Events

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Payment: $60 USD for fiction and $30 USD for poetry Fiction and Poetry Guidelines Arsenika is looking for previously unpublished original fiction and poetry up to 1,000 words long.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...

Deadline: June 15th, 2017 Payment: Accepted poems will be paid for at the following rate: US 3¢/word rounded to nearest dollar; minimum US $3, maximum $25. Payment is on publication. ye to the Telescope 25, Garbage, will be edited by John Reinhart. Garbage, trash, refuse, junk, detritus, waste, rubbish. It’s that stuff on the curb, orbiting our planet, jammed into that drawer in the kitchen that always requires an extra shimmy before it'll close. The human relationship with waste is a close one. It’s also one where perspective is vital. One multidimensional being’s waste byproduct may be another less mobile humanoid extraterrestrial’s valued possession, or however that saying goes. What are the stories aged space debris tells their newer members? How do the outer worlds deal with the issue of garbage? Who are the people who deal with trash? I am interested in poetry that addresses all aspects of garbage in the speculative realm. I’ve been a garbage man, a dumpster diver, and a treasure walker. Although I am not likely to sing Oscar the Grouch’s “I Love Trash,” I have an affinity for the overlooked, the discarded, the junk of modern life—and I want to know what the future holds. Submission Guidelines SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS Please send submissions to [email protected] with the subject line “ETTT sub:” followed by the poet’s name. Please submit 1–5 poems in English (in body of email or attached as .rtf). Include a short bio. Deadline: June 15, 2017. The issue will appear on July 15, 2017. Payment and rights Accepted poems will be paid for at the following rate: US 3¢/word rounded to nearest dollar; minimum US $3, maximum $25. Payment is on publication. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association normally uses PayPal to pay poets, but can also send checks. Eye to the...

Deadline: June 30th, 2017 Payment: $5 per 1,000 words up front, royalties, and a contributor's copy Franklin/Kerr Press is looking for exceptional sci-fi short stories with a focus on new worlds and civilizations for our upcoming sci-fi anthology Into the Unknown. Stories can cover a wide variety of sci-fi sub-genres as long as they utilize new worlds and civilizations in some context. We will not accept works with erotic or extreme sexually explicit elements. We will choose eight to ten stories to include in the anthology from author submissions to be published in both print and e-book formats. All stories should be edited and as error free as possible prior to submission. Each story can range from 2,000 to 8,000 words, however, longer stories will be considered. Rights Accepted works will grant Franklin/Kerr Press first exclusive English-language rights for one year and non-exclusive English-language rights for the life of the anthology in digital and print formats. The author of each short story will retain the copyright to their respective work. Payment per Story $5 per 1,000 words Each author will also receive one copy of the published anthology in print and be entitled to an author discount on additional copies. Royalties Once the anthology recoups all up-front cost to produce and distribute, authors will receive a percentage of royalties paid from net sales for one year. Royalties will be disbursed quarterly. Simultaneous & Multiple Submissions No simultaneous submissions will be accepted. Multiple submissions from the same author will be considered but please note that only one story per author will be accepted to allow for greater variety and diversity. Previously unpublished stories only, no reprints unless requested. Submission Deadline July 30, 2017 or until all slots have been filled. How to Submit Send your full manuscript along with a query...

Deadline: June 30th, 2017 Payment: $50 and a contributor's copy Note: Sorry about the short time on this, hit my inbox today! As I sit in the hospital and watch my mother attached to a machine with a constant drip of chemicals, I’m enthralled (and terrified) by the paradox that medical professionals are dumping poisons into her body…in an attempt to save her life. There’s a fine line between hurting and healing. Between medicine and poison. And that line plays out in fascinating ways. Like the toxic juice flowing inside the sterile hospital room, literature and folklore, as well as history and the present, are brimming with poisons and toxins, potent plants and venomous animals, used for both good and evil. Snow White’s poisonous apple, fed to her out of envy. Hamlet’s family rivalry escalating to poisonous drinks and blades. Socrates’ punishment of death by Hemlock. Wartime experimentation with tainted food, bullets, and gasses. Cleopatra’s collection of venomous animals and plants to gauge their effects on humans. Modern-day witch doctors selling albino body parts as potions for success. Martian and Moon dust with enough toxins and metallic substance to end a human life. Both real and fictional, intentional and naturally occurring, poisons will always be used for the darkest of purposes. But the opposite is also true. Australian citizens are paid to collect funnel-web spiders, their venom used to create antidotes for bite victims. For centuries, midwives have used herbs, potions, amulets, toadstools, and charms for healing. Sherlock Holmes occasionally dabbles in cocaine to sharpen his mind. Penicillin mold saves lives from infectious diseases. The Princess Bride’s charming  Westley spends years building up immunity to iocane powder, practicing mithridatism, named for King Mithridates who poisoned himself daily to become resistant to poison-related assassination attempts. Poisons have their advantages, too. Whether it’s battling space...

Deadline: June 30th, 2017 Payment: $25.00 About 730 AD, an Arab named Abdul Al-Hazred wrote the Al-Azif, a grimoire and memorial to the Old Ones. For this crime, he was driven insane and eventually devoured by a vengeful god in full view of horrified onlookers. What drove him to write this loathsome tome? What terrible visions haunted him so badly he felt he had to risk his soul to put them down on paper? Reveal the visions of Abdul Al-Hazred to us. Explain why the Al-Azif had to be written and why its translation, the Necronomicon, has circulated in secret societies ever since. Expose the secrets Al-Hazred uncovered in his ten years alone in the Roba El Kaliyeh, the Empty Space of the Ancients. Tell us what you know about the occult dealings he witnessed that drove him to spend those last years in Damascus as a hermit dedicated only to finishing his cursed volume. We recognize that horror requires a certain amount of leeway on some things, but be warned. We look down on overuse of specific issues. These include: • Sexual content not inherent to the storyline. No adult content. Keep your tentacles to yourself. • Explicit description of torture or sacrifice, human or otherwise. As a plot device, there is a way to present this without resorting to splatter. • Violence or abuse against a minor, infant to teenager. • Overuse of profane language. People curse. But not every sentence. • Hate language against a race, creed, or gender. Against monstrous races and gods, that’s okay. • Quoting previously published material not in the public domain. This is a legal issue and will not be tolerated at all. HOW TO SUBMIT Please be advised, any stories that do not meet these guidelines will be deleted unread. If...

Deadline: June 30th, 2017 Payment: 8 cents per word With Ride the Star Wind in the editing phase, we are now open to submissions for our next anthology: Welcome to Miskatonic University, an anthology of modern-day weird tales set in good ol' MU. Miskatonic University is still going strong in the Arkham Valley (and in various satellite campuses and research stations around the world). Resilient and forward thinking, few institutions can weather the times and adapt like good ol' MU. It's a strange brew of conservatively reaching into the past while progressively marching forward. And it's a hotbed for the weird and the wonderful! So what might a modern MU look like? What might student life be like today? These tales combine college life and the cosmic weird. Of course, there's beer, sex, and parties; study groups and all-night cramming; campus activism and impassioned discourse; vital research and faculty struggling for tenure. But also, you know, gruesome and psychedelic cosmic weirdness. What avenues of study has the university sanctioned either publicly or privately? Where are they getting so much funding? The university's been around the block and are at the bleeding edge of certain realms of research. Occult studies have seeped, seemingly innocuously, into various branches of nearly all academic departments and inform everything from quantum physics to computer science, sociology to modern American literature. Library studies is hands down the best, most advanced in the world, likely one of the most well funded of sectors at the institution with ever-evolving safeguards and best practices. But there's bound to be lingering effects from all the occult activity, like "sensitive" people and locations with breaches to the "other side." People disappear all the time; sometimes they even come back. Entire wings are off limits to humans indefinitely. As a whole, this anthology is...

Deadline: July 1st, 2017 Payment: $25-$200 depending on length and three free copies. Note: Texas writers only I attended a meetup today and got information on an open call for Texas-based writers (either born here or living here) for Road Kill: Texas Horror from Texas Writers, Vol. 2. They are eager to hear from authors who have been traditionally marginalized, excluded, or unrepresented because Texas has many voices and it’s important to include everyone. Here are the details straight from the Editor’s hand. Hello, E.R. Bills and Bret McCormick here. We are the editors of the upcoming horror title, Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers, from Eakin Press. Due to the success of the anthology, we are accepting stories for Road Kill Vol. 2. We are looking for original horror stories, 1,500–10,000 words, give or take. If we receive a 14,00-word story that knocks our socks off, we will consider it. And the same for an 800-word yarn. We prefer not to receive stories that have already appeared elsewhere. Submissions should be sent to ba.mccormick (at) yahoo.com. The primary objective of Road Kill is to promote new, up-and-coming horror writers in Texas, but the collection will include some works from established wordsmiths. The stories must be written and submitted by Texas authors and they must take place in Texas—hence the title. No one will be making a fortune, but we will be paying one-time fees (based on word count) and if the anthology sells over 5,000 copies, royalty percentages—1% per writer—will kick in. Every writer will receive three free copies and every contributing writer will receive 50% discounted wholesale pricing on any copies of the book that he or she purchases to carry and sell on their own. The scale for writer stipends will look something like this: 10,000 words – $200...

Deadline: July 1st, 2017. Payment: Royalties and contributor's copy Details: Stories can be 2500 words to 10,000 words. The anthology will be published in ebook and paperback formats. We pay shared royalties (royalty split info available upon acceptance of story and before signing of contract). Authors will receive the e-book and one print copy of the anthology, plus wholesale pricing for additional print copies. This is considered token payment. Submissions must be previously unpublished. We are seeking twelve months of exclusive worldwide print and electronic distribution rights and non-exclusive worldwide print and electronic distribution rights in perpetuity. Multiple submissions are fine, but simultaneous submissions are discouraged. Please don’t re-submit a rejected story unless we request revisions. We hope to have responded to everyone within one month of the submission window’s closing. Feel free to query if it’s been longer than two months. Stories must be double spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font (or something similar). Do not submit in Courier. The story title, your byline, a word count, and contact information should appear on the first page, and your last name, story title, and page number should appear in the header information of all other pages. We’re not particular about whether you use italics or underlining for emphasis, how many spaces are after the period, or whether you use straight or smart quotes. Submissions may be sent to the email address: Submit your stories via email as an attachment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. The subject of your email should be SUBMISSION: <story title> by <byline>. The email body should contain a short list of your publishing credits and any pertinent biographical details. The submission period ends July 1, 2017.   Theme guidelines The story must have a fantasy/speculative element. Science fantasy is ok, but we’re aiming for fantasy rather than straight science fiction. We prefer “clean” stories and strongly prefer noblebright...