Events

Deadline: July 31st, 2017 Payment: Original Fiction (3,500 to 7,000 words) 0.01 pounds (GBP) per word, capped at 50 pounds Reprints (3,500 to 7,000 words) 10 pounds (GBP) per piece Reprints welcome but I suspect unlikely to be chosen We will be accepting six short stories of the highest quality for this anthology, which is designed to be read in one stormy sitting. The story must begin with an individual, couple, or group seeking shelter from a storm of some kind. Atmosphere, suspense, and a gripping plot are essential elements. Submissions open: January 1st, 2017 to July 31st, 2017 Acceptances: September 30th, 2017 Publication: Early 2018 What We Want: Well-written and thoroughly edited tales in the following genres: - Mystery (especially, a brilliant locked-room mystery) - Suspense - Psychological Horror - Historical (but you need to know your facts, because we do) - Strange and quirky stories - More of this: Shop It's also worth noting that we greatly prefer British English. What We Don't Want: - Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, or Modern Fairy Tales - Science Fiction - Supernatural Horror (but we will consider stories with an ambiguous ending) Payment: Contributors will be paid via PayPal upon publication. Contributors will also receive an ebook copy of the issue and will be able to order up to ten print copies at near cost price. Original Fiction (3,500 to 7,000 words) 0.01 pounds (GBP) per word, capped at 50 pounds Reprints (3,500 to 7,000 words) 10 pounds (GBP) per piece Guidelines: General submissions guidelines can be found on our submissions page. Via: Black Beacon Books.

Deadline: July 31st, 2017 Payment: .03CAD per word and two contributor's copies “The nethermost caverns … are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific … out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.” — H. P. Lovecraft, The Festival We’re excited to open submissions to our sixth anthology… Pelucidar. The Hollow Earth. DEROS, and the Shaver Mysteries. Blue-litten K’n-yan, red Yoth, and black, lightless N’kai. The Amigara Fault. Derinkuyu. Agartha. The world (and worlds) below. Inner earth, a near infinite space of vast, echoing potential … our (possible?) birthplace, and the place where we all return, either as corpses, or something other? … the churning, chaotic underworld, and true home of all that is weird, unconscious, and forbidden. Descend with us in this anthology of weird fiction; descend to the realms CHTHONIC. We are looking for weird fiction that explores the mystique and terror of caverns, abyssal spaces, and subterranean worlds. As with previous MMP anthologies, we will be including a seed story from H. P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre (in this case, The Rats in the Walls, though many of his stories went underground). We want to see bizarre civilizations, mind-boggling physical and biological phenomena, horrific rituals, mad science and madder sorcery. We want to feel the tunnel floors beneath our feet shake with the passage of beasts, machines, and gods that have never seen the light of the sun; sentient oils, intelligent muck, living rock, molemen, formless spawn and Efts of the Prime, worms, Dholes, and ghastlier things. But CHTHONIC won’t be just a serving of...

Deadline: July 31st, 2017 Payment: $50 per story Submissions open to LVP and HWA members: February 21 Submissions open to public: April 1 Submissions close: July 31, 11:59pm tentatively (*see notes below) Word count: 4,000 to 6,000 Payment: $50 per story, a digital copy of the anthology and a discount code for print copies from Lycan Valley Press Details: Phobias are defined as an irrational and extreme fear to something. Some of the most widely known phobias include arachnophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, acrophobia, etc. Anything can be a phobia if it irrationally causes an intense and debilitating fear. What happens when these irrational fears/phobias become reality? Make the fears and the horrors associated with that fear real. Take them from irrational to rational. Pick a phobia from the list below and take that fear to the next level. Make it come to life and give us a reason to be scared. Your characters don’t have to overcome their fears, but if they do, show us how. If they don’t, why not? We don’t want characters sitting on a sofa in the psychiatrist’s office detailing their childhood or even characters with diagnosed phobias necessarily. Focus on the object of the phobia rather than the phobia itself as much as possible. We want you to make these phobias come to life in ways that will make readers sleep with the lights on, double check the locks on their doors and question reality. There must be a strong pulp element to the story as well, keeping in mind that pulp doesn’t mean poorly written. If you’re unfamiliar with the original pulp magazines and stories, please do some research before submitting. Check out Black Mask Magazine http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/ and here’s a pulp archive to get you started (warning: reading on this website may be addictive). http://www.pulpmags.org/ and also...

Deadline: July 31st, 2017 Payment: $5 usd Note: Reprints Accepted Are you a poet? An essayist? A short story writer? An artist? If you have a piece you'd like to submit for the next issue of The Violet Hour, we want to see it! Send us an email to the address listed below and attach any written work in PDF or Word.doc format, and all artwork in jpeg format to submit it for consideration. With the exception of submissions for the open December anthology, don't forget to use at least one of the themes chosen for each issue. (For details about issue themes, launch dates and more, see the above "News & Events" posts.) ​       [email protected] ​ Submission Periods The Violet Hour Magazine is published quarterly, with three themed issues (published at the end of April, August and October) and one annual open-themed anthology (published at the end of December). Submission periods for the issues are as follows: 1. December 15th to March 31st (for April issue) 2. April 15th to July 31st (for August/September issue) 3. September 7th to October 14th (for October issue - *IMPORTANT:   ​October is a flash-submission issue - see September 7th News & Events post for details.) 4. January 1st to November 14th (for December open-anthology issue) ​ *Please Note: Submissions made to any of the themed issues that are not selected for publication in their relevant issue will not be automatically considered for the December open-themed anthology. Contributors are asked not to re-submit work already previously submitted to The Violet Hour, unless invited to do so by one of our editorial staff. ​ *Also Note: At this time, The Violet Hour Magazine will consider previously published works, as long as it has been a minimum of 6 months since the work's most recent publication. If your submission has previously been published elsewhere, please include the date and name of the publication in which it...

Deadline: July 31st, 2017 Payment: 4 contributor's copies We’re looking for short stories and non-fiction articles for the Spooky Isles Book of Horror anthology, to be published later in 2017 in both paperback and digital formats. ANDREW GARVEY tells you want we want… The Spooky Isles Book of Horror will be a collection of short fiction, paired with their real-life inspirations. Read on to discover how you can be part of this terrifying journey into the macabre! We are after 2000 to 3000 words for short stories and 1000 words for non-fiction articles. We are quite flexible about word counts but please, no 14,000 word epics and no 200 word flash fiction. What kind of horror are we looking for? The Spooky Isles is concerned with British and Irish horror. You could send us the best wendigo or Chinese hopping vampire story ever written and it won’t be published. Keep it British and Irish. If you have a story you want to tell but aren’t certain it quite fits the guidelines, just email and enquire. We want short stories paired with a non-fiction piece on the ‘real-life’ inspiration behind your story. Real life here may not be the most helpful term but… let’s say you’ve sent us a short story on the myth of Herne the Hunter. Your accompanying non-fiction article should discuss the origins of the legend, the basic facts or characteristics of it and a brief discussion of how you’ve been inspired by it or adapted it. Basically, someone who has never heard of Herne should be able to read your article and get the basics of the story. Look at the articles on www.spookyisles.com for an idea of the kind of non-fiction we want – straightforward, accessible reads, basically – just a bit longer than we usually...

Deadline: July 31st, 2017 Payment: $25usd and a contributor's copy We loved our first Mental Ward: Stories from the Asylum call so much, we’re opening another for Volume 2 with the exact same details! Have at it wordsmiths, and send us true depravity to read! Sanatorium, mental ward, psychiatric hospital – they’re all the same. Places where the infirm, the crazy, and the certifiable go for treatment… Or what passes for ‘treatment’. We want stories of bedlam taking place within the padded walls of an institution. Give us stories of experiments gone wrong, patients revolting against the staff, or tales from the perspective of those charged with offering care. Make them sick, make them depraved, make them atrocious – these should be the kind of stories that rarely reach the light of day. Are you brave enough to see what your mind conjures up… Or are you afraid you’ll be locked up for trying? Deadline: July 31, 2017 Word Count: 4,000 – 8,000 words All submissions MUST be submitted to: [email protected] Reading & Evaluation Period: Two to three months after close of the deadline ** NO REPRINTS WILL BE CONSIDERED ** Payment: Each story selected for inclusion will receive a one-time payment of $25US, plus one print copy of the book. As per our standard guidelines, there will be no stories containing pedophilia, or graphic rape scenarios accepted. Full submission guidelines can be found on our website – www.SirensCallPublications.com – we invite you to read them before submitting! Via: Siren's Call Publications.

Deadline: August 1st, 2017 Payment: 5 cents/word (CAD) Note: Only 5% of authors accepted will be from outside of Canada. Speculative writing, whatever the sub-genre, is full of food scenes. Food can be integral to the magic, the meetings, the processes of narratives from hard SF to high fantasy. For all of us, eating is a symbolic and magical act, a transformation, a covenant, a ritual, a comfort, and a necessity, and this awareness has been expressed in story – all the way from myth, legend and fairy tale to modern speculative writing – in many memorable ways. Alice eats and drinks to participate in Wonderland, Ripley's alien has to feed its young, Persephone eats the pomegranate seeds and spends half her life in the Underworld, the witch entices Hansel and Gretel with food to become food, the food in 2001's famous white room is spookily nutritious and generic, and Soylent Green is people. We can’t live without food, but sometimes we can’t live with it, either. In literature and in history, food-themed stories have had a darker side: starvation, poisonings (whether intentional or accidental), struggles with eating disorders, and more. We’re all drawn to candy coatings (in this case, literally) but we also want the story about how the missing ingredient ruined the feast. For the Food of my People anthology, its award-winning editors seek speculative writing that makes the magic and reality of food and nourishment integral to each story and its outcome. See the story "The Food of My People" by Candas that sparked this anthology, and began as an enquiry into what might be the everyday magic of the post-aboriginal incomers to the Canadian prairies, the culture of the jellied salad and the Saskatoon pie. Ursula Pflug and Colleen Anderson chose it for Playground of Lost Toys (Exile Editions, 2015), and when Candas read the story at ICFA...

Deadline: August 1st, 2017 Payment: $5 for flash fiction and $10 to $20 (depending on length) for short stories Issue #9: Nothing but Witches, Bitches! (Fall/Winter 2017) All witches, all the time! Permutations of witchery, magick, crones, warlocks and familiars from fairy tale baddies to black or white magic, witch doctors, and the merely misunderstood. Personal power, communion with spirits and the dead, spells, trickery, solitude and a visionary third eye with a window on the fates. Submission deadline: 8/01/17 We are not afraid." Body Parts Magazine is an online literary magazine of horror, erotica, speculative fiction, essays and art. Each themed issue honors Eros and Thanatos, the Greek gods of libido and mortido—life and death. We celebrate the vast and various expressions of dreams and darkness, our primitive desires and urges, and seek to encounter—and embrace—those shadowy monsters who dwell in the dimly lit corners of human experience.  Upcoming Themes Submissions for each issue are accepted through the last day of each reading period (if specified). You are welcome to submit material for any issue--simply indicate which issue you would like your work to be considered for. Be advised: we generally begin reading submissions for a particular issue after the close of its submission deadline, so don't panic if you haven't heard back before then. Fiction Body Parts accepts well-written, thoughtfully structured horror, erotic horror, speculative fiction, dark fantasy (including fairy tales and mythology), exceptional stories about ghosts, ghouls, monsters and wretched creatures, Gothic fiction, and all combinations of the above. Our boundaries are few and far between. Flash Fiction: 1,000 words or fewer. Short Stories: up to 8,000 words. Serialized or Longer Fiction: query us with total word count. Art/Photography We accept your original artwork and photography reflective of an issue’s theme. Email a query with a link to your art online (web, Dropbox, Google album, etc.) Payment varies. Essays...

Deadline: August 1st, 2017 Payment: Contributor's Copy Thurston Howl Publications is now accepting submissions for its third furry anthology, Infurno: The Nine Circles of Hell. Deadline: August 1, 2017 Word count: 2,500-8,000; a little above and a little below will be acceptable The Nine Circles of Hell has been a much-loved conception of the inferno, popularized by Italian poet Dante. Look here for the basic elements of the circles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)#Overview. This collection will be divided respectively into the nine parts. We expect stories to be framed to focus on people who will end up in a specific circle. Most of a story should focus on what they did back on Earth in life. Showing how they died is not required. We need to see their sin that brought them there, and you can definitely have them in hell (always fun to describe; in general, try to keep infernal descriptions consistent with Dante's). We want to see anthro-animal characters at their darkest and weakest moments: at the brothel, at the chopping block, in the morgue, in the dining room with the candlestick. It is perfectly fine but not required if submissions are NSFW. We are honestly expecting a fair amount of horror and erotica. However, again, adult stories are by no means required for acceptance. All story submissions must be "furry" in nature. We will NOT accept: Racism, sexism, or discrimination presented in a positive light. If you are in doubt, ASK. Better to ask then to get a straight up rejection! If you are unsure, just shoot me an email at [email protected]. (restrictions borrowed from Voice: https://t.co/MWykJ6RY36) You can submit up to three stories, but we will only accept one per author (if any). Reprints are fine, but you have to own full permission of the work in order for us to consider...

Deadline: August 5th, 2017 Payment: 1 cent per word We are in search of erotic stories centered around the theme of haunted. How you execute this theme is up to you—a multitude of interpretations are possible. While fantastical and spooky elements are welcome, we suggest writers familiarize themselves with the full dictionary definition of “haunt” and think outside the box. For this anthology we aren’t just looking for ghosts, ghouls, and other monsters. We want to feel something that is persistently there. Something that twists the mind, invades our waking thoughts, disturbs our sleep. The characters must be haunted or haunting. The sex needs to be raw, passionate, hot, and at the story’s centre. Four-letter words are neither required nor discouraged, although we have a preference for graphic lust conveyed through beautiful prose. No hard requirements in terms of secondary genres. This theme lends itself well to speculative genres—but think sexy not scary. Please read our general submission guidelines prior to submitting. We prefer the erotic to adult content and have an extreme prejudice for stories with a literary style—however, hot, passionate sex must be at each story’s core. It may help to familiarize yourself with some of our other titles prior to submitting—particularly our short story anthologies and stand-alone shorts. 1,000-5,000 words, although we’ll consider pieces that fall outside those parameters on a case-by-case basis. Multiple and simultaneous submissions ok. No reprints. If accepted, pay is 1 cent per word. The deadline for submissions is August 5, 2017.   Submit here. Via: Mug Wump Press.