Events

Taking Submissions: Koening zine – issue #1

Deadline: September 13th, 2021 Payment: $25 for those released in print, $15 for those released online Theme: Swamp Note: a zine by asian creatives issue #1 theme for our first issue, we’d like to invite you to join us in the SWAMP. tell us what you find in the swamp. tell us what finds you. we’re interested in all sorts of swamps: living and dead; digital and physical; mental and spiritual; its ecosystem and its inhabitants. illustrate all the ways you can get lost in it. bring to us the ugly, the gore, the guts and the glory. even though this is a themed issue, we encourage explorations of the subject from a range of perspectives. horror can take you by surprise in the comedic, get tangled into the romantic, ooze out of the dramatic and even comfort you in the tragic. drag us into the muddy depths of it all. submissions open on friday, august 13 and close on monday, september 13. please read the following guidelines before submitting:   we are open to asian creators only.   submissions open on friday, august 13 and close on monday, september 13. we are taking submissions for online and print. we are a paying market. we kindly ask contributors to select which edition they would like to submit to. - print contributors will get $25 for their work; NOTE that the editors will be more selective as there are limited spaces.* - online contributors will get $15. title the email subject line and file with the issue name, genre of your work, print or online edition, & your name. (eg. swamp, poetry, online, lucy liu). if submitting in multiple genres, you can include them all in the title. include all work in a single attachment (pdf or doc).   we are accepting: 1. 1-3 poems or...

Taking Submissions: Olit Issue #2

Deadline: September 15th, 2021 Payment: $10 Theme: Stories that are gritty with grace Note: Prefer writers/stories with a connection to Orlando or the greater Central Florida area Send Us Your Weird and Wonderful Submission Guidelines While we prefer writers with a connection to Orlando or the greater Central Florida area, Olit will accept quality writing meeting our aesthetic and criteria from writers anywhere around the world. What do we mean by aesthetic and criteria? We’re glad you asked. Olit seeks the following: Genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Hybrid, Artwork, Photography. Send us all kinds of stuff. We love the artfully weird. Strong preference for Orlando based writers/submissions about Orlando and surrounding areas. We aim to focus primarily on publishing marginalized voices. LGBTQIA+ is a big plus with us. BIPOC voices will always be uplifted here. Disabled? Incarcerated? Low income? Other marginalized voices? Please send us your work. If you do not consider yourself marginalized, your submission is still welcome at Olit if it meets our other criteria. Our aesthetic is best defined as gritty with grace, fast food parking lots in the middle of the night, the underbelly of a tourist city the locals know by memories. We want quality writing with heart and teeth. Give us words that bite back, stories full of verve, and the poems you wouldn’t let Grandma read. We are not the Academy/highbrow lit scene. We are indie and intellectual, raw yet polished. Send us only your best. We welcome simultaneous submissions. We would never ask you not to submit your work to more than one place at a time. Any lit journal still doing that should be banished and left behind. Please send us only previously unpublished works. We welcome multiple submissions. Have a short story perfect for us? Looking to publish some poems at...

Taking Submissions: Silence in the City

Deadline: September 15, 2021 Payment: 6 cents per word Theme: A city gone silent Sudden disruptions in power and other major services sends a city into chaos. In the blink of an eye, the modern technological world fails. Is it a government plot? Experiment gone wrong? A foreign cyber attack? Alien invasion? A mystical incursion from beings beyond this dimension? Who knows? Now the noise and the bustle of the city has vanished and an eerie silence settles over the urban landscape. Within, there are stories of human violence, depravity, and desperation, but also heroism, selflessness, and sacrifice. Silence in the City is an anthology of speculative tales asking what happens when a city—and all of modern civilization—is plunged into darkness. Open Call for Stories That's right, folks! I'm holding an open call for stories to fill two or three more spaces in the forthcoming SILENCE IN THE CITY anthology. So here are the guidelines: Word Count: 2,500-5,000 words Deadline: September 15, 2021 Pay Rate: 6 CENTS A WORD Send all story submissions as DOC or DOCX attachments to the following email  address: [email protected] Be sure to title the email: SILENCE IN THE CITY SUBMISSION Via: Founders House Publishing.

Taking Submissions: Dose of Dread September 2021 (Early Listing)

Submission Window: September 1st-15th, 2021 Payment: $10 Theme: Un-themed, general horror flash fiction. Preference to dread-inducing stories. Submissions OPEN (Monthly, 1st – 15th). Un-themed, general horror flash fiction. Preference to dread-inducing stories. Length: 500 – 1,000 words. Firm. Author Compensation: $10, paid via PayPal. Publication: Dread Stone Press website (Dose of Dread). Reading Periods: Monthly, 1st to 15th. Any stories submitted outside of each reading period will not be read. Two (2) stories will be selected out of each reading period for publication the following month. Rights: First World Electronic Rights. Non-exclusive rights thereafter. No reprint restrictions after publication. Original stories ONLY. No reprints. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but NO multiple submissions. You may submit again the next month if rejected. If your story is accepted, please sit out one reading period before submitting again. Please, for everyone’s sake, no rough drafts. Successful pieces will require little to no proofreading edits. Email your submission as a Word document attachment to [email protected] with “DOSE – – ” in the subject line. Please see the General Submission Guidelines below for additional formatting information. General Submission Guidelines Rejections for Dose of Dread submissions will be sent by the end of the month submitted. If you have not received a reply by then, feel free to follow-up. All rejections will be form rejections. It’s not personal, promise. Which also means please don’t respond to rejections. It’s unnecessary. For Dose of Dread submissions, please send your work by email to [email protected] with the subject line format: “DOSE – – ”. Address your email to “Editor” or “Alex”. Please provide a brief cover letter in the body of the email (title, word count, relevant info, etc). Do not stress over or overthink this. Please include an author bio of 100 words or less, written in third person, plus any links (e.g. to a website / Twitter) if you wish to...

Taking Submissions: Tales of Sley House 2021

Submission Window: September 1st - 15th, 2021 Payment: $25 Theme: Genre fiction Note: Only open to college students As a publisher in the best of genre fiction, we are looking for novels that blend genres and styles to deliver stories as surprising and shocking as they are relevant.  ​ Tales of Sley House, 2021-- Open 9/1/2021 - 9/15/2021 for college students only. Graduate or undergraduate, you must send in your submission from your school email address to be considered. Open submissions for all others will be 9/16/2021 - 9/30/2021. ​ WHAT WE WANT -- Novels and short stories heavily grounded in science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, or thriller, or some blend of genres. Novels and short stories that speak to pulp and/or literary conventions. Well-written stories, strong characters, interesting voices.  ​ WHAT WE DON'T WANT -- Novels or short stories that promote hate speech, first drafts, stories and novels submitted outside our submissions window or fan fiction. (Any submissions submitted outside our window will be deleted unread).  ​ TO SUBMIT:  SHORT STORIES -- We are looking for well-written genre fiction, no more than 6,000 words. Please attach your short story as a word document (.doc or docx). In the subject line, write your name -- submission + Story title -- and word count. In the body of your email, tell us a little about yourself and a little about the story.  If you've been published elsewhere, that would be nice also. We will pay $25 via PayPal upon acceptance. Contributors will receive a pdf copy of the anthology. Contributors will also be eligible for a discount on the paperback copy.  ​ When ready, click the submissions button below. We look forward to reading your work.  ​ Subscribe to our newsletter or keep checking back here for updates on when we'll be opening for submissions. ...

Contest: 50-Word Stories September 2021

Deadline: September 15th, 2021 Payment: 1 winner each month will win $10 Canadian Theme: A story at exactly 50-words If you’d like to have a 50-word story that you wrote featured on FiftyWordStories.com, first make sure that you understand exactly what a 50-word story is, and then read the submission requirements below closely. Submissions System Each month, submissions will be open between days 1 and 15 of that month. Any stories received on days 16 to 31 of a month will be deleted, but can be resubmitted the following month. You may only submit one story per month. From the stories received in those 15 days, the best stories will be selected to be published that same month. Only enough stories will be selected to publish two stories per weekday. There is no payment associated with stories. However, each month a “Story of the Month” is selected, and receives a prize of $10 Canadian. Stories that were not selected will not be published, will not roll over into the following month, and cannot be resubmitted in following months. Authors will be notified whether their story has been selected or not once all stories from the month’s submissions have been reviewed. How to Submit Please email your submission to [email protected]. Paste the story into the body of the email. Please include a title, your name, and a brief third-person bio. Feel free to include a link to your website! If you are submitting a story related to a specific date or holiday, please include that information in the Subject line of your submission. You can also send your story in using the form at the bottom of this page. Tips and Guides Looking for help with writing microfiction? Check out Bob Thurber’s Anatomy of a Microfiction page. Terms and Conditions Please keep the content of your submissions appropriate for all...

Taking Submissions: From The Yonder Volume III

Deadline: September 19th, 2021 Payment: $5 (USD) per poem, $10 (USD) per short story, and a contributor's copy depending on location Theme: Regional legends and tall-tales from around the World.   War Monkey Publications, LLC, is pleased to announce open submissions for our upcoming anthology: FROM THE YONDER Volume III A horror, short-story collection of regional legends and tall-tales from around the World. Our Staff so loved working on the first volume, we've decided to keep doing it.   We are seeking short story submissions (1000-7500 words) for this anthology. The stories must be based upon a regional/cultural legend or tall-tale from any location or culture in the World. “Regional” can be a specific place (Loch Ness) or a larger region (Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest). We are seeking stories in the horror genre. Inclusion of elements of other genres is welcome, so long as, overall, the story is an horror story. The subject of the story can be based on any legend, so long as it has a horrific flavor. Ghosts, hauntings, alien abductions, monsters, demons, spirits, witches, etc, all are acceptable, as long as the subject is based on an actual legend or tall-tale. We want an original story involving the legend. Don’t rehash the legend itself or write an essay on the tall-tale. Instead, for example, WOW us with a new fable of some poor unfortunate who finds out that legends are sometimes all too real. For more examples; read FROM THE YONDER; Volume I (published in February 2020) Please DO NOT: ~Extrapolate relationships that do not exist in the actual legends. Nessie can be a horrific monster, but she is not a servant of the Elder Gods (no matter how much we love Eldritch horror). ~Attribute characteristics or powers that do not exist in the actual...

Taking Submissions: History (Rated R)

Deadline: September 30th, 2021 Payment: Royalties Theme: Historical fiction, with dragons Deadline – September 30th, 2021 Publication – December 2021 Word Count – 5,000-15,000 Theme – Historical Fiction. Any person, location, or time period accepted as long as dragons are included. Note: Dragons need to be part of the storyline. They cannot be mentioned in passing. * Introduction of yourself should be a short biography in 3rd Person between 100-200 words. Upon acceptance, this will be used within the anthology. Send a bio with every single anthology submission. We work with hundreds of authors and will not take time to retrieve yours from a previous anthology. * Poetry submissions: All poetry needs to be contained within a single e-mail. Each poem should be in a separate document. Haikus may be grouped together. * All e-mails should be addressed to “Dear Editor.” After receiving edits back, the author has two weeks to return the submission for formatting. All submissions will be reviewed within thirty (30) days of the anthology’s submission deadline. This ensures submission calls do not close early and gives everyone a chance to submit. You will know your submission has been received for consideration by receiving a generic response. Whether accepted or rejected, you will always receive a response. View our blog articles on how to submit to a publisher and how to write a proposal.   Failure to submit following all of the guidelines will result in an immediate refusal. You are able to submit again before the submission call deadline.   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.

Taking Submissions: Dragons and Heroines (D&H) (Rated R)

Deadline: September 30th, 2021 Payment: Royalties Theme: Any stories involving a female Main Character and dragons. Deadline – September 30th, 2021 Publication – January 2022 Word Count – 7,000-15,000 Theme – Any stories involving a female Main Character and dragons. Publisher INFORMATION Company name: Dragon Soul Press Anthology Submission Email: [email protected] Website: http://dragonsoulpress.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dragonsoulpress/ Duotrope: https://duotrope.com/listing/26543/dragon-soul-press The Grinder: https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/Market/Index?id=9529   CHECKLIST Introduction of author This is not where the biography goes. Author Contact Information / Pen name MUST be included with real name. If real name is same as pen name, state so in email. Author Biography in Third Person in 100-200 words Mandatory minimum of 100. Submission Word Count Also applies to poetry. Word count. Not line count. Submission Formatted in Times New Roman 12 PT Font. One-inch margins. No indentations. No double-spacing. No extra spacing between paragraphs. No chapters. Only DOC and DOCX accepted.Format video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftjuYtJWIBI Format image example at bottom of page. Summary/Query Letter Summarized outline of all major events within the story. All emails should be addressed as “Dear Editor” Email subject and file name must be as follows – “Story Title by Author Name for (Name of) Anthology” All of the author’s social media links, including website if applicable Author must have an active social media account.   Important information Maximum of two submissions per anthology per author. Authors can submit to all anthologies simultaneously. Reprints from third party sources accepted IF author currently holds full rights. We will not publish duplicate stories within DSP. Authors get 30% Royalties for first year from date of publication. Afterwards, 30% of all proceeds go to a charity chosen by the Publisher. Story rights – The Publisher permanently reserves the right to publish the Work within the Anthology while the Author keeps ownership rights to the Work. Do not submit anthology stories with chapters....

Taking Submissions: Aurealis Magazine (Australian and New Zealand Authors)

Deadline: September 30th, 2021 Payment: A$20 and A$60 per 1000 words, A$20 is for unsolicited work. Theme: All types of science fiction, fantasy and horror that are of a “speculative” nature will be considered Note: This date range is ONLY for Australian and New Zealand Authors authors Submissions from Australian and New Zealand writers: 1 February – 30 September Submissions from anyone anywhere: 1 July  – 31 July 2021 Subscribers are fast-tracked through the assessment process. Fiction guidelines Aurealis is looking for science fiction, fantasy or horror short stories between 2000 and 8000 words. All types of science fiction, fantasy and horror that are of a “speculative” nature will be considered, but we do not want stories that are derivative in nature, particularly those based on TV series. We do not publish horror without a supernatural element. Although we are an Australian-based publication, we are open to submissions in English from anywhere in the multiverse during specific reading periods. Stories containing an unacceptable number of spelling mistakes and typos, and those that do not conform to our guidelines in other ways, will be rejected automatically. This may seem harsh, but we are being honest about it. Please take the time to polish your work in every way before you send it to us. Aurealis pays between A$20 and A$60 per 1000 words, but assume the lower rate for unsolicited submissions.  Payment is made soon after the publication of the issue containing your story. Minimum payment is A$20. You will also receive a free electronic copy of the issue containing your story. We buy First Electronic Publication Rights and the non-exclusive rights to include the story in a print and digital anthology. All other rights remain with the contributor. The story must not be published elsewhere for a period of twelve months after it appears...