Events

Deadline: September 10th, 2013 Payment: Exposure Only Flash fiction & Short Stories (1,000 – 6,000 words) Poetry accepted – Reprints too Ladies of the night step forth to be counted, those who write, and those who choose to tell tales about them. The scope of such a topic brings forth boundless notions for the budding author. Maybe your protagonist is a female reaper, or an undead harlot? Let’s get to know the sisters of obscenity. Give me deals with the devil, illegal experiments, and mysterious miracles. Zombies, Vampires, and Spirits are welcome. Make them dark, make them decadent, but above all make them sexy – these should be the kind of stories that wouldn’t usually see daylight. No taboos, just let your imagination run wild. Dark fairytales, bizarre, horror, surrealism, dark science-fiction are all cool here. Submission guidelines: Deadline for submissions – September 10th, 2013. Word Count: 1,000 – 6,000 words. Please submit your manuscript as a *.doc or *.docx file (all other formats will automatically be rejected. Contact me prior to submitting if this presents an issue for you.) Font and formatting: Please submit in Times New Roman, 12 point font; single line spacing. Please format the document to 1st line indentation of 1″. The page margin should be set to .2″ Please check grammar. Only stories previously unpublished may be submitted. Upon acceptance into the anthology, you agree that Horrified Press holds exclusive publishing rights for six months from the date of publication; after that date has passed, all intellectual property rights revert to the author with the proviso that Horrified Press retains distribution rights in the format of the contracted anthology. This title will be available as an E-book, and as a quality trade paperback Nathan J.D.L. Rowark will be presiding over this anthology. Email your submission...

Deadline: September 10th, 2013 Payment: Exposures and Royalties TALES OF THE UNDEAD HELL WH*RE – Volume III Deadline: September 10th, 2013 Payment: Exposure and Royalties Flash fiction & Short Stories (1,000 – 6,000 words) Poetry accepted – Reprints too Ladies of the night step forth to be counted, those who write, and those who choose to tell tales about them. The scope of such a topic brings forth boundless notions for the budding author. Maybe your protagonist is a female reaper, or an undead harlot? Let’s get to know the sisters of obscenity. Give me deals with the devil, illegal experiments, and mysterious miracles. Zombies, Vampires, and Spirits are welcome. Make them dark, make them decadent, but above all make them sexy – these should be the kind of stories that wouldn’t usually see daylight. No taboos, just let your imagination run wild. Dark fairytales, bizarre, horror, surrealism, dark science-fiction are all cool here. Submission guidelines: Deadline for submissions – September 10th, 2013. Word Count: 1,000 – 6,000 words. Please submit your manuscript as a *.doc or *.docx file (all other formats will automatically be rejected. Contact me prior to submitting if this presents an issue for you.) Font and formatting: Please submit in Times New Roman, 12 point font; single line spacing. Please format the document to 1st line indentation of 1″. The page margin should be set to .2″ Please check grammar. Upon acceptance into the anthology, you agree that Horrified Press holds exclusive publishing rights for six months from the date of publication; after that date has passed, all intellectual property rights revert to the author with the proviso that Horrified Press retains distribution rights in the format of the contracted anthology. This title will be available as an E-book, and as a quality trade paperback Nathan...

Deadline: September 12th, 2013 Payment: $10 per story   Mocha Memoirs Press is pleased to announce that a new horror and dark fantasy anthology is now open for submissions. Please read all of the information provided. Submission Deadline and Publication Schedule:We will remain open for submissions from August 12-September 12, with an expectation that the anthology will be published by October 2. What We Want In the Bloodstream will be an open themed dark fantasy and horror anthology of 31 short stories, released as a digital book and as a paperback book. Your submission must contain elements of dark fantasy or horror to be considered. The subject matter is up to you. We want beautiful prose and originality wrapped up in the darkest, creepiest story you’ve ever conceived. What We Don’t Want We don’t want slasher horror or splatterpunk for this collection. We will reject any stories that contain rape, and the abuse of minors. Stories featuring well-worn tropes (vampires, zombies, werewolves) will be an extremely hard sell. Violence is fine, but gratuitous gore isn’t. We don’t mind sex if its integral to the plot, but we don’t want an adult-film script. Other than that, use your imagination to make us cringe and tremble. Submissions ▪Submit your work to mmphorror(at)gmail(dot)com with Submission: your story title_your last name in the subject line. Attach your story as a DOC, DOCX, or RTF file. Submissions sent in the body of the email will not be read. ▪ We prefer to see submissions using something approaching Standard Manuscript Format, which can be found here: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html The only exception is that italics MUST appear as they will be used; no underlining.  Include a brief cover letter in the body of your email stating your name, pen name (if using one), story title with word count, address, website or blog, and...

Deadline: September 15th 2013 Payment: $25 MONSTER HUNTER – DOOMSDAY Submit to Emby Press Reading Period: 3/15/13 through 9/15/13 Tentative Publication Date: November 2013 Payment: $25.00, payable upon publication for First Worldwide Print and Electronic rights. Word Limits: 2000 to 6000 words. Submissions will only be accepted as DOC (Word) or RTF formats, submitted through our submissions link. Genres Accepted: Dark Fiction, Horror and Sci-Fi. No Fantasy or poetry accepted at this time. Original, unpublished work only. No reprints, please! No simultaneous subs (submitting to emby and another press at the same time). No multiple subs, please (keeping in mind that I will notify all authors as soon as possible if a story is declined so that they may submit that story to another market and hopefully submit another story to our book). Please read and follow our submission guidelines. “The outbreak spread faster than anyone could have imagined. By the time we realized the true extent of the threat, the only choice left was to hit back with everything we had – to go for broke…” Be it a zombie apocalypse. a vampire uprising or an alien invasion, there does come a time when no option is “off the table”. This anthology is about those stories. Give us a giant un-stoppable monster, or a demonic cult that has been building secretly for decades; a lycanthropic epidemic or a xeno-morph infestation. And answer it with a full military response. As BLOOD TRAILS will document the intense emotional connection between characters, DOOMSDAY is your chance to cut loose and fill a story full of miniguns, drones and if necessary, nukes (it is the only way to be sure). Let action be your inspiration – picture this as if it were a script for an 80′s blockbuster. As with BLOOD TRAILS, DOOMSDAY...

Deadline: September 20th 2013 Payment: $10 per story Each monthly flash fiction call has a theme. We ask you to write an SFF story (SciFi, Fantasy, Horror, or related sub-genres) that fits the theme in some way. You’ll find a list of upcoming themes below. Please only submit a story for a particular theme during that theme’s submission period. Stories submitted during the wrong submission period will be deleted unread. Though this is a flash fiction contest, we’re still looking for stories with a strong narrative arc. We want stories that introduce us to character, world, and conflict in the opening 1-2 graphs. (Conflict isn’t just a fight, by the way.) We want a middle free of too much backstory; we want forward momentum. Last, we want an ending the resolves the plot, directly or subtly. We only want stories between 500 and 1,000 words, inclusive. We pay a flat rate of $10 per story, regardless of length. Theme: Outsiders   Send your submission in an email to kazkapressgmail.com. Attach your file to the email. Don’t forget to include your cover letter in the body of the email. Subject Line: Flash Fiction Contest (e.g. “Flash Fiction Contest ” for the ‘Sax & Violins’ prompt). Imprecise subject lines may result in lost submissions. Here are the rules and details. Word Count: We’re looking for a piece of flash fiction that is between 500 and 1000 words long. Thus: 499 < YOUR STORY < 1,001 We won’t publish stories north or south of this mark. Deadline: At midnight, as the 20th rolls into the 21st in California, we’ll stop accepting submissions for the current month’s contest. All dates and times relate to California time (Pacific PST/PDT). Manuscript & Cover Letter: Please get close to standard manuscript formatting. However, we’ll be formatting your story for the web, so...

Deadline: September 25th 2013 Payment: There will be two Editor’s Choice Awards for $25 each. Each Editor’s Choice Award winner will receive a free contributor paperback copy and $25. Cash award is payable via PayPal only and will be made approximately 65 days from publication of the anthology. "Editor’s Choice Award Winner" will be posted under the author's name where the piece is placed inside the anthology. All contributors will earn a free Kindle edition of the anthology. There’s nothing quite like the birth of a child. Children are born in our likenesses... we treasure their beauty, their innocence, and marvel as they take their first breaths outside of their mother’s womb. In a perfect world, babies are miracles. But as we know, the world is not always perfect. “... then something like a stick insect, enormous bulging eyes among stiff fragilities that were limbs... a small girl all blurred, her flesh guttering and melting... a doll with chalky swollen eyes, its eyes wide and blank, like blue ponds, and its mouth open, showing a swollen little tongue. A lanky boy was skewed, one half of his body sliding from the other. A child seemed at first glance normal, but then Harriet saw there was no back to its head; it was all face, which seemed to scream at her.” -- from Doris Lessing’s Fifth Child What happens when we allow ourselves to conceptualize the horrible possibilities -- the terrifying consequences of childbirth gone wrong -- the unimaginable monstrosity that might be born into this world, or perhaps another -- the worst case scenario of what could but shouldn’t be? UGLY BABIES -- the anthology. Bring us your ruminations on the abnormal, the abominations, the grotesque, the downright appallingly hideous children your dark minds can conceive... from the time of...

Deadline: September 25th 2013 Payment: Exposure Only Fascination With Fear is a blog by a dedicated horror fan for horror fans. Sarcasm abounds, ranting ensues, and opinions are readily available. Movie reviews, random lists, and general discussions about the horror genre is what it's all about. Hey kids! Naturally we Halloween here at FWF and we go all out on our blog with a Festival of Lists. This year we want to try a few new things, one of which is hearing from our readers. Do any of you have a ghost story? If you have had a weird, creepy, unexplainable experience, we want to hear it! Christine and I are hoping to gather your ghost stories and post them on the blog in October, including a few of our own. It could be a "friend of a friend" tale, or a local urban legend, as long as it is bone chilling. Please send your yarns to my (Marie) email with the subject "FWF Ghost Story". Please let me know if you would like to remain anonymous. [email protected] Halloween is coming, and we are excited. Are you? Via: Fascination With Fear's Facebook.

Deadline: September 29th 2013 Payment $30-$50 if one of the top winners ANNOUNCING THE FIRST ANNUAL FICTION VORTEX HORROR CONTEST Greetings to everyone navigating the Fiction Vortex. Mike here. I come with great news, and a little bit of backstory. During one of our many staff conference calls, which usually consist of me proposing ideas and Dan saying it will never work, the old Voice of Reason himself surprised me by expressing a desire to spice up our process, to try something new and exciting. Here’s about how it went: Dan: We need to do something to spice up our process, something new and exciting. Mike: Yeah? I thought we had a lot of exciting stuff. Move it, you idiot! Dan: Excuse me? Mike: Oh, sorry, not you. I’m driving. The person camped on a green light in front of me. Dan: No problem. Glad to see you’re getting control of that road rage issue. Mike: Yeah, making leaps and strides. So what exciting things did you have in mind? Dan: I don’t know. Mike: Let’s do a contest. Dan: We already do a contest each month. Mike: Let’s do a special contest. Halloween’s coming up. Let’s do a contest in October. Horror. Dan: It’ll never work. Mike: C’mon, it’s Halloween. Plus Jon knows a lot about horror. Let him judge and what not. Dan: Are you sure? You know what happens when Jon reads too much horror. Mike: Uh, yeah… Bwuh. Who else could be the judge? Dan: I don’t know many horror writers. I’ve deliberately distanced myself from them. Might be closeted serial killers. Mike: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s just as likely that the sad looking kid bagging your groceries at Walmart is a serial killer. Dan: Which is why I get my groceries...

Deadline: September 30th 2013 Payment: 20% of the total profit will be paid for each accepted story (at quarterly intervals; if more than five stories are accepted, they will be placed in another anthology in this series. We’d dislike reducing your pay) The cashier who hands you your change as if bills are foreign and coins are a tiny mystery, cast in circle, is a fay; he’s still ginger with the silver coins, expecting iron. He gives pennies, mostly. Bridge trolls are misplaced in the city, shoving themselves between the homeless (there are no goats; they eat dogs now, mostly). A siren in fishnets pouts on her corner, her whispers drawing in more dinner than her cleavage. In the subway station three old women, six blind eyes among them, sell doilies to the tune of a jangling cup; the first spins the thread, the second allots them to your days, the third inexorably binds it to you. Avoid them. But there are others. So many others. The son of Zeus is among the WWF. The daughter of Fu Manchu rules much of the world. Not with bombs or blades or the ever-popular dacoits, but with the subtle weapons of her age: treaties and laws and, most frightening of all, accountants. Sherlock Holmes is dead, replaced by fellows with all of his name and none of his talent. Cell phones are better than talent, aren’t they? We seek stories that take something out of the past, be it mythological or fictive or horrific, and show us how it adapts to the present. Show us why the old myths are still relevant, show them stepping into our lives and disarraying every little thing we tell ourselves. We’re open to everything from urban fantasy to magical realism to golden age detection to noir...

Deadline: September 30th 2013 Payment: We pay five cents per word up to 5,000 words, with 30% paid on acceptance and the remainder to be paid after the complete manuscript has been accepted by the publisher. Stoker Award-winning anthologist Del Howison (Dark Delicacies 1-3, The Book of Lists: Horror) and internationally bestselling urban fantasy author Joseph Nassise (Eyes To See, By the Blood of Heroes) have joined forces with horror Grand Master Clive Barker to bring you back to the city of Midian and the creatures of the darkness known as the Nightbreed! Tor Books will be publishing MIDIAN UNMADE: TALES OF CLIVE BARKER’S NIGHTBREED in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback editions in the fall of 2014 and we’re looking for original horror and dark fantasy stories that fit the guidelines below. MIDIAN UNMADE: TALES OF CLIVE BARKER’S NIGHTBREED We’ve all felt it at one time or another – that sense of unbelonging, of being isolated, possibly even shunned because of our differences; not for anything that we’ve done but for simply being who we are. We’ve all felt it – in childhood and adolescence, certainly, but even as adults as well, when the winds of change blow through our lives and we discover that those things we thought immutable are, in reality, anything but. When this happens we all become like changeling children, at odds with those around us as well as with ourselves, looking to distant horizons for fresh comprehension of our purpose, sometimes even of our very nature. The fiction of the fantastic literally overflows with metaphors for times like these, though none more so than the Nightbreed, those freaks and grotesques and shapeshifters extraordinaire that inhabit the hidden necropolis of Midian and make it their own in the pages of Clive Barker’s CABAL. The Nightbreed are...