Events

Deadline: September 17th, 2023 Payment: $10 Theme: Short pulp sword and sorcery stories Submissions: OPEN (Issue 8) • Submission deadline: Sunday, September 17th, 2023, 11:59p. • Editorial decisions: Sunday, October 15th. E-mailed at the end of the work day. • Publication of Issue 8: Friday, December 15th, 2023. Published digitally at the end of the work day. Length: We prefer short, compressed stories that are nevertheless complete and cohesive narratives (1500 to 2500 words). These limits are firm. No more, no less. Stories over or under the limit will not be read. We mean it, friends! This limit serves two functions: (1) the limit is an artistic challenge. It takes skill to tell a compressed, punchy story. (2) We are an amateur publication and only pay a token honorarium, so save your longer works for better paying markets. Style: We prefer "dialog light, action heavy" fiction with vivid imagery that is unselfconsciously literary but nevertheless takes joy in an occasional old word that gives the breath of antiquity. Please eschew typographical emphasis and variation--e.g. bolding, italicizing, underlining (there are more artful ways of rendering verbal timbre). Questions? Join our Discord, the Whetstone Tavern and ask questions to the Whetstone channel there. Publication, payment, and rights: Issues will be published as .pdf files. If work is selected for publication in WHETSTONE, authors will (1) be paid an honorarium of $10 and (2) will be asked to provide, by contract, "First North American Serial Rights." In our opinion, this means that copyright is NOT transferred. All copyright stays with you, the writer; however, you will have sold/transferred a form of "exclusive use rights" called "First North American Serial Rights" (FNASR). This is the right to publish your unpublished work for the first time, and ONLY the first time, no more. The important thing to remember is that some professional publications may ask for...