Events

Deadline: July 1st, 2017 Payment: 3 cents per word, ($120 max). The first issue of Red Room Magazine will be published in late September/early October 2017 from Comet Press. The magazine will feature horror fiction and non-fiction; reviews, articles, interviews. The magazine will tentatively be published 2 or 3 times per year in digital and print. DEADLINE FOR ISSUE 1: JULY 1, 2017 FICTION & POETRY We are looking for dark, disturbing, extreme horror and dark crime stories. We want stories that are well plotted, and not just gore for gores sake, although we think gore is a good thing (and encouraged, along with blasphemy, subversive subject matter, graphic violence and language, etc). Anything goes except kiddie content, of course. Length: Up to 4000 words. Pay: 3 cents per word, ($120 max). Word count is flexible, but our maximum payment is $120.00. Reprints: At this time reprints are invite only. Multiple submissions: Up to two, send them in a separate email. Simultaneous Submissions: Yes, but please let us know in your email query, and let us know immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. NON FICTION: ARTICLES, BOOK REVIEWS, AUTHOR INTERVIEWS We are looking for original, high quality and well-written horror related articles, author interviews, and book reviews, of up to 1000 words. Book reviews should be between 400-600 words in length and follow standard book review format. Reprints: No reprints. Length: Up to 1000 words. Pay: 3 cents a word ($30 max). Longer works might be considered but $30 is the max payment. Multiple submissions: Up to two in each category, please send them in a separate email. Simultaneous submissions: Yes, but please let us know in your email query, and let us know immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. ARTWORK We offer $30 for reprint rights for preexisting cover...

Deadline: July 1st, 2017 Payment: $25 and a contributor's copy Rayor Books is accepting original science fiction short stories for our upcoming anthology, Occupied: Stories from After the Invasion. This anthology will be published as an eBook on Kindle, and as a POD paperback. Theme We are looking for stories set after Earth has lost an invasion, and the homeworld is now occupied. This could be a contemporary setting, where the invasion happens next week, or one 25,000 years from now, after Earth’s empire loses a war. It could be set right after the invasion, or generations later, when humanity doesn’t even remember its independence. The only rule is that the occupation must be important to the story. While military science fiction is the obvious route here (and we love military sci-fi), it certainly doesn’t have to be. We’re not going to put a hard word-count on this. It’s possible a flash piece or very long short story could bowl us over. We expect, however, most of the stories to be in the 4,000-8,000 range. Reading Period Now, until July 1st, 2017. Payment $25 on acceptance, through PayPal, plus 1 contributor copy of the paperback. Contributors will also be able to purchase additional copies of the paperback at a 45% discount. Rights First Print and First Electronic Rights, with a 1 year from publication date exclusive period. We further ask that the author not make the story available for free on their website or anywhere else while the anthology is in print. The exclusivity period would be waived if the author has the opportunity to be reprinted in a “Best of” anthology or single-author collection within the year. We just don’t want it competing in another small-press anthology or for sale for 25 cents on your website right away. Please bear in...

Deadline: July 5th, 2017 Payment: 5 free copies of their publication and royalties of 10% of list price sales SUBMISSIONS Interested in publishing with Priestess & Hierophant Press? Read below. Priestess & Hierophant Press publishes short fiction, poetry, artwork, and mixed mediums in the following areas: 1) Speculative - any genre.  We consider magical realism to be borderline speculative.  Please submit. 2) Esoteric Works - any path or practice. 3) Fine Artwork - any medium. 4) Cross-Genre - any combination of the above. Likes We have a particular craving for the dark and macabre, strange and illuminating, wicked and spectacular.  All marginalizations-in work and author-strongly encouraged. ​ Dislikes Racism, bigotry, and intolerance will not be tolerated; such tropes should be handled sensitively.  I'm personally adverse to child molestation and rape, FYI.  Priestess & Hierophant Press is not a venue for children or YA works; adults only. ​ I'm looking for brief works in the 20-60 page range, with some overlap on either side.  Query first if anxious about your length.   Along with your first 10 pages, I'd like a one-page synopsis, chapter outline where appropriate, and brief bio(s).  Co-creators accepted.  Please use Shunn standard manuscript format for your written submissions.  For art, please submit 5-10 images in .jpeg or .png, 300 DPI, with a cover letter containing a brief bio and artist statement. ​ For online publication consideration, from which I’ll do a print anthology annually, a submission of 3-5 poems, 1 short fiction work (2,000 – 3,500), 1-2 flash fiction works (less than 1,500 words each), or 3-5 images will suffice, plus a brief cover letter and bio.  Submissions are now open and rolling.  Please be mindful of the following themes and publication dates.  Each issue's submission window opens on the day of the previous issue's publication: ​ Submissions are now closed...

Deadline: July 7th, 2017 Payment: 6 cents per word Note: Reprints Allowed Note: Apologies for the short notice here Continuing the success of our previous call for submissions (we received almost 2000 submissions!), we’re looking for around twenty to thirty short stories by contemporary writers to complement a selection of classic tales in two new anthologies. We are keen to encourage new writers, without prejudice to age, background or previous publication history. It’s the story that matters, and the quality of writing. Submit by email to [email protected]  The Two New Volumes Pirates & Ghosts: Adventures and hauntings at sea, shipwrecks and buried treasure, treacherous waters, sea spirits, ghostly galleons, giant squid, kraken and a myriad of deadly sea monsters, sailors gone mad, revenge and madness, romance and the ancient skulls of desperate mariners… Agents & Spies: From Machiavelli to James Bond, the intrigue of the Tudor court, the avarice of the Medicis, the poisons, the secret letters, the betrayal of lovers and governments, the smuggling of plans and formula for new weapons and inventions: this is the murky world of the official saboteur, plausible deniability and quiet knife in the back. Formal Call for Submissions (2017) We are looking for new and recent short stories. We do not require exclusivity. You hold copyright, licensing us just for this publication. We don’t mind if your story has been previously published online or in print (though we do need to know publication and date). Simultaneous submissions are fine, but you must have the right to license your story in an anthology. Word length is most likely to be successful at 2000-4000, but we will still read stories slightly outside this range.  Submit by email to [email protected] Fees, Copyright and Other Terms • We pay Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) rates of 6 cents...

Deadline: July 14th, 2017 Payment: 1 cent per word Unnerving Magazine accepts short story submissions of horror, dark science fiction (light), dark fantasy and dark literary. Generally leaning strongly toward horror over other genres. Sex, gore and violence are welcome in moderation (nothing gratuitous). The same goes for bizarro works, nothing too far gone (whatever that means). Please no hard science fiction, sword and sorcery fantasy, erotica, romance, humor that isn’t sinister or literary works that venture so far into experimental that they become nonsense. Payment is 1¢/word. Original fiction only. Reprints by invitation only. We ask for three months exclusivity from publication date and non-exclusive print-on-demand rights for five years. Submit only one story at a time. Submit in .docx, .doc or .odt only. Double-spaced. Please use common sense when formatting. Everything hard on the eyes will be rejected automatically. Allow for up to 6 months before querying. Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Open to authors from any country. Payment by PayPal only within 30 days of publication. Only stories from 400-2,500 words will be considered for Issue #4 and preference leaning towards Halloween themes or classic monster themes. I want as many authors as possible involved in this special issue. Submissions of stories of up to 4,000 words in length will be considered for Issue #5 (01/2018). Via: Unnerving Magazine's Submittable.

Deadline: July 15th, 2017 Payment: $20usd Please don't query us about your story submission. We don't have the manpower to answer such queries. An editor will email you back as soon as possible with the decision about your story. This can take a few days, or, up to three months. We make every effort to get back to authors in a timely manner but we get a lot of submissions so sometimes it's not possible. 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 reserve the right to shift publication date slightly, as necessary. 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't accept 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....

Deadline: July 15th, 2017 Payment: 6 cents per word "Strange Beasties" - Slipstream. Are you itching to invent your own odd literary devices or creatures? Impress us, delight us, or scare us with the diversity of your fiendish creations. Creatures of the id don't necessarily have to be monsters, but they do need to be strange. We'd fancy some ghostbusters and monster hunters too. Reading Period: May 15 - July 15, 2017 Writer Deadline: July 15, 2017 Publication Date: September 20, 2017 Third Flatiron Publishing is based in Boulder, Colorado, and Ayr, Scotland. We are looking for submissions to our quarterly themed anthologies. Our focus is on science fiction and fantasy and anthropological fiction. We want tightly plotted tales in out-of-the-ordinary scenarios. Light horror is acceptable, provided it fits the theme. Please send us short stories that revolve around age-old questions and have something illuminating to tell us as human beings. Fantastical situations and creatures, exciting dialog, irony, mild horror, and wry humor are all welcome. Stories should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Inquire if longer. Role models for the type of fiction we want include Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke, Dan Simmons, Connie Willis, Vernor Vinge, and Ken Kesey. We want to showcase some of the best new shorts available today. For each anthology, we will also accept a few very short humor pieces on the order of the “Shouts and Murmurs” feature in The New Yorker Magazine (600 words or so). These can be written from a first-person perspective or can be mini-essays that tell people what they ought to do, how to do something better, or explain why something is like it is, humorously. An SF/Fantasy bent is preferred. Continuing with Third Flatiron’s quarterly themed anthologies, we will be soliciting SF/Fantasy/Horror short stories with the following...

Deadline: July 15th, 2017 Payment: 8c/word, up to 5000 words The Machine Intelligence Research Institute has put out a call for intelligent stories illustrating concepts related to (artificial or natural) intelligence. Guidelines are quite specific; read below. This call is intended to reward people who write thoughtful and compelling stories about artificial general intelligence, intelligence amplification, or the AI alignment problem. We’re looking to appreciate and publicize authors who help readers understand intelligence in the sense of general problem-solving ability, as opposed to thinking of intelligence as a parlor trick for memorizing digits of pi, and who help readers intuit that non-human minds can have all sorts of different non-human preferences while still possessing instrumental intelligence. The winning stories are intended to show (rather than tell) these ideas to an intellectually curious audience. Conscious attempts to signal that the ideas are weird, wonky, exotic, or of merely academic interest are minuses. We’re looking for stories that just take these ideas as reality in the setting of the story and run with them. In all cases, the most important evaluation criterion will just be submissions’ quality as works of fiction; accurately conveying important ideas is no excuse for bad art! To get a good sense of what we’re looking for, we recommend you read some or all of the following: Superintelligence Smarter Than Us Waitbutwhy post 1, Waitbutwhy post 2 (with caveats) Submission Details Purchasing First Publication Rights Pay Rate: 8c/word, up to 5000 words Multiple Submissions ok Simultaneous Submissions ok Submissions window: Open until July 15 Withdrawal policy: After you submit a story, we prefer you don’t withdraw it. If you withdraw a story, we won’t consider any version of that story in the future. However, if you do need to withdraw a story (because, for example, you have sold...

Deadline: July 15th, 2017 Payment: $0.03 cents per word plus royalties More Alternative Truths, the follow-up to the best selling Alternative Truths, is announcing an open call for stories and maybe even (gasp) poetry. We are looking for Fiction with a message about the impact of the election, the current policies in the country, and how people, HUMAN BEINGS, are affected. Payment is $0.03 cents per word plus royalties. To see what we are looking for, I advise you to read Alternative Truths, available on Amazon. The stories must make us think, stimulate discussion, and show visions of the future. This can be done in many ways, with humor, with zombies, with horror, but above all, with feeling. As with Alternative Truths, approximately 10% of the royalties will go to the ACLU of Washington. Stories in the first book ran an average of 2300 words with the shortest at 200 words and the longest at 7000 words. The reading period will be open from May 15 to July 15. Publication is anticipated in November. The book will be published by B Cubed Press and Edited by Bob Brown, Phyllis Irene Radford, and Rebecca McFarland Kyle. For more information see our Facebook Group, Alternative Truths. USE MANUSCRIPT FORMAT. Submit in Word or RTF to [email protected]

Deadline: July 15th, 2017 Payment: $0.02 per word up to the first 2500 words and $0.01 per word up above that. So, you’re looking at around a $50-$100 range. Are you a Sci-fi/Fantasy writer? Then I may be looking for you! Cirsova is a semi-pro zine focusing on Sword & Planet and Heroic Fantasy fiction. Submissions for 2018 will open on June 1st. We will be reading from June 1st until July 15th, looking to acquire stories for the Spring and Fall 2018 issues (roughly 120k words of content).   My biggest recommendations to those considering submitting: -Send me some Sword & Planet and Raygun Romance!  We get a lot of fantasy, which is great, but a smash-up S&P or Raygun Romance would be high priority! -Square-jawed space barbarians and gorgeous dames are not a pre-requisite, but don’t forget this is principally a Romance genre; a good love story between competent individuals (dames =/= damsels) facing long odds (such as aliens, monsters, robots or alien monsters riding robots) may score bonus points. -Send me something short (2500-5000 words); we get a number of novelette-length works fairly frequently, but only buy and fit a couple of these each year. If you send me something great but that I can’t fit, it will make us both sad. What are you looking for? Original short stories between 2000-7500 words, specifically those in the vein of Leigh Brackett, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard. Cirsova will pay $0.02 per word up to the first 2500 words and $0.01 per word up above that. So, you’re looking at around a $50-$100 range. Submissions should be in finished, final draft form. Please do not send unedited works, excerpts or pitches. Well, you can send me a pitch, and if it sounds awesome, I...