Events

Deadline: March 31st, 2025 Payment: AUD 5c/word Theme: A military or action focus story with the theme of contagion SNAFU: Contagion, featuring action-filled tales of viral, fungal and bacterial horror. Whether it be giant brutish mutations, fungal infections gone wrong, or experimental nightmarish creatures made with super soldier experiments, it always ends with people fighting to survive the horrible, seeping creations that result from contagion and infection. Combine The Last of Us with Resident Evil, throw in some 28 Days Later and see what comes out of the mix! ​Authors we love who have written in this theme are: Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Anthony J Melchiorri, Jeremy Robinson, Jonathan Maberry, Michael McBride, James Cook, John O’Brien, to name a few. ​For film and TV content, we like the REC/REC2 double feature, Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Planet Terror, Doomsday, and loads of other content with creatures that want to kill the hell out of you (and have the unnatural mutations to do so). WHAT WE WANT ACTION-BASED HORROR: Please ensure the action is central to the story, from start to finish, and don’t forget monsters! It really should be in the style of military or paramilitary action. RANDOM THING: Please begin your cover email with ‘Hello Geoff (I read the guidelines)’. This is for two reasons. One, I hate being called Mr Brown. Two, I wanted to make sure you are reading these guidelines. No proper greeting, we won’t read your work. We will delete and not respond to your email. And to say it again, full action. Nothing less. Hoo-rah! We actively encourage submissions from all cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, and identities. Storytelling is for everyone, and we are richer for it when all voices are heard. WHAT WE DO NOT WANT AT ALL RAPE AS A PLOT DEVICE/BACKSTORY RACISM, BIGOTRY,...

Deadline: April 1st, 2025 Payment: Royalties Theme: Mad Scientists create their own peer journal because no legit journal will. Who’s ready to blast off from this dirty little rock? In this anthology, we explore the extremes of science and technology as our heroes make there way off of the little blue ball we call home. Theme: Mad Scientists create their own peer journal because no legit journal will. Concept: All original stories. You are writing as your mad scientist . The mad scientists of the multiverse have decided to create a science journal of their very own since all other journals (even World New Weekly) Genre: Pulp Mad Science Fiction Word Count: 5,000 – 10,000 Opening Essay by: To Be Determined Edited by: Doug Triplett Anchor Author: To Be Determined Due Date: April 1, 2025 Email Submissions to: [email protected] with “Eccentric Science” in the subject line Payment: Stories selected for publication in the upcoming Anthology(ies), will receive a percentage of sales divided equally between the contributing authors. We are looking for amazing stories from any genre that are fun to read and will take us on an adventure of epic proportions. Please download our standards template by clicking here ***NOTE*** We publish genre fiction with aspects of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. If your work does not include one of these aspects, we are less likely to pick up the title unless it is of exceptional quality.   What we are NOT currently accepting: Poetry Single-author collections of short stories. Hard and fast rules of what not to send: Fan-fiction: Just simply don’t. It will be immediately deleted or tossed into the recycle bin. Gratuitous Sexuality: (i.e. smut, softcore porn) (Please, we know that there is a market out there for stories in this genre, but it’s not for us. Contact our affiliate, Tanglewood press for submissions...

Deadline: April 1st, 2025 Payment: 15GBP Theme: Rot (Vol 108) ROT, 1st April 2025 Begin the disintegration. Mind, body, society, the fabric of reality itself. Unearth beauty in the grotesque, the life that springs from decay, the renewal of all things. 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. *** WHEN WILL I HEAR IF MY STORY HAS BEEN ACCEPTED OR NOT? We carefully review every single submission that comes through our door. If you’ve submitted a story to us, please be patient. We WILL let you know if your submission has or hasn’t been successful. Having said that, if you haven’t heard anything up to twelve weeks after the deadline has passed, feel free to ping us an email to check in on it. Submission Guidelines • 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 are confirming that you are 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 your story has been used elsewhere on the document • You will be allowed to place one call-to-action for your own work...

Deadline: April 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. We accept unsolicited fiction up to 2,000 words in length. Translations are welcome. There is no minimum length. We accept only electronic submissions via e-mail at [email protected]. We cannot, due to the various computer viruses and worms, accept attachments anymore, so please paste your story into the body of the e-mail. Also include your name, address, e-mail address, and a short bio in the text of the submission; please put the word "submission" in the subject heading of the e-mail to ensure that your submission doesn't get lost among all the spam. We pay an honorarium of one cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) to buy first-time internet rights (the story will then be archived). Payment is made upon publication. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DON'T ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS and are only interested in reprints in unusual cases (e.g., the story has appeared in print but...

Deadline: April 1st, 2025 Payment: Royalties Theme: Two stories that, together, give us supernatural parables, stories filled with polarities conflicting with each other at their core. The title for the fourth Dead Birds Publishing anthology is Supernatural Parables: Myth versus Reality. What happens when opposing supernatural forces collide? Yang and Yin. Death versus life. Villain against hero. Vampire hunting priest. Senses versus truth. Parables are stories with life lessons woven into the pages. Lessons your characters must confront, lessons they must overcome to survive. We are looking for supernatural parables, stories filled with polarities conflicting with each other at their core. Tell us the morbid of your story. What We’re Looking For Dead Birds Publishing is looking for two short stories from each *author. The stories do not need to be mirror stories of each other, but must contain some element of opposites and some element of supernatural. Angels and devils, tricksters, the undead, myths reborn, cryptids. While we prefer a good horror parable, writing can include magical realism, science fiction, or even dark satire. If you’re not familiar with Dead Birds Publishing, please have a look at our most recent collection, Sasquatch is My Neighbor, to get a sense of what we’re after. What We’re Not Looking For We don’t accept fanfic; any characters or settings featured in your work must be your own original creations. We will not consider any political or covid related stories, unless the topics are buried so well that even Rod Serling would have trouble spotting them. We may accept work that has been previously published as long as the author has regained all rights. Include previously published details when submitting. Absolutely no AI. Anyone caught submitting AI written material will be banned from our wickedly fun publication for life. Editors This anthology will be co-edited by A.M. Symes...

Submission Window: April 1st-2nd, 2025 Payment: 8 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints, For artwork: $10 for the non-exclusive right to use each image, for as long as the site is online.  If we publish a print collection we will pay a pro-rata share for each image used. Theme: Well written original work in science fiction, fantasy, myth, legend, fairy tales, and eldritch, in written, podcast, video, and/or graphic story form, and from around the world. Note: Reprints welcome     Submissions Schedule The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T. For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers. We pay 8¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 8¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles. For new poetry, we pay $1 per line, and for reprints we pay 50¢ a line  We’re looking for poems up to 40 lines. We’ll consider longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 8¢ per word. We sponsor The Kepler Award to recognize and encourage writers of excellent science fiction and fantasy stories that creatively extrapolate on known science in constructive and exciting ways. You can learn aboutThe Kepler Award here. You can read a copy of our standard contract here.   It can be varied as needed to include the rights of translators, voice actors, etc. Writers Guidelines We accept new work as well as reprints, prose and poetry, from a minimum of 1000 words on up.   All else being equal, shorter pieces will be favored, and we have yet to find a story over about 9-10,000 words we have even...

Query Deadline: April 2nd, 2025 Payment: 50/50 profit split of books sold Theme: YA Horror (Think Point Horror, Christopher Pike, and R.L. Stine (Fear Street)) Are you a fan of Point Horror, Christopher Pike, and R.L. Stine (Fear Street) from the '80s and '90s? Terrorcore Publishing LLC is thrilled to announce an all-new subline—Terrorcore Rewind—dedicated to capturing the chilling nostalgia of that era. We're seeking original horror stories that feel they could have come straight from that time period. Stories should be set between 1985-1995, with young adult protagonists (ages 15-19). While we expect YA-aged characters, these stories are not strictly YA, allowing for slightly more mature themes than the original Point Horror books. Who We're Looking For? Our target audience is adult readers who grew up devouring these classic horror tales and teenage readers who may be discovering YA horror for the first time. Submission Guidelines - Tone & Content: * Death scenes are acceptable. * Limited use of sex and strong language. * Nostalgic horror with an authentic '80s/'90s feel. - Query Requirements: * Title * Your full legal name * Your full address, including street, city, and country * Synopsis (a back-cover-style blurb, no spoilers here)  * Detailed 2-3 page outline (Yes, including spoilers for the beginning, middle, and end. We want to know everything!) Do not start writing your book for submission. This phase is only for story selection.  - Final Book Word Count: 40,000-50,000 words (at the completion of the manuscript) - Deadline: If selected, you will have 8-10 months to complete your manuscript. The exact timeline will be outlined in the contract. Submission Window Queries will be accepted until April 2nd, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. CST. Please note that we do not expect you to have a full draft written upon querying. Publishing & Format - The series...

Deadline: April 5th, 2025 Payment: $40 CAD and a contributors copy Theme: Horror stories by Canadian authors set in Canada Calling all Canadian authors! Dark Canadiana: An Anthology of Canadian Horror is accepting submissions until April 5, 2025. We want your Horrifying/spooky/unsettling short stories that showcase the people, places, and things of Canada. Stories set in Canada. Stories staring Canadians. Stories full of Canadiana. Give us your serial killer at a Provincial Park. Give us a haunted landmark. Give us a monster in the forests of BC. Give us all the Canadian chills and thrills. Canadian authors only! Max of 7,000 words Selected stories will receive $40 CAD and a Paperback copy. Accepted authors will have the ability to order additional copies at a reduced rate. Please send submissions attached as Word document (.doc, .docx) format. Please include your name and email address at the top of the document. Use 12pt font, double-spaced, in a common font such as Courier New, Calibri, Times New Roman, Aptos. Simultaneous submissions allowed. Please email to notify if story has been accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions: no more than two stories per author. Must be submitted in separate emails. Will accept a couple reprints but want the majority of the anthology to be new material. We are ok with gore/violence if it fits the story. We are NOT OK with stories that include graphic SA, promoting prejudice/hatred, or any sort of pedophilia. Do not use characters and settings from IPs you do not own. As much as I would love to read about Casey and Finnegan being a serial killer’s Schizophrenic hallucination, this is not a fan fiction request. I really do not want to get sued. No AI / ChatGPT generated stories. Email your stories to [email protected] Please add “Oh Canada Submission:” to the...

Deadline: April 6th, 2025 Payment: Royalties Theme: Speculative fiction adventure on the frontier of the Old West. Edited by Nick Nethery More fantastical adventure on the frontier of the Old West. Stories of cryptid-wrangling cowboys and ancient magic. Witches who ride for the brand. Tell your tales about monsters and magic in the American frontier. We want you to ride off the beaten path with your story submission. If you’ve seen this monster portrayed more than six times in recent media, we don’t want to see it again. Dig up dusty tomes of American folklore and mythology if nothing comes to mind. Stretch your imagination beyond werewolves and skin walkers! Don’t forget to do your homework. Opens: 02/01/25 Closes: 04/06/25 Contracts: 04/19/25 Publication: 05/16/25 Guidelines for all our anthologies (psst! this is important!): 5,000 to 8,000 words. Length and genre are negotiable, as long as the story fits the concept and is entertaining. Any submission must be in Times New Roman (preferred, but you can use Georgian or other readable font), 12PT, double-spaced, with your name, title of the story, and your email on it. Name the file as -—. Send it in a .docx format as an attachment—no links. Refer to the submission guideline graphic below for how to format your story—It has all the information you need! Feel free to download it for reference. Raconteur Press will hold the rights for one year after publication; after one year, the rights will revert to the author, but we continue to pay you as long as the anthology is selling. Authors receive an equal percentage share of the proceeds from the anthology, along with the Press, our editors, and administration. Yes, you read that right. We don’t take 80% off the top and split the 20% left over between all the authors. We’re...

Deadline: April 7th, 2025 Payment: Royalties Theme: Darker tales of King Arthur, Camelot, Avalon, and related characters Deadline – 7th April 2025 Midnight Perth Western Publication – 18th May 2025 Word Count – 2,500 words to 7,000 Theme – The legends of King Arthur, Camelot, and Avalon have been told for centuries—tales of noble knights, powerful sorcerers, and the tragic fall of a golden age. But history is written by the victors, and beneath the well-known stories lie secrets long buried, whispers of magic untamed, betrayals forgotten, and horrors unseen. Explore the darker, stranger, and more speculative sides of Arthurian mythos. What if Excalibur was more than just a sword—what if it had a will of its own? What lurks in the mists of Avalon when the priestesses are not watching? What pacts were made in the shadows of Camelot, and which knights never returned from their quests—not because they failed, but because they uncovered something they were never meant to see? Submissions should reimagine, expand, or twist Arthurian tales through the lenses of speculative fiction, fantasy, or horror. Think eerie fae bargains, haunted battlegrounds, eldritch relics, or even the lost voices of those history ignored—Morgana, Mordred, Nimue, or the knights who never became legends. Genre – Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Horror Compensation – 40% of royalties split between all authors within the anthology for one year from the date of publication.  Reprints – Yes Simultaneous Submissions – No For more information on how to submit, check the Submission Guidelines. Via: Iron Faerie Publishing.