Events

Deadline: April 15th, 2024 Payment: Fiction: 2¢ per word for original, 1¢ per word for reprints. Poetry: $20 per original poem and $10 for reprints. Theme: Stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia. Note: Reprints Welcome Submission Guidelines Radon welcomes short stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia. ​We publish quality work every January, May, and September. Submissions accepted year-round. Simultaneous subs are welcome. Reprints taken if writer has rights. AI submissions are not allowed. ​ Please click below to submit your work through our no-fee Submittable: SubmittableWe kindly request a third person bio that is 100-words or shorter in your cover letter.Author rights: For original work, Radon asks for first English digital rights and non-exclusive, indefinite archival rights. ​ Authors published in Radon cannot be accepted into the issue immediately following, but may submit after this period. ​ Our reading periods are: ​ January issue: Aug. 16 - Dec. 15 ​​ May issue: Dec. 16 - April 15 ​​ September issue: April 16 - Aug. 15 Prose We accept flash fiction and short story submissions up to 3,000 words. Radon pays a semi-professional rate of 2¢ per word for original work and 1¢ for reprints. ​ For quicker processing, please use a submission style similar to the modern manuscript format. We ask that you utilize single-spacing. Please note that we do not publish fantasy stories and are looking for work that includes leftist social commentary. Poetry Please submit up to five poems in a single Word document. There is no line limit. Radon pays a semi-professional rate of $20 per original poem and $10 for reprints.We request single-spaced formatting using a standard 12pt font such as Times New Roman, Calibri, or Lato. The poetry editor prefers free verse poems with narrative elements. Page and spoken word poems...

Deadline: April 15th, 2024 Payment: Split Payment from Kickstarter (Minimum of $50) and a contributor's copy Theme: Queer Halloween from authors who are queer/part of the queer/LGBTQIA+ community, in some way, shape or form. It’s that time of year—we’re carving pumpkins, installing ghosts in the front yard, and putting out the next Bikes in Space call for submissions. This time around, it’s for volume 13, which needed an appropriate theme. Fortunately, guest editor Summer Jewel Keown came up with one for the ages: Queer Halloween! Here’s the info: Please submit your original queer Halloween short fiction (in written or comics form) about bicycling from a feminist perspective. We’re looking for stories that give us a shiver or make us leave the hallway light on at night. Raise our hair and make our spines tingle. We’ll also consider Halloween-themed stories that aren’t as frightful, but they should still be infused with all things spooky season. Stories should be written by authors who consider yourself queer (in whatever way you identify), and should feature Halloween and/or otherworldly elements, and queer characters/themes, as well as feminism. All four elements should be intrinsic to the narrative: Halloween (or stories sufficiently scary or thematic enough to be read around Halloween) Queer Feminism (it is sufficient to simply not include sexist themes or tropes) Bicycles The genre can be anything fantastical—ghost stories, horror, hard sci-fi, comedic fantasy, slipstream, or anything in that constellation—despite the series title, stories need not be be set in space. No fanfic, poetry, nonfiction, or erotica for this series, please. Stories should not include extreme body horror or graphic violence. For this volume of the anthology, we ask that all authors be queer/part of the queer/LGBTQIA+ community, in some way, shape or form. We aren’t the queer police (which sounds both fabulous and like...

Deadline: April 15th, 2024 Payment: $20 per story or artwork Theme: Electric Spec prefers science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre, but we're willing to push the limits of traditional forms of these genres. submissions at electricspec (dot) comPlease don't query us about your story submission. We don't have the manpower to answer such queries. An editor will email you back as soon as possible with the decision about your story. This can take a few days, or, up to three months. We make every effort to get back to authors in a timely manner but we get a lot of submissions so sometimes it's not possible. A note on our editorial policy: before publication we may work with the author to edit the story for length or readability. However, we always remain true to the spirit of the story and the author has final approval. Issues are published at the end of February, May, August, and November. We reserve the right to shift publication date slightly, as necessary. We have reading periods for each issue, though we never close to submissions. February closes January 15 May closes April 15 August closes July 15 November closes October 15 Please do not submit the same story more than once, and please submit only one story at a time. We consider any story between 250 and 7000 words with speculative fiction elements. We prefer science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre, but we're willing to push the limits of traditional forms of these genres. We do not consider poetry, stories with over-the-top sex or violence, serials, novels, fan fiction, or non-fiction. We don't accept multiple submissions; in other words, only submit one story at a time and wait for a response before submitting another. We accept simultaneous submissions as long as you let us know up...

Submission Window: April 1-14th, 2024 Payment: $.08 per word for fiction ($100 minimum), $40 per poem. $75 for for nonfiction, $100 for reprint cover art, $200 for original unpublished cover art, $50 for reprint interior art, $100 for original unpublished interior art Theme: All forms of Solarpunk, however, this issue is open to BIPOC authors only Solarpunk Magazine publishes hopeful short stories and poetry that strive for a utopian ideal, that are set in futures where communities are optimistically struggling to solve or adapt to climate change, to create or maintain a world in which humanity, technology, and nature coexist in harmony rather than in conflict. We also publish solarpunk art as well as nonfiction that explores real world, contemporary topics and their intersection with the solarpunk movement for a better future. Submission Guidelines for Solarpunk Magazine *Our nonfiction department is always open for submissions. If the fiction portal is closed and you submit fiction through the open nonfiction portal, your submission will be rejected. All submissions are done via Moksha. Any submissions received via email will be deleted without response. Please don't email us to describe your story and ask if it's something we'd be interested in before submitting. We appreciate the consideration, but its easier if you just submit the story here through Moksha. Additional guidelines for each specific submission category are available below. For fiction and nonfiction, please format your submission document as follows: double-spaced 12pt Times New Roman font indented paragraphs no extra space after paragraphs A cover letter is not required. However, we appreciate a brief paragraph telling us a little bit about yourself like where you're from and why you love solarpunk. There is no need to include a third person bio. We will collect that and other needed info if your submission is accepted...

Submission Window: April 1st - 15th, 2024 Payment: $35 per page of the adapted script, up to 12 pages, paid via PayPal, and a print copy of the issue. Theme: Scripts for comics in the style of Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, etc. Vault of Shadows: Issue 1 A New Generation of Horror Comics Wish your story could be adapted as a comic book? Here’s your chance to make it happen. Open call submission window open April 1 - April 15, 2024. Extended submission window exclusively for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, neurodivergent, and other marginalized writers open April 16 - May 1, 2024. Do you love old-school horror comics? Think Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, etc. We want to work with you to adapt your short story (original stories and reprints welcome) into a comic with artwork by the incredible Christopher Castillo Díaz (It Was All a Dream, It Was All a Dream 2 interior illustrator). If your story is selected, you’ll have the opportunity to adapt your story into an 8-12 page comic script that will be inked, colored, and included in the first volume of Hungry Shadow Comics’ Vault of Shadows. Only 3 stories will be selected for the first issue, with a fourth selected from an invited author (TBD). What are we looking for? Short horror, weird, dark fiction between 3000 and 7500 words (not really a firm limit - the final product will be the comics script, not the short story), that can be adapted into a comic book script of 12 pages or less. We want to read the story, not an already created script. The challenge is to adapt the story after it’s selected. Really dig in to your experience with horror comics. Visual stories full...

Submission Window: March 15th-21st POC, March 22nd-April 15th, everyone Payment: 3 cents per word, with a minimum of $20 Theme: Speculative Fiction in the science fiction or fantasy variety We are open annually for submissions from March 15th through April 15th for our August issue, and from September 15th through October 15th for our February issue. The first week of submissions (March 15-21 and Sept 15-21) is reserved for writers of color. The remainder of the window will be for general submissions. If you’re a writer of color who submits during that first week and you hear back from us before the general window closes, you’re welcome to send a second submission during that time. We are not interested in machine-generated (AI/LLM) characters, plots, or text of any kind. Spellcheckers and grammar checkers that run off machine learning are absolutely fine by us (though we also don’t want you to let a machine strip out your natural writing voice in the name of someone else’s idealized grammar!) HOW TO SUBMIT SUBMIT YOUR STORIES HERE WHAT TO SUBMIT The short version: We pay $0.03 per word with a minimum of $20 in exchange for first world electronic rights in English. We ask for an exclusivity period of 3 months from date of publication. Maximum 5,000 words. Your story must contain speculative elements: that means science fiction or fantasy. We do not accept nonfiction. No simultaneous submissions. Only one submission per writer per open period. We aim to make our final decisions within a month and a half of the close of submissions (i.e. by May 31st for the spring period, and by November 30th for the fall period). You will often receive a response much sooner. If you haven’t heard from us by that time, please query at the above address. The long version: Broadly...