Events

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: $25.00 - $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 - $10.00 for poetry Theme: Story must begin with: The Simmons public library was a melting pot of the haves and have-nots, a mixture of homeless people and the wealthy older residents of the nearby neighborhood. We love that writers around the world are inspired by our first lines, and we know that not every story will be sent to us. However, we ask that you do not submit stories starting with our first lines to other journals (or post them online on public sites) until we've notified you as to our decision (usually three to four weeks after the deadline). When the entire premise of the publication revolves around one sentence, we don't want it to look as if we stole that sentence from another writer. If you have questions, feel free to drop us a line. Also, we understand that writers may add our first line to a story they are currently working on or have already completed, and that's cool. But please do not add our first line to a previously published story and submit it to us. We do not accept previously published stories, even if they have been repurposed for our first lines. One more thing while I've got you here: Writers compete against one another for magazine space, so, technically, every literary magazine is running a contest. There are, however, literary magazines that run traditional contests, where they charge entry fees and rank the winners. We do not - nor will we ever - charge a submission fee, nor do we rank our stories in order of importance. Occasionally, we run contests to help come up with new first lines, or we run fun, gimmicky competitions for free stuff, but the actual journal is...

Deadline: August 1, 2020 Payment: $25.00 CAD Theme: Elemental magic Submission Open: April 1, 2020 Submission Close: August 1, 2020 Publishing timeline: December 2020 OPEN DARK FANTASY Rated R Stories welcome ​ Theme: Elemental Magic - Earth, wind, fire, water and spirit. Dark versus light. We are giving a lot of leeway for story building, but magic must play an integral part in your world and there must be a dark fantasy element. Create a fantasy world for this to all play out in, or build something in ours. The choice is yours. The only requirement is that you must feature elemental magic. Fae and other realms, magic and witches, dragons or orcs, all magical and fantastic creatures are welcome. This one has opportunities for a lot of world-building so the call out is for larger stories. We will only be accepting a limited number of stories for this project, but volume II is under consideration. Stand-alone stories only, no to be continued. ​ Word Count is 5000 - 15000 we are looking for longer stories and small novella's. ​ Compensation: $25.00 CAD. Digital copy & discounted author copies ​ Formatting guidelines: See our Submission Format guide below ​ How to submit: Access submission form here, or use the submit button ​ Multiple Submission: Yes - We will be happy to read up to two stories per author, but note we will only be accepting one story per book. Please send each story in a separate form. Reprints: Yes we are accepting a small number of reprints. ​ Things that are a hard pass: any animal erotica and all forms of rape Via: Eerie River Publishing.

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Theme: A 1980's genre story that involves a haunting and pizza parties Note: Reprints Welcome What’s the coolest place around? The Mall! Outrageous neon-drenched, air-conditioned corridors welcome us inside. It’s an oasis. From the food court pizza parlor to every hip store, you could totally find everything you ever wanted. It’s good times to the max! But that’s not all you can find at the mall. Not even! Pastel paint streaks the walls, flowing over the occasional gaps between shops. But if you stare at it, the colors shift and combine, and follow you. The music store is rockin’, but don’t get the used cassettes. Debbie Gibson gives way to electric howls as something screams from the void. And don’t even think about trying that weird game at the back of the arcade! The guys say it’s giving them nightmares and weird vans are following them. But I saw the van, and I know it was Bobby driving and trying to scare us. So don’t encourage them! I love the Mall. But you wouldn’t want to be trapped here alone at night…   WHAT WE WANT THE BASICS: Supernatural stories set in the 1980s. Not horror stories, necessarily, but stories that use the 1980s and its culture in an engaging way. Bring us supernatural adventures, supernatural mysteries, supernatural fantasy, or supernatural pulp. First and foremost, aim to capture the spirit of the era. That’s something we feel both Speakeasies & Spiritualists succeeded in for the 1920s, and Sockhops & Séances succeeded in for the 1950s. If you’re looking to know exactly what we want, reading those books is the best place to start. THE PIZZA PARTIES: Historical accuracy is required. This extends beyond technology to attitudes, beliefs, and so on. See below for a full discussion of historical...

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: SF, F, H, steampunk, cyberpunk, mythology, satire. Stories could feature puzzle solving and ingenuity, inverted tv tropes, inventions (clockwork, practical, or Rube Goldberg), masterful creations (like JS Bach's Goldberg Variations), and social commentary Brain Games: Stories to Astonish - SF, F, H, steampunk, cyberpunk, mythology, satire The left side of the brain is associated with logical and analytical characteristics, while the right brain with creativity. We'd welcome stories from both sides of the brain. Stories could feature puzzle solving and ingenuity, inverted tv tropes, inventions (clockwork, practical, or Rube Goldberg), masterful creations (like JS Bach's Goldberg Variations), and social commentary Reading period: July 1 - August 1, 2020 Writer deadline: August 1, 2020 Publication date: October 15, 2020 Third Flatiron Publishing is based in Boulder, Colorado, and Ayr, Scotland. We are looking for submissions to our (approximately) 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, Iain Banks, Alastair Gray, 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...

Deadline: August 2nd, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: A character with a sixth sense of some sort SIXTH SENSE OPEN | Deadline: August 2, 2020 What if a detective could see sound or taste light? Give us some synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense elicits a response from a different sense. Or how about proprioception? That’s the sense responsible for letting you close your eyes and touch your finger to your nose. Imagine a ninja with superhuman proprioception! Go classic with extra-sensory perception. Do your characters see dead people, sense the past of objects when they touch them, or wake up with premonitions of alien invasions? Then there’s the heightened senses of the animal kingdom—sensitivity to electricity, magnetism, x-rays, and sonar! Show us what life could be like beyond the five senses. We’re only human, but we’re capable of imagining so much more. (Publishes in October, so this is your chance for ghost stories and other supernatural encounters.) Havok provides sharp, memorable fiction under 1,000 words. We want stories that hit fast and strike hard––stories that, no matter the genre, can cut through the day’s troubles and grip distracted readers. And there’s no quicker way to get your masterpiece rejected than to ignore our submission guidelines. So read through the following information and be sure to follow it to the letter. Or else… Your Story Your well-edited story should be between 300 and 1,000 words long. We only accept stories that fit our daily genres (mystery, science fiction, comedy, thriller, fantasy) and Season Themes. Check ’em out. The themes function as story prompts that will help us together craft story collections that readers will love. Tip: Make sure your opening lines have a strong hook! Hook our editors and you’ll have a better chance all around. WE DO NOT PUBLISH: Previously published flash fiction. Poetry. Fan...

Deadline: August 2nd, 2020 Payment: 6 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints Theme: Well written original work in science fiction, fantasy, myth, legend, fairy tales, and eldritch, in written, podcast, video, and/or graphic story form, and from around the world. Note: Reprints welcome     Submissions Schedule We have a new submissions schedule as of June 1, 2020: The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T. Only one submission per person. For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers. We pay 6¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 6¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles. For new poetry, we pay $1 a line, reprints would be 50¢ a line, up to 40 lines. We’ll look at longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 6¢ per word. We began The Kepler Award to recognize and encourage writers of excellent science fiction and fantasy stories that creatively extrapolate on known science in constructive and exciting ways. You can learn about The Kepler Award here. You can read a copy of our standard contract here.   It can be varied as needed to include the rights of translators, voice actors, etc. Writers Guidelines We accept new work as well as reprints, prose and poetry, anywhere from 1000 word flash fiction on up, but all else being equal, shorter pieces will be favored.   We have tough standards but only care about the quality of the writing, storytelling ability, characters, plot, and ideas, not whether you’re new or established.  Submit only work you are proud of —...

Deadline: August 3rd, 2020 Payment: $100 Theme: We’re looking for horror: dark, weird fiction. We run the spectrum from grim realism or crime drama, to magic-realism, to blatantly supernatural dark fantasy. We publish highly literary stories reminiscent of Poe or Lovecraft as well as vulgar shock-value pulp fiction. Note: Reprints Only There are a number of short stories in anthologies and collections that deserve to get in front of more readers. We want to shine more light across our community and widen our circle to make room for more writers and readers. In specific, PseudoPod has penciled out space in a large portion of November and early December 2020 to support this effort. Publishers, please send us your collections and anthologies, and identify any stories original to that publication. Authors, ask your publisher to send us the book; if they’re not interested, we still want you to submit your story here — just include the collection or anthology title in the cover letter for your individual story. Our preferred format is a MOBI, followed by EPUB then Word Doc. We will also accept PDF’s, but please understand that PDF’s provide more barriers for consideration (they are less friendly to a wide array of reading devices.) We will be purchasing non-exclusive reprint rights. Please let us know if there is an exclusivity period for which we will need to request a waiver. PseudoPod will be reading during the spring and summer to allow for reading the books and scheduling the stories.   Frequently Asked Questions: Where do I submit? Right here on our new Moksha platform: https://escapeartists.moksha.io/publication/escape-artists-special-project-teams What kind of stories are you looking for? The same as we always have. If you’re unfamiliar with what we publish, we encourage you to start here: https://pseudopod.org/new-to-pseudopod/ How much are you paying? These stories will be purchased at...

Deadline: August 7th, 2020 Payment: $15 Theme: A horror anthology that focuses on people full of rage, not monsters Incendiary is a horror anthology that pushes aside the monsters and focuses on people. We're looking for fiction that carries some form of rage with it. An angry, bloody short story that will stay with us after we've read it. You can write about the serial killer next door (or be the serial killer). or the craziest car chase on open road. Every horror anthology editor wants to be unsettled, terrified, forced into insomnia, etc. We're no different, but I want to see what you can come up with by leaving the ghosts, demons, werewolves and other monsters aside and focusing on the dread that people and rage create. Think Rob Zombie's 31 or Mike Flanagan's Hush. Your story does not have to be home invasion, but it has to feature people and their use of rage in horror. There are things I don't want for this anthology: Revenge narratives Dark Sci-Fi Dark Fantasy Supernatural & Paranormal fiction Time travel narratives apocalypse/pandemic narratives Things I won't tolerate: Use of: Racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, pedophilia, necrophilia, rape, sexual abuse, bigotry, copywritten characters. Note: This is not a furry anthology and is not seeking furry fiction. The form accepts up to 3 files, meaning you can only submit up to 3 stories. use the same form for your submission. Deadline: August 7, 2020 Word Count: up to 5000  (a little over is fine, but don’t overdo it) Payment $15 per accepted story Via: Weasel Press's Submittable.

Deadline: August 7th, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: Flash Fiction horror in the style of NoSleepReddit containing anthropomorphic animals as characters Deadline: August 7, 2020 Theme: Flash Fiction horror in the style of NoSleepReddit containing anthropomorphic animals as characters Word Count: up to 1000 words Payment: $10 per accepted story Editor: Weasel   Dread is an online horror furry magazine that focuses on flash fiction (1000 words or less). I am seeking short scenes of dreadfully frightening stuff containing anthropomorphic animals (humanized animals). I'm trying to create something along the lines of a furry No Sleep (see Reddit No Sleep for example stories). Suspension of disbelief is key. The story will have to feel real. Dread asks that stories be written in 1st person. Things I'm not looking for: Fantasy horror Sci-fi Horror Stories containing perspective shifts/narrator switches Stories told by god-like characters Stories from the perspective of inanimate objects, ghosts, or A.I. Outer Dimension stories/Time Travel/Post-Apocalypse/Pandemic fiction Essentially, I want this to feel like it's something that could happen in your apartment parking lot or the grocery store or anywhere we go. If your main character sees an unidentified monster or creature that's fine. If your main character time travels to the 1800s, that's not fine. If you want more insight on how NoSleep stories are written, I recommend reading some and checking out their rules section. https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/wiki/believability https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/ Notes on word count: I know 1000 words seems like it's not much. Most authors are looking at this and asking "how can I fit a whole story into 1000 words?" Think of it this way, you're focusing on a moment. Make good use of your title, and keep your characters limited. It can be done. There are loads of resources on writing flash fiction. There's even whole journals dedicated to...

Deadline: August 7th, 2020 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: Original fantasy and dark fantasy stories. All types of fantasy and dark fantasy are welcome. Instructions for submitting to Fantasy Magazine follow. Please read everything on this page and read the magazine before submitting. SUBMISSION PROCEDURES Submission Periods: Fantasy is open to submissions the first week of every month (1st-7th). Please do not query about submitting outside our open submission periods. Anonymous Submissions: Fantasy only accepts anonymous submissions. Do not include your name, address, phone number, or other similar identifiers on the manuscript. All original short fiction, flash fiction, and poetry submissions will be read anonymously on first read: moving out of slush depends on the merits of the story alone. Please make sure the title is on the manuscript. Simultaneous and Multiple Submissions: We do not accept simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions. Please do not submit more than one set of poems at a time, more than one piece of flash fiction at a time, or more than one story at a time. You may, however, submit a single entry in each category at the same time: you can submit one batch of poems, one flash fiction piece, and one short story all at the same (or overlapping) time, and each category will be considered a separate submission. Instructions: All fiction must be submitted through our Moksha online submission system. Please do not email your submissions. If one of the Submission Type options is grayed out, that means we are currently closed to that Submission Type. Questions/Problems: Email [email protected] for all submission-related inquiries, or if you have any trouble using our online submission system. Please do not email your submissions to this address. All submissions must be submitted via our Moksha online submission system. Rejections/Response Times: Be aware that we expect to receive several hundred submissions during our submissions periods. As such, we cannot offer personalized feedback...