Events

Deadline: May 31st, 2017 Payment: 1 cent per word advance and royalties Note: Reprints ONLY Dust off your dragon stories. It's time to "releash" them on the world in the first DFF Dragons anthology. No word on publication timing as this will depend on the quantity and quality of reprint short story submissions. The Basics Theme: Dragons Open: Now Closes: May 31, 2017 (Or upon receipt and contracting of a full TOC; so don't wait.) Stories: Approximately 30 Reprint Stories; Total Words: Approximately 150,000; Story Words: 750 - 10000 Words - Or by prior invitation/permission more or less words; Type: Reprint Only - prefer semi-pro to pro prior publication; Rate: 1 cent per word advance - (less fees charged to author by PayPal). Participation in royalty sharing after advance; Rights: Non exclusive World English print (paper & hardcover), ebook/digital, audio - all for the complete anthology only. Publication: Complete anthology only - no one offs and no individual story license. Response Time: Could be 3 weeks, but if we've short listed your story it could be considerably longer while we build out our TOC. You may submit your reprint to other markets; just us know if it is no longer available (and congrats). However, we will do our best to keep authors in the loop. Submissions will be reviewed for inclusion upon receipt. Please submit only ONE story for consideration at a time; multiple entries will be rejected. IF your story is rejected you may submit another story for consideration - but just one at a time, please. IF your story is accepted then additional stories require pre-approval to submit. We are not looking for and will not license stories that are available to download on-line for free as a stand-alone story from any venue. Notes Dragons - bad-ass dragons. Dragons that destroy things...

Deadline: June 1st, 2017 Payment: Royalties and a contributor's copy Not horror, but with undeath involved you may be able to weave some elements in We’re looking for Steampunk stories—specifically, mysteries that take place in a Steampunk setting. A mystery is the story of a crime and its solution. As for Steampunk, you can find a good, concise description at Steampunk.com. Supernatural elements are welcome. Here are the particulars: Length: Maximum 10,000 words. Deadline: June 1, 2017 Submit to: editorjessfaraday at hotmail.com Format: paperback and e-book Payment: share of royalties plus author copies Contract: we use a modified EPIC contract. Additional Information: A lot of Steampunk focuses on the European experience. Elm Books is dedicated to promoting diverse authors and stories. Priority will be given to stories that feature characters from traditionally underrepresented groups—main characters of color, female protagonists, differently-abled main characters, LGBTQ main characters, and so on. Also, priority will be given to stories set outside of Europe, especially those examining colonialism from a non-European perspective. We will not print stories containing graphic sex or violence. Sound like enough of a challenge? Get writing! Via: Elm Books.

Deadline: June 1, 2017 Payment: $25 usd There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. – Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio Anthology Editor: Carrol Fix Word Count: 3,000 – 8,000 Deadline: June 1, 2017 Authors receive token payment of $25. Please read our Submission Guidelines before submitting. Submit using only this Submission Form. If you send the story directly to the editor, you will be asked to resubmit through the form. Not all stories will be accepted. Only the best of the best authors will earn a spot in Visions VII: Universe, the final Visions Series volume. Visions VII: Universe will focus on the previously unimaginable; in the vastness of the Universe, all things imaginable are possible. Please keep the science fiction theme. This is not a carte blanche invitation to turn your science fiction story into fantasy. If you include things that seem fantastical, make sure there is at least a bread crumb trail of science to support it. Via: Lilli Cat Publishers.

Deadline: June 1st, 2017 Payment: Royalties **Deadline: June 1st, 2017** Prompt: Literature is inseparable from context: medium, culture, and conflict. Whether that be social media or formal writing, we are always part of a conversation with the world. As writers, we live our lives in the margins, we go beyond a social conversation and create an artistic dialogue. This is the way we process and handle big events in our history, this is the way we change our history; by recognizing what is happening within our environment and putting it in ink. “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster” (Baldwin, 1953). We want to read your work outing the monsters and keeping our eyes open. We want to share your experience with the world as a statement. Writing reflects the human experience—especially that bound by social and political pressures. We write in hopes to disrupt power dynamics and increase the voice of subalterns (Said, 1979). Onyx Neon seeks submissions of disruptive poetry for a social activist anthology. The Project: In Fall 2017, Onyx Neon will release a collection of poems under the umbrella of American Upheaval. The world is reacting to a drastic shift in administration—and those reactions are raw, loud, and critical. We want poems that add to the political conversation. This collection will be edited by Head Editor of Onyx Neon Shorts, Lindsay Deter-Wolf, with Kit Martin. Submission Instructions: Please submit 1–6 poems. Each poem (including its enjambed stanzas and verse paragraphs, your chosen formatting) should appear on its own page, and the submission itself must exceed no more than six pages in total. What we pay: Our standard collection rate...

Deadline: June 1st, 2017 Payment: $0.03 cents per word WE NEED TEN TALES OF HIERARCHY HELL AND BUREAUCRATIC NIGHTMARE! Of all bureaucracies, corporations are the most powerful, seeming to have a life and will of their own.  They're privately held with a multi-national reach, seemingly bottomless resources, and armies of lawyers jealously guarding their trade secrets.  Anything and everything is justified by the bottom line.  Who needs a Cthulhu Cult when you've got Cthulhu, Inc.? Into this insidious world are thrust our heroes—the curious, the puzzled, and the frustrated.  Defying authority, seeking answers they'd be better off not knowing, the secrets they discover threaten their sanity and their lives.  Will they become the next whistleblower media hero?  Or disappear, leaving nothing behind but an empty desk and whispered rumors in the break room?  Remember: it's nothing personal—just business. Corporate Cthulhu is a Lovecraftian horror anthology about the intersection of the Cthulhu Mythos and corporations or other large bureaucracies. This is an OPEN call for submissions—anyone and everyone is free to submit a short story to the slush pile.  Feel free to share this with other writers you think might be interested. What We're Looking For •    Short stories up to 7000 words. •    Original, previously unpublished fiction. •    We're particularly interested in submissions from writers traditionally underrepresented in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fiction.  This includes racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people living with disabilities. •    Stories must include at least a passing connection to the Cthulhu Mythos and/or Lovecraft's other work.  The stronger the connection, the more likely the story is to be accepted. •    Stories that make skillful use of Lovecraftian horror themes: insanity, helplessness and hopelessness, inherited guilt, old isolated locations, books of forbidden knowledge, ancient extraterrestrial influences on humanity, the risks of runaway science, civilization vs. barbarism, humanity's...

Deadline: June 11th, 2017 Payment: $10 and contributor's copy We are seeking short stories for a new anthology slated for fall of 2017 (roughly early September for release, official title TBA). This will be a sister anthology to our first release, Shadows in Salem, that came out in September of 2016. We want this collection to share the theme of Salem, MA ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT through the years. Set your story in 1955, set your story in 1999, that is up to you, but it must be dark, gothic, or horror related! We will post years that are submitted as they arrive in our e-mail so you can keep track and so we don’t have twenty stories set on Halloween night in 1626. We are from Salem, so we know the area well, as do our local readers, so please take that into consideration in your research! Some witches are okay, but please remember that there is so much more to this city than the witch history! We are hoping to select one story per decade for variety, but we do not expect to fill *every* decade between the founding of Salem (1626) and today. Our anthologies generally end up at around twenty stories, so keep in mind, you don’t have to limit yourself to the last 100 years. Instructions: Send your submission to [email protected] for consideration with “Halloween Salem Submission“ AND THE YEAR YOUR STORY IS SET as the subject line, for example, “Halloween Salem Submission: 1922“, but please read our guidelines below! Submission Guidelines: Submit by: June 11th, 2017  Word Count: 1,000-6,000 Content Requirements: Your story must take place in Salem, MA on Halloween (10/31). The time-period and content is your choice, but DO be unique and DO make it SPOOKY! We will continue posting a running list of the years/decades that...

Deadline: June 13th, 2017 Payment: $15 and contributor’s copy Theme: Death is permanent. This is the falsehood that we tell ourselves so that we can sleep at night. It's the lie that we tell our children so they don't carry their little kitten's corpse to the old cemetery deep in the forest, in the grove where nothing living grows. It's the myth that we wrap ourselves in so we can ignore the gut-wrenching terror of what really comes after all this rigmarole. If the afterlife's so great, why do the dead keep getting up? The Misbehaving Dead is an anthology about rebels--the dead that won't stay down. Maybe their business isn't finished, or maybe Hell spat them back out, but no matter how strong the grave, they just refuse to stay in it. These are the misfits of biology, abominations that aren't alive but don't care. They'll get shit done anyway. They'll get what they want. Simultaneous Submissions: Sure, but please let us know that it's a simultaneous submission and tell us immediately if it was accepted somewhere else. Multiple Submissions: Yes Reprints: Yes, but let us know where it has been previously printed and make sure you have the rights to have it reprinted. Word Count: Up to 10k words. Formatting: This is a very good guide if you have any questions. You can't really go wrong with it. But, if you don't feel like reading that, here's the down and dirty of it. Italicize italics. Do not underline Don't use spaces to lead paragraphs. Use tab or, even better, the formatting options to get the indent. For scene breaks, use either "#" or "***". Use an easy to read font, like Arial or Times New Roman in a reasonable size (about 12 point). Double space your work. Submission Please make sure to include a synopsis...

Deadline: June 15th, 2017 Payment: 4-5% of gross profits depending on length. Guidelines 18thWall Productions Curated by Peter Rawlik “I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with its beautiful stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth…” ~Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow Robert E. Chambers’ The King in Yellow features a being, the King in Yellow himself, who is embodied in the play of the same name, and in the color yellow. We want to follow in the footsteps of Chambers, invoking links between specific colors, the mythos deity they might represent, and what influence they might have on the various arts. For example, what terrifying things are hinted at by the titles the Black Goat, the Green Man, the White Worm, and the Red Queen, and to what arts are they linked? Give us tales that invoke the chromatic avatars of the Great Old Ones and the impact they have on the arts, but as we all know the arts are open to interpretation, and could easily include architecture, literature, cuisine, pantomime, and haiku. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and color is only an abstract concept, but fear and terror are very real, and so are the Great Old Ones. What We Want Fresh takes on the Cthulhu Mythos, Chambers’ mythology (the Yellow Mythos), and Cosmic Horror. This isn’t the place for Lovecraftian clichés. The more it feels like a “lost” Lovecraft story, or relies on the clichés of the genre, the less interested we are. Creativity is the watchword. While we are open to straight horror, we much prefer submissions closer to Chambers’ style and tone. Which is to say, we’d greatly prefer dark fantasy with a cosmic horror undercurrent. If you’re unfamiliar with...

Deadline: June 15th, 2017 Payment: $60 USD for fiction and $30 USD for poetry Fiction and Poetry Guidelines Arsenika is looking for previously unpublished original fiction and poetry up to 1,000 words long. Payment is $60 USD for fiction and $30 USD for poetry for first world electronic rights and non-exclusive audio rights. We hope to raise the poetry rate to $60 as well in the future—please support us on Patreon if you’d like to help us reach our goal. Submit no more than two flash fiction pieces and five poems at a time, and please make sure you fill out the form again for each piece you send, unless the pieces are meant to be read together (e.g. a triptych of poems). All work should be in Standard Manuscript Format (fiction format | poetry format). Format poetry exactly as you would like to see it online—use italics for italics, underlines for underlines, boldface for boldface, etc. Send only TXT, RTF, DOC, and DOCX files. Please do not send simultaneous submissions (pieces that are submitted to Arsenika and another market at the same time). Multiple submissions are accepted, but please have no more than two flash fiction pieces and five poems in the submissions queue at a time. We try to respond to all submissions within 14 days. If you haven’t heard from us in 30 days, please send us a query at [email protected]. Remember: Don’t self-reject. Reprints Arsenika does not accept unsolicited reprints. Payment is $10 upon acceptance. Art Arsenika pays $100 for reprint art. Please feel free to query us at [email protected] with a link to your portfolio. Questions Q. Can I submit multiple times per submissions period? A. Yes. Please have no more than two flash fiction pieces and five poems in the queue at a time; once we respond to those, you can send more. For...

Deadline: June 15th, 2017 Payment: Royalty Split Spark and Fizz Books is accepting submissions for its second issue of quarterly science and speculative fiction magazine, Planet Scumm. We’ll be accepting submissions April 23 to June 15. Issue 002 will be released October 2017. Our benevolent overlord Scummy will be especially kind towards spooky submissions hitting his space-desk this cycle. However, horror elements are not required. All submissions must still conform to the guidelines below (we’re looking at you, zombie fiction). What We’re Looking For Previously unpublished short fiction that doesn’t lean heavily on genre tropes. Hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, sci-fi that melts in your mouth-brain not your hand-brain. Speculative fiction, weird fiction, slipstream, glitterlit, analogpunk. Basically anything that pleases Scummy, our megaphone-toting slime buddy. How to Submit Include submissions as an .RTF or .DOC attachment sent to [email protected] along with a brief cover letter in the email body. Stories, or collections of flash fiction, should be 1000-7500 words in length, and submitted in standard manuscript format. Use the subject line “Planet Scumm Submission” followed by your story title. Submit only one short story or flash collection. We will not accept multiple submissions from the same author in one reading period. Simultaneous submissions are okay, as long as you promptly withdraw a story accepted elsewhere. Submissions that are too long or short will be rejected immediately, as will those that are incorrectly formatted. In addition, submissions covering the topics below aren’t likely to play well with our slush readers. The No-No List Zombies, vampires, werewolves, pirates, ninjas Cthuloid/Mythos tales Straight horror without a clear speculative element Erotica Fan fiction Sword-and-spell fantasy Steampunk Anthropomorphic animals Stories that end with “It was all a dream” or “Turns out they were in a simulation” Use With Caution Time travel Political allegory Satire/Comedy Lasers (pew-pew handheld...