Events

Deadline: January 31st, 2022 Payment: Stories between 4,000 - 8,000 words will be considered for payment of $25.00 USD. Stories between 2,000 - 3,000 words will be considered for payment of $10.00 USD Theme: Horror in the woods Be it day or night, the forest hides its secrets from our eyes. Whether you find yourself alone or with others, its innocence can be deceiving, and its inhabitants deadly. What horrors await within the wooded land where nature reigns supreme? Be creative! Your story can be supernatural, otherworldly, creature-horror, or down-right evil. Deep in the Woods hides a playground for your imagination! Required theme: All stories must take place in the woods/forest and must be horror or dark fiction. Word count & Compensation: Stories between 4,000 - 8,000 words will be considered for payment of $25.00 USD, an ebook contributor copy, and the right to purchase an unlimited number of print books at discount. Stories between 2,000 - 3,000 words will be considered for payment of $10.00 USD, an ebook contributor copy, and the right to purchase an unlimited number of print books at discount. How to submit: Submissions MUS be sent to [email protected] with the following details included in the SUBJECT line of your email: SUBMISSION - - '' - Example: SUBMISSION - Deep in the Woods - 'Trees' - Lee Andrew Forman Submission deadline: January 31, 2022 Reading & Evaluation Period: Two to three months after close of the deadline. The following will not be considered: ** NO REPRINTS WILL BE CONSIDERED **Multiple submissions will NOT be considered. As per our publishing standards, stories containing pedophilia, or graphic rape scenarios will not be considered. Sirens Call Publications is open to everyone: fledgling writers looking to cut their teeth, indie authors, and authors of note - if you have a tale to...

Deadline: February 1st, 2022 Payment: 15GBP Theme: Metamorphosis 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. (Vol 78.) Metamorphosis II; deadline 1st February 2022 !!!NEW SUBMISSION PROCESS!!! SUBMIT YOUR STORIES USING THIS FORM If, this form isn’t working, then please email your submission to [email protected] as a last resort. But please let us know why as we’re hoping to use the form going forward. Title your email with the following syntax: SUBMISSION | STORY TITLE | THEME | WORDCOUNT (e.g. SUBMISSION | THE MARTIAN | SPACE | 1,982) It is important that your story complies with our Submission Guidelines. Any stories found not to be in compliance will be immediately discarded. Click HERE for details 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 • Include a 1-2 sentence log line for your story at the end of the document • Ensure that your name and an email address are somewhere on the document • Stories must fit an upcoming theme • By submitting your story to us, you...

Deadline: February 1st, 2022 Payment: $0.08 per word USD for original fiction, $100 flat rate for reprints over 1,500 words, and $20 flat rate for flash fiction reprints (stories below 1,500 words). Theme: Fun speculative cat stories CatsCast is looking for fun speculative cat stories! A CatsCast story should leave cat-loving listeners a little happier after listening than they were before. Specifically, we’re looking for speculative fiction stories about cats. “Cats” in this context are, well, cats — but since this is a speculative fiction podcast, they don’t have to be exactly the same species as the housecats we have here on Earth. The stories should have happy, or at least hopeful, endings for all featured cats. Humor is strongly encouraged but not required. Some stories we love: Copy Cat by K. A. Teryna and Alex Shvartsman Made of Cats: A Love Story by Judith Tarr The Thing in the Basement by Gerri Leen Stories MUST NOT have graphic descriptions of cruelty to animals (brief references to acts that occur “off-camera” are okay). Romantic storylines are fine, but please, no graphic depictions of sex. We want our fun cat stories to be fun for everyone, so please avoid offensive stereotypes based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, religion, or body size. Feel free to dump on cat-haters, though. Submission Details: Submissions are open through February 1, 2022. We’re open to both original stories and reprints, but please don’t submit a story that has appeared in any of the other Escape Artists podcasts (Escape Pod, PodCastle, PseudoPod, or Cast of Wonders). Story length: 6000 word maximum, no minimum. Simultaneous submissions: You may submit your story to other venues in addition to CatsCast, with one exception: please don’t submit here and to another Escape Artists podcast at the same time. If you do submit elsewhere, please let us...

Deadline: February 1st, 2022 Payment: $25.00 - $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 - $10.00 for poetry Theme: Story must begin with: Rayna sat in front of the mirror removing her makeup and wondered who she would discover underneath. We love that writers around the world are inspired by our first lines, and we know that not every story will be sent to us. However, we ask that you do not submit stories starting with our first lines to other journals (or post them online on public sites) until we've notified you as to our decision (usually four weeks after the deadline). When the entire premise of the publication revolves around one sentence, we don't want it to look as if we stole that sentence from another writer. If you have questions, feel free to drop us a line. 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. And, just to be clear, we do not accept simultaneous submissions. One more thing while I've got you here: Writers compete against one another for magazine space, so, technically, every literary magazine is running a contest. There are, however, literary magazines that run traditional contests, where they charge entry fees and rank the winners. We do not - nor will we ever - charge a submission fee, nor do we rank our stories in order of importance. Occasionally, we run contests to help come up with new first lines, or we run fun, gimmicky competitions for free stuff, but the actual journal is not...

Deadline: February 1st, 2022 Payment: One cent per word and a contributors copy Theme: Sword-and-sorcery stories where Samhain/Halloween is relevant to the plot On October 31, 2021, DMR Books will reopen for submissions once again for a themed anthology tentatively entitled Samhain Sorceries. The concept for this book will be sword-and-sorcery stories where Samhain/Halloween is relevant to the plot. For clarification, sword-and-sorcery is a genre that combines swashbuckling adventure with supernatural elements (usually of a horrific nature) in a pre-industrial setting. Unlike most S&S stories, which are set in an invented world like Hyperborea or Nehwon, the tales in Samhain Sorceries should take place in the British Isles. Any time period is suitable, as long as it’s pre-industrial. Admittedly, not many stories that fall in this category have been written, so I would suggest reading those few that exist to get a better idea of what I’m looking for. Those stories are “The Unlawful Hunter” and “The Haunting of Mara” by Keith Taylor (which can be found in Renegade Swords II) and “All Will Be Righted on Samhain” by Howie K. Bentley and David C. Smith (which appears in Swords of Steel Omnibus). What we’re not looking for: Urban fantasy or anything with a modern-day setting. Tolkien-style epic/high fantasy. Stories that read like a D&D session. No LitRPG, either. Anything with orcs in it. If your story has orcs, it will automatically be rejected. I’m not kidding. Badly written amazon warrior women. I won’t dismiss stories with a fighting woman out of hand, as long as a) there’s some kind of explanation for her superior strength and combat abilities and b) she still has some feminine qualities. If neither of those are present, the character might as well be male. Profanity. If a word would get censored on network TV,...

Deadline: February 1st, 2022 Payment: Royalty Split Theme: Be careful what you wish for We’ve all heard the tales, and the warnings: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. If you had a wish, how careful would you be? Would you regret it, or would your wildest dreams come true? Submission dates December 1, 2021 to February 1, 2022 We want stories about wishes granted. Whether they played out the way the wisher wanted is up to you. For this anthology, please no extreme horror or sex. Please keep content and language limited to the equivalent of a “PG-13” rated movie. We want to be able to share this with our mothers and children. Please remember, Knight Writing Press will not accept a story that glorifies, supports, encourages, or gratuitously includes hate, hate crimes, rape, sex, sex crimes, or any other forms of inhumanity. While we know it is tempting to walk those lines with wishes, do not send us stories about wishes used for rape, torture, or abusive mind control unless you are showing the consequences and why it shouldn’t be done. Even then, we probably don’t want to see it. This anthology is supposed to fun escapism, not an outlet for high-handed morality stories nor mentally masturbative abusers. There are no genre restrictions on this anthology, however the main premise of wishes coming true heavily implies fantastic/magical elements. Please keep this in mind if your story does not contain those elements. It will be up to the editors to decide if a non-magical wish granted fits the theme well enough. Please make sure you read and follow all submission guidelines and look over the sample contract before you submit. In the text of your query letter, please include confirmation that you understand we are using Draft2Digital and that...

Payment: $1500 Deadline: February 1st, 2022 Theme: Greek Gods, any genre An Open Call for New and Established Writers Greek mythology has proven itself to be of perennial interest. From reprints of classics like the D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths to retellings of the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Aeneid by everyone from Ursula K. Le Guin to Madeline Miller, writers are continually fascinated and readers are continually compelled by these stories. But while we know today that the Greco-Roman world was international and diverse in racial, ethnic, and sexual identities, this is hardly reflected in the retellings we have. Readers of all backgrounds are actively looking for inclusive, broad-ranging, cross-genre retellings; it’s time to give them their favorite myths with a new twist. Edited by Jenn Northington and S. Zainab Williams and published by Vintage, Fit For the Gods will shine new light on these beloved myths, and bring much-needed representation to them. All genres except nonfiction are welcome. Please note that this anthology is intended for an adult audience; we will not be considering works written for YA or younger audiences. Think Sword Stone Table (co-edited by Northington, including a story by Williams) but Greco-Roman mythology! Eligibility Requirements: New and established authors may submit an original work for consideration. Submission Requirements: All entries must be submitted to fitforthegodsanthology at gmaildotcom by 11:59pm Eastern, February 1, 2022, and must include the following: An original short story of 5,000 – 10,000 words, in two versions: One version of the manuscript with name removed, attached as a .doc, .docx, or .txt file. One version of the manuscript with name and contact information, attached as a .doc, .docx, or .txt file. Optional: Anything else we should know about you? We’d love to consider works by authors from marginalized communities, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled authors, and would be interested in knowing if that’s you. Feel free...