Events

Deadline: March 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties The Writers’ Co-op invites submissions of short stories (and poems) for the second edition of our yearly anthology, The Rabbit Hole. Volume one was released in November last year, volume two is scheduled for September 2019. This year, we are looking for weird stories dealing with the following themes: entertainment, weather or science. (If you want to combine all three, we’re very open to stories about a group of scientists on their way to the theatre when they’re caught in a freak snowstorm.) However, there will also be a section Weird At Large for stories that don’t fit the specific themes suggested. There is a maximum word count of 5000. This is more a guideline than a strict limit – quality is the main criterion, not length. So a great story will be accepted, whether it’s 6000 words or 200 (flash fiction is welcome). But we’re looking for short stories, not novellas or extracts from novels – the story should be complete in itself. Though the anthology will be comprised mostly of stories, there will also be room for some poems or pieces of an experimental nature. The deadline is 31st March 2019. Submissions should be sent in an attached file to curtis.bausse(at)outlook.com with the subject ‘Co-op submission’. They may have been previously published on personal websites (or elsewhere) but authors must have full rights to them when submitting. Authors will retain said rights after the story or poem is published in the Writers’ Co-op anthology. Writers whose stories are selected will have the choice between keeping their share of the royalties or donating them to the Against Malaria Foundation. What is meant by ‘weird’? Like many categories, it’s fuzzy, because it stands in distinction to ‘normal’, and there’s no common acceptance of what is normal. Not all writers will approach it the same way,...

Deadline: March 31st, 2019 Payment: Contributor's Copy Swinging Dick's Saloon, the kind of dive that has way better beers on tap than a hole in the wall like it should have. Like this one It's the kind of place that doesn't have to say it's a dive bar because everyone knows just by looking at the place. Also, any bar that advertises itself as a dive bar is not a dive bar. This is not Swinging Dicks Saloon   It's the kind of place where the owner (Dick though he tells people to call him, Richard) is often the drunkest guy in the place, though sometimes he drinks in the bar down the street because the barmaids are hotter. This is not Dick but he is a regular It's the kind of place where the barmaids wear skimpy outfits even when they shouldn't. They do wear more than her but not much more It's the kind of place where the bartender never remembers what your drink of choice is but he believes he does. Not my drink of choice but still pretty good They have live bands on the weekends and occasionally they're even good. Like the Graveyard Rats or Yvette It's the kind of place where great stories are told. All kinds of stories - Crime, sci-fi, horror, often with a distinct grindhouse feel and a dark sense of humor. Shotgun-toting Jesus wants  you to submit (a story) You can't tell such a story at Dick's over a few cold ones, because Swinging Dick's Saloon doesn't actually exist. However, you can send them us and if we like them we'll publish them in an awesome bit of pulp fiction called A Night at Swinging Dick's Saloon. That's right, send us your best story about Dicks (the saloon, not actual dicks). Send...

Deadline: March 31st, 2019 Payment: 2 cents per word We are currently OPEN to submissions for I Didn’t Break the Lamp from March 1-31, 2019. (We will reopen to standard submissions in June 2019.) Special Call for Submissions We will be creating an anthology titled I Didn’t Break the Lamp: Historical Accounts of Imaginary Acquaintances. It will be a collection of fictional stories about imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, and imaginary entities that fall somewhere in between. For this anthology, our pay will be 2 cents per word. We are particularly looking for stories from authors who are underrepresented in fiction: people of color, LGBTQ, non-Western religions and cultures. Each story is written from the perspective of someone who has been or been near the imaginary acquaintance in question. Like our regular magazine, this narrator will also have a bio. Be certain that your story meets these requirements: First person 500-8,000 words in length Focuses on an imaginary acquaintance Not a reprint Here are some ideas that we pitched when we made our Kickstarter, but this is meant to be inspirational and not definitive. A monster under the bed or in the closet who helps or hinders the person they watch over. An imaginary friend who always gets their person into or out of trouble … but to what end? A creature that no one believes is real, until they prove their impact. DO NOT send us poetry or screenplays. Submissions should be in Standard Manuscript Format (Here’s an explanation of what that means) and sent via Submittable. As with our regular submissions, we are asking for exclusive first worldwide electronic and print rights for one year. Via: Mad Scientist's Journal.

Deadline: March 31st, 2019 Payment: $25 Note: Our apologies for the short submission window, just saw this one! As has been announced on the SFFWorld Forums, we are now open for submissions for the 2019 SFFWorld Anthology. The theme is “Dying Earth” (as voted for by members) and submissions are open from now until 31st March 2019. To summarise: Theme: DYING EARTH Genre: sf/f/h, any and all subgenres, plus inventive mash-ups from outside that include them Length: 1000-7500 word hard limit, 2000-5000 words preferred File type: DOCX files for preference Formatting: no need for any special hi-jinks (use italics if you want, don’t underline instead). Any non-standard cleverness regarding the appearance of the text should be essential to the story – no font switching, as that won’t carry over into the ebook easily. Legalese: No fan-fic or other use of existing characters – all work must be the author’s own. Payment: $25/story – flat rate and comp (digital) copies of the anthology. Via: SFF World.

Deadline: March 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties Note: My apologies on the short window, just came across this one. Organic Ink: Volume One (Poetry) (Not Rated) Deadline – March 31st, 2019 Publication – June 30th, 2019 Word Count – Word count limit has been revoked. Theme – There is no theme for this anthology. Poetry about love, hate, greed, depression, etc. Haikus, epics, etc. After receiving edits back, the author has two weeks to return the submission for formatting. View our blog post on the topic of how to submit to a publisher.   Rating – Check each anthologies‘ rating. Word count – Check each anthologies‘ word count requirements. E-mail address to submit to – [email protected]   NOTICE –  Failure to submit correctly will result in refusal of submission. Via: Dragon Soul Press</a..

Deadline: March 31st ,2019 Payment: Fiction: $25 for stories under 1,000 words, $50 for stories between 1,000 and 5,000 words, $75 for stories between 5,000 and 7,500 words and $100, for stories of 7,500 words and over. Poetry: $25 Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is generally open to fiction and poetry submissions four months per year. The months you can submit are: March June September December (we are closed to submissions in December, 2018) If you submit fiction or poetry in any other month, you will receive an auto-response and your tale will not be reviewed.   * * * As its name suggests, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is a quarterly ezine dedicated to publishing heroic fantasy — in both prose and poetry. We are unrepentant in our goal of elevating unapologetic sword and sorcery to a rightful high place. We pay $100 for stories and $25 for poems, upon publication.  (Scroll down for info on art submissions.) We purchase first world English language electronic rights, electronic rights for 90 days, archival rights for twelve months, and excerpt rights. Our fiction word limit is a soft 10,000 words, although we are willing to serialize at a maximum of 50,000 words over four issues. You may submit up to three poems, with a cumulative maximum of 30 pages. While we don’t have iron-clad rules regarding our fiction payment, we roughly pay $25 for stories under 1,000 words, $50 for stories between 1,000 and 5,000 words, $75 for stories between 5,000 and 7,500 words and $100, for stories of 7,500 words and over. Tolkienesque (as in really long) poetry epics/sagas/vedas will most likely be treated — and paid — like fiction. Similarly, prose pieces of fewer than 1,000 words will be paid at poetry’s standard rate of $25.   Art: HFQ is looking for quality banner art to accompany each...

Deadline: March 31st 2019 Payment: 1 cent a word and a print contributor copy David Cronenberg is one of the greatest cult-film directors of all time. Through his varied and highly influential career, he has managed to forge a path through cinema that includes films of horror, crime, psychological period pieces, and even a straightforward car-racing movie. His name is synonymous with Body-Horror, and for good reason. Our aim is to celebrate the man with an anthology of short stories influenced by his body of work. If you write weird fiction, horror, bizarro, crime, transgressive, or otherwise dark fiction and you love the films (and single novel!) of David Cronenberg, we would love to see a story from you. There’s a reason the term ‘Cronenbergian’ exists, we want stories that fit that vibe. - Submissions close March 31st 2019 - Submissions should be sent to: [email protected] - Please format the email subject as: Submission - The New Flesh - “Name of story” - Please attach as a .doc or .docx file. Do not include your submission as the body of the email. If you do this we will delete your submission without reading it. - Stories should be between 2,000-5,000 words with 3,000 being the sweet spot. - Please use a standard font at a 10/12 point and do not double-space after your periods. - We are seeking stories that are emotionally driven, narratives that are impactful, and stories that are well put together. We want characters with depth and life, characters with pathos. We also want goopy slime, visceral gore, surreal elements, and things that simply should not be. Some of the obvious elements we are looking for include: body-horror, shadowy organizations pulling the character’s strings, explorations of where the body and technology collide, philosophical and psychological subtexts, and...

Deadline: April 1st, 2019 Payment: .01 cent/word plus 1 contributor copy Note: You must be a member to submit, free to join here. We want to see your splatter, bizarro and new weird tales set in space. Space is…well, pretty vast, but still, there can only be so many stories that take place on a space station or spaceship or escape pod before it starts to get old. That’s why we’re open to non-space settings too, as long as it’s set in the distant future and/or features strong elements of advanced technology, advanced beings, or meta-physical elements. If it’s a space-age scenario, send it in. And of course, don’t forget the blood, guts, and subversive messages. NOTE: You MUST be a Splatter Club member to be eligible to submit a story. Email: [email protected] Subject: Splatter in Space Length: 500 words up to 6K Deadline: April 1, 2019 Multiple Submissions: No Simultaneous Submissions: No Payment: .01 cent/word plus 1 contributor copy The submission period runs from Jan.- April 1st 2019 and the reading period will last from April – June 2019 with final decisions being announced by July 1st 2019 Not a Member? Join here for free! Via: Splatter Club.

Deadline: April 1st, 2019 Payment: $20 + contributor copy. reading periods: June 15th - September 1st for the Winter Issue Feburary 1st - April 1st for the Summer Issue / payment is $20 + contributor copy. send your best. we are only able to accept around 4% of what we receive. simultaneous submissions accepted. multiple submissions allowed. you may submit up to twice per reading period. if accepted, please wait until two reading periods have passed before submitting again. we’ll get back to you within a month. / guidelines: poetry - send 2-5 poems in a single document. fiction / nonfiction / essays - up to 2000 words. flash fiction - up to three pieces in a single document - 1000 words. (send all work in a word doc / pdf). we will only consider unpublished work. please put the genre + your last name in the subject line. a short bio (50-75 words) will be requested upon acceptance. if your work is accepted, we get FNASR. after publication, all rights revert back to you. / send submissions / love letters to [email protected]. send queries to [email protected]. Via: Barnhouse Journal.

Deadline: April 1st, 2019 Payment: .01 cent/word plus 1 contributor copy Note: You must be a member to submit, free to join here. Welcome to the Splatter Club: Beyond the requirement that you are a member of the Splatter Club, there are no limits on what you may submit. Obviously, we want to publish the kind of stories that Splatter Club members enjoy reading and something that will proudly highlight our unique genre of literature to the world but it is non-themed beyond splatterpunk, bizarro, and weird fiction. As discussed in the Facebook group, this will feature both seasoned authors and you fresh meat writers looking for your first publication. Even though we are combining the previous two anthology calls into one, we will still use the original email. Email: [email protected] Length: 500 words up to 6K Deadline: April 1, 2019 Multiple Submissions: No Simultaneous Submissions: No Payment: .01 cent/word plus 1 contributor copy The submission period runs from Jan.- April 1st 2019 and the reading period will last from April – June 2019 with final decisions being announced by July 1st 2019 Not a Member? Join here for free! Via: Splatter Club.