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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Online / Royalties

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Taking Submissions: Short Story Substack June 2025 Window

Submission Window: June 1st – 30th, 2025
Payment: $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue
Theme: Any genre, short story

Mission = Revive the art of the short story, support artists, and produce something wonderful.

Payout = Base Pay of $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue to be sent by Paypal, Zelle, or check.

Wait, you mean if this substack gets thousands of subscribers, the winner would get thousands of dollars?

Yes! The New Yorker pays roughly $7,500 per story and I sincerely hope to go way past that.

What does the timeline look like?

Submit stories by the end of the month, winner to be announced on the 15th. There is ONE story that wins and receives the full payout.

Where do I send submissions?
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Articles

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Writing Prompt Wednesdays: Salt In The Veins

Writing Prompt Wednesdays: Salt In The Veins

Welcome to “Writing Prompt Wednesdays,” a haven where your imagination can roam free in the realms of speculative fiction. As we embark on this weekly journey, it’s thrilling to think about the untold stories waiting to be penned in the domains of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Whether you’re a seasoned author or a budding wordsmith, these prompts are your gateway to unexplored worlds and untapped potentials.

Every Wednesday, we’ll serve up a fresh, thought-provoking prompt designed to ignite your creative spark and challenge your storytelling prowess. Think of these prompts as a key, unlocking the doors to uncharted territories where your creativity is the only limit. From eerie, shadow-laden corridors of Gothic horror to the farthest reaches of interstellar space, and the mystical depths of high fantasy, our prompts are a kaleidoscope of possibilities.

Remember, there’s no right or wrong way to approach these prompts. They are mere stepping stones, guiding you towards the vast landscapes of your imagination. Use them to break free from writer’s block, to experiment with new ideas, or simply as a fun exercise to keep your writing skills sharp.

This week’s writing prompt:

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Events / Magazine / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: The Cafe Irreal Summer 2025 Issue

Deadline: July 1st, 2025
Payment: One cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum)
Theme: Fantastic Fiction You really NEED to read the description below.

The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges. As a type of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined. Therefore, we’re interested in stories by writers who write about what they don’t know, take us places we couldn’t possibly go, and don’t try to make us care about the characters. We would also suggest you take a look at the current issue, archives, and theory (especially the essay, “What is irrealism?”) pages on this web site.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Reprints Allowed / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Behind the Revolving Door, an Anthology of Choices

Deadline: June 1st, 2025
Payment: 1 cent per word or a flat $10 for reprints
Theme: A story with a choice being made is central to the entire plot of the tale
Note: Reprints welcome

Behind the Revolving Door, an Anthology of Choices is the fifth anthology from Celestial Echo Press. The theme is the choices we make.

Each of us makes a multitude of choices daily, some minor and some with major consequences. Do you or don’t you wear your lucky shirt to the sports event? What do you think the consequences would be if you didn’t wear your lucky shirt?

This anthology will be a collection of stories that take the reader on a journey with the author’s protagonist as they go through a trial and are forced to take an action, to make a choice. For example, does the character find a wallet on the ground? Do they open it? Return it to the owner, or keep it? What are the consequences? Do they encounter a second choice, thus going back through the revolving door? Do they find classified information, implicating a family member in a coup? What do they do with it? Is the character hiking through the woods only to find a portal, not knowing where it will take them if they enter? What happens? Is it so bad that they try to return, hence going through the revolving door? There are many, many ways this theme can be interpreted.

We believe authors can give us a great story by fleshing out the characters and plot. We’re asking for a minimum of 500 words, maximum 4,000 words.

The revolving door on the cover will not be required in the story. If a door and/or a revolving door is in the story, that will be a plus. All fiction (humor, horror, romance, fantasy, etc.) is welcome, except erotica. Send us well-written stories that make us think about the choice the protagonist made, that make us think about the story after we’ve closed the book. Give us new, fresh stories. Authors have free rein how to interpret this theme. We can’t wait to read your story.

Uninvited are screenplays, poetry, and nonfiction. Also uninvited are stories that are publicly available on any website, such as a Facebook page. We will not accept stories with graphic porn and yes, we’ll know bad taste when we see it. We want YA readers to enjoy the published anthology without parental balking. Also uninvited are stories over the maximum of 4000 words. They will be rejected immediately. Don’t write on the Google form that your story is 4000 words and send us one that’s 10K. We’ll know.
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Articles / Guest Post

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The Importance Of The First Line

The Importance Of The First Line

By Joel McKay

“Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.”  (King, The Shining, 3).

That’s the first line in, arguably, Stephen King’s most well-known scare fest, 1977’s The Shining.

Terrifying? Not at all.

Engaging? You bet your ass it is, and, more than that, it immediately reveals Jack’s deep-seeded self-confidence issues that manifest as rage, which underpins the entire novel.

So far as first lines go, it’s a stand-out. Let’s review a few more:

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Events / Online / Token Payment

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Taking Submissions: 100 Word Project May 2025

Deadline: May 31st, 2025
Payment: $1
Theme: 100-word drabble involving: Troll

Submissions for the 100 Word Project from Manawaker Studio are open January thru May and July thru November.

The 100 Word Project is an ongoing project focused on 100 word stories which will be published as a monthly, themed online journal and in a yearly print anthology. Each month (except for June and December) will bring a new prompt, and in the first half of the next month nine of the submitted drabbles for that prompt will be posted in the public-facing section of the Manawaker Patreon alongside one drabble from Manawaker EiC, CB Droege (An audio edition will be available to Patreon patrons as a subscriber perk). At the end of the year, the ten stories from each of the ten prompts will be assembled into the next volume of the 100 x 100 series to be published as a print, digital, and audio book. The project is curated and edited by CB Droege. 100 x 100 is published by Manawaker Studio as part of their regular line of anthologies.

Current prompt
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Events / Magazine / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Heartlines Spec Summer 2025 Issue

Deadline: May 31st, 2025
Payment: $0.08 CAD per word for short fiction (500-3,500 words) and $60 CAD flat per poem
Theme: Speculative fiction focused on long-term friendships and relationships.

We’re looking for short fiction and poetry focused on long-term relationships: platonic, romantic, or familial. We don’t want the blaze of new love or the obsession of a new friend. We want pieces that show that comfort that develops when people know each other for years.

Give us deep space, dusty frontiers, or dreamy fantasy. We want stories and poetry with strong, confident relationships amid all the sci-fi/fantasy. While we are primarily looking for stories with happy endings (yeah, yeah), we also want endings that are earned. If things get a little teary or gory, that’s ok.

We are especially interested in stories featuring queer platonic relationships, ace/aro love stories, and polycules.

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Reprints Allowed / Semipro

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Taking Submissions Self (S)care Anthology May Window

Submission Window: May 15th-31st, 2025
Payment: 2 cents per word
Theme: Reprints of self-published horror stories

Calling all self-published horror authors! Get those short stories ready! Open submissions begin next week for this brand-new anthology geared toward spotlighting the best in indie horror!

In this unique collaboration project, Paul Carro and Candace Nola have teamed up to create a new opportunity for self-published authors! The incredibly talented Laurel Hightower is on-board to write the foreword, and the book will be published in all formats by Uncomfortably Dark Horror.

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