Events

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: $.03 per word Theme: Alternative Leadership B Cubed Press is pleased announce an Open Call for Alternative Leadership.    An anthology about leadership. Leadership by the under-represented, by those too often forced to watch as those less qualified, less capable rise in a system that cannot see the value of diversity and change. We’re looking for broken barriers of all kinds.  Can a man lead the National Organization of Women? Can a woman lead the NFL Players Association?  Not in our current world, perhaps, but maybe in alternative worlds? This will be a book about those things, in government, in the PTA, in the Horde, in the town or village.  In the world. About the Orc would be King of the Goblins, the woman who would be Pope.  The only limits are those of your own imagination. So understand there is no magic formula for sex, orientation or race of your protagonist.  We want our readers to enjoy the story, sometimes laugh, but always think. The Alternatives series often uses humor and satire as a way of looking at issues.  You don’t have to write satire or humor to sell us a story, but it sometimes helps. We are unabashedly social justice fans and love redemption.  Your story doesn’t have to reflect progressive perspectives, but again, it helps. But most of all, we want our readers to think about the story after they’ve put down the book. We are looking for good writing, first and foremost. We also want imaginative scenarios, and a good bit of humor in stories, essays or poetry is always appreciated. Write of successes. Write of failures. Write of the perfect, the imperfect, the noble, and the wretched. Write the story of the person who said, “I can be more.” This book...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: $25.00 - $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 - $10.00 for poetry Theme: Story must begin with: "As soon as Harriet entered the building, she headed to the seventh floor." Fall: As soon as Harriet entered the building, she headed to the seventh floor. Due date: August 1, 2023 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 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. And, just to be clear, we do not accept simultaneous submissions. 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...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: Royalties: one (1%) per cent of net sales Theme: “Life is the dance between choice and chance.” “Life is the dance between choice and chance.” How did you come to the point in life where you now find yourself? Two factors were likely in play: choice and chance. The choices you make are clearly a factor in shaping your life. For example: a woman in one universe elopes with her high school sweetheart, but they are too young to make the marriage work and divorce at any early age; in a second universe, she marries him after they graduate from university and happily becomes a stay-at-home mom; in a third universe, she doesn’t marry him and pursues a successful career. Making different choices about the same life goal can lead to very different lives. It’s also true, though, that chance, forces that are out of our control, shapes the choices that are available to us. This may be because of the choices of others which directly affect us, or it may because of the society into which we are born. For instance: a black man sleeps in his car in the drive-thru lane of a fast food restaurant. In one universe, two white cops are sent to deal with him; forty-five minutes later, one of them has shot him dead. In a second universe, one of the white cops and a psychiatrist are sent to deal with him; after a tense confrontation, he is arrested and his car impounded. In a third universe, the psychiatrist and a social worker droid are sent to deal with him; he is sent home to sleep it off and told he can pick up his impounded car the next day. The different outcomes are a product of chance, the...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: $20 Theme: Icing out your enemies, femme-presenting antiheroes, Medusa, the White Witch, snow queens in general Icing out your enemies, femme-presenting antiheroes, Medusa, the White Witch, snow queens in general, Nina Maclaughlin’s Wake, Siren, Madeline Miller’s Circe, Spring Breakers, Merricat from Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle; Promising Young Woman, Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless, burning your ex inside of a bear, Ottessa Moshfegh, murderous kitsunes, Onibaba, Bunny by Mona Awad, Lady Vengeance, Emma Frost, The Low, Low, Woods by Camera Maria Machado, Lady Tremaine, sirens in general, revenge ghosts, Carol Ann Duffy’s “Medusa” and The World’s Wife, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Carrie, Lady Macbeth, fashion bitches, Cathy Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights, Fairuza Balk in The Craft, bell hooks’ killing rage, Bertha in Wide Sargasso Sea, Shakira cursing her ex and mother-in-law from the balcony of her home, Sylvia Plath, femme fatales, Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, Cersei Lannister, Fragment of the Head of a Queen by Cate Marvin, blud by Rachel McKibbens,  Judith Beheading Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi, spitting on graves, villain equality, Lisbeth Salander, Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of Anger,” PJ Harvey, Beyonce’s Lemonade, Kali, Katherine Faw’s Ultraluminous, coming to your house in the middle of the night to cut up all your wigs. If you see yourself in the mirror, submit your work to the newest incarnation of Grimoire by AUGUST 1, 2023 B E F O R E   Y O U   S U B M I T The best way to know what we want is to look in our mirror (see below) and to read past issues of the magazine. You can find our archive here. D R E A M S Regardless of issue theme, we’re also always looking for dreams for our resident dream expert, Billy, to...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: $40 per original poem or per page of original art., $20 per reprinted poem or per page of reprinted art., $0.04 per word for original prose, based on final published word count., $0.02 per word for reprinted prose, based on final published word count. Theme: Chapter Wizards in Space believes that all writers and artists deserve compensation for their work. In line with this belief, all creators with pieces accepted will be paid and retain rights to their work. Submissions are opening June 19th, 2023, for Issue 09: Chapters. All chapters must have an end. A final sentence, a closing line. And so does Wizards in Space. For our ninth and final issue, we’re ready to hear about the chapters of your own journeys. Which pages have you turned, and which are you now opening? We want your cliffhangers, we want your tidy knots, we want your open endings. Fresh starts and sweet farewells. Send us stories that tell half-truths, that contain muddled middles, or cold opens. Pieces that reflect on an adventure — whether you’re still riding it out or looking back with nostalgia. Share with us the chapters of your life that most want to be shared, the ones that spill over their lines and beg you to keep reading. We invite pieces that say hello, how have you been, or until we meet again. We want this issue to be a reflection of everything that Wizards in Space has been over the years: a beginning, a middle, and now — an end. You write the chapters, we’ll put it in the book. And then we’ll start looking for the sequel. After all, the end of one chapter means the start of another, and whatever is next for us and for you, these...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: Short Stories: $400, Narrative Comics and One-Act Plays: $300, Poetry, Flash Fiction, and Graphic Arts: $100 Theme: Speculative fiction written by Latinx authors in the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America. We are looking for works that take classic utopian ideas and reexamine them through a radical Latinx lens and create something compelling and new. Editors: Alex Hernandez, Matthew David Goodwin, Sarah Rafael García, Sara Rivera We are currently taking original and unpublished short stories, poetry, plays, and graphic arts for Not Your Papi’s Utopia, an anthology of speculative fiction written by Latinx authors in the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America. We are looking for works that take classic utopian ideas and reexamine them through a radical Latinx lens and create something compelling and new. The submissions should not be perfect visions of an idyllic society, but gripping tales of a society trying to do better, to be more in harmony with the environment, and to build more equitable societies. Conflict is necessary for most good stories, but a general sense of optimism about the future or a viable pathway to hope is a must for this collection. We are accepting any of the speculative genres that fit the general theme, but here are some genres we are actively seeking: AfroLatinx Futurism, Indigenous Futurism, Speculative Metafiction, Solarpunk, Ecofiction, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Slipstream, Apocalyptic/Post- Apocalyptic Fiction, Speculative Non-Fiction, Alien Environments, Alternate Histories/Futures, Multiverse or Parallel Worlds, Secret Histories/Futures The anthology will affirm the diversity of interests, and concerns of Latinas/os, as well as the overlapping identities that contribute to the Latinx experience. Although the anthology will be published in English, submissions can be in English, Spanish, or any Latin American indigenous language–or a mix of all of these. Multiple submissions accepted. The majority of what we’ll be taking...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: Short Story-2,500 words or less. $0.01 USD per word/$25 USD max, Poems-less than 200 words $10, Flash Fiction-less than a 1,000 words $0.01 USD per word/$10 USD max Theme: This One's for the Weirdos The Last Girls Club Magazine is a quarterly feminist horror magazine that publishes international short stories and poems from the female gaze. It is an homage to the scary comics and zines of the late 20th century. This season's theme is This One's for the Weirdos. Most of us know what it is like to not fit in, to not know how to fit in or to even want to. This one is for the freaks, the geeks, the neurospicy, and the monsters who can't quite make themselves fit the mold. The villagers are out there with the pitchforks and torches. What are you going to do hotshot? Or are you the one that fits in and undermines from the inside? Take it where you want. No more than two fiction stories per author per submission period. Fiction is limited to 2,500 words or less. Authors are paid $0.015 USD per word upon acceptance ($37.50 USD max). Flash fiction is limited to under 1,000 words. Authors are paid $0.015 USD per word upon acceptance ($15 USD max). No more than three poems per poet. Poems are limited to 200 words or less for each poem. Poets are paid $10 USD upon acceptance. I prefer to use PayPal to pay authors, but will work with authors where PayPal is not available. Nonfiction columns will must be pitched to editor in chief before submission. Email your idea to [email protected] The Last Girls Club Magazine is a quarterly feminist horror magazine that publishes international short stories and poems from the female gaze. It is an...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: $25 per poem, $50 for stories less than 1500 words, $50 for Art (1-3 Images), $100 for Art (4+ Images), for work more than 1501 words Theme: "Relief" that is also hybrid, cross-genre work of both emerging and established creatives who often reside outside traditional artistic disciplines. Brink is open for hybrid and cross-genre submissions of any length engaging the theme RELIEBrink is open for hybrid and cross-genre submissions of any length engaging the theme RELIEF. Relief is a form of ease, yes. It’s a delicious feeling of release. It’s that hopeful buoyancy caused by reassurance that overrides our systems when pain and distress are alleviated. Relief is physical. It’s emotional and mental, too. But as a concept, relief implies so much more than deliverance from discomfort. Relief connotes the remains of a thing left behind; the residue, the leftover, the left behind. That which stands when everything else lifts away. Relief is assistance that arrives in the form of aid, support, or help in a time of danger, need, or difficulty. Relief is a distinct vivid contrast. You can throw things into relief. You can bring things into relief. Show us, create for us, those exact things. Take us to the edge, the brink, of relief. Brink has two reading periods per year: January and July. Between July 1 - 31, we will open for submissions engaging the theme of Relief. Through Submittable, we accept a variety of creative work from Nonfiction to Fiction, from Poetry to Translation. But our hearts beat strongest for hybrid work that falls into the cross-genre category we call Evocations. We are interested in work that presses boundaries, uses more than one medium to tell a story, and both looks and feels different on the page. Additionally, we look for submissions...

Submission Window: August 1-2nd, 2023 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 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 8¢ 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...

Deadline: August 4thm, 2023 Payment: 3 cents (euro) per word and 1 cent (euro) per word for a translation reprint Theme: Hard SF that zooms out of the personal and lifts off into the structural, the systemic, the epic. There are plenty of amazing print and online journals out there for ‘character-driven’ fiction, and we encourage you to read them. Sci Phi Journal (SPJ) is not one of them, though. Hence, we are not too keen on stories predominantly about the sentiments and subjective experiences of fictional people. We want hard SF that zooms out of the personal and lifts off into the structural, the systemic, the epic. We yearn for carefully crafted philosophical speculation that puzzles over the questions of the future and alternate pasts. And we have a soft spot for stories created as ‘artifacts’ (fictional, ‘in-universe’ non-fiction). So here are SPJ‘s quests: – Campbellian hard SF. Reaching back to the roots of classic sci-fi, these rigorous tales take themselves seriously and push the boundaries of our scientific imagination, scaling from the nano to the meta. The cast, if any, is functional and disposable. It’s the sociological, technological and indeed cosmic developments that sweep the reader up in an expanding sense of wonder. (For a contemporary long-form example that received mainstream attention, see the latter two books of Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem trilogy.) – Fictional non-fiction. The purest, most intimate form of world-building. A transcript of the last UN Security Council meeting before an extinction-level event. The dental bills of a cybernetic vampire. Interviews with eyewitnesses of a battle between Martians and archangels. (Epistolary fiction falls within this category, though we encourage you to interpret it more broadly, across the full spectrum of artifact fiction.) Think ‘World War Z’, not ‘Walking Dead’. – Speculative philosophy. Extrapolating abstract ideas to examine the implications if they were to manifest. (See for instance The End of...