Events

Deadline: November 30th, 2019 Payment: Royalties Lost Love (Rated R) Deadline – November 30th, 2019 Publication – February 2020 Word Count – 5,000-15,000 Theme – Nearly everyone has had a lost love. In other words, the one that got away  either due to another person, drifting apart, death, etc. Whether it be the boy next door, a loyal princess, or a supernatural being, all of these stories have two things in common: loss and heartbreak.   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: November 30th, 2019 Payment: 1 penny (GBP) per word for original short stories, 100 pounds for original novellas / flat rate, 10 pounds for reprints / flat rate, and a contributor's copy Submissions close: 30/11/2019 Response time: We'll aim for the end of January 2020 at the latest Publication: Planned for late 2020 What we want: This anthology will combine the best new mysteries with classic reprints from yesteryear, so give us a masterful tale. You'll need an engaging and memorable protagonist who can hold his or her own against Sherlock Holmes and Auguste Dupin. Above all, we want a clever puzzle the reader can try to solve. Throw in clues and red herrings, make our readers work their "little grey cells", as Hercule Poirot puts it. The mystery could be a crime, but it could also be a historical or archaeological investigation, a treasure hunt, getting to the bottom of a local legend... it's up to you, but it must be a mystery the reader can delve into and try to solve before your protagonist. Think Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Inspector Morse, Jonathan Creek, even Nancy Drew or Scooby Doo, but be damned clever about it! Get moving! The game's afoot! Length:  Short stories between 2,500 and 7,000 words Novellas up to 25,000 words Rates: 1 penny (GBP) per word for original short stories 100 pounds for original novellas / flat rate 10 pounds for reprints / flat rate All contributors will receive one print copy Please read the full guidelines below before submitting. GENERAL GUIDELINES AND DETAILS Please only submit one story per publication. No simultaneous submissions for original fiction. Languages accepted:  English and French / anglais et français Black Beacon Books is based in France but publishes in English. As such, we accept submissions in both English and French. Any...

Deadline: November 30th, 2019 Payment: $10 Please read the entire guidelines before submitting. No, really. Please do. It will help you, and it will help us. We accept and publish web edition submissions on a rolling basis. We don't read new submissions in December, January, June and July. Vestal Review is a magazine for new flash (short-shorts) fiction, 500 words or fewer. We don't accept reprints. We love to hear new voices, especially from immigrants, but we don’t discriminate against anyone. We love magic realism. High fantasy, science fiction, romance and kids stories? Not so much. No fees. The honorarium is $10.  All payments will be made only through PayPal. For Web edition, we consider only one story per author. We accept simultaneous submissions. We assume that every writer is also a reader, so please read the guidelines before submitting and not the other way around. Our philosophy: Most stories are not rejected because they are not good, but because other stories are better. Vestal Review now publishes its print issues twice a year in a perfect-bound edition. All content is available on the Web. We welcome your submissions, but please read our guidelines first. We don’t read new submissions in December, January, June and July  (except for special calls for submissions). All submissions sent during this time will be deleted. Don’t worry: the categories that we don’t temporarily consider will be hidden from view. Each submission is to be sent separately. Our reading periods are: 1. February-May 2. August-November Once in a while, we have special calls for submissions that change the above schedule and payments. Effective immediately, all submissions should be done using our submission manager. We will not consider any other forms of submissions. Use this e-mail to inquire about the status of your submission (please wait three months before sending it): submissionsvestalreview.net Please start the...

Deadline: November 30th, 2019 Payment: $0.02/word, potentially more! Neon Hemlock Press is open to submissions of short stories to be considered in the anthology Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die from September 15th to November 30th. The compensation level for this anthology will be set by the success of our Kickstarter! At a minimum it will be $0.02/word. You can find the Kickstarter here. A link to a submission portal will be displayed during our open period. We are looking for: Wordcount: Under 6,000 words. 1-4,000 words is probably the sweet spot. Concept: They joked that the only things left would be cockroaches and Twinkies, but they were wrong. They underestimated us. Tell us stories of queer resilience and queer survival, stories set after the end of a world that could be ours but might not be. Tell us about new queer beginnings born amidst the broken promises of the future. Be inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road, yes, but the visions of the apocalypse we love also include The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, Apocalypse World by Vincent & Meguey Baker, Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller, and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. What we want to see: We are looking for speculative stories that explore ramifications of the apocalypse through queer narratives. We want queer stories and we want trans stories and we want indefinable stories. We welcome a broad interpretation of the post-apocalyptic genre; give us your scraps of hope in every ruined future (we love genre elements from fantasy, horror and science fiction). Throughout, we’re looking for rich, varied and nuanced understandings of gender, family and ethnicity. What we don’t want to see: Don’t tell us directly how it ended. You can draw implications from the sunless sky or...

Deadline: December 1st, 2019 Payment: $20 “Turning words into art is unnatural. It begins with a contrary attitude. It says, I am unhappy with the way things are and desire to make things different. Rather than represent the world, I will make something wildly and savagely new. I will defy logic. I will invest in new perceptions. I will combine and recombine and fabricate and juggle until something that I have never experienced is experienced. The process is alchemical. The process is violent. It goes to the heart of creativity. It disrupts and shatters. It is splendid with provocation. It is an aggression against banality. It is sharp and loud like a janitor scraping frost from a window. The hectic bounce of steam on a street after a truck roars by. The anarchy of waters, the comedy of the face, dangerous feelings vented from a cage of skin.” ~ John Olson Poetry — We believe poetry is contrary by nature, always defying, always tonguing the tang of novelty. We look especially for plurality of meaning, for dual reverberation of beauty and concern. Contrary’s poetry in particular often mimics the effects of fiction or commentary. We find ourselves enamored of prose poems because they are naturally contrary toward form – they tug on the forces of exposition or narrative – but prose poems remain the minority of all the poetic forms we publish. Please consider that Contrary receives vast amounts of poetry and that we can publish only a small percentage of that work. Please submit no more than three poems per issue. Our poetry editor is Shaindel Beers. Fiction — We ask our fiction writers to imagine their readers navigating a story with one finger poised over a mouse button. Can your story stay that finger to the end? We have published long stories on the belief...

Deadline: December 2nd, 2019 Payment: We offer $75 for Short Stories accepted for publication in our literary journal (eBook, print, and/or audiobook) We offer $50 for Short Stories accepted for online publication on midnightandindigo.com. Note: This market is for black female writers Word count: min 1,500 words We are looking for previously unpublished, character-driven, speculative short stories written by Black women writers - for a special issue to be published in 2020. Speculative fiction is a broad genre encompassing fiction with certain elements that do not exist in the real world, often in the context of supernatural, futuristic or other imaginative themes. This includes, but is not limited to, science fiction, fantasy, superhero fiction, horror, utopian and dystopian fiction, fairytale fantasy, and supernatural fiction. We offer $75 for Short Stories accepted for publication in our literary journal (eBook, print, and/or audiobook) We offer $50 for Short Stories accepted for online publication on midnightandindigo.com. midnight & indigo is a new literary platform dedicated to publishing short fiction and narrative essays by Black women writers. Our digital platform, midnightandindigo.com features a diverse array of voices that connect readers to content featuring strong female lead characters or a Black female POV; across the spectrum of experience - a new story is featured every week. We also publish 2-3 multi-author literary journals each year (print/ebook and/or audiobook).  Whether you’ve already been published or are just starting out, we want to hear from you!  As a Black woman-owned start-up, we're so excited that you chose us as a potential medium for your voice. Calls for Journal Submissions for Short Stories and Personal Essays are held 4x per year, with deadlines on January 5th, April 5th, August 2nd, and December 6th. Book Reviews focused on works by Black women authors are accepted year-round. To increase your chances of being published, please take some time to review our current content; to...

Deadline: December 2nd, 2019 Payment: $20-$75 according to the category and length of their submission Note: Apologies for the late posting, just came across this one. Submissions are OPEN from October 14 – December 2 for Issue 7: Horror (see below). With this call, Speculative City announces the Year of Genre. Speculative fiction is often defined as genre fiction, a useful phrase for those looking to separate “literary fiction” from its more exploratory counterpart. In a reclamation of the term, in the new year, Speculative City will feature four specific genres showcasing the incredible range that speculative fiction can offer. The first genre of focus will be horror. We are looking for fiction, poetry, and essays within the horror genre. And, as per usual, we seek provocative works that are centered within a cityscape. Writers published will be paid $20-$75 according to the category and length of their submission. We do not accept submissions exceeding 5500 words. All submissions should be the original, unpublished work of the submitter. We will accept simultaneous submissions, but please inform us if the submission has been accepted by another publication. We do not accept multiple submissions for fiction or essays. Please submit word (.doc, .docx) or rich text format (.rtf) files and format your submission according to our format guide. Please send all inquiries to info @ speculativecity .com . We try to respond to all submissions, but as a team of two, we may not always be able to. All submissions should be sent through Green Submissions. Green Submissions requires users to create an account. Please see link to sign up and submit at https://greensubmissions.com/1024/speculative-city/index.php. Before submitting work, please also be familiar with our contract. THEME horror noun|hor·ror| \ ‘hôr-ər \ Definition of HORROR noun a fiction genre that incites overwhelming and intense emotional reactions such as dread, repulsion, terror, and shock through the use...

Deadline: December 12th, 2019 Payment: 75% of royalties after amazon fees are taken out will be divided evenly across the board to all authors. Christmas is right around the corner and what better way to celebrate than to submit your scary stories of holiday horror to us, Scary Snippets. After just releasing a highly successful Halloween collection, we are ready to go straight into some nutcracking action with wicked snowmen, vile reindeer and even some good old fashioned Krampus! Here’s what we are looking for. email to: [email protected] (Feel free to include author profile) Word count: Minimum: 100 Max 600 We are looking for: stories of sinister nature relating to Christmas, Hanukkah or other Yuletide holidays. (Also accepting a few Thanksgiving Horror as well) stories need to be exclusive and will remain held by publisher for 6 months after publishing. Send as many submissions as you wish, we want to allow for at least 4 to 5 max per author depending on length. (Our goal is to have over 100 total stories in the collection) Deadline: December 12 Releasing: December 20 Acceptance and contracts will be happening quickly and our editing team will be moving fast. Payment: 75% of royalties after amazon fees are taken out will be divided evenly across the board to all authors. Stories will be on Kindle Unlimited for 6 months and then authors will be able to retain their rights and use the story elsewhere. Questions or concerns, please message us Be sure to also join the Scary Snippets Facebook page for more information and for receiving feedback and support from our author community! Spread holiday fear! https://www.facebook.com/groups/372178610142234/?ref=share

Deadline: December 6th, 2019 Payment: $5 for anything under 5000 words. $10 for anything over 5000 words Note: Reprints Allowed For our second anthology we want stories that explore the horror of solitude. This does not mean your story has to have solitary characters, it definitely can, but any story that dives into the theme of isolation and solitude will work for this collection. It could be the terror of no one believing the monster chasing you is real, or being completely alone in something while surrounded by millions of people, or it could be being forgotten and alone in a desolate place. Cosmic horror, creature horror, slasher horror, it can all work in this collection as long as you submit a creative story focusing on solitude.  Word Count: 3,000 - 7,500 Payment: $5 for anything under 5000 words                  $10 for anything over 5000 words Deadline: 12/6/19 Multiple submissions welcome.  Reprints are fine, however you must own the rights to the story before submitting.  Please send all submissions as an attachment and make sure the subject line of your email is: DBND - Solitude - Story Title  Send submissions to: [email protected] Via: DBND Publishing.

Deadline: December 9th, 2019 Prizes: £2000 for the winner and £150 and two complimentary for selected contributors Nobrow is well-known for our visual publishing and our dedication to designing and producing beautiful books. This is something we are extremely proud of. At the heart of all we do is storytelling. We believe this is the foundation on which our publishing is built – we love all forms of storytelling, be it visual, lyrical or literary. It is all aimed at transporting a reader to another place and time and keeping them there; transfixed. That is why we are delighted to announce we are running the Nobrow Short Story Competition for writers! Up to twelve winning entries will be published in our short story anthology, and this beautifully illustrated book will celebrate the best short fiction and non-fiction writing. Our theme is ‘The Censor’. You can interpret this in any way you wish – it could represent censoring of the past, present and future; the self; the state; or the effects of censorship on everyday life. As a provocation we hope our theme can provide a rich vein of storytelling inspiration for anyone wishing to take part in the competition. We are looking for inclusive, surprising, ingenious and diverse responses that capture our minds and hold us until every word is devoured. It is completely free to enter, and we welcome submissions that you may already have written as long as they have not been previously published and can be related to the theme of The Censor. Prizes An overall winner will receive £2000. All selected contributors will receive £150 and two complimentary copies of the book, and will be invited to attend events including a launch and readings. Deadline 9th December 2019, midnight BST time. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES A submission is defined as a short story...