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Submission Window: June 1st - July 8th, 2024 Payment: $15 per poem, $0.01 per word ($40 minimum) for short stories, and $50 per art piece via PayPal. Theme: Gothic short stories, poetry, and artwork Diet Milk Magazine is a biannual literary magazine devoted to Gothic prose, poetry, and art. Neatly genred or genre-bending, classically styled or modern, we want your prettiest, most pungent dread. Give us withering romance, creatures that lurk and lure, families to be feared and houses that haunt; give us isolation and creeping, oppressive unwellness. Quietly thrill, terrify, and leave us wanting more. For all our important links, including website, twitter, and support, check out our campsite.bio page! This hub will direct you to anywhere you want to go, as well as put you in contact with our official email. Opens on Saturday, June 1, 2024 12:00 AM UTC (in 50 days) From June 1st - July 8th, Diet Milk Magazine will be accepting submissions for its Fall/Winter issue. We will be open to poetry, prose, and visual art of all kinds. While the most detailed information can be found on our website, here's a quick rundown of what potential contributors need to know! GENERAL GUIDELINES: All submissions must fall under the Gothic umbrella, but aren't required to be a specific genre No reprints or multiple submissions Simultaneous submissions permitted, though we ask to be informed promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere! Poetry/Prose submissions should be .doc, .docx, or .pdf // Art submissions should be .jpeg or .png If you receive a rejection, you may submit again (with new work) immediately P O E T R Y : Poets may submit up to three poems at a time. No single poem should exceed five pages in length. P R O S E : Authors may submit one short story at a time, up to 5000 words. This doesn't have...

Submission Window: August 5th - 18th, 2024 Payment: $40 CAD per story and $40 CAD for cover art Theme: Original science fiction or SF-tinged literary stories between 2,000 and 15,000 words. Fiction IMPORTANT NOTE: THE GUIDELINES FOR FICTION BELOW ARE FOR SAROS #1 ONLY! EACH ISSUE’S GUEST EDITOR WILL HAVE THEIR OWN SET OF GUIDELINES, SO BE SURE TO READ THIS SECTION CLOSELY EVEN IF YOU’VE SUBMITTED IN THE PAST! Original science fiction or SF-tinged literary stories between 2,000 and 15,000 words. (We will not be accepting reprints for this issue.) We are happy to see science fiction from all subgenres, though we do appreciate a touch of the bizarre. Our preference is for personal stories that are weird, dark, thoughtful, mythic, or wondrous. Blended genres and bleak stories are welcome and encouraged! We love well-realized settings, strong narrative voices, and a focus on character. Stories that feature time travel, high action, zombies, children, or narration by inanimate objects will be harder to place. That said, we’re looking for quality above all else. Please send us your stories and do not self-reject! We’re always interested in publishing work by marginalized voices. If that’s you, and you feel comfortable doing so, please call this out in your cover letter. Absolutely no AI written stories. All work must be created by humans. Art Original cover art should include science fiction elements. We would love to see pieces that are strange or wonderful, but are open to anything as long as it fits the genre. As with fiction, we absolutely do not accept artwork created by AI. Any art should be able to be comfortably formatted as cover art for a 5″x8″ paperback. Payment and Rights Payment is $40 CAD per story and $40 CAD for cover art Our preferred method of payment...

Submission Window: August 1st-2nd, 2024 Payment: 8 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints, For artwork: $10 for the non-exclusive right to use each image, for as long as the site is online.  If we publish a print collection we will pay a pro-rata share for each image used. 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 The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T. For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers. We pay 8¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 8¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles. For new poetry, we pay $1 per line, and for reprints we pay 50¢ a line  We’re looking for poems up to 40 lines. We’ll consider longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 8¢ per word. We sponsor 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 aboutThe 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, from a minimum of 1000 words on up.   All else being equal, shorter pieces will be favored, and we have yet to find a story over about 9-10,000 words we have even...

Submission Window: June 12th, 2024 to July 12th, 2024 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: Speculative short stories (science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, cosmic horror, etc.) that have been rejected from multiple markets. Calendar of Fools is seeking your rejected stories for the Intergalactic Rejects anthology. Sometimes you have a really good story that just hasn’t found a home among the markets and magazines. It doesn’t mean the story isn’t wonderful; it just didn’t fit their needs. Intergalactic Rejects contains 8 rejected stories by highly acclaimed authors, and has room for more. What we’re looking for Speculative short stories (science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, cosmic horror, etc.) that have been rejected from multiple markets. Length: Limit 5,000 words. Format: Standard Manuscript Format (double-spaced 12 pt. Courier or Times New Roman, no extra lines between paragraphs). Include your name and email on the first page of the story. Rejections: Your story must have been rejected at least 3 times. Multiple Submissions: We are not accepting multiple submissions. Simultaneous Submissions: We accept simultaneous submissions. Please let us know at [email protected] if your submission is accepted elsewhere. And congratulations! Reprints: We are not accepting reprints for Intergalactic Rejects. That would mean your story wasn’t a reject. Languages: We are only able to accept English-language submissions. Stories produced with AI: We do not ever accept stories where AI wrote or generated portions of the text. Submission Period: Submissions will be open from June 12th, 2024 until July 12th, 2024. If you haven’t heard from us in 3 months after the end of the submission window, please contact us at [email protected]. If your story is not accepted for this anthology, please keep writing and editing and molding your story. Every writer faces rejection, and your story will eventually find a home. To submit your story, please use our submission form. Acceptances, Payments, and Rights Rejections, acceptances, and other...

Deadline: July 12th, 2024 Payment: Royalties Theme: Superheroes from 1955 In 1955 there was an unexplained cosmic event that granted some people extraordinary abilities. It was never repeated. Abilities were not passed down to their children. This means that in the not too distant future, the so called “Super Generation” will be nothing but a note in history books. These are their stories, their memoirs, and how they changed history. Opens: 5/12/24 Closes: 7/12/24 Contracts: 7/27/24 Publication: 8/23/24 Guidelines for all our anthologies: 5,000 to 8,000 words. Length and genre are negotiable, as long as the story fits the concept, and is entertaining. Any submission must be in Times New Roman, 12PT, double spaced, with your name, title of the story, and your email on it. Please name the file as -— Send in a .docx format. Please attach the file to your email, no links. Please see the submission guideline graphic on the Raconteur Press Facebook page. Raconteur Press will hold the rights for one year after publication, after one year the rights will revert to the author, but we continue to pay you as long as the anthology is selling. Authors receive an equal percentage share of the proceeds from the anthology, along with the Press, our editors, and administration. Yes, you read that right. We don’t take 80% off the top and split the 20% left over between all the authors. We’re all in this together. This is why our anthologies are limited to ten stories. IMPORTANT: PLEASE do NOT submit stories until the date the call opens. We don’t want to hang on to your piece for longer than necessary. You might find another market for it, or it decides to grow into a novel, or…..so go ahead and write it, but tuck it away, and...

Deadline: July 13th, 2024 Payment: 1 cent per word and a contributor copy Theme: Cozy horror. Fun horror. Classy horror. Dare we say, wholesome horror? Cozy horror. Fun horror. Classy horror. Dare we say, wholesome horror? Oxymoron? We don’t think so. One place you can start your exploration of this idea is an article from Nightmare Magazine penned by one of our co-founders. But perhaps the easiest way to understand what we mean is to read stories by some of the old masters we love: Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Roald Dahl. Watch classic episodes of Thriller, The Twilight Zone, and Night Gallery. Read old horror comics. Listen to radio dramas like Suspense, Quiet, Please, and Inner Sanctum Mysteries. Consume enough vintage horror, and you’ll probably begin to get an idea of the type of thing that’s likely to appeal to us. In short, we’re looking to provide a space for a type of storytelling that has largely gone out of style – dark and scary, but playful and approachable with an emphasis on plot. For a concrete example of the kind of thing we’re likely to love, grab a copy of our first issue, ON SALE NOW! To clarify further, here’s a list of things we want and things we don’t, which may help you hit the sweet spot. THINGS WE LOVE: Stories with a moral core. It need not happen in every tale, but we like to see good prevail (or at least evil punished). Ironic justice, in which cleverly nasty things happen to bad people, as in old EC comics, makes us chuckle with ghoulish delight. Well-earned twist endings. There’s nothing we love more than a really good surprise or a clever way to subvert our expectations. Pull the rug out from under us and leave us gasping. High concept settings and situations reminiscent...

Submission Window: July 1st - 14th, 2024 Payment: Advance and Royalties Theme: Atmospheric and thought-provoking novellas that intertwine a fascination of the natural world with horror and dread, and those that explore how we, as individual humans, interconnect with our communities, other species, and whole ecosystems Violet Lichen Books seeks to work with authors who have a strong attachment to the themes, people, or places they’re writing about, and who sling their dark tales straight from the heart. We are especially interested in works by marginalized and under-represented authors. What We’re Looking For We are looking for atmospheric and thought-provoking novellas that intertwine a fascination of the natural world with horror and dread, and those that explore how we, as individual humans, interconnect with our communities, other species, and whole ecosystems. We love weird fiction that unsettles, expands perspectives, and plays with bending reality, traditions, or tropes. Response Please allow at least 12 weeks for a response. After this, feel welcome to query! What We’re Not Looking For   Slasher horror, shock horror, extreme horror. Classic monsters (Unless completely subverted in a new and weird way). High fantasy, sword and sorcery, superheroes space opera. YA or MG. Full-length novels. Short story collections. Reprints. Word Count Novellas of 20,000 to 40,000 words Payment Industry standard advance and royalties. No AI We are not interested in works written by AI in any form or at any stage. We work with human-made art only. Our Wishlist New Weird, Weird, folk horror, eco-horror, eco-science-fiction, surreal horror, body horror, literary SFFH. Via: Violet Lichen Books.

Deadline: July 15th, 2024 Payment: $20 per story or artwork Theme: Electric Spec prefers science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre, but we're willing to push the limits of traditional forms of these genres. submissions at electricspec (dot) comPlease don't query us about your story submission. We don't have the manpower to answer such queries. An editor will email you back as soon as possible with the decision about your story. This can take a few days, or, up to three months. We make every effort to get back to authors in a timely manner but we get a lot of submissions so sometimes it's not possible. A note on our editorial policy: before publication we may work with the author to edit the story for length or readability. However, we always remain true to the spirit of the story and the author has final approval. Issues are published at the end of February, May, August, and November. We reserve the right to shift publication date slightly, as necessary. We have reading periods for each issue, though we never close to submissions. February closes January 15 May closes April 15 August closes July 15 November closes October 15 Please do not submit the same story more than once, and please submit only one story at a time. We consider any story between 250 and 7000 words with speculative fiction elements. We prefer science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre, but we're willing to push the limits of traditional forms of these genres. We do not consider poetry, stories with over-the-top sex or violence, serials, novels, fan fiction, or non-fiction. We don't accept multiple submissions; in other words, only submit one story at a time and wait for a response before submitting another. We accept simultaneous submissions as long as you let us know up...

Submission Window: June 1st - July 15th, 2024 Payment: $50 for story, $25 for poem Theme: Speculative fiction including a black cat A black cat approaches, do you eagerly cross its path, or run in the opposite direction? From the superstitious to the unlucky, from a witch's familiar to a soul stealing grave robber, black cats have captured our imagination and remain solidly in the realm of the dark. Dazzle us with your best black cat story or poem. A black cat or a clowder of black cats must be featured predominantly in your story and not simply set decoration. Think outside of the box and show us something we haven't seen before. Submission Guidelines: Each author may submit 1 story and 1 poem, but must make two separate submission entries, one for each piece. Simultaneous submissions are allowed but we ask you withdraw upon acceptance elsewhere as soon as possible (email: [email protected]). All pieces will be screened through AI/Artificial Intelligence detection software and will be auto-rejected if AI is found. Double-check your work before submitting, any misspellings will make us grumpy and less likely to choose your piece. Genres: horror, dark fantasy, sci-fi, erotica, weird westerns, cyberpunk, steampunk...we're open to all but prefer dark fiction. Word Count: 500 - 3,500 words for story, max 25 lines for poetry. These are firm guidelines, one word over or under and it's an auto-reject. Payment: $50 for story, $25 for poem via PayPal Reprints: We are only accepting original work for this anthology. No reprints please, that includes blogs, emails, websites, anthologies, podcasts, etc. Format: Submit your work in Shunn Standard Manuscript Format (Modern or Classic). Do not include your address. Please list your penname and email only. Your manuscript should be in DOC, DOCX, or PDF file format. Submission Window: Opens June 1st, Closes July 15, 2024 at midnight PST. All...

Deadline: July 15th, 2024 Payment: $20, and a hardcover copy of the anthology Theme: horror stories of all subgenres about souls wandering the earth after being separated from their bodies Word Count: 2,000-5,000 Call Open: June 1-July 15, 2024 Publication: One story included in each edition of our bi-weekly newsletter, July thru December 2024. In January, all stories will be published in a special hardcover anthology. Call: We’re looking for horror stories of all subgenres about souls wandering the earth after being separated from their bodies, but before arriving at their final destinations (though part of the story may take place pre-death or post-arrival). Undertaker Books is a royalty-paying, full-service publisher. This means we do not charge fees to the author at any time. We pay a royalty rate of 50% of distribution payouts. This can mean you will earn different rates for books sold through different outlets. Our contracts are for digital and print worldwide English rights. At this stage, we do not provide advance payments unless specified for anthology calls. SUBMISSIONS ARE TO BE SENT TO: [email protected] Modern Shunn Format is preferred. Please review this website if you are unsure how to proceed. Submit the first 20 pages of your manuscript as a single .doc(x) file attachment. If submitting for general consideration, please include a one page synopsis of the plot (including the ending) with working title, category or subgenre, and word count. In the body of your email, please include a cover letter containing: a short author bio,your legal name, pen name (if applicable), social media links, and website. WHAT WE WILL NOT ACCEPT No AI-generated content. If an author’s work is discovered to be generated by AI, the work will be rejected (or unpublished). View our AI Use Policy. No depictions of sexual assault against children. No animal abuse. No reprints or previously published...