Events

Deadline: July 31st, 2025 Payment: $50 and a contributor’s copy. Theme: Horror stories set in the Ozark mountains Calling all Ozark writers, storytellers, folklorists, and tale collectors!Parlor Ghost Press, an imprint of Watertower Hill Publishing (publishers of 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘏𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘴, and 𝘏𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘴), is taking submissions for our upcoming anthology, 𝘚𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸: 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘖𝘻𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳, edited by Heather Daughrity, to be released February 2026.What we are looking for: horror stories set in the Ozark mountains--either your own take on a story from Ozark folklore or an original tale featuring Ozark locations/atmosphere/beliefs/etc.We want all the spooks, haints, hags, and boogers. Give us the mist rising out of the hollers and the mysterious sounds from the woods, the strange lights in the sky and the distant cackle of Old Granny in her hidden shack.We want horror, but we want it PG—no extreme horror or erotic horror, please. Just a good modern take on the venerable myths, magic, and monsters unique to the Ozark area.Submissions are open from April 7 to July 31, 2025.Word Count: 3,000 to 6,000 words.Payment: $50 plus a contributor’s copy.Send submissions to: [email protected]. Put “OZARK” in the subject line.Submissions should be double spaced with Times New Roman 12-point font. Please ensure that your name, address, email, and word count are located at the top of your document. Send submissions as attachments to your email; stories included in the body of the email will not be accepted.We look forward to reading your stories! Via: Watertower Hill Publishing.

Deadline: July 31st, 2025 Payment: Royalties Theme: Lovecraftian horror Cthulu: Dreams – our Lovecraftian anthology Cthulu: Dreams– This is horror. Express yourself as the theme moves you. Incorporate the Lovecraftian theme as you will into your horror story. Not all need contain an eldritch horror, remember The Alchemist. Good writing will triumph over concepts tightly aligned to a perception of the theme. We encourage you to weave the theme into an engaging story with well-developed characters and deep emotion. Stories that contain infanticide, or rape will not be accepted. Consideration might be made for gratuitous gore, if the story calls for it. Submission Period: May 1, 2025 to July 31, 2025 Submissions: No AI, 1 per author; no simultaneous submissions, no reprints; Submission Cost: Free Word Limit: 2,000 to 7,000 words Submission Guidelines: Anonymous submission with no author name in document; 12 pt Times or Arial; .Doc or .Docx; double-space; first line indent; no tabs used. Genres: Horror Anticipated Pay: Royalty Share of D2D sales and Kickstarter Share Each story will receive A D2D royalty share from the sales on the D2D platform and a percent of the Kickstarter. This does not include: wholesale to authors; or non-D2D retail outlets. Links will be available to direct your customers to D2D outlets. Timeline Projections: Submissions close: July 31, 2025 Review: Aug 2025 Acceptance / Rejection: Sep 2025 Edits: Oct 2025 Production: Oct 2025 Kickstarter: Oct 2025 Published: December 2025 Upon acceptance, the author is expected to work with the editor on at least one round of revisions in MSWord. Our publication goal will be the late fall of 2025; however, the extensive time needed to review and edit submissions may vary depending upon the submitted works and author’s response times. Inkd Publishing LLC will hold first publication rights for four months after publication...

Deadline: July 31st, 2025 Payment: $150 Theme: works of literature that intersect with Taco Bell My kids make books all the time for fun. Both of them want to be writers and artists when they grow up. I feel like this is my fault. I’ve made it look too fun. They bring me their stacks of pages, begging for the stapler, as if the stapler contains magical powers, as if the act of binding together the book is what makes it real. I staple three neat clicks and I’ve made it look real. Something more real to pretend with, at least. We are back, pretending to make our literary magazine again. We are the Taco Bell Quarterly, a Prestigious Literary Magazine that is opening for submissions on 4/20/25. We are looking for prose, poetry, art, and beyond for our eighth issue, which will be available to read for free online, and to buy in print in the late fall. We will pay $150. What are we looking for: works of literature that intersect with Taco Bell Does it have to be about Taco Bell? Does it have to mention it? It’s the Taco Bell Quarterly. The joke is that it’s our only guideline. Also, we do not have any guidelines. We have no rules. You can say whatever you want. We have an aesthetic. We have a vibe. Read our last 3 issues especially to get a sense of the direction we’ve been going in. But also, yes, it can and should be about Taco Bell too, because that is the joke of the literary magazine, in which every piece has a recurring product placement. Because life might happen in a Taco Bell, or with a Taco Bell logo in the background for a moment. That moment of product placement may be chosen...

Submission Window: June 1st - July 31st, 2025 Payment: $0.02 per word Theme: Science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between Note: Reprints Welcome Flash Point Science Fiction wants speculative fiction stories from 100 to 1,000 words in length. Send us your science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between, so long as it’s short. We here at FPSF are partial to flash fiction and want to see the flash market grow. So as much as it pains us, please take your 10,000 word tour de force elsewhere. We’re not looking for the next Brandon Sanderson. (Unless you are, in fact, Brandon Sanderson, in which case we’d be delighted!) What we’re looking for: -Fantasy (all kinds—epic, adventure, contemporary, urban, grimdark, fairy tale, magical realism, myths and legends, etc.) -Science Fiction (all kinds—hard, space opera, military, near future, science fantasy, cyberpunk, dystopian, etc.) -Slipstream (make it as weird as you want, so long as it works) -Seasonal (we love stories with holiday and/or seasonal themes, but please submit AT LEAST 3 months in advance of the relevant occasion) -Anything that makes us laugh, cry, think, or smile. What we aren’t looking for: -Horror—it can be spooky or menacing, but we’re not a horror market, so the fright factor should not be the primary appeal. DARK fantasy and sci-fi, however, are welcome. -Literary fiction—this is a genre market, so there needs to be an SF&F element, however slight. -Gratuitous sex or violence—we’re big fans of Love Death + Robots, but don’t be that guy. -Fanfic—original concepts only, please. We know there was a lot going on in Hobbiton while Frodo was away, but that’s not our property and it’s not yours either. -Stories previously published in a different language. Submission Specs In terms of how your story should look, we recommend you read William...

Submission Window: June 1st - July 31st, 2025 Payment: $10 or a contributors copy Theme: Speculative stories featuring a family with at least one type of supernatural family member THREE COUSINS PUBLISHING, an imprint of WEST MESA PRESS, will be accepting submissions for its fourth annual anthology with the working title, Family, Fae, Fiend, Friend, and Foe from June 1, 2025 until midnight July 31, 2025. Stories submitted before or after the submission period will not be considered. This is a themed anthology and stories that don’t fit the theme will be rejected. Submissions must be speculative and feature a family with some type of supernatural family member or members. Vampires and fairies, gnomes and zombies, leprechauns, bigfeet, ghouls, and poltergeists are all welcome. Horror, humor, fantasy, science fiction, or even an entertaining, but bizarre mashup of genres that we haven’t considered. Your characters may be young or old and the time frame may be from the dawn of mankind to the far future. Here’s the short list of guidelines. Pay attention, please. These are important. 1, Stories should be submitted in standard format. Here’s a link: https://www.writersdigest.com/.../how-to-submit-short... 2. Double spaced, no tabs, use the indent function in ‘paragraph,’ no extra spaces between paragraphs, and Times New Roman 12 point font. 3. Signal scene breaks by ###. Scene breaks are welcome, but chapters aren’t. 4 If you want italics, use them. 5. Stories must be between 4,000 and 5,000 words. No slack. Rewrite and edit to fit before submitting. Longer or shorter submissions will be deleted unread. 6. No reprints, but simultaneous submissions are fine, as they always should be, but let us know if your story is accepted elsewhere. 7. Put your contact information on the first page and your 150 word bio and bibliography in your cover letter. Do not...

Submission Window: June 1st - July 31st, 2025 Payment: Fiction: $25.00 for original stories, $7.00 for reprints, $6.00 for each poem, $20.00 for original articles, $6.00 for reprints. $7.00 for reviews and interviews. Theme: Paranormal - this includes ghosts, spectres, haunts, various whisperers, and so forth. It also includes shapeshifters and creatures from various folklores. Submissions are accepted Feb 1 – Mar 31, Jun 1 – Jul 31, Oct 1 – Nov 30. Anything submitted outside those periods will be deleted unread. We no longer accept simultaneous or multiple submissions. ​ No matter how far we move forward as humans, we are still bound by the instincts and ancestral memories of our animalistic past. None of these are so strong as the fight or flight response. However, there are times when we seem to be perfectly safe, completely at ease and comfortable, when that urge to run from something sneaks up on us. What causes these sensations? Is there something lurking in the darkness? Why is that man giving you the creeps, he’s not even looking at you? And yet, there is something odd. Something instinctual, something you know without fully understanding. We may have moved on, we may have forgotten and left behind those old stories and legends of beasts, voracious monsters, and dark spirits... But they have not forgotten or left us... What We Want The subject matter of parABnormal Magazine is, yes, the paranormal. For us, this includes ghosts, spectres, haunts, various whisperers, and so forth. It also includes shapeshifters and creatures from various folklores. PLEASE NOTE: CREATURES LIKE VAMPIRES, GHOULS, WEREWOLVES, AND ZOMBIES ARE NOT PARANORMAL. Shapeshifters, for the purpose of this magazine, refer to the spiritual shift, not the physical. Think Native American shaman. Paranormal activity centers around the human, not the creature. We do not want...

Deadline: August 1st, 2025 Payment: $10 and a contributors copy Theme: Sword and sorcery stories between 2,000 and 8,000 words What we Want: Good sword and sorcery stories between 2,000 and 8,000 words for our upcoming anthology. No science fiction or horror. What we Don’t Want: We don’t want splatterpunk or porn. No poetry. We don’t want pure romance stories, but of course you can have romance in the story (You know what we mean). If you don’t have a clue, then just send it anyway. As long as it has magic, heroes with swords, or involves mythical adventures, we’ll read it. Payment: Royalties are $10 for the story and one free copy of the anthology when it’s printed. Deadline: August 1, 2025. Rules and Guidelines: Story submissions must be under 8,000 words or we will not read it. Also, only one submission per author. If we want more than one submission from you, we will reach out to you and ask. How to Submit: Email submissions to [email protected] with a story attached in Microsoft Word. We will try to reply to your submission within 4 to 6 weeks. Please put EXACTLY the following in the subject line: ATTN: SORCERY. Via: Howdy Dude Paperbacks.

Deadline: August 1st, 2025 Payment: $10 and a contributors copy Theme: Pure science fiction stories between 2,000 and 8,000 words What we Want: Good science fiction stories between 2,000 and 8,000 words for our upcoming anthology. No fantasy or horror. We will read any science fiction stories. What we Don’t Want: We don’t want porn. No poetry. We don’t want pure romance stories, but of course you can have romance in the story (You know what we mean). If you don’t have a clue then just send it anyway, I reckon. Payment: Royalties are $10 for the story and one free copy of the anthology when it’s printed. Deadline: August 1, 2025. Rules and Guidelines: Story submissions must be under 8,000 words or we will not read it. Also, only one submission per author. If we want more than one submission from you, we will reach out to you and ask. How to Submit: Email submissions to [email protected] with a story attached in Microsoft Word. We will try to reply to your submission within 4 to 6 weeks. Please put EXACTLY the following in the subject line: ATTN: SCIENCE. Via: Howdy Dude Paperbacks.

Deadline: August 1st, 2025 Payment: 1 cent per word for fiction, $10 for poetry, $25 for artwork or $50 for cover artwork Theme: Solarpunk Note: Reprints Welcome NonBinary Review is currently open for submissions on the theme of SOLARPUNK. We want your rusting Teslas still chugging along for a hundred years. Your wooden bicycles pulling hitches rigged with wind turbines. Your crumbling brutalist towers, softened by time, now home to moss, mushrooms, and grizzly bears. Solarpunk is not just about sustainability, it is about adaptation, resilience, and the beauty of a world where humanity and nature thrive together. If you are looking for inspiration, think Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers; Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke and Castle in the Sky; or the quiet satisfaction of making coffee with a Chemex, dumping the used grounds in your compost, and watching the worms enjoy their breakfast too. We are NOT looking for “climate change is a myth, stop worrying!” stories, sexual coming-of-age narratives, or anything that does not fit within the speculative genre. IMPORTANT NOTICE Zoetic Press does not accept AI generated content. If our editors judge that your content is AI-generated, it will be declined. All submissions must have a clear relationship to our theme, and be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or they will be rejected. NonBinary Review  pays 1¢ per word for prose with a limit of 3000 words. If your work was accepted for Issue #39: Mistaken Identity or is accepted Issue #40: Epiphany, we're sorry, but we cannot accept your work at this time (see our general guidelines.) Zoetic Press publishes the best in speculative lit - experimental, interstitial, luminous. We welcome submissions from EVERYONE. The only requirement is that they be in English, or translated into English (we love a translation). If your writing is outstanding, no matter who you are, we...

Deadline: August 1st, 2025 Payment: $35 Theme: Shared Universe set on the Starship Blunder, most genres welcome, you DO need to read the guidelines for details and characters Galactic Misadventure Continues! Freshly promoted Commander Sarah Hawkins has been assigned to the brand-new Starship Wonder. The rest of her crew, however, have taken to calling their recently acquired vessel Starship Blunder. No new parts were fabricated specifically for the Wonder—it was assembled using extra pieces, cast-off parts, and old components removed from other, nicer crafts. The Conglomeracy hopes the spiffy name of the untested starship will inspire the crew to achieve something, anything. It doesn’t work. Just like its predecessor, the Starship Wonder struggles even to take off, let alone complete a mission. Can the crew find it in themselves to at least successfully deliver an unimportant package, or will the namesake “Blunder” stick with them forever? Although the original vessel Starship Blunder blew up in fantastical fashion at the end of the first anthology, the characters you know and love are back at it again! As soon as the Starship Wonder goes on her inaugural mission, it becomes clear to her crew that there’s nothing wonderful about the new starship. They immediately start referring to their new ship as Starship Blunder as they wonder, did the Conglomeracy commission a new starship because the fleet needed another vessel, or because they just wanted somewhere to stuff the misfit crew away from the more elite spacecraft? Whatever the reason, Commander Sarah Hawkins, Mechanic Xylo, Daycare Teacher Luna Knight, and Chef Bluebottle make the best of a less-than-stellar situation as they embark on another year of missions and misfortune. Submission Guidelines WHAT WE WANT: Theme: This is a shared universe anthology. Stories should be set in the Starship Blunder universe. Embrace humor, delve into deeper themes, or spin a romantic tale under the stars. Include some diverse characters...