with works 40k or longer will receive...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties “The Monsters We Forgot” is an anthology based on urban legends, folktales, and fairy tales that nobody knows. In essence: we want you to make up an urban legend, folktale, fairy tale, cryptid, or piece of town lore and either write it, or write a story about people who have to deal with it one way or the other. For example: people who encounter the subject of the legend; how the legend came to be; how the legend affects people; people who lived through (or with?) it, and so on. The submission deadline is 31 July 2019. Our target is 30 stories. Authors may submit as many stories as they wish, but each author will be limited to three accepted stories. As payment, authors will receive royalties divided by word count. These are general guidelines for ALL anthology submissions. We’re looking for stories between 500 – 7500 words. A few words under or over won’t necessarily disqualify a story, but please keep as close to the guidelines as possible. Stories MUST fit within the horror genre. First and foremast, all submissions must be horror. However, we recognize that horror is a very broad and often nuanced genre. To that end, we’ll read stories that fit into other genres (thriller, family drama, coming of age, science fiction, fantasy, comedy, romance, et cetera) as long as the story contains horror, and as long as horror is integral to the narrative. ALL submissions must be within the horror genre, and MUST meet the following requirements: Submit all documents as an attachment in .docx or .pages format 12 point Arial, Calibri, or Courier font Double-spaced Submit via email to [email protected] In the body of the email, include your name and contact information. PLEASE NOTE: If your piece is accepted for...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 We will be OPEN to submissions from June 1-July 31, 2019.  Note: Manuscripts received outside the official  submission window will be deleted unread. Guidelines for all submissions: We want horror in all its forms—from literary to weird, Gothic to psychological, and (almost) everything in between. We’re looking for amazing stories from amazing authors, regardless of race, gender, religion—if you’ve got something good, we want it. Need a firm idea of what we’re looking for? Check out the JournalStone website. Please do not submit romance, erotica, or religious fiction. The title of your email subject line and file name should read: “Submission – – ”. For example: Submission Novel – Carrie – King. This should also be the title of your manuscript document. In the body of your email, please give us the word count, genre, and a brief synopsis (300-500 words) of the plot. Submissions without this information will be automatically deleted. Do not include your synopsis as an attachment. Submissions should be sent to [email protected]. Attach the full manuscript as a .doc, .docx or .rtf file (no PDFs). Do not paste your manuscript in the body of the email. For proper formatting of your manuscript, please follow the Shunn way. Minimum word count for novels and fiction collections: 50,000. We consider the quality of the editing in our review process. Please fully proofread and edit manuscripts prior to submission. Do not submit sample chapters or a work in progress. We accept only completed works. Allow up to eight months for a response to your submission. We may respond more quickly, but we cannot guarantee timing. Please do not send follow up e-mails. We will notify you when we place your work in the queue, and will contact you when we have completed our review. Submissions are free. We do not charge any...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: $50 CAD and a contributors copy If you think cats and water don’t mix, think again. I’m putting together an anthology full of feisty felines on the high seas! I want pirate cats, and Viking cats. Submariner cats and explorer cats. This book is going to be filled with adventure-loving cats, puns and fun. I want it to be a wild, rollicking ride complete with sword fights, sea monsters, treasure hunting, discovering new worlds and lots and lots of kittehs. Be careful not to get too caught up in the fun and forget to include a strong plot and detailed characters for your story, though. I’m a sucker for a great setting, three-dimensional characters and high stakes. And if your story elicits real emotion from me–laughter, tears, anger or anything in between–you will have increased your chances of success significantly. Rights and compensation: Payment: $50 CAD flat fee and a paperback copy of the anthology. In exchange we are seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology. Open submission period: June 1, 2019 – July 31, 2019 Length: Under 9,000 words Publisher: Tyche Books No simultaneous or multiple submissions. No reprints. Canadian spelling, please. Via: Rhonda Parrish.

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties The first entry in an anthology series showcasing horror in every state, “50 States of Fear: California” is all about the terrors, horrors, creeps, and shrieks found in the Golden State. Stories must be horror, they must be original (no urban legends, creepypasta, or retellings of true crime), and must take place in California. The submission deadline is 31 July 2019. Our target is 30 stories. There is no limit on the number of submissions per author, but we reserve the right to limit the number of accepted stories per author. As payment, authors will receive royalties divided by word count. Guidelines First and foremast, all submissions must be horror. However, we recognize that horror is a very broad and often nuanced genre. To that end, we’ll read stories that fit into other genres (thriller, family drama, coming of age, science fiction, fantasy, comedy, romance, et cetera) as long as the story contains horror, and as long as horror is integral to the narrative. ALL submissions must be within the horror genre, and MUST meet the following requirements: Submit all documents as an attachment in .docx or .pages format 12 point Arial, Calibri, or Courier font Double-spaced Submit via email to [email protected] In the body of the email, include your name and contact information. PLEASE NOTE: If your piece is accepted for publication, we take First Print and Electronic Publishing Rights. A copy of our publishing contract is available upon request. Open Submissions: Anthologies These are general guidelines for ALL anthology submissions. We’re looking for stories between 500 – 7500 words. A few words under or over won’t necessarily disqualify a story, but please keep as close to the guidelines as possible. Stories MUST fit within the horror genre. Via: Soteira Press.

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: Contributor’s copy with chances at a $25, $50, or $100 prize! 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 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. We are seeking original fiction only.  In other words, NO REPRINTS. Many will enter, few will win. Entrants cannot be related, legally or otherwise, to OPQ staff Entries must be submitted via our Green Submissions Manager (located here ) by July 31st, 2019 to qualify. Entries must match one of the following themes: ‘True Tales of Terror,’  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 wrong?  Cryptid got a little up close and personal?  Alien attacks at night? ...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: $25 for original work, $12 for reprints Note: Reprints welcome Amara looked up to the sky; the moon showered her with pale light. The sign was clear. She lowered her gaze to the field before her, to the bodies laying there, contorted in death. With a heavy sigh, Amara walked forward to her fate . . . ​ ​ What We Want Catacombs: Martyrs on Earth and Elsewhere is an anthology of stories about fictional martyrs past, present, and future, on Earth or some fictional world. The title is tentative so keep in mind that the final product could have a different title.   This anthology has some specific rules. Please read carefully.   Stories must be historical or speculative fiction; a combination of the two would also be fantastic. ​ We are looking for stories about individuals who give up their lives for their faith or for some cause greater than themselves. Judeo-Christian history is replete with stories of individuals who died for their faith, who sacrificed their lives rather than renounce God. Many of these martyrs, such as Sts. Stephen, Sebastian, Agatha, and Lucy, for example, are well known, recognized by one Christian sect or another, and are listed as Saints. For this issue, please send us plausible stories of unknown martyrs from any historic period or some future period or alternate reality, so long as the martyrs are martyred for the faith as understood by traditional Judeo-Christianity.   Please be sure to invent your own martyr and not use an actual historical or legendary figure.   We are also open to stories of individuals who died for other causes dear to the heart of Western civilization. If your hero died for a freedom enshrined in the Bill of Rights for instance, go...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: 1.5 cents per word Submission Guidelines: New Myths will no longer consider submissions of fiction, nonfiction and poetry outside of specific reading periods. These periods run from June 1-July 31 and from January 1-February 28. Artwork, requests for book reviews, and other correspondence can still be submitted at any time. No Multiple Fiction Submissions Please do not send more than one fiction submission at a time. Wait until you receive an answer before sending a second story. No more than three fiction submissions total from any one author will be considered during a given reading period. Poetry is different. See below. Contact information: Please send fiction, nonfiction and poetry to [email protected]. Please send queries for book reviews to [email protected] All other correspondence, including art submissions, to [email protected] NewMyths.com publishes speculative fiction of every stripe except graphic horror. We like each issue to have an eclectic variety of stories:  funny, frightening, hard and soft sci-fi, adventure, thoughtful, etc. Every issue includes at least one nonfiction piece dealing with some aspect of science, myth, folklore, or literature as it relates to speculative fiction, usually of the well-researched essay variety rather than opinion or editorial. Speculative poetry is welcome. We tend to receive a lot of free verse and not enough "form" poetry. We also buy one piece of artwork per issue, and occasionally commission one. We publish book reviews of recent releases about every two weeks. If you have written a review, or have a book coming out soon, please contact us. Reading an issue is the best way to know if your submission is a fit for NewMyths.com or not. Responses take 60-90 days on average. Feel free to send a follow-up query after that point. Submissions made outside the submission windows may be deleted, unread. We save email...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: $3 (.15 cents per word!) Haunted Waters Press seeks exceptionally small works of flash fiction to be showcased in Penny Fiction, a regular feature of the literary journal, From the Depths. Stories will also appear in the Penny Fiction Poster Collection. Tell us a story in exactly 19 words—no more, no less. Extra points will be awarded for those writers who adhere to the guidelines. Not really. There are no points. Just read the guidelines below and impress Penny with your ability to follow instructions. WORKS CONSIDERED We seek flash fiction stories told in exactly 19 words—no more, no less. Original fiction only. No poetry, taglines, or jokes. Please include a title for each story submitted. One active Penny Fiction submission per author, per reading period. Multiple stories per submission encouraged. One is fine. Four is cool. Twenty is borderline obnoxious...we like obnoxious! No previously published works. Need inspiration? Follow Penny Fiction on Facebook for tips and prompts. THE DREADED COVER LETTER Include one interesting fact about yourself in 13 words or less. Undertakers and cat herders earn extra points. If we do not find you interesting, we reserve the right to make you appear more interesting. No long lists of previously published works. No cut ‘n paste author bios. Confused? Check out The Lovely Penny bios from any past issue. COMPENSATION $3.00 per published piece. (That’s a professional rate of .15 cents per word— enough for a hot cup of coffee to sip on while you pen your next brilliant work of incredibly short fiction!) THE DETAILS Free to submit. Accepting submissions in the months of December/January, March/April, June/July Limited to 200 submissions per month. Submit early! Notifications to be sent as decisions are made or within 60 days of closing. Please review full guidelines prior to submitting,...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Prizes: The coveted Bloody Axe Award, as well as a $100 cash prize Every year we seek 10-minute audio drama scripts that are genuinely scary, imaginative, chilling, intelligent, suspenseful, horrific or downright grotesque. Writers may submit up to two audio drama scripts to Deathscribe in any given year. Five scripts will be selected from all submissions. These five pieces will be performed on stage in front of a live audience. The writer of the winning piece, chosen by a celebrity panel of judges, will receive the coveted Bloody Axe Award, as well as a $100 cash prize.The submission window for Deathscribe 2019 is now open. Scripts will be accepted through July 31st. Guidelines: PDF format is strongly preferred. If PDF is not possible, then only MS Word please. All scripts must have a title page with all contact information, but NO identifying information should appear anywhere else in the document. Scripts must be no more than TEN MINUTES in length, and should follow audio drama format. An example of proper audio drama format can be found here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/bbcradioscene.pdf The Deathscribe experience includes performing the pieces on stage with Foley artists and a band creating the sound effects and music live. Therefore, scripts must be ready to produce, including direction for sound and music cues. Sorry, but submissions cannot include usage of copyrighted music. Writers may submit up to two (2) scripts for Deathscribe consideration in any year. NO SCREENPLAYS. SCREENPLAYS WILL BE DISCARDED. WE KNOW THEM WHEN WE SEE THEM. (Nothing against screenplays. But this is a radio play festival.) DO NOT submit full-length plays for consideration in Deathscribe. They will be discarded. If you wish to submit a full-length horror play to WildClaw, see our general submission guidelines. Previous winners include: 2018: “Whisper Trigger” by Dan Finnen and Sarah Gise 2017: “Cavities” by Bill Daniel...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: 3 (Euro) cents per word There are plenty of amazing print and online journals out there for ‘character-driven’ fiction, and we encourage you to read them. SPJ is not one of them, though. Hence, we are not interested in stories predominantly about the sentiments and subjective experiences of fictional people. We want hard SF that zooms out of the personal and lifts off into the structural, the systemic, the epic. We yearn for carefully crafted philosophical speculation that puzzles over the questions of the future and alternate pasts. And we have a soft spot for stories created as ‘artefacts’ (fictional, ‘in-universe’ non-fiction). So here are SPJ‘s quests: – Campbellian hard SF. Reaching back to the roots of classic sci-fi, these rigorous tales take themselves seriously and push the boundaries of our scientific imagination, scaling from the nano to the meta. The cast, if any, is functional and disposable. It’s the sociological, technological and indeed cosmic developments that sweep the reader up in an expanding sense of wonder. (For a contemporary long-form example that received mainstream attention, see the latter two books of Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem trilogy.) – Fictional non-fiction. The purest, most intimate form of world-building. A transcript of the last UN Security Council meeting before an extinction-level event. The dental bills of a cybernetic vampire. Interviews with eyewitnesses of a battle between Martians and archangels. Think ‘World War Z’, not ‘Walking Dead’. – Speculative philosophy. Extrapolating abstract ideas to examine the implications if they were to manifest. (See for instance The End of History, the Beginning of Hers in Vol. V. Issue 1. for a theological example of just what we mean: what if prayers for supernatural intercession were answered in 1453, but the faithful got more than they had bargained for.) (The first author to have a story published in each of the three...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: 10 cents per word David Steffen is the editor, who you may also know from using the Submission Grinder writing tool or reading the Long List Anthology series.  Diabolical Plots is a SFWA-qualifying market, so if you have a personal goal to join SFWA, making a sale here would help you toward that goal. FICTION OVERVIEW Genres: science fiction, fantasy, horror (everything must have speculative element, even horror). Word count: 3500 words or less. This is a firm limit.  If you submit a longer story, it will be rejected unread and that will count as a submission. Do not query to ask permission to submit something longer–the answer will be no. Pay rate: 10 cents per word (more than the minimum professional rate as deemed by SFWA) Multiple submissions: A total of TWO submissions per author during this submission window.  You don’t have to wait for one response to send the second one–you can just send both whenever you want during the window. Simultaneous submissions: No.  We understand we are tying up your story while you wait, and so we strive to respond as quickly as possible.  While each year might be different, last year the maximum wait time to get a first response (a rejection or a hold notice) was 14 days.  The maximum overall wait time if someone submitted on the first day and was held, was about 6 weeks. Reprint submissions: No. That means you should not submit anything that has been published in any format, blog, e-zine, print, podcast, anything.  Sharing stories with other authors in login-protected critique sites like Baen’s Bar or Critters is fine. Resubmits: No.  Do not send a story you’ve submitted to us before, whether it’s been revised or not. Estimated Resolution Time: 30 days after end of submission window.  I will send initial responses to stories as...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: $10 an 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 seeking submissions! We are seeking submissions for Issue 9, which is themed possession. Defined as: the state of having, owning, or controlling something. Think demons, magic, technology…all different ways of controlling someone. Or go with something more subtle.Surprise us. 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 If you are under 18, we require parental permission and have made a permission form. The form can be found HERE Reading periods are May to July and November to January. All submissions must be in by 11:59pm CST on the last day of the reading period (July or January). Be advised that if we get enough stories before the end of a submission period, we may close submissions early. 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 of the reading period closing 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...

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: 0.04 USD per word via Paypal JULY 2019 SUBMISSIONS THEME : Any genre, dark humour. Theme is ONLY WHEN I LAUGH This theme will be open for submissions from 1st July 2019 and will close midnight 31st July 2019 (last place on Earth).  Submissions received outside of this timeframe will not be read. You must include the theme in your email subject (as shown above). Reading will start once the submission period has closed. The BEST 13 drabbles will be chosen for publication in OCTOBER 2019. Word count : EXACTLY 100 words, excluding title Author eligibility : Open only to authors who have already been successfully accepted into one of our anthologies Reprints : Not allowed Simultaneous Submissions : Not allowed Multiple Submissions : One per month Publication : Online in Dark Moments.  May be included in a single anthology in print and digital formats at a later date (but within one year of initial publication) Author compensation : 0.04 USD per word via Paypal How to submit : See our submission guidelines for formatting. Send your story as either a Word format attachment to [email protected]. Your email title should be “ – – ” Please include a 50 word bio and ONE link Via: Black Hare Press.

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties Coffins & Dragons (C&D) (Rated R) Deadline – July 31st, 2019 Publication – October 2019 Word Count – 5k-15k Theme – Darkness. Despair. Death. The repertoire of vampires and dragons precede them. Terror and turmoil follow in their wake, whether they purposely wreak havoc or not. After receiving edits back, the author has two weeks to return the submission for formatting. View our blog post on the topic of how to submit to a publisher.   Rating – Check each anthologies‘ rating. Word count – Check each anthologies‘ word count requirements. E-mail address to submit to – [email protected]   NOTICE –  Failure to submit correctly will result in refusal of submission. Via: Dragon Soul Press.

Deadline: July 31st, 2019 Payment: Guidelines: Blasphemous Rumors edited by Regina Garza Mitchell and David G. Barnett Blasphemous Rumors Call for Submissions Blasphemous Rumors is a themed anthology of religious horror stories edited by David Barnett and Regina Garza Mitchell. We are seeking dark short stories that focus on religion or spirituality, stories that may be considered blasphemous by the standards of your religion of choice. We are looking for quality dark fiction, not hate-filled rants against religion. Technical Details: Stories should be formatted in standard manuscript submission format. Stories should be no longer than 5000 words and should be original. Reprints are not accepted. We will not accept simultaneous or multiple submissions. PAYMENT: $.03 per word up to 5000 words plus two copies of the trade paperback. SUBMISSION DEADLINE: July 31st, 2019. Stories should be submitted as an attachment to: [email protected] Examples of Blasphemy The term blasphemy refers to saying something about God that is disrespectful. It can also refer to degrading religious concepts or literature. Blasphemy can be included in speech, an act, writing, music, or art. Blasphemy in Everyday Life Some consider rapper Kanye West's album name "Yeezus" and his consideration of himself as equal to Jesus to be blasphemous. Burning a religious document such as the Bible or the Qu'ran is considered blasphemy. Vandalizing a church is a form of blasphemy. Worshipping Satan is blasphemous. Committing suicide is a form of blasphemy. To state that God is unkind, unjust or cruel is a blasphemous. Artist Andres Serrano created what he called artwork by submerging a plastic replica of the crucified Jesus Christ in a container of his own urine and photographing it as a means, he stated, of exposing the ills of religion. However, this 1987 piece of work was considered highly blasphemous and was destroyed...

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: Contributor's copy, potentially pay as well depending on Kickstarter. Note: Sorry for the short turnaround, this just hit my inbox! You may remember a year or so back a girl found ‘Excalibur’ in Britain, in Dozmary Pool (where the Lady of the Lake lives), you may also remember a few months ago, another girl found a sword in Norway, which immediately made me think of Sigmund’s sword Gramr. This all got me wondering what other mythic weapons might be out there. Turns out there are a lot. So of course I had to wonder what happened if girls around the globe started finding these magical weapons. I tossed out the idea to a couple of forums and got a huge response. So of course those stories have to be written. This is where you come in. I’m looking for stories about those girls. Let me start off by saying, do not use Excalibur. If you want to mention Excalibur, it is found by a girl named Aggie Farrier, a school girl who lives in council estate outside of London. There are a huge number of other objects It doesn’t have to be a sword. Here’s a list to get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mythological_objects Be creative. A knife or ring from Asia could find its way into a house in North America. Some research will turn up other possibilities. A word about cultural appropriation, be sensitive about things like whether your object is still important to a group of people, do your research, if in doubt, maybe use something different. I would love to see lots of multicultural stories. The story needs to be about what happens when a girl finds some mythical object. I’m more interested in the aftermath than the finding, so don’t’ spend most of your story...

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 NOVELS, NOVELLAS, COLLECTIONS We are looking for horror novels, novellas, and short story collections. No specific theme or subgenre. Please send submissions to [email protected], include SUBMISSION, book title, and your name in the subject line. Include the following: 1) A brief query in the body of the email. Make this the elevator pitch. 2) Attach a synopsis of the story in a word doc. file telling us the beginning, middle, and ending of the book. 3) Include a ONE page sample from anywhere in the book attached in a separate word doc. 4) Be sure the manuscript is completed. 5) If we like what we read, we'll ask for the first three chapters. If we like those, we will ask to read the entire manuscript. 6) Word counts: Novellas between 17k and 40k words; novels 40k to 120k words. 7) All stories in a short story collection must be written by the same author(s). Give us at least 50k words total for the entire collection. Deadline is August 1st.

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: $30+ The theme of the eighth annual Bikes in Spaces, the galaxy’s only series of feminist bicycle science fiction anthologies, is in the works! This volume’s theme is… cats. House cats. Ship cats. Lions. Strays. Anthropomorphic talking cats. Feline deities. Familiars. Wherever your imagination takes you, we’d love to read your story. Please send us your short stories that feature both cats and bicycles or bicycling in a way that is essential to the story; be fundamentally feminist, even if they aren’t explicitly addressing feminism as a topic; and fall somewhere in the science fiction and fantasy spectrum (sorry, no fanfic, but all other fantastical and speculative genres are welcome). Black and white illustrations are also sought. We especially love to publish work by writers and artists who don’t see themselves well-represented in mainstream books. Word count: 500 – 6,000 words, but don’t sweat the exact count too much—make your story the length it needs to be. Format: Google doc or Word preferred; a PDF or text document are also fine. If submitting an illustration, please get in touch about format and dimensions before you start work on it. Payment: A portion of profits after expenses from the Kickstarter project used to fund the book is split between contributors; payments are not less than $30 each. Send submissions to elly at takingthelane dot com by August 1, 2019. Via: Taking The Lane.

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: Royalty Split Submission Deadline : 1st August 2019 Anthology : What If? – Volume One Title : What If? Theme : Rewrite events in history…but with fantasy and magic! Word count : 5k – 10k Author eligibility : Open only to authors who have had stories accepted for a Black Hare Press drabble or short story anthology Reprints : Not allowed Simultaneous Submissions : Not allowed Multiple Submissions : No Publication : Expected to release on 5th November 2019 in Print and Digital formats Author compensation : Equal royalty split per word How to submit : See our submission guidelines for formatting. Send your story as an attachment in Word format to [email protected]. Your email title should be Anthology Name – Your Story Name – Author Name. For example; “What If Volume One – My Story – A N Author” Please include an author bio of up to 100 words and no more than two links. Please read the submission guidelines in full. Failure to comply could result in your submission being rejected. Whilst we are open to all genres and styles of writing, ultimately we reserve the right to reject topics that are not suitable for our publications. Please read the individual submission call information for guidance. Word count requirements, deadline dates and author compensation are detailed against each submission call. Hyphenated words will be counted as one word. Paragraph breaks are not included in word counts. All submissions must be in English. Submitting your work All submissions should be made by email to [email protected] unless the call directs you to a different address. Check the call first. In your email subject line, please include the anthology name, your story title, and your name – more information can be found in the individual call for submissions. Please remember to attach your manuscript to your email. In your email body, please include your pen name, author name (if different) and a short 100 word...

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: $25 and a contributor's copy NIGHTMARE PRESS IS NOW TAKING SUBMISSIONS for an upcoming anthology called Retro Horror and we are also taking submissions for horror novels, novellas, and short story collections. RETRO HORROR: The name says it all. We are looking for short stories reminiscent of the old low-budget horror films that used to come on late at night. Imagine someone like Vampira or Joe Bob Briggs introducing your tales. Think monster hybrids, experiments gone wrong, or reanimated corpses. That kind of stuff. $25 if accepted Contributor's copy if accepted Send story to [email protected] and put RETRO HORROR, Title, Your Name in the subject line Attach the story in a word doc. file only. No PDF or Google Docs or anything other than word doc or docx. DO NOT paste the story in the body of the email. Deadline August 1st 2000 words minimum, 10,000 words maximum Reprints acceptable as long as you own full publishing rights. We will try to respond to every submission but we may not be able to. We apologize in advance if we do not. Via: Nightmare Press's Facebook.

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: £20 per 1,000 words for prose, £20 per 15 lines for poetry, and £20 per image for visual art Where Blood Bath’s first two issues interrogated the corporeal, then the infernal, Blood Bath’s third issue looks to the metaphysical for explorations on terror, dread and the unknown. Submissions are now open for Blood Bath issue 3: HAUNTINGS Hauntings are some of the most versatile and interesting stories in the horror lexicon. Haunted houses, poltergeists, haunted objects, personal hauntings; all are welcomed, the only criteria for written submissions being that there must be a ghost (or a character’s belief in a ghost) that is linked to an object, place or person. We very much encourage you to get creative on the definitions and implications of these criteria. For visual art, the same criteria apply, but the restrictions are a little more flexible. Not every submission has to include the image of a ghost or haunted house, though we still want pieces that adhere to and complement the theme. If you’re not sure your art fits the brief, send it anyway. Ghosts and hauntings have traditionally been used to exorcise our cultural and societal fears, and the ones that have the most lasting impacts are ones that address and challenge those in a deliberate way. Social issues like race, class, gender and mental health all have a place in horror and we want to read stories about them. As always, we love a generous dose of weird with our horror, so if you can bring us to Hausu levels of madness, it will definitely be appreciated. We try to publish horror that pushes the margins of genre, so any genre defying/genre blending concoctions will also go down well. There are plenty of excellent traditional Gothic ghost stories, so if you’re...

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: $25 and a contributors copy Silent Motorist Media is currently open for submissions! We’re following our debut anthology, Mannequin: Tales of Wood Made Flesh (featuring Ramsey Campbell, Michael Wehunt, Richard Gavin, Matthew M. Bartlett, Jon Padgett, Christine Morgan, and many more excellent authors), closely with another themed collection of fiction, The Nightside Codex. Like Mannequin, we’re expecting a strong TOC, so be sure and send your best work! We’re looking for original weird horror fiction (think Thomas Ligotti, Nathan Ballingrud, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and the fiction published in Vastarien) within 2,000 to 6,000 words about haunted or cursed books, manuscripts, or online media. The texts dealt with should be products of your imagination–we aren’t looking for stories about Lovecraft’s Necronomicon or any other established pieces of unwritten fiction. Outside of these specifications, you are encouraged to take this theme as far as you can! Public submissions will close on August 1st, 2019. Please allow us at least a month following the closing of submissions to get back to everyone. A good portion of The Nightside Codex’s TOC will remain invite-only, so we’re only looking to obtain 5-7 stories from this submission call. Be sure to send only your best work to [email protected]. Please include your name and a short author’s bio with your submission. We are not looking for previously published pieces, and we strongly discourage simultaneous submissions. Fictional works accepted for The Nightside Codex will receive a flat rate of at least* $25.00 paid via PayPal, plus print and electronic contributor’s copies. *We are planning to attempt a Kickstarter for this anthology. If we’re successful, you can expect the $25.00 rate to raise substantially. When it begins, the Kickstarter will be announced on the SMM website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. We’ll need your help to reach our goal, so please share our Kickstarter links as they become available.  Thank your for your interest in subbing to...

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: $25 and a contributor's copy Timeworn Literary Journal welcomes submissions of unpublished historical fiction stories in English under 5,000 words. They should be set before 1996, rooted in history but with a focus on narrative. Historical Fiction from the fringe means anything with a bend toward the surreal, the dream-like, the strange. The off-beat kind of story that settles into your heart long after reading. That said, we also value beauty and warmth and a generally well-written story with soul. Romance, Mystery, Crime and the Gothic are all acceptable. Speculative elements strongly encouraged. Think, The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill. Think, The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt. Think, Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. Think, Longbourn by Jo Baker. While we love a tasteful sex scene, no erotica. No gratuitous violence or rape. History can vary a great deal based on the perspective it's written from. We aim to publish stories from all walks of life and encourage submissions from those in marginalized groups. Not sure if your story fits? Submit to [email protected] using Standard Manuscript Format in Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced. Subject line should read: SUBMISSION: . Simultaneous submissions ok, but let us know as soon as the story is accepted elsewhere. Stories will be published in a limited quantity of hand-bound, saddle stitch publications twice a year, available for purchase in October and April for $10. Stories will also be available on our website for all to enjoy. Payment of $25 will be sent to authors upon acceptance + contributor copy upon publication. Via: Timeworn Literary Journal</a..

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: $0.01 per word. UNDERLAND PRESS is seeking mystery, crime, dark fantasy, horror, and other speculative types of fiction for a loosely-themed anthology to be released in the winter of 2020. This one is called "Eighteen," and is symbolic of the great river at night, where the wolves howl and all doors are open. All thresholds are possible, and every truth is elusive. The Eighteenth Tarot card is the Moon, and those who raise their arms to her know she offers Mercy and Severity in equal measure. These are stories of mischief and mayhem. These are stories of magic. Eighteen is in series with Thirteen: Stories of Transformation, which was published by Underland Press. You may find out more information about Thirteen here. Submissions for Eighteen should be between 2k and 5k in length, and should be sent to [email protected]. Acceptable formats are .RTF and .DOC. Any other format may be deleted unread. Please include a brief cover letter. Payment for stories to be included in Eighteen will be $0.01 per word. The reading period for Eighteen is open now, and will remain so until August 1st, 2019. In extraordinary circumstances, longer stories may be considered. Please wait until August 15th to query if you have not heard back in regards to your story. Publication is scheduled for the spring equinox of 2020, when the wheel turns and the waters flow again. Via: Fire Bird Creative.

Deadline: August 1st 2019 Payment: 1 cent per word In 2016, horror fiction got a leg up in the Lone Star State with the publication of the uniquely Texan anthology, Road Kill. Now in its fourth year, and with the inimitable Bret McCormick at the helm, Road Kill seeks to give voice to both established and novice wordsmiths who walk on the weird side of the road. The guidelines are simple: Texas Tales by Texas Writers. Stories must take place in Texas and be written by native or naturalized Texans. If you were born in Texas and, for some insane reason, relocated elsewhere we'll still consider publishing your fiction provided it's brilliant. Familiar tropes like vampires, zombies and werewolves are not likely to make the cut. Be original. Terrify the reader! Is that asking so much? Submissions should be between 3,500 and 10,000 words in length. We'd like to pay more, but for this edition of Road Kill we'll be shelling out one cent per word. That means a 10,000 word story will receive a check for $100 USD. We are buying first publication rights. Stories must be original, never before published tales designed to haunt, shock and terrify readers in a big way. Writers will be free to publish the story as a reprint elsewhere after two years.  Road Kill Volume 4 will be compiled and edited by Bret McCormick. Send your best, finely polished stories to [email protected]. Include 'RK4 Submission' in the subject line. Submission deadline is August 1, 2019. But submitting tomorrow, instead of waiting until the last minute earns you brownie points. PLEASE read and adhere to our submission guidelines...  * Word format saved in .doc, or .docx * 12 pt times new roman * Double spaced * Absolutely NO extra lines between paragraphs! * 3.5K-10K word count * Write 'RK4 Submission' along with your name and story...

Deadline: August 1, 2019 Payment: $25.00 - $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 - $10.00 for poetry, and $25.00 for nonfiction (all U.S. dollars). and a contributor's copy To celebrate twenty years of publication, we're going to revisit the past. There are no new first lines for 2019. Each issue will be comprised of original works based on past first lines. Were you inspired by the fall 2008 first line (Roy owned the only drive-thru funeral business in Maine.) but didn't see the sentence until 2015? Or maybe you started writing a story for the spring 2005 issue (Life would be so much easier if I were a cartoon character.) but you never got around to submitting it. Or maybe you sent us a story that just missed the cut and you reworked it and want to try us again. Well, now is your chance to make up for missed opportunities. The following is the schedule/list of first lines for the 2019 issues (click the season to see the entire list of first lines for each issue): Fall 2019 All submissions must begin with one first line from Volume 11, Issue 1 to Volume 15, Issue 4. Due date: August 1, 2019 A few notes: Don't just resubmit a story we've already rejected. We will know. We have every story submitted to us on file and why we rejected it. Also, we understand that writers may add our first line to a story they are currently working on or have already completed, and that's cool. But please do not add our first line to a previously published story and submit it to us. We do not accept previously published stories, even if they have been repurposed for our first lines. However, if you used one of our past first lines for a story...

Deadline: August 1st, 2019 Payment: $25 Our first fiction anthology, Negative Space, will focus on the survival horror genre of video games, made popular by such legendary franchises as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Amnesia. Although the term "survival horror" was first coined for Capcom's 1996 release of Resident Evil, it is now a widely used term in video game verbiage. Overall, the main goal of this anthology is to incorporate elements of the survival horror tradition into narrative fiction writing. So, in essence, what is survival horror? It is a sub-genre of horror video games in which the protagonist(s) must face dire situations in locations far off the beaten path by using the environment, or items found in the environment, to survive. While it's safe to assume that "survival" is a common element in most horror stories, there is an extra emphasis in a survival horror story. It could mean finding escape, or fortifying a position and awaiting rescue, or fighting the threat head on with the use of traps and/or under-powered weaponry. Think of Neil Marshall's film The Descent, or the last thirty minutes of Predator; that's what we're looking for. We are looking to publish around fifteen pieces of original fiction for this anthology. Please keep in mind that this will be an experimental collection that favors active horror stories over quieter, literary pieces. When writing your story, think of dangerous locales, overwhelming odds, makeshift weapons, cryptic journals, secret underground facilities, and deadly traps. For inspiration read Stephen King's "The Mist," or play the new Resident Evil 2 remake, or watch John Carpenter's The Thing, then try your hand at writing your own survival horror piece. We'd love to see what you come up with. Fiction Submission: Survival Horror. Word Count: 3,000 - 8,000 words. Payment: $25.00 + digital copy. Rights: We are seeking first time rights in print and...

Deadline: August 3rd, 2019 Payment: 8 cents per word Longevity -  Legends tell of people who lived a long time, like Methuselah. Some are just lucky (Lazarus Long), some have it thrust upon them (Lestat), some just naturally come by it (cats, bristlecone pines, megaliths), and some rightfully earn their immortality (Shakespeare, Sophocles). Is life extension possible via diets or genetic manipulation, and will there be side effects? Is ageism a real thing? Give us your speculative take (SF/F/H) on longevity and how it is achieved. Reading period: July 10 - August 3, 2019 (Note: shortened by a week so we can attend WorldCon) Writer deadline: August 3, 2019 Publication date: October 15, 2019 Third Flatiron Publishing is based in Boulder, Colorado, and Ayr, Scotland. We are looking for submissions to our (approximately) quarterly themed anthologies. Our focus is on science fiction and fantasy and anthropological fiction. We want tightly plotted tales in out-of-the-ordinary scenarios. Light horror is acceptable, provided it fits the theme. Please send us short stories that revolve around age-old questions and have something illuminating to tell us as human beings. Fantastical situations and creatures, exciting dialog, irony, mild horror, and wry humor are all welcome. Stories should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Inquire if longer. Role models for the type of fiction we want include Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke, Dan Simmons, Connie Willis, Vernor Vinge, and Ken Kesey. We want to showcase some of the best new shorts available today. For each anthology, we will also accept  a few very short humor pieces on the order of the "Shouts and Murmurs" feature in The New Yorker Magazine (600 words or so). These can be written from a first-person perspective or can be mini-essays that tell people what they ought to do, how to do...

Deadline: August 5th, 2019 Payment: $5 UPCOMING THEMES FOR CONSIDERATION: (Vol 45.) Abandoned Places; deadline 5th August. SUBMIT YOUR STORIES TO [email protected] Add subject line 'Story submission - The Other Stories' Write for The Other Stories! If you think you’ve got what it takes to terrify, scar and haunt our audience of 10,000 daily listeners, then we want your stories! If accepted, we'll get our fantastic narration team to lend their voices, our editor will sprinkle some magic pixie dust on the track, and you could have your story heard by thousands of listeners each week. If you think you’ve got what it takes to terrify, scar and haunt our audience of 10,000 daily listeners, then we want your stories! If accepted, we'll get our fantastic narration team to lend their voices, our editor will sprinkle some magic pixie dust on the track, and you could have your story heard by thousands of listeners each week.   HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO: Stories must be 2,000 (10% tolerance +/-) Save stories in a Word document - Times New Roman font, size 12 Please include a 1-2 sentence log line for your story. Ensure that your name and an email address are somewhere on the document Stories must fit an upcoming theme You must be the original creator of the story We will consider entrants whose work has been entered and published elsewhere, however please ensure you state where and when on the document You will be allowed to place one call-to-action for your own work at the end of the episode. Be sure to include this in your document. Payment per accepted story is 5USD to be paid on the 1st of the month following publication via Paypal. All rights remain with the author.   SUBMIT YOUR STORIES TO...

Deadline: August 15th, 2019 Payment: Contributors Copy Note: Reprints welcome Since its beginnings in the early 1980s, the Life, the Universe, & Everything Symposium academic symposium has been a staple of the Utah and Intermountain West author and artist community. Many authors, artists, and editors found inspiration for their careers at the feet of scores of symposium guests. Influential professors and others have mentored those planning and running the symposium, but many of these mentors have passed on. The symposium helps students of all ages by providing greatly discounted student memberships. Hemelein Publications—in conjunction with LTUE Press—created a series of memorial benefit/charity anthologies to help the symposium continue to help these aspiring creators learn about their crafts at a reasonable cost. The third of these anthologies, Twilight Tales, is a light horror anthology, created in honor of Betty Pope. She was a librarian at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University for many years. She established the science fiction and fantasy literature Special Collection section. She also hosted a reception at her home each year after LTUE for the guests and committee. This anthology will contain stories Betty would have loved. In summary: Light horror stories (think Twilight Zone or Goosebumps) any length up to 17,500 words Unpublished or reprint stories Up to two submissions per author This is a benefit/charity anthology, so stories are donated and author receives no monetary compensation Authors receive a print copy of the anthology and an electronic copy Meet the content guidelines described on the Submission Guidelines page Stories are due by August 15, 2019 If you have a story that meets these criteria, please submit it using our online form. Contracts will be sent by November 1, 2019 to those whose stories are accepted. The anthology will be released during the LTUE symposium in February 2021 in electronic and printed form. As this is...

Deadline: August 15th, 2019 Payment: $10 per poem, $10 per flash piece (under 1,000 words), $25 for short fiction and essays (over 1,000 words). Send us stories we can’t put down. Our emphasis is literary fiction:  “the Bigfoot's heart in conflict with itself,” as Faulkner famously  said. But we aren’t biased against genre. To the contrary! Experimental,  science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, magical realism, minimalist,  maximalist, flash, etc., etc., are all welcome into our home, so long as  there is an emphasis on character and/or language rather than on  cleverness and conceit. Let us reiterate: character and language are  important. We want sentences radioactive with the bizarre, the  beautiful, the ugly—the world as only you see it. Surprise us. Break our  hearts. Humor is always a plus. Humor and heartbreak together? Oh, boy.  That’s a dream come true. Outlook Springs isn’t looking for merely competent stories—stories that are technically proficient but emotionally cold. Zap us with life. In short: send us your best work. We can't wait to read it! Hello from Outlook Springs! Send us your weird, wobbly wordwork: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. See genres for specific submission guidelines, but here's a quick rundown: - Please only one submission at a time. - Please submit only twice per Reading Period. - Of course simultaneous submissions are OK. They should always be OK. - Payment is $10 per poem, $10 per flash piece (under 1,000 words), $25 for short fiction and essays (over 1,000 words). Payment via PayPal or Venmo. - Double-spaced, Times New Roman is good, but hey, you do you! - Please don't hide any curses or hexes in your semi-colons (ahem, Dave) - See our site for some examples of what we publish (www.outlooksprings.com) - No counterfeit exclamation points or hyphens Questions? Email [email protected] Thanks for submitting. Thanks for reading. Thanks for...

Deadline: August 18th, 2019 Payment: 8 cents/6 pence for new work, and continue to pay 6 cents/4 pence for reprints Detective Thrillers: The thrill of the chase, the steely-eyed detective (either gentle or hard-boiled), the dark alleys and the double-cross, the unsolvable crime by a masterful criminal mind: we're looking for chills and double twists, unexpected turns and private investigators with an eye for the unusual. Formal Call for Submissions (2019) We are looking for new and recent short stories. We do not require exclusivity. You hold copyright, licensing us just for this publication. We don’t mind if your story has been previously published online or in print (though we do need to know publication and date). Simultaneous submissions are fine, but you must have the right to license your story in an anthology. Word length is most likely to be successful at 2000–4000, but we will still read stories slightly outside this range.  Submit stories for 'Detective Thrillers' and 'A Dying Planet' by email to [email protected] Fees, Copyright and Other Terms From these two titles onwards, we will pay 8 cents/6 pence for new work, and continue to pay 6 cents/4 pence for reprints. This will bring us into line with the new qualifying rates for SWFA. We would prefer to pay via PAYPAL because bank charges to the US and Canada in particular can be crippling for all concerned. Payment for the chosen stories will be made within 30 days of the final advertised publication date (see our website flametreepublishing.com for details), although some may be paid earlier than that. Submission does not imply the right to publication. Each story will be read and assessed by the selection panel. Please submit in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats, double spaced, with your name and email address in the footer or header...

Deadline: August 18th, 2019 Payment: 8 cents/6 pence for new work, and continue to pay 6 cents/4 pence for reprints A Dying Planet: Resources running low, the population exploding, the planet is in danger: are we masters of our own destruction, or have we been invaded by aliens bent on mass extinction? Is this a pattern across the entire universe, or just our small sector of cosmic life? New stories needed to explore themes of a dying planet. Formal Call for Submissions (2019) We are looking for new and recent short stories. We do not require exclusivity. You hold copyright, licensing us just for this publication. We don’t mind if your story has been previously published online or in print (though we do need to know publication and date). Simultaneous submissions are fine, but you must have the right to license your story in an anthology. Word length is most likely to be successful at 2000–4000, but we will still read stories slightly outside this range.  Submit stories for 'Detective Thrillers' and 'A Dying Planet' by email to [email protected] Fees, Copyright and Other Terms From these two titles onwards, we will pay 8 cents/6 pence for new work, and continue to pay 6 cents/4 pence for reprints. This will bring us into line with the new qualifying rates for SWFA. We would prefer to pay via PAYPAL because bank charges to the US and Canada in particular can be crippling for all concerned. Payment for the chosen stories will be made within 30 days of the final advertised publication date (see our website flametreepublishing.com for details), although some may be paid earlier than that. Submission does not imply the right to publication. Each story will be read and assessed by the selection panel. Please submit in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats, double...

Deadline: August 20th, 2019 Payment: AU$5.00 for stories under 2500 words / AU$10.00 for anything above 2500 words Colp is our 'anything goes' anthology collection. Expect to see a little bit of this and a little bit of that within each issue, so feel free to submit stories from any genre. Current theme: Solitude Sometimes, being alone is perfect. Other times, it can be truly horrible. Horrifying even. It all just depends on the situation... Whether it be the solo traveller alone on on a desert island, or the shift worker sitting by themselves in a late night diner, for this collection we would like you to send through your stories of solitude. Think isolation, loneliness and seclusion. Originality is the key here. Try to address the theme in a way that others may not. Not thinking outside the box may lead to your story not standing out from the crowd. Minimise the number of characters that you use in your tale. Colp is for everyone and therefore we are willing to read stories that fall into any genre. So, no matter whether your story is a horror, adventure, romance, sci-fi or historical fiction piece, please send it on through. Be original. We also encourage new and unpublished writers to take the leap and get in touch. Please ensure that you read through the general guidelines below and format your submission accordingly. If you have any specific questions please contact us using the form on the home page or via the listed social media accounts. To help make sure that your submission gets to the correct place, please include the following in the subject line of your email: Colp - Solitude - Story Title. Word count: 1000 - 4500 words Deadline: August 20 2019 Payment:  AU$5.00 for stories under 2500 words / AU$10.00 for anything above 2500 words General guidelines:...

Deadline: August 21st, 2019 Payment: .03 cents a word for work up to 3000 words Signal Horizon is a horror and science fiction media conglomerate. We’re looking for horror: or science fiction with a dark or weird edge. We are not interested in parsing through what exactly that means we are very open to whatever.  If your story uses older horror tropes or concepts our expectation is that you will offer a unique perspective on them.  We want something different. There is a audio aspect to what we publish so authors should pay close attention to what your story sounds like. Black comedy is fun.  We are down for that.  However it's difficult to be funny.  Be aware.  If you offer smart and nuanced takes chances are you will appeal to us much more.  Bring us your literary horror works, and we will read them.  We also want to read the wide range and diverse members of the horror world.  Women, people of color, and LGBTQ authors are particularly welcome.  The Submission window for the rest of 2019 will open June 4 and will stay open until August 21, 2019.  See below for questions regarding communication Come Get Paid We pay up .03 cents a word for work up to 3000 words.  We will read submissions up to 5000 words but payment will be capped at 90.00.  Please no reprints. Original fiction sales to Signal Horizon count towards Affiliate or Active membership in HWA. Signal Horizon buys nonexclusive audio and text rights, and nonexclusive electronic rights to distribute the audio and text file under a Creative Commons license.  Sample contracts are available. NO Reprints, and Only One Submission Per Author.  We will not read your second entry. Format and Cover Letter Prepare your manuscript in something approximating Standard Manuscript Format formatted in .rtf, .doc, .docx, and .odt....

Deadline: August 30th, 2019 Payment: $25 Left Hand Publishers is announcing their call for submissions for their next anthology: “Classics ReMixed II.” It’s going to be a collection of short stories based on classics. This is a second volume of our popular Classics ReMixed anthology. Take a classic story, character, or theme of your choice (of any type) and reimagine it. The writer must make it easy for the reader to identify the character or storyline from the classic, but then take the reader in a different direction by reimagining the story – perhaps with humor where there wasn’t before, or maybe tragedy, or even mystery. PLEASE identify the classic you have reimagined either on the submission form or on the first page of your manuscript. Word count is 4,000 to 10,000 words. Submissions begin: Friday, July 26th, 2019, 12:00 a.m. EST Submissions close: Friday, August 30th, 2019, 5:00 p.m. EST. Notice of acceptance or declination will be emailed approximately: Friday, September 27th, 2019 COPYRIGHTS The trick is to make the story or characters recognizable WITHOUT violating copyright law. For example, if you were reimagining the story of Superman, you need to find a creative way to do that without using any proper names such as “Clark,” or “Lois,” or “Superman.” HINT: Stories over 75 years old are rarely active in copyrights. If you submit a really good story but it dances all over copyright issues, we may send it back with a note regarding same. Left Hand Publishers reserves the right to decline any short story that could infringe on copyright law and have legal ramifications. TWIST OR MORAL All short stories submitted MUST have a twist or a moral somewhere in the story, preferably at the end. Good twists (and morals) will catch the reader off guard and surprise them with more than a touch of irony or...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: 5 cents per word What happens when we make monsters? What happens when we confront the monsters inside ourselves? These are the grotesque things that should never have been. These are the beasts that stalk our twisted pasts. These are the ghosts of our own making that haunt our regrets. They’re the blood on our hands. They’re the obsessions in our heads. They’re the vengeance in our hearts. These are Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors. Bram Stoker Award-winning editors Doug Murano and Michael Bailey welcome you to submit your best work for consideration in this anthology, which will launch in early 2020. We've already announced two of our contributors--Ramsey Campbell and Usman T. Malik--and will be making more announcements in the coming weeks! Pay: 5c/word U.S. Length: 2-5,000 words. FIRM. Reprints? No thanks. Anything you should avoid? Graphic, gratuitous depictions of child abuse, sexual abuse and animal abuse are generally unwelcome. Where to send it: [email protected] Deadline: Aug. 31 Via: Miscreations Facebook.

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Fiction: $0.02/word, $0.01/word after 500 words. Poetry: $0.50/line, $0.25/line after 20 lines. CROSS+DECAY is an independent art and literary magazine, connecting creators through dark and eerie themes. This magazine is edited and curated by CRUCIFIXVI. Purchase your copy of Issue 1: Ghosts here. SUBMIT WORK Cross + Decay is now accepting work for Issue 2: Witches. The deadline for submissions is August 31 2019. Submission Guidelines: Cross+Decay is a literary and art magazine, welcoming poetry, prose, and artwork. The work must adhere to the  issue's theme, but it is up to the interpretation of the creator to decide what work best fits that theme and would be most relevant. Prose can be fiction or non-fiction, 500-1000 words (maximum 1000). Prose must be clearly formatted, and fully edited, including spell-checking and proper grammar. Previously published work is welcome, as long as rights have reverted back to the writer. Work exceeding 1000 words will automatically be rejected. Visual art can be of any medium, including photography and photographs of three-dimensional work. Work must be attached as .jpegs. Artists can submit their work with watermarks or as lower quality files, but the images must represent what the work would look like in print, and must be able to be sent as a high quality .jpeg if accepted (300 dpi, and at least 2000 pixels square). Creators are welcome to submit multiple works, but they must all be submitted at the same time, and within the same email. Payment: Accepted creators will be paid for their work. Prose- $0.02/word, $0.01/word after 500 words. Poetry- $0.50/line, $0.25/line after 20 lines. Artwork- $15/selected digital file. All creators will continue to have full rights to their work. Please email submissions to [email protected], with full name, a short bio, and information relevant to understanding...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Between $0.04 and $0.08/word Note: Reprints allowed We will be open August 1 though August 31st. Follow our Guidelines and you are more likely to receive a personalized response. Ignore our Guidelines and a standard rejection may quickly follow. What Are We Looking For? Positive stories demonstrating the triumph of the human spirit and the power of hope and humane values in overcoming the most daunting challenges. We are interested in all SF and Fantasy genres, but no horror please. In this reading period, we need more SF than Fantasy. Young Adult to the Literary. No to Pollyannish and Utopian simplicity. Yes to communities and teams working together to overcome dire challenges. Yes to marginalized and under-represented characters as protagonists. Yes to science and magic that solve problems, alleviate suffering, and boldly explore new possibilities. No to corrupt, dystopian governments or evil corporations. Tone down the violence, profanity, and sex. It’s only useful if the story demands it. Story Length Shorter is better! We need works 5,000 words and under. If you submit a story over 5,000 words, it has to be amazing to get very far in the review process. Overall, we will consider the following word counts: Flash Fiction & Poetry: 100 – 1500 words Short Stories: 2,000 – 7,500 words Novelettes: 7,500 – 10,000 words. Submission Formatting Your story must be submitted in Word or RTF format. Top of the First Page Title of Story (centered) Your By Line (centered) No Address or other Personal Info please. Formatting: Font: Arial, Size 12 Double spaced Indented paragraphs Single spacing between sentences. No extra line break between paragraphs Section breaks, as needed, should be three ### symbols, centered on the page. In the document Header, include Last Name/Title/Page # File Naming: When you SAVE your file, name...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: $25 for fiction, $5 per poem WHAT WE WANT:   1) Dark, literary fiction between 3,000 and 7,000 words. Think Jackson, Ligotti, Barker, think the films of Polanski (especially the Apartment Trilogy), think of Cronenberg. For inspiration purposes, not imitation. Give us something new, but with the haunting flavor of the artists listed above. Submit as an .docx or .doc only.  Pay: $25 via Paypal for each accepted story.   2) Twisted Poetry. POEMS SHOULD WALK ON THE DARK SIDE. Submit only 3 poems at a time, in a single document, either .docx or .doc  Pay: $5 via Paypal per accepted poem.    3) Chilling Art. Surprise us with your depravity. Submit no more than 1 piece at a time, either as an .jpg, or .png.  Pay: $10 via Paypal per accepted piece.    BASIC GUIDELINES   -With each submission, please submit a cover letter with the title of your piece(s) and word count (if fiction), as well as a third person bio of no more than four sentences.  –Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let me know right away if your work is accepted elsewhere.  –No multiple submissions (except poetry, in a single email – see above).  –Please allow 45 days for a decision to be made. After that, feel free to query about your work. Does not apply to $5 Tier Patreon supporters. Those submissions will be put into a priority queue and decided on within 14 days (be sure to mention your Patreon support in the submission email). -Subject line of submission email should read: SUBMISSION / category of submission (fiction, poetry, art) / Last name, First Name. – Fiction and poetry should be single-spaced. No odd formatting unless absolutely essential to presentation of work.  -All submission should be emailed to [email protected] – Please wait until a decision...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties Nightscape Press will open to short fiction collection submissions on May 17th and will close to submissions at the close of that month. This call has been postponed and will instead open on August 16th through the end of August. We apologize for the inconvenience. Payment and Requirements Payment will include an advance and royalties to both the author and a charity of their choice. Short story collections must be 40,000 words or more and include at least two to three previously unpublished works. Formatting Standard Shunn formatting is just fine, but we're finding more and more that we prefer single spaced manuscripts as we read submissions on our devices. And italics should preferably be italicized and not underlined. Single spaces between sentences is also a huge help when final formatting comes around. That said, we will not reject collections if the formatting isn’t perfect. First and foremost make it readable. And where stories require odd formatting for effect, certainly don’t change that on our account. Via: Nightscape Press</a..

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: $0.03 per word 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 Submissions received outside of posted open dates will be deleted unread. Our themes for 2019 will be: Resistance (Submission period November 15-30, 2018 CLOSED, Published January 2019) Ambition (Submission period February 15-28, 2019, CLOSED Published April 2019) Retribution (Submission period May 15-31, 2019, CLOSED Publishing July 2019) Euphoria (Submission period August 15-31, 2019, CLOSED 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 30.00 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: (Click on the sections to see detailed guidelines for each classification.) SHORT FICTION 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 5,100 words, or incorrectly formatted, will automatically be rejected. PAYMENT: Apparition is a semi-pro magazine, paying $0.03 per word, minimum of 30.00 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...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Flash fiction (up to 1,000 words) $20, Short stories (1k to 5k words) $50, Novelettes (5k to 15k words) $100, Novellas (15k to 25k words max.) $150 Note: Only accept unsolicited submissions from writers in (or originally from) Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands. Midnight Echo 14 is upon us and the AHWA is proud to announce that Deb Sheldon is onboard to guest edit this representative of all things good about Australasian horror writing. Deb’s themed issued of “Things are not as they seem“ will open to submissions from July 30 to August 31 and she is seeking only the best for this edition of Midnight Echo. To know more about the editor, we have a brief bio to introduce her and prepare you to make the most of the submissions window. Deborah Sheldon is an award-winning author from Melbourne, Australia. She writes short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum. Her titles include the noir-horror novel Contrition, the bio-horror novella Thylacines, the collection Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories (Australian Shadows “Best Collected Work 2017”), and the creature-horror novel Devil Dragon. She has a novel, a collection, and a novella forthcoming in 2019. Her work has been shortlisted for numerous Aurealis Awards and Australian Shadows Awards, long-listed for a Bram Stoker, and included in “best of” anthologies. Other credits include TV scripts, feature articles, non-fiction books, and award-winning medical writing. Thank you for considering ME14 for your submission and thank you to all who download the edition when it becomes available at the end of the year. Submission Guidelines Midnight Echo is the magazine of the Australasian Horror Writers Association. We seek original, previously unpublished horror fiction and non-fiction on horror-related subjects. As the AHWA’s goal is to support the genre in...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 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 (co-founded and co-edited through our third year by 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 five 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 Editor”, “Dear Shira”, and “Dear Mx. Lipkin” are all fine as forms of address. Via: Liminality.

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: $10 and a contributor's copy We are currently accepting submissions for Haunted Playthings: 13 Tales of Terror Based on True Stories…or are they? It will follow the same format as our first anthology, Shadow People and Cursed Objects: 13 Tales of Terror Based on True Stories…or are they? In case you’re not familiar with our first anthology, it included a mixture of short stories about shadow people and cursed objects. Some were based on real events or objects. Others were inventions of the author’s imagination. The fun was for the reader to decide which was based on fact, and which was made up. All was revealed in the Truth or Fiction section. We’re going to do it again this time. What We Want As the title suggests, Haunted Playthings will contain thirteen short stories about just that…haunted playthings. Including (but not limited to): Ouija boards Haunted dolls Haunted video games or electronic toys Possessed rocking horses Haunted tricycles Spooky swing sets or playgrounds Whatever other kind of haunted plaything you want to write about! Yoyos, hula hoops, Slinkys, stuffed animals, fidget spinners, puzzles, action figures, dress up clothes, Slip and Slides, coloring books…there are loads of possibilities really. Your story can be based on a true account of a haunted plaything (think Robert the Doll, Annabelle the Haunted Doll, or even Lake Shawnee Amusement Park). Or your story can be a total invention of your imagination. Your choice. Get creative and have fun! Length Story: 1,000 to 5,000 words Truth or Fiction explanation: up to 500 words Other Story Requirements No previously published stories. However, feel free to submit as many original stories as you want. Simultaneous submissions are okay, but if it gets accepted elsewhere please tell us so that we can take it out of consideration for our...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: trying for 0.02/word (see below) and a contributor's copy Anthologists: Ronald Linson & Deidre J Owen Publication format: print (POD), digital Word count for submissions: 2,000-7,500 (with exception; see below) Compensation: authors will receive a free contributor copy (print and digital) as well as a modest monetary compensation; details below. LITTLE GIRL LOST: THIRTEEN TALES OF YOUTH DISRUPTED will be an anthology of original stories centering around the idea of the lives of young girls being disrupted in some way. It could be through vanishing mysteriously, experiencing a life-altering event, or… ? We are seeking well-written, imaginative tales that explore this idea to its fullest. Use your own interpretation as to the meaning of ‘lost.’ Surprise us! Submissions period opens APRIL 8th, 2019 and will close AUGUST 31st, 2019 or when the anthology is filled. Submissions received outside of this period will be deleted unread. We are seeking original, previously unpublished stories of the highest quality between 2,000 and 7,500 words. We are willing to look at stories up to (but not exceeding) 10,000 words, but they are less likely to be accepted. There are a few slots open for reprints, however (see “Reprints” below). Genre: Your story can be in any genre so long as it fits the theme of the anthology, with the firm exception of erotica. Subjects we WILL NOT accept include (but are not limited to): Erotica Pedophilia Depictions of rape Graphic descriptions of sexual activity involving persons under the age of eighteen (18) Gratuitous or excessive violence or gore Racism, bigotry, or slander towards anyone Fan Fiction (If you are unsure whether your story crosses any lines, please feel free to submit it anyway. Decisions will be made on a case by case basis.) Submitting: Please send your submission to [email protected] as an attachment. The subject line...

Deadline: August 31, 2019. Payment: 1.5 cents (USD) per word. Who We Are Edited by award-winning science fiction writer Bruce Bethke, STUPEFYING STORIES is a bold attempt to grow a new general-interest science fiction and fantasy magazine from the ground up. Right now we are a small-press, semi-pro, payment-on-publication market publishing on a somewhat erratic schedule, but our goal is to grow to become a regular monthly magazine that pays professional rates on acceptance— And here’s the radical part. We want to do this not by chasing after foundation grants, asking people to contribute to our Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundMe campaigns, or begging passers-by to put spare change in our Patreon tip jar, but by selling lots of books and magazines. Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it? What We Publish Genres: Science fiction, fantasy, and horror, in roughly that order of preference. Venues: STUPEFYING STORIES magazine and the Saturday SHOWCASE feature on our website. Length: Generally, from flash fiction up to 10,000 words. We will consider longer novelettes and novellas, but space for longer works is limited, so please query first before sending anything longer than 10,000 words. Original Novels: We do publish original novels through our parent company, Rampant Loon Media, but do not read unsolicited novel manuscripts. Please query first. See further information below. Reprints: We do not publish reprints. There is one exception to this rule: see further information below. TIP: The best way to see what we like to publish, of course, is to buy and read a few issues of our magazine. The next-best way is to click on this link—SHOWCASE—and read a good sampling of the stories you’ll find there. What we’ve published in the past is not necessarily a foolproof guide to what we’d like to publish in the future, but it’s a good place to start. What We Buy and What We Pay Rights: Worldwide English-language first...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties and a contributors copy The myth of the US-USSR space race was that it was done for scientific prestige. Behind that is the deeper myth that it was done for nuclear superiority and counterbalance. The truth is that it was done to save humanity. Immortal Works (editor Bruce F. Webster) hereby calls for submission for an anthology of SPACE-THEMED ALTERNATE HISTORY to be called THE SECRET LUNAR WARS: 1956-1979. Deadline: August 31, 2019 Payment: Royalties and a contributor copy The President of the United States looked across the Oval Office desk at the Director of NASA, a holdover from the prior administration. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to have this meeting, but I’m still getting a handle on this job. That said, let me cut to the chase: we sent men to the Moon roughly a half a century ago, but have done nothing since. Why?” The Director bit his lip, grimaced a bit, then said, “To talk about that, we’ll need to bring the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence into the discussion.” The President, startled, asked, “Why, for heaven’s sake?” Another grimace. “Because there are – complications – with us, with anyone putting humans on the Moon again. Big complications. Deadly complications. Complications you probably wouldn’t believe. Trust me, we’re not incompetent at NASA. We could have multiple bases on the Moon by now if we wanted to. But we’ve been deliberately dragging our feet on any human mission outside of low Earth orbit since the 1970s. For very good reasons.” The Secret Lunar Wars is an anthology of alternate history short stories that explains what was really going on during the period of time from the first suborbital rocket launches in 1956 to the fall of Skylab from orbit in 1979. Here’s the framework:...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: $10 and a contributors copy Oddity Prodigy Productions is seeking submissions for a new anthology, “Scary Stuff”. This will be the first anthology published by OPP to accept submissions. There is a planned Kickstarter to cover publishing costs. Publishing date and distribution is as yet undecided.  The deadline for Submissions is August 31st, 2019 What we are looking for: In the ’40s and ’50s EC comics published such classic titles such as ‘Tales from the Crypt’ and Vault of Horror’. These were tales of horror that featured classic stories filled with ghosts, and goblins, twist endings and the classic idea of reaping what you sow. The style of story continued into the ’60s and ’70s with Creepy and Eerie magazines. Published outside the comics code the latter had the same campy style filled with over-the-top monsters and gore. We are looking for stories that channel these classic horror tropes and styles. We’re looking for old haunted houses, swamp monsters, mad scientists, shocking discoveries in the weird neighbor's basement. Pick up an old issue of Creepy, watch Tales from the Darkside, or take a look at some EC comics for inspiration. What we’re not looking for: We are not looking for stories featuring over the top depictions of rape, child molestation, or torture. This should be fun and campy. Sexual content is ok, but nothing too graphic or excessive. Think Fright Night or Evil Dead, not Hostel or Se7en. SUBMISSION PROCESS We are looking for stories between 2000 and 5000 words. Exceptions can be made but anything longer or shorter will need to WOW us. Original stories only, we are not looking for reprints at this time. Submissions should be in standard manuscript format. Be sure to include your name, address, email address, and phone number....

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: $50 Our Process The Forge Literary Magazine publishes one prose piece per week selected by a rotating cast of editors. Each submission is read blind by two editors. If a story is chosen to move forward, it is read by one of two rotating Editors of the Month who each make final decisions on the stories they receive. Since we are a diverse, international group of writers, our tastes and styles are wide-ranging. Read more about us here. Fiction and Nonfiction We prefer stories below 3,000 words but will consider work of rare quality up to 5,000 words. We love flash and micro prose. Please send one previously unpublished piece per category and wait to hear from us before submitting another. Reprints are by solicitation only. Literary excellence is our only criteria. We are open to all genres and  voices, and stories with any background, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual  and personal identity from all over the world.  We accept and encourage simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw promptly via Submittable if your piece is accepted elsewhere. We read our submissions anonymously. Our submission manager will ensure that your contact info is connected to your work. Please do not put your name anywhere in the file.Please do not inquire about the status of your submission until three months has passed. If you are a former contributor, please wait at least six months before  you submit again; we only publish one piece per contributor per year. Payment and Rights We pay, upon publication, $50 flat regardless of length. We request exclusive  worldwide English language rights to publish in the Forge Literary  Magazine, an online journal, for a period of three months, after which  all rights revert to the author. Authors outside the U.S. must be able  to receive payment via Paypal. Via: The Forge's Submittable

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: 1 cent a word, to a maximum of $20., poetry $5 Note: NZ and Australian authors only We publish SF, horror and dark fantasy short fiction from NZ and Australian authors. Submissions for the zine are OPEN. Deadline for Breach #11 is August 31. ​ ​ In the Zine All work must be original and previously unpublished. We pay for first worldwide publication rights for six months 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 (after the six month exclusive period). 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. ​ We're also after 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 novellas and novelettes. 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 60% of royalties from all print and ebook sales - we don't offer advances. We pay for exclusive worldwide publication rights for one year and non-exclusive reprint rights. Copyright belongs to the author. Via: Breach Ezine.

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Prose: $10 per page ($250 maximum), Poetry: $25 per page CONSEQUENCE is an independent, international literary magazine. Annually in the spring we publish a print edition that includes short fiction, poetry, non-fiction, interviews, visual art, and reviews focused on the culture and consequences of war. WRITERS whose work has appeared in the magazine include Peter Balakian, Bob Shacochis, Fanny Howe, Phil Klay, Afaa Michael Weaver, Askold Melnyczuk, Tom Sleigh, Anne Germanacos, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dan O'Brien, Martha Collins, Sven Birkerts, Margaret Luongo, David Abrams,  Ed Ochester, Jill McDonough, Christopher Lydon, Bruce Weigl, Lee Hancock, Fred Marchant, Brian Turner, Homero Aridjis, Martha Cooley, George Kalogeris, and Richard Hoffman. SUBMISSIONS are welcome during the reading period between May 1st and  August 31st. We do not consider work previously published in English.  All unsolicited work must be submitted through our website's submissions portal: www.Consequencemagazine.org/submit.  We do not accept mailed or e-mailed submissions. For fiction and non-fiction: please submit one piece of no more than 5,000 words. For poetry: please submit up to three poems of any length. Translations are considered when permissions have been obtained. Simultaneous submissions are welcome and encouraged, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, please let us know immediately. Each submission may be accepted for publication in the print edition of CONSEQUENCE  and CONSEQUENCE Online. CONSEQUENCE is an independent, non-profi magazine, and a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. We pay $10 per page for prose work, $25 per page for poetry, and $15 per page for translations that we commission. For the print magazine, we offer a contributor’s copy and a gift copy of the issue. Address: CONSEQUENCE Magazine P. O. Box 323 Cohasset, MA 02025-0323 Reading period: May 1 – August 31, 2019. CONSEQUENCE is an independent, non-profit literary magazine published annually. We publish short fiction, poetry, non-fiction, interviews, visual art, and reviews primarily focused on the...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: $5 BMR Promotions are open to submissions for our new horror anthology - Stuff of Nightmares! Deadline: August 31st 2019 Genre: Horror Word Count: Up to 5k Release Date: Fall 2019 (Approx Oct 1st) Brief: The Stuff of Nightmares will feature 13 short stories focusing on Nightmares. We want stories that will keep you awake at night. All stories must center around nightmares - dreams that become reality, nightmare worlds, creatures that prey on us when we sleep. We will be accepting ten stories for the anthology, as we will be featuring a story each in the anthology. If your submission is accepted, you will be paid $5 via Paypal. No royalties will be paid out on this anthology. A contract will be sent upon acceptance and we will retain all rights until Nov 30th 2019, at which point, all rights will revert to the author. Authors will be contacted within two weeks of the closing date, if they are accepted. The book will go up for pre-order in late September for one week. Submissions can be sent to [email protected]. All stories must be edited before being submitted. Stories cannot be previously published.

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: $20 “Turning words into art is unnatural. It begins with a contrary attitude. It says, I am unhappy with the way things are and desire to make things different. Rather than represent the world, I will make something wildly and savagely new. I will defy logic. I will invest in new perceptions. I will combine and recombine and fabricate and juggle until something that I have never experienced is experienced. The process is alchemical. The process is violent. It goes to the heart of creativity. It disrupts and shatters. It is splendid with provocation. It is an aggression against banality. It is sharp and loud like a janitor scraping frost from a window. The hectic bounce of steam on a street after a truck roars by. The anarchy of waters, the comedy of the face, dangerous feelings vented from a cage of skin.” ~ John Olson Poetry — We believe poetry is contrary by nature, always defying, always tonguing the tang of novelty. We look especially for plurality of meaning, for dual reverberation of beauty and concern. Contrary’s poetry in particular often mimics the effects of fiction or commentary. We find ourselves enamored of prose poems because they are naturally contrary toward form – they tug on the forces of exposition or narrative – but prose poems remain the minority of all the poetic forms we publish. Please consider that Contrary receives vast amounts of poetry and that we can publish only a small percentage of that work. Please submit no more than three poems per issue. Our poetry editor is Shaindel Beers. Fiction — We ask our fiction writers to imagine their readers navigating a story with one finger poised over a mouse button. Can your story stay that finger to the end? We have published long stories on the belief...

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: AUD$50 Written submissions for Issue 28 are open from Sunday 11th August to Sunday 1st September. Invitation Birthdays, weddings, baby showers, funerals. This is in an invitation to your life. Gently peel open the envelope, what details shall be revealed? Is your life some great big hilarious theme, or in need of formal attire? Will it be something you throw away or keep framed in your home’s entry way? *  Ashley burst through the front door and dumped her schoolbag in the entryway. She threw her keys into the bowl on the end of the kitchen counter and sprinted to the family room. There was no time to waste. Months of pining over Toby at school had led to this moment; the stolen glances, the giggling at his unfunny jokes… all of it. He had given her his MSN Messenger username. “Message me after school,” he told her on the bus, with a cheeky wink. She nervously typed in his name, cursing as her shaking hands messed up the spelling a few times. And there he was, in all his floppy-haired, letterman-jacketed glory. And he was online! She took a deep breath and clicked add friend. Toby’s computer pinged. Ashley M has invited you to a private chat! *  Tea, coffee, whiskey or wine? Biscuits or pizza or cheese? Laugh, cry, chat, unwind. Door’s always open for friends in need.  * The white rabbit didn’t actually say ‘Follow me’, but she could so she did. The cake said ‘Eat me’ and she shouldn’t but she ate it. The jug said ‘Drink me’ and it wasn’t a good idea but why wouldn’t she? The Queen of Hearts invited her to play croquet with flamingos, and she did, even though she didn’t want to. Carroll took us...

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: Contributor's Copy CircleShow is currently interested in publishing the work of both known and unknown authors. Issues of CircleShow are posted online in free-to-read PDF format. Issues are also made available for purchase on-demand as trade paperbacks. Please note that while we do not offer monetary payment for accepted work, all contributors do receive a complimentary copy of the printed issue in which their work appears. We accept a select amount of poetry, short literary fiction and nonfiction pieces for each issue. To submit fiction attach a document (.doc, .docx or .pdf format) containing 1-30 pages of a completed work. Pages should be single spaced in 12pt Times New Roman font or similar. Include your name and email at the top of the first page. Include page numbers but no headers or footers. Title both your submission and the file name as "Fiction Submission-Your Name." We are open to many forms of fiction but do note that pieces intended for youth, dime store romance writing and erotica are hard sells for us. Thank you for choosing to send us your work here at SCP. We appreciate the opportunity and look forward to reading it. Click on the desired category below for specific submission guidelines. Please note that while you may submit to multiple categories at once, we do ask that you wait for a response before sending us more work in any one category. Response time is typically three months or less. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, provided you notify us immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. If you have question or concerns, feel free to shoot us an email at [email protected]. By submitting to SCP you are agreeing to our Online Copyright Policy. Please Note: Submissions for CircleShow Volume 20: Summer/Fall 2019 will close on September 1st. Via: Seven Circle Press.

ANTHOLOGY TITLE: The Killer Collection THEME: Horror focusing on the human elements of violence, murder, serial killers, wicked people. Nothing supernatural. We’re looking for stories that get to the nature of human evil. No stories that are rape or torture, no killing fantasy stories and no abusive or victimizing stories. Stories focusing on stalking, obsession, murderers or slashers are acceptable. A certain amount of gore is acceptable. As we want to cater to a wide audience use our judgment on making a story appealing to horror fans of all ages and genders. REQUIREMENTS: send a google doc or Microsoft doc to [email protected] with the subject line: SUBMISSIONS. Feel free to send multiple submissions however be aware that no more than 3 will be accepted unless they are of outstanding work. All documents should be no more than 3000 words, and written in .12 arial. Inside the email be sure to also include your preferred pen name. DEADLINE: we are looking to get this anthology filled by September 1st so that we can push for a Halloween release. PAYMENT: All authors selected for the book will receive 50% divided evenly amongst all authors of the sales accrued from Amazon and other marketplaces. (As an example if we have 20 authors and we make 200 dollars, then that would be 5 dollars each contributor per monthly sale) our goal however is to produce this anthology via Kindle Unlimited to generate higher sales so we ask you to please send only work that has never been published before. All work will remain exclusive to our publishing company for approximately 1 year. (A Contract will be sent out to you if you are chosen as a contributor of the collection detailing this and the royalty sales as well.) QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS: Feel free to contact myself,...

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: $15.00 to $20.00 and 2 contributors copies New century – New tech – New ways to defeat the monsters? Give us your take on the intersection of elder gods, old monsters and new technology Are the old monsters too far behind us? In this era where almost everyone can instant share to the web, where almost everyone carries in their pockets a powerful computer that can take movies, and record events, in a time when we are a few years away from colonizing planets — are the Elder Gods defeated? Quaint? A joke? Would you live tweet Dagon’s forces rising from the depth to put an end to your cruise ship special? Maybe vlog Shib-Nigurath tromping trough your city park? Or would they use the new technology to conquer this blue marble, corrupt social apps databases to elect unfit to serve, orange hued puppets. Would they alter vaccines or launch nuclear warheads? Darkness Wired, the anthology Unless specified otherwise, we’re looking for stories that are: 2000-8,000 words long,  original (No reprints) short story (if longer, ask first). Edited. Some minor grammatical errors will be accepted but if the submission requires major overhauls, it will be returned to you to edit before being accepted. You must use the information provided in this link. Grab one of the events and go to town! If accepted: Each author receives $15.00 to $20.00. Payment is based on story length and quality. Author copies: two paperback copies and a digital copy of the book. Register for details and upload link. Rights For this collection, we ask for exclusive first worldwide electronic and print rights for one year and nonexclusive rights afterwards. For reprints, we will ask for nonexclusive reprinting rights. Formatting First page should have: Your name: Your name and pen...

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: Contributor's Copy Thurston Howl Publications is now accepting submissions for its third volume of its HOWLERS series, Gruesome Games. Deadline: Sept 1, 2019 Word count: 2,500-8,000; a little above and a little below will be acceptable Games and horror create a delightful combination. Notable cases include the Running Man and The Long Walk (Stephen King), The Hunger Games (Collins), the Saw series, European thriller GAME, Barker's puzzle boxes, new film Escape Room, and even elements of Jumanji and multiple episodes of Dark Mirror. We want to see a collection of game horror at its finest. For this editor, game horror is best defined as horror literature whose premise hinges on the crux of an established and explicit game. I say explicit because I'm not interested in a horror story where one "could read it as a metaphor for chess." The characters need to be aware that this is a game with rules (whether they are broken or not). We will NOT accept: Racism, sexism, or discrimination presented in a positive light. If you are in doubt, ASK. Better to ask then to get a straight up rejection! If you are unsure, just shoot me an email at [email protected]. (restrictions borrowed from Voice: https://t.co/MWykJ6RY36) You can submit up to three stories, but we will only accept one per author (if any). Reprints are fine, but you have to own full permission of the work in order for us to consider it. We will not accept simultaneous submissions. Payment: Authors will receive a free copy of the print book. Send submissions in .doc or .docx format to [email protected]. Title your email with the story title in all caps. If you are sending more than one submission, send multiple emails instead of putting them all in one. We will inform...