Events

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Between $0.04 and $0.08/word Note: Reprints allowed We will be open August 1 though August 31st. Follow our Guidelines and you are more likely to receive a personalized response. Ignore our Guidelines and a standard rejection may quickly follow. What Are We Looking For? Positive stories demonstrating the triumph of the human spirit and the power of hope and humane values in overcoming the most daunting challenges. We are interested in all SF and Fantasy genres, but no horror please. In this reading period, we need more SF than Fantasy. Young Adult to the Literary. No to Pollyannish and Utopian simplicity. Yes to communities and teams working together to overcome dire challenges. Yes to marginalized and under-represented characters as protagonists. Yes to science and magic that solve problems, alleviate suffering, and boldly explore new possibilities. No to corrupt, dystopian governments or evil corporations. Tone down the violence, profanity, and sex. It’s only useful if the story demands it. Story Length Shorter is better! We need works 5,000 words and under. If you submit a story over 5,000 words, it has to be amazing to get very far in the review process. Overall, we will consider the following word counts: Flash Fiction & Poetry: 100 – 1500 words Short Stories: 2,000 – 7,500 words Novelettes: 7,500 – 10,000 words. Submission Formatting Your story must be submitted in Word or RTF format. Top of the First Page Title of Story (centered) Your By Line (centered) No Address or other Personal Info please. Formatting: Font: Arial, Size 12 Double spaced Indented paragraphs Single spacing between sentences. No extra line break between paragraphs Section breaks, as needed, should be three ### symbols, centered on the page. In the document Header, include Last Name/Title/Page # File Naming: When you SAVE your file, name...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: $0.03 per word Apparition Lit is open for poetry and short story submissions four times a year. February 15-28 May 15-31 August 15-31 November 15-30 Submissions received outside of posted open dates will be deleted unread. Our themes for 2019 will be: Resistance (Submission period November 15-30, 2018 CLOSED, Published January 2019) Ambition (Submission period February 15-28, 2019, CLOSED Published April 2019) Retribution (Submission period May 15-31, 2019, CLOSED Publishing July 2019) Euphoria (Submission period August 15-31, 2019, CLOSED Publishing October 2019) Our themes for 2018: Apparition (Published January 2018) – Delusion (PublishedApril 2018) – Vision (Published July 2018) – Diversion (Published October 2018) Apparition Lit also holds monthly flash fiction contests. These stories will follow selected themes and be published online. For more information on themes and submission guidelines, please see the flash fiction drop down below. PAYMENT: Apparition is a semi-pro rate magazine, paying $0.03 per word, minimum of 30.00 dollars (excluding flash contest. See details in the Flash Fiction dropdown for flash rates). If we accept your story, we are purchasing the right to publish the story online and in the quarterly edition. Rights will revert back to the artist after one year. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR: (Click on the sections to see detailed guidelines for each classification.) SHORT FICTION SHORT FICTION: We will only accept stories between 1000-5000 words. If the story is complete with an extra hundred words, then it will still be considered. Any stories over 5,100 words, or incorrectly formatted, will automatically be rejected. PAYMENT: Apparition is a semi-pro magazine, paying $0.03 per word, minimum of 30.00 dollars (excluding flash contest). If we accept your story, we are purchasing the right to publish the story online and in the quarterly edition. Rights will revert back to the artist after one year. HOW TO SUBMIT: Format the story using the Shunn manuscript Please only use Times New Roman or Arial font in your document Save...

Deadline: August 31st, 2019 Payment: Royalties Nightscape Press will open to short fiction collection submissions on May 17th and will close to submissions at the close of that month. This call has been postponed and will instead open on August 16th through the end of August. We apologize for the inconvenience. Payment and Requirements Payment will include an advance and royalties to both the author and a charity of their choice. Short story collections must be 40,000 words or more and include at least two to three previously unpublished works. Formatting Standard Shunn formatting is just fine, but we're finding more and more that we prefer single spaced manuscripts as we read submissions on our devices. And italics should preferably be italicized and not underlined. Single spaces between sentences is also a huge help when final formatting comes around. That said, we will not reject collections if the formatting isn’t perfect. First and foremost make it readable. And where stories require odd formatting for effect, certainly don’t change that on our account. Via: Nightscape Press</a..

Deadline: September 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: September 1st, 2019 Payment: $15.00 to $20.00 and 2 contributors copies New century – New tech – New ways to defeat the monsters? Give us your take on the intersection of elder gods, old monsters and new technology Are the old monsters too far behind us? In this era where almost everyone can instant share to the web, where almost everyone carries in their pockets a powerful computer that can take movies, and record events, in a time when we are a few years away from colonizing planets — are the Elder Gods defeated? Quaint? A joke? Would you live tweet Dagon’s forces rising from the depth to put an end to your cruise ship special? Maybe vlog Shib-Nigurath tromping trough your city park? Or would they use the new technology to conquer this blue marble, corrupt social apps databases to elect unfit to serve, orange hued puppets. Would they alter vaccines or launch nuclear warheads? Darkness Wired, the anthology Unless specified otherwise, we’re looking for stories that are: 2000-8,000 words long,  original (No reprints) short story (if longer, ask first). Edited. Some minor grammatical errors will be accepted but if the submission requires major overhauls, it will be returned to you to edit before being accepted. You must use the information provided in this link. Grab one of the events and go to town! If accepted: Each author receives $15.00 to $20.00. Payment is based on story length and quality. Author copies: two paperback copies and a digital copy of the book. Register for details and upload link. Rights For this collection, we ask for exclusive first worldwide electronic and print rights for one year and nonexclusive rights afterwards. For reprints, we will ask for nonexclusive reprinting rights. Formatting First page should have: Your name: Your name and pen...

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: Contributor's Copy Thurston Howl Publications is now accepting submissions for its third volume of its HOWLERS series, Gruesome Games. Deadline: Sept 1, 2019 Word count: 2,500-8,000; a little above and a little below will be acceptable Games and horror create a delightful combination. Notable cases include the Running Man and The Long Walk (Stephen King), The Hunger Games (Collins), the Saw series, European thriller GAME, Barker's puzzle boxes, new film Escape Room, and even elements of Jumanji and multiple episodes of Dark Mirror. We want to see a collection of game horror at its finest. For this editor, game horror is best defined as horror literature whose premise hinges on the crux of an established and explicit game. I say explicit because I'm not interested in a horror story where one "could read it as a metaphor for chess." The characters need to be aware that this is a game with rules (whether they are broken or not). We will NOT accept: Racism, sexism, or discrimination presented in a positive light. If you are in doubt, ASK. Better to ask then to get a straight up rejection! If you are unsure, just shoot me an email at [email protected]. (restrictions borrowed from Voice: https://t.co/MWykJ6RY36) You can submit up to three stories, but we will only accept one per author (if any). Reprints are fine, but you have to own full permission of the work in order for us to consider it. We will not accept simultaneous submissions. Payment: Authors will receive a free copy of the print book. Send submissions in .doc or .docx format to [email protected]. Title your email with the story title in all caps. If you are sending more than one submission, send multiple emails instead of putting them all in one. We will inform...

ANTHOLOGY TITLE: The Killer Collection THEME: Horror focusing on the human elements of violence, murder, serial killers, wicked people. Nothing supernatural. We’re looking for stories that get to the nature of human evil. No stories that are rape or torture, no killing fantasy stories and no abusive or victimizing stories. Stories focusing on stalking, obsession, murderers or slashers are acceptable. A certain amount of gore is acceptable. As we want to cater to a wide audience use our judgment on making a story appealing to horror fans of all ages and genders. REQUIREMENTS: send a google doc or Microsoft doc to [email protected] with the subject line: SUBMISSIONS. Feel free to send multiple submissions however be aware that no more than 3 will be accepted unless they are of outstanding work. All documents should be no more than 3000 words, and written in .12 arial. Inside the email be sure to also include your preferred pen name. DEADLINE: we are looking to get this anthology filled by September 1st so that we can push for a Halloween release. PAYMENT: All authors selected for the book will receive 50% divided evenly amongst all authors of the sales accrued from Amazon and other marketplaces. (As an example if we have 20 authors and we make 200 dollars, then that would be 5 dollars each contributor per monthly sale) our goal however is to produce this anthology via Kindle Unlimited to generate higher sales so we ask you to please send only work that has never been published before. All work will remain exclusive to our publishing company for approximately 1 year. (A Contract will be sent out to you if you are chosen as a contributor of the collection detailing this and the royalty sales as well.) QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS: Feel free to contact myself,...

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: Contributor's Copy CircleShow is currently interested in publishing the work of both known and unknown authors. Issues of CircleShow are posted online in free-to-read PDF format. Issues are also made available for purchase on-demand as trade paperbacks. Please note that while we do not offer monetary payment for accepted work, all contributors do receive a complimentary copy of the printed issue in which their work appears. We accept a select amount of poetry, short literary fiction and nonfiction pieces for each issue. To submit fiction attach a document (.doc, .docx or .pdf format) containing 1-30 pages of a completed work. Pages should be single spaced in 12pt Times New Roman font or similar. Include your name and email at the top of the first page. Include page numbers but no headers or footers. Title both your submission and the file name as "Fiction Submission-Your Name." We are open to many forms of fiction but do note that pieces intended for youth, dime store romance writing and erotica are hard sells for us. Thank you for choosing to send us your work here at SCP. We appreciate the opportunity and look forward to reading it. Click on the desired category below for specific submission guidelines. Please note that while you may submit to multiple categories at once, we do ask that you wait for a response before sending us more work in any one category. Response time is typically three months or less. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, provided you notify us immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. If you have question or concerns, feel free to shoot us an email at [email protected]. By submitting to SCP you are agreeing to our Online Copyright Policy. Please Note: Submissions for CircleShow Volume 20: Summer/Fall 2019 will close on September 1st. Via: Seven Circle Press.

Deadline: September 1st, 2019 Payment: AUD$50 Written submissions for Issue 28 are open from Sunday 11th August to Sunday 1st September. Invitation Birthdays, weddings, baby showers, funerals. This is in an invitation to your life. Gently peel open the envelope, what details shall be revealed? Is your life some great big hilarious theme, or in need of formal attire? Will it be something you throw away or keep framed in your home’s entry way? *  Ashley burst through the front door and dumped her schoolbag in the entryway. She threw her keys into the bowl on the end of the kitchen counter and sprinted to the family room. There was no time to waste. Months of pining over Toby at school had led to this moment; the stolen glances, the giggling at his unfunny jokes… all of it. He had given her his MSN Messenger username. “Message me after school,” he told her on the bus, with a cheeky wink. She nervously typed in his name, cursing as her shaking hands messed up the spelling a few times. And there he was, in all his floppy-haired, letterman-jacketed glory. And he was online! She took a deep breath and clicked add friend. Toby’s computer pinged. Ashley M has invited you to a private chat! *  Tea, coffee, whiskey or wine? Biscuits or pizza or cheese? Laugh, cry, chat, unwind. Door’s always open for friends in need.  * The white rabbit didn’t actually say ‘Follow me’, but she could so she did. The cake said ‘Eat me’ and she shouldn’t but she ate it. The jug said ‘Drink me’ and it wasn’t a good idea but why wouldn’t she? The Queen of Hearts invited her to play croquet with flamingos, and she did, even though she didn’t want to. Carroll took us...

Deadline: September 2nd, 2019 Payment: $30 DEATH'S STING is RBE's first anthology on immortality. Quite simply, we want Sword & Sorcery tales about immortals in the vein of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane, Barry Sadler's Casca, Steven Erikson's Rhulad Sengar and Kallor, and Dennis O'Neil's Rā's al Ghūl. Dark tales of those who return from death, victorious over death's sting -- or horrifyingly despite! Do not be writing horror though; think dark and low and gothic fantasies as you devise your S&S tales. Obviously - no matter how many times our protagonists die throughout your stories - they'll die to live another day . . . and perhaps see another RBE anthology on immortality. RBE is seeking stories for this anthology that most closely deliver the dark sides of S&S more than its potential for humor or lightheartedness. We will be accepting 13-15 stories, and stories should be 2k-9k words in length. Nothing shorter will be read, and our sweet spot is in the 5k-7k range. Don't hold back - wow us with good ol' heroic storytelling! Submissions will remain open until we find the stories we want or through the end of Labor Day Weekend 2019. Response time on your first 500 words should be less than a week, while response time after we receive your full story should be less than two months. There are always exceptions, but we will strive to keep all informed. Publication is intended for Christmas 2019. We will publish within months of closing, so depending upon acceptances, DEATH'S STING could appear any time before or after the target. Again, we will keep all informed. Payment of $30 flat per story shall be rendered after publication. Authors will receive electronic copies and permanent discount on print purchases. Via: Rogue Blades Entertainment Submittable.