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Deadline: April 4, 2020 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: Take a hard left turn from normal. Bring us your unsettling stories. If a common activity leads to violations of the laws of man or nature, your story may be perfect for this collection. Ideal genres: horror, crime Disturbia Take a hard left turn from normal. Bring us your unsettling stories. If a common activity leads to violations of the laws of man or nature, your story may be perfect for this collection. Ideal genres: horror, crime Editor: Sandra Ruttan Submission Information Note: We will not process or respond to submissions sent to the wrong email address. Only submissions sent to [email protected] will be processed. Note: Each story should be submitted in its own email. Do not send a submission as a response to a rejection or email query. Do not send multiple stories in the same email. Pro Tip: Read Rigor Morbid: Lest Ye Become to get a sense of what the editor is looking for in stories. The tone is appropriate for Disturbia and Rigor Morbid 2. We welcome submissions from diverse authors. We encourage individuals to opt to include a bio (100 words, written in third person) and author photo that can be used with the publication when submitting.  *Diverse can refer to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or those that are specially abled Payment $0.08 U.S. per word We will not publish stories that are donated — all writers must be prepared to receive payment through one of our approved payment methods. All payments to U.S. writers will be made by check. All payments to international writers will be made by Paypal to a verified Paypal address that is in the writer’s name. Guidelines Stories should be 3000 words or less Stories should be attached as a .doc or .docx file Text in stories should be...

Deadline: April 5th, 2020 Payment: $300 advance on royalties, with 40% royalties on net revenue from print sales and 30% royalties on net revenue from digital sales thereafter. Themes: horror, science fiction, weird western, or dark fantasy. Excession Press is now open for submissions! Our reading period runs Jan. 5th – Apr. 5th 2020. What We Want: Excession Press is looking for original manuscripts 30,000 - 60,000 words in length that can be described as horror, science fiction, weird western, or dark fantasy. Our word count limit is firm, +/- a few hundred words. We want quality, character-driven narratives with imaginative settings and creative conflicts that will engage readers. We want strong, memorable prose. We prefer our fiction to be surreal, grotesque, and thoughtful, but more than anything, we want it well-written and well-paced. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable but we ask that you let us know at time of submission, and we ask that you give us notice if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. What We *DON'T* Want: No reprints or incomplete manuscripts. No books that are part of a series - your submission should function as a standalone narrative. No poetry or non-fiction. No YA or children's stories. No stories that function primarily as erotica. No experimental formats or images - submissions should be text only. No queries. Please have something submission-ready. Submission Format: File must be in a .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. 12 point font. Double-spaced with .25" indents and 1" margins. The first page should have author name, an email address, title of your submission, and total word count. Every page should have author name, title, and page number. How to Submit: Email submissions as an attached file to [email protected] Include in the body of your email a brief (3-5 sentence) description of your submission and an...

Deadline: April 5th, 2020 Payment: 8 cents per word for original work, 6 cents per word for reprints Theme: Strange and distant places Note: Reprints welcome Gothic Fantasy Short Stories Strange Lands Anthology Strange Lands Short Stories: Packed with strange and distant places, from underground cities, undiscovered islands, ancient lands, hidden continents, civilisations on the moon and Mars this new book will bring together the tales of Washington Irving, H.G. Wells, Otis Kline, with Homer, Samuel Butler and a generation of modern writers for a thrilling read of speculative fiction. Word length is most likely to be successful at 2000–4000, but we will still read stories slightly outside this range and submissions will be accepted between 16th March and 5th April - please send to [email protected]. Payment will be 8 cents/6 pence for each word (SFWA qualifying market rate) and 6 cents/4 pence for reprints. If your story is a reprint please let us know in your submission email. Multiple submissions are accepted. We will aim to read each story and confirm its status within 4 months of the submission deadline.   Thank you, and good luck. We look forward to reading your tales of imagination! Via: Flame Tree Publishing.

Deadline: April 6th, 2020 Payment: CAD $0.01/word (i.e. CAD $50 for a 5000 word story), with a minimum payment of CAD $5 for accepted work. Theme: speculative short fiction and poetry, with an emphasis on science fiction and works related to science. Submissions are currently OPEN. The deadline for this submission period is April 6th, 2020. Thinking of submitting to Trouble Among The Stars? Please read these guidelines first: We publish speculative short fiction and poetry, with an emphasis on science fiction and works related to science.  We do not publish novel excerpts, non-fiction or serialized anything. For fiction, we will review anything between 300-6000 words, and for poetry we will review anything under 1000 words.  We do accept simultaneous submissions, but you must notify us immediately if your submitted work is accepted elsewhere. We do not accept previously published work. We do our best to be very welcoming towards new writers – if you have little or no previous publishing credentials, please feel comfortable submitting to us regardless. We are meant to be by the weirdos and for the weirdos, and we would love to read your newest and strangest work. We pay CAD $0.01/word (i.e. CAD $50 for a 5000 word story), with a minimum payment of CAD $5 for accepted work. Payments are made via paypal upon publication. We ask for one-time non-exclusive rights to publish your work. To submit, please send an email to [email protected] with your work as an attached document. Please include a brief cover letter in the body of the email. Please send a total of one (1) short story or up to two (2) poems (exceptions will sometimes be made for suites of poems). Size 12 Times New Roman font is preferred for submissions, with fiction submissions being double-spaced. Please submit only once per reading period. Please allow us up to three weeks to respond to your submission (though in most cases...

Deadline: April 10th, 2020 Payment: 50% to publisher and 50% split amongst contributors evenly Theme: Scary Stories of Workplace Terror Stuck in a dead end job? Wish you could get payback on that boss you don’t like? Or maybe it’s a coworker stalking you, or the coffee room rituals that is getting to you. Either way; we want these scary stories all about the workplace. Because Horror is for Hire! Read below the details of our newest anthology. Title: Horror for Hire Subtitle: Scary Stories of Workplace Terror Submissions guidelines: Word count: Max 5k words, minimum 2k words. Payment info: 50% to publisher and 50% split amongst contributors evenly. Email to: [email protected] We are looking for: stories of workplace woes, sticking it to the boss in the worst way. Think of the job you hate the most and add horror to it and make it 10 times worse. You can submit non-fiction but please change names if so. We prefer exclusive stories to allow for Kindle Unlimited release. Limit of 3 per author but please submit as many as possible and we will sort through them. Submissions open: January 13 2020 Deadline: April 10th 2020 Releasing: Spring 2020 We have a Facebook group which will be in the comment thread below. Via: Facebook.

UPDATE: CLOSED EARLY - APRIL 10TH 2020 Deadline: May 15th, 2020 NOTE: CLOSED EARLY Payment: $0.01/word + 1 print contributor copy Theme: Short stories about summer vacations gone wrong Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror Grindhouse Press seeks short stories about summer vacations gone wrong for its upcoming horror fiction anthology, Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror, edited by Samantha Kolesnik. Summer vacation is often romanticized as a time of joy, but sometimes even the best laid plans go awry. Send in your horrifying tales for consideration in Grindhouse Press’s first-ever horror anthology. Guidelines: ●All submissions must be in the horror genre. ●No simultaneous submissions. All submitters will be notified of acceptance or rejection by June 1, 2020 at the latest. ●Submissions must not have been previously published anywhere. This includes personal blogs and social media. ●Submissions must be in standard manuscript format and submitted as an attached MS Word document or Google doc. ●Only one submission per author allowed. ●We welcome fiction which is bold, risky and graphic if it’s in service of the story. Submissions should be emailed to [email protected] with the name of the author and the title of the story in the email subject line. Please include in the body of the email a brief author bio (2-4 sentences), and submission word count. Payment: $0.01/word + 1 print contributor copy Length: 2,000 – 6,000 words Deadline: May 15th, 2020 or until filled Via: Grind House Press.

Deadline: April 10th, 2020 Payment: 50% of the sales after printing costs will be split between each author of each particular book Theme: All Genres Accepted To submit your short story to the Breaking Rules Publishing Short Story Book Project, please send an email to [email protected]. ​ Please include your contact information, including location in the body of your email, as well as a "Word Doc" attachment of your work. We will confirm your submission within 24 hours, as well as get back to you within one week on the possibility for publishing options. All submissions must - Be sent in a "Word Doc" - 8.5 x 11 format - a clean, edited story with the authors name and title should be at the top of the page - please, no special margins - your story should be indented properly - single spaced - in a 12 font - no double spaces between paragraphs - and no headers or footers. Page limit are - 15 pages min and 30 max. Work that is sent incorrectly will be sent back. We sincerely appreciate your interest in Breaking Rules Publishing but also don't want to add additional work for our formatting team. Editing: By submitting you agree to allow Breaking Rules Publishing to provide a light edit, spell check, formatting, appropriate grammar, to all stories published. Copyrights: The author retains all copyrights to the submitted work. With your consent, BRP may publish of your work in future journals and publicity pieces, and other formats or contexts determined by, and at the discretion of, Breaking Rules Publishing. Please note that other publications may not accept your work as "unpublished" work. If you do subsequently publish your work in another publication, proper attribution must be given to Breaking Rules Publishing and/or Breaking Rules Publishing website. As a condition of submission, you will be required to agree to the...

Deadline: April 10th, 2020 Prizes: The top three winners will receive cash prizes of $75, $50, and $25 respectively Theme: Innovation Every year, QSF holds a flash fiction contest to create an amazing new anthology of queer speculative fiction stories. We ask authors to do the nearly-impossible – to submit a sci fi, fantasy, paranormal or horror LGBTIQA story that has no more than 300 words. Our 2020 contest launches on March 1st, and closes it April 10th, but we do accept early entries. The theme for 2020 is “Innovation”: 1) A new idea, method, or device. 2) The introduction of something new. 3) The action or process of innovating. We live in an age of innovation – new websites, apps, and disruption abound. Often this innovation has a dark side, destroying old industries, eroding privacy and enabling climate change. But innovation can have a bright side – solving problems instead of creating them. Look at how medicine has helped extend life and cure ailments that were once deadly scourges. The same social media sites that are causing such chaos have also brought people together on groups like ours, creating new communities. And innovation might just hold the key to saving the planet. Tell us about either side – how innovation will destroy us, or how it might save us. Whether your innovation is scientific, paranormal, horrific or magical, we want to see it. We’ll be accepting works from across the queer spectrum, and would love to see more entries including lesbian, trans, bi, intersex and ace protagonists, as well as gay men. We also welcome diversity in ability (physical and mental) and in race. We had our most diverse set of entries yet in 2019 – let’s keep up the trend! We always get tons of gay sci fi...

Deadline: April 10th, 2020 Payment: 50% of the sales will be split between each author of each particular book after printing costs Theme: Horror To submit your short story to the Bi-Monthly Breaking Rules Publishing Horror Anthology, starting in January 2020 - released by the end of the month - please send an email to [email protected] by the 10th of the book release month. ​ In your email - please include your contact information, including location in the body of your email, as well as a "Word Doc" attachment of your work. We will confirm your submission within 24 hours, as well as get back to you within one week on the possibility for publishing options. All submissions must - Be sent in a "Word Doc" - 8.5 x 11 format - a clean, edited story with the authors name and title at the top of the page - please, no special margins - your story should be indented properly - single spaced - in a 12 font - no double spaces between paragraphs - and no headers or footers. Page limit is 30 max  - 15 min - all submissions but be sent in by the 10th of the book release month. Publishing starts January 2020. Work that is sent incorrectly will be sent back. We sincerely appreciate your interest in Breaking Rules Publishing but also don't want to add additional work for our formatting team. ​Editing: By submitting you agree to allow Breaking Rules Publishing to provide a light edit, spell check, formatting, appropriate grammar, to all stories published. Copyrights: The author retains all copyrights to the submitted work. With your consent, BRP may publish of your work in future journals and publicity pieces, and other formats or contexts determined by, and at the discretion of, Breaking Rules Publishing. Please note that other publications may not accept...

Deadline: April 10th, 2020 Payment: Royalty Split Theme: Contemporary literary strange tales It’s Tartarus Press’s thirtieth year in 2020, and we are celebrating by publishing a volume of contemporary literary strange tales. If you would like to be considered for inclusion, then please send one story only to [email protected]. Your submission should  be entirely new, unpublished elsewhere, c.2,000 – 6,000 words, and on the literary strange/horror/supernatural spectrum. Payment will be by a share in profits. Deadline: 10th April 2020. We look forward to hearing from you! Via: Tartarus Press.