Events

Deadline: October 15th 2015 Payment: $20 We are currently accepting submissions. A note on our editorial policy: before publication we may edit the story for length or readability. However, we always remain true to the spirit of the story. Issues are published at the end of February, May, August, and November. 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'taccept 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 front and tell us as soon as it's accepted elsewhere. We do not publish reprints, including anything that has appeared on a website. We pay $20 for each story we publish. We buy first-printing world exclusive rights for four months. Payment will be made shortly after publication using PayPal. We encourage our authors to establish a PayPal account if they don't already have one. We prefer to read submissions in traditional manuscript format. This means indented paragraphs instead of left justification, and Courier or Times New Roman font in 12 pt, double-spaced. Also, please include the title, your name, address, and word length on the first page of your story. To submit your story to Electric...

Deadline: October 17th, 2015 Payment: $0.01/word) plus one contributor’s copy and one digital version in the format of the author’s choosing CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: ELDRITCH EMBRACES, Putting the Love back in Lovecraft Our first anthology explored loneliness, isolation, and solitude.  This time around we are looking for love…in some seriously wrong places. For our new anthology, tentatively entitled Eldritch Embraces, we want to put the love back in Lovecraft.  In order to be considered for inclusion in this anthology, your story must focus on two things.  There must be an element of love or romance and the story must invoke the cosmic terror of H.P. Lovecraft. What We Want: Finely crafted works of Dark Speculative fiction which explore the connections between people or between elder gods or combinations thereof.  Obviously, this topic lends itself best to horror, which is our wheelhouse genre, but science fiction and fantasy are also welcome, provided there is some element of fear involved.  We have no restrictions on the setting of your work in time or space.  We look forward to exploring ancient deserts, Depression Era alleyways, modern cityscapes, and even far off worlds.  While we usually dwell in the shadows, we do enjoy laughter.  Humor is more than welcome. Bonus points for fiction which explores some of the more Lovecraftian themes like the how humanity is influenced by forces beyond its comprehension, the quest for forbidden knowledge, and apocalyptic threats to the world. What We Don’t Want: To be sued.  While the works of H.P. Lovecraft are in the public domain, the works of those who picked up the Mythos torch (like these fine authors) are not.  If you plan on using one of he established mythos creatures, make sure it is one of Howard Phillips’ and not invented by someone who came later. ...

Deadline: October 31st, 2015 Payment: $0.01/per word Perpetual Motion Machine presents a new anthology of horror transmissions titled Lost Signals, edited by Max Booth III and Lori Michelle, including a cover design by Matthew Revert. In the darkness, sound is your best friend and your worst nightmare. Radios are the conductors of noise. They are the radiation of electromagnetic signals. Their waves are invisible, yet they consume us. Forget about what’s hiding in the shadows, and start worrying about what’s hiding in the dead air. We are looking for short stories to publish in Lost Signals. That’s where you, the writer, come in. Send us your best horror fiction about radiotelegraphy. We want to be disturbed. Stories should somehow involve radios, radio stations, radars, cell phones, military broadcasts, distress signals, walkie talkies, podcasts, or anything similar. We aren’t necessaryonly after straightforward prose. It’s okay to get experimental on this project. Don’t just think outside the box on this one. Burn the box and eat the ashes.2 — Guidelines for Submissions: Deadline: October 31, 2015 Payment: $0.01/per word Word count: 1,000 – 20,000 Acceptable file types: doc. and docx. Simultaneous/multiple submissions: Yes Reprints: No - All submissions should be formatted 12 pt, any font. Please use your word processing software’s auto-indent for paragraphs, and do not insert a space between paragraphs. In your cover letter, include your contact information and a brief author bio. We are asking for six months exclusive rights for all accepted stories. All authors included in the anthology will receive two contributor copies. We may send out rejections/acceptances before the deadline, but please do not query about your story’s status until November 15, 2015. All submissions must be sent through our Submittable page. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to shoot us an email at [email protected]....

Deadline: October 31st, 2015 Payment: $5 and digital copy “Happily ever after” is for children. This book prefers to evoke the grim warnings of our oldest fables. We are seeking frightening fairytales, fables, and folklore. We want to feature your own new tales or new takes on old classics. Stories of seelie and unseelie alike. Are the things that go bump in the night there to help or harm us? Submitted stories should deal with fairies or fairy tale settings, and must also be considered horror, evoking a classic fear and dread reminiscent of the fables of old. If you are submitting a new take on a classic fairy tale, the original story and characters must be in the public domain. The setting can be our world in the past, present, or future, or a fictional setting, or the exploration of both. Stories must be Gothic, Horror, Steampunk, Gaslamp Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Horror Romance, or have a horror element of some kind. Manuscripts Format: Font either Courier or Times New Roman. Double spaced, font size 11 or 12 point. Your manuscript must be in either DOC or RTF format. 1st page header to state: author name, mailing address, email address, and word count. Following pages header to state: author name, story name, and page number. In the body of the email, give us: 100 words or less bio about you. One sentence explaining the story attached. Your elevator pitch. In the subject of the email state: ONCE UPON A SCREAM/Author Name/Story Title Send to: [email protected] No previously printed work and no simultaneous submissions. Deadline: October 31st, 2015, 11:59pm PST Length: 2,000-8,000 words, ideal length 5,000 Payment:$5.00 USD + digital contributor copy Return time: Final decisions will not be made until AFTER the submission close date (10/31/15). You should expect a return...

Deadline: October 31st, 2015 Payment: 5% Net Profit Urban legends are unavoidable. From college campus to unlit road, they cling to our lives. Did you hear about the librarian who died, right here, and now haunts the halls at night?             Satanists haunt these woods. Never stop for anyone. Not on this highway.             If you’re very quiet here, and listen to the wind, you’ll hear her scream “MY BABY” Running though these small-town myths are a shot of the horrible: ghouls, ghosts, cryptids, revenants, secret societies, and occult knowledge. But are such cases true, or the work of humans looking to disguise their own murders? Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to combine urban legends and murder mysteries. All The Petty Myths is a mystery anthology edited by crime writer M.H. Norris. Consider it a revival of Golden Age Detection, where the emphasis is placed on clues and the mastery of the mind (“little grey cells” as Poirot would remind us), rather than the bones and gristle of the victim. The eight relevant “Commandments” of Golden Age Detection have been amended to the back of this document as inspiration and guidance. The urban legends used must have a real world counterpart, though you’re free to mix and match similar legends to form the backbone of your tale. Virtually anything loosely termed an urban legend is open for your exploitation, be it crypids (Bigfoot, Mothman), killers and killer ghosts (Bunny Man, Teke Teke), classic urban legends (Bloody Mary, the Vanishing Hitchhiker), modern folklore (One Man Hide and Seek), public domain fauxlore (Slenderman), locations (Tayopa, Theorosa’s Bridge), fiction which mutated into a form of urban legend (the monkey’s paw), or the simply weird (Spring-Heeled Jack, Polybius). Urban legends can, over the course of your story, be shown to...

Deadline: October 31, 2015 Payment: $30 and contributor's copy Note: This one is for the ladies! I don't see as many horror stories from women as from men in anthologies. I don't know if it's because they don't submit or if they're rejected. I do know one thing. Women write horror well and I hope this anthology will show the reader the truth of the statement. Women, since the time of Mary Shelley, have written great horror works. If you'd like to submit, this editor will be pleased to read the story. I want horror the way only great women can write it. There is no theme because I like the idea of giving you leeway in subject matter. Try for at least 3000 words up to 10,000 words. Submission date: August 2015-October 31, 2015. (Or when anthology is full. Please don't delay to submit until deadline). Distribution will be through Amazon and possibly other online markets. Stories needed can be either supernatural horror or realistic horror. Naturally if you write about a serial killer it better be a new take and unique to the genre since this type of killer is overdone. Likewise, vampires, werewolves, and the walking dead are pretty much played out so if you use these, make them new and refreshing (in an evil sort of way). No simultaneous submissions and don't send more than one story, thanks. No gore for gore's sake. Creepy scary horror is the ticket. While this is an R-rated anthology, please no stories involving graphic rape, child molestation, or animal torture. No gratuitous sex—if you include sexual content, make sure it is germane to the plot of your story. Use profanity strategically and sparingly. An unedited story with many errors will, of course, have less chance of inclusion as one that...

Deadline: October 31st, 2015 Payment: Charity anthology, 1 cent per word and a contributor's copy Stories are powerful—they can open our perspectives to allow us to see things in ways we haven’t before and can be used to provide a voice to those who otherwise would remain silent. With that in mind, I am pleased to announce that I am now taking submissions for the upcoming horror/dark fiction anthology, Silent Screams. The focus of this anthology will be to give a voice to and point public attention toward those who are vulnerable who have no means to speak for themselves—from victims of human trafficking and the sex industry, to the aborted unborn, to third-world sweat shop workers. As writers (and perhaps particularly as writers of dark fiction), we have the opportunity to do some good by shining a light on the uncomfortable truths that our society often prefers to ignore. WHAT I WANT I’m looking for unpublished stories (no reprints) ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 words (soft) that EITHER focus of the plight of specific silent victims of our modern world OR that play with the idea of silence in general. (Think of Harlan Ellison’s classic “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream,” or the famous tag-line from Alien: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”) What does it mean to be a voiceless victim, and what could be done to alleviate that kind of suffering? I want horror stories of pretty much every subgenre, including dark science fiction. My tastes for this sort of thing lean more toward the surreal and uncanny than to the realistic, and most of what I enjoy would fall under the “Dark Fantasy” sub-heading (think the type of stuff written by guys like Robert Bloch and Jeff VanderMeer). I love stories that don’t...

Deadline: October 31st, 2015 Payment: 1 cent per word Note: Reprints Allowed! WHAT DO YOU ACCEPT? We accept fantasy, science fiction, and horror. WHAT DO YOU PREFER? We are seeking original, thought-provoking weird fiction. WHAT DO YOU PAY? Contributors receive 1¢ a word.    IS THERE A READING FEE? No, we do not charge a reading fee.   IS THERE A WORD LIMIT? Yes, we ask that contributors limit their submissions to 10,000 words. With that said, we prefer longer, more complex works to flash fiction. WHEN DO YOU ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS? We accept submissions year round. Those received from May 1 to October 31 will be published in the fall issue. Those received from November 1 to April 30 will be published in the spring. DO YOU ACCEPT MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS? Yes, you may submit multiple works. Receiving multiple rejections, however, can be devastating for a writer, so we recommend that you submit your works one at a time.    DO YOU ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS? Certainly, we encourage you to submit your work to multiple publishers. However, please inform us if your submission is accepted elsewhere. DO YOU ACCEPT REPRINTS? Yes, we do accept reprints. We prefer, however, to publish original work. HOW SHOULD SUBMISSIONS BE FORMATTED? We prefer Microsoft Word files (either .doc or .docx). Also, we ask that you include your name and email address on your submission. Decisions concerning font, margins, and style are left to you.    DO YOU ACCEPT POETRY OR NONFICTION? No, we do not accept poetry, essays, or reviews. DO YOU ACCEPT ART OR PHOTOGRAPHY? No, we do not accept art or photography.   DO YOU COMMENT ON SUBMISSIONS? No, we choose not to comment on submissions because we believe the best writers have followed their own instincts. Those that cater to a specific publisher tend to produce work that is dull, formulaic, and devoid of subtlety. On rare occasions, however, we do feel moved to comment...

Deadline: October 31th, 2015 Payment: 6 cents per word (and possibly more). Royalties on additional sales beyond the Kickstarter will be 25% of ebook cover price and 10% of trade paperback cover price, both split evenly between the authors The ALIEN ARTIFACTS and WERE- anthology kickstarter has made its goal! This means that we can now open up submissions for the remaining slots in the anthology. If you have a story idea that fits one of the anthology themes, write it up, revise it, polish it, and send it in for consideration. I've posted the guidelines below. Please note that the pay rate INCREASES as we reach higher stretch goals in the kickstarter, so please (http://tiny.cc/bfah1x) spread the word about the kickstarter so that we can not only add in additional authors to the anthology, but pay those authors as much as possible. Also, a special thanks to everyone who has already backed the project and gotten us funded! Without you, we wouldn't be funded with over three weeks left in the kickstarter to reach those stretch goals! And now, the submission guidelines: ALIEN ARTIFACTS and WERE- Submission Guidelines Zombies Need Brains LLC is accepting submissions to its two science fiction and fantasy anthologies ALIEN ARTIFACTS and WERE-. Stories must be submitted in electronic form as an attachment with the title of the story as the file name in .doc or .docx format. The header of the email should include the name of the anthology the submission is for along with the title of the submission (for example: WERE-: WereJellyfish Gone Wild!). The content of the email should also include which anthology the manuscript is intended for. Please send multiple manuscripts in separate emails. Manuscripts should be in manuscript format, meaning double-spaced, 12pt font, standard margins on top, bottom and...

Deadline: October 31st, 2015 Payment: $15 USD and 3 contributor's copies Submissions for the 2015 World Unknown Review (Volume II!) are now OPEN! This is an exciting new literary review with a strong focus on independent authors, though anyone is welcome. If you are interested, please consider the following regulations before submitting. We look forward to seeing what wonderful, inspired pieces start flooding in for consideration! Applicants selected to be featured in the Review will be awarded three (3)copies of the publication as well as $15 (USD) via check or PayPal or $30 (USD) for the novella competition. There is no entry fee, and applicants may submit as many stories as they would like. All we ask is that these simple rules be followed: 1. Entries must be submitted via email to [email protected]. Please send entries with the subject “World Unknown Review Submission.” Please send submissions as an ATTACHMENT in .doc, .docx, or .rft formats. Please,no PDFs. 2. All entries must be submitted before the deadline, October 31st, 2015. Responses will follow a few weeks after the deadline. 3. For short stories and poetry, there is no limit on word limit, though moderately sized stories stand a better chance. Novella entries must be 17,5000 words or more, broken up into several chapters. 4. Final decisions are purely on the opinion of the editor of the collection, L.S. Engler. 5. Please include a small blurb about yourself for the eventual publication. 6. Spread the word! Okay, technically, this is not a rule, but please spread the news around that World Unknown Review is looking for submissions. It’s a great opportunity to be a part of something new and exciting. 7. Work that has been previously published in forums or on your own personal blogs or websites will be accepted, but, please,...