Events

Taking Submissions: Grifty Shades of Fey

Deadline: June 15th, 2019 Payment: $.05 USD Story Submissions Many of you have shown interest in submitting a story to the anthology. Good. Here are our guidelines and all of that: Grifty Shades of Fey Anthology Guidelines Like the title says, this is a collection of stories about fairies, pixies, gnomes, elves, and all of the hidden folk--specifically how they con and trick and manipulate humans. There is no restriction of cultural origin of the Fey you use in your story. The lil' buggers are everywhere. Genre The stories can be horror, satire, humor, allegory, etc, but must have that fantastical element that comes inherently with the Fey. Length Flash fiction up to around 4500 words. Content In true Fiction Vortex fashion, the content is meant for a wide audience. Content must be PG-13 or lower. Limit profanity, and definitely no F-bombs. Additionally, this is not a platform for preaching social or political agendas. Leave your political or social trends behind. We aren't your soapbox. All stories are subject to the review of Fiction Vortex. We reserve the right to reject any story for any reason. Compensation and Rights Payment is $.05 USD per word. No royalties. Payment will be received upon finalized proof of the completed anthology. Fiction Vortex has first digital, print, and audio rights. The work is free to be published elsewhere after a year (12 months), but the author must attribute  Fiction Vortex and/or the anthology as the first place of publishing. There will be a contract with full details. All work must be original. We are not accepting republished works. Deadline The book is to be published in September. We will accept stories until June 15, but would prefer them before that if possible. Notifications of acceptance and rejection will be sent as the stories...

Taking Submissions: Helios Quarterly Magazine

Deadline: June 15th, 2019 Payment: $0.06USD per word for fiction, .01 per word fiction reprints, $50 for poetry, $15 for poetry reprints. SPECIAL CALL: Helios Quarterly turns 5 in 2020! Over the years, we’ve published less horror than science fiction & fantasy. And, we haven’t published as many BIPOC (Black, Indigenous & People of Color) as we would have liked. We want to change that. For our upcoming call for submissions, we’re especially interested in horror short stories and poetry by Black, Indigenous, and other poets and authors of color. Helios Quarterly Magazine is a quarterly periodical of horror, science fiction, and fantasy published in March, June, September, and December. We accept unsolicited submissions from JUNE 1-15 11:59 EST every year. Anything submitted outside of this window will be deleted unread. SUBMIT Format using Shunn’s manuscript style. Track your submission using Duotrope, The Submission Grinder, and Ralan. Submit via HeyPublisher. A short cover letter is required submitted alongside the text of your submission. Please include your legal name, pen name (if relevant), contact information, PayPal email address (if different), recent publications/awards (if any), preferred contributor’s copy (.epub or .mobi for Kindle™), and a third person bio of 50-150 words. A photo is optional. We take 2-3 weeks to respond to submissions. If you haven’t received a response by then, please query. Email submissions are deleted unread. If you have any questions, email subs heliosquarterly.com. POETRY: Any length paid $50USD per poem. FICTION: 100-17,500 words paid $0.06USD per word. REPRINTS: Any length of poetry paid $15USD and 100-17,500 words of fiction paid $0.01USD per word. RULES Translations are accepted Simultaneous submissions to other markets are accepted Only submit one submission in each category (one short story, one poem, one reprinted short story, and one reprinted poem per person) RIGHTS Copyright remains with the author and poet at all times Non-exclusive archival rights as long...

Taking Submissions: Mysterion

Deadline: July 31st, 2018 Payment: 6 cents per word for original work and 3 cents per word for reprints. Note: Reprints allowed We are looking for speculative stories--science fiction, fantasy, horror--with Christian themes, characters, or cosmology, and for artwork for this site. Fiction Guidelines Technical details Stories can be up to 8000 9000 words (thanks, Patreon supporters!). This is a hard limit--our submission system will enforce it. We pay 6 cents/word for original stories (or original translations of stories that have not previously appeared in English), and 3 cents/word for reprints. Authors are paid once we've agreed on edits and signed a contract, prior to earliest publication (generally on our Patreon page). We are seeking 6 months' exclusive worldwide publication rights for original works (with exceptions for established Best of the Year anthologies), and non-exclusive worldwide print and electronic rights thereafter for both original works and reprints. We want to publish your story online in our webzine and keep it there indefinitely. We're also acquiring the right to offer ebook versions of the stories we publish, as Patreon rewards or for purchase; and to publish a print and ebook anthology of all the stories that appeared in the webzine over a given 1- or 2-year period. For original fiction, we want to be the only place publishing it for the first 6 months; after that, you're welcome to publish it anywhere else in any format you like. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. If multiple writers co-write a story, we consider each distinct group of writers a different submitter. In other words, if two people co-write a story, and they submit the co-written story, and each of them also submits a story written on their own, that would not violate our no multiple submissions policy. Submitting two stories co-written by the same two people would violate our...

Taking Submissions: The Twofer Compendium

Deadline: June 20th, 2019 Payment: $10 Send us your yin/yang stories, your tales of good twin/bad twin, your thoughts about anything and everything twinnish, even the astrological sign of Gemini. Stories should contain strong plotlines or strong characters … and be creative. We want our readers to be immersed in each story and invested in each character. You needn’t stick solely to humans. Feel free to write a fairy tale and/or a dark tragedy—or anything in between. We want stories from 500 to 3,000 words in length, fiction or non-fiction. Uninvited are screenplays. Also uninvited are stories that are publicly available on any website, such as your Facebook page or Wattpad. We want YA readers to enjoy the published anthology without parental balking. Submissions will open on at 12:00:01 a.m. May 21, 2019 and will close at 23:59:59 EST on June 20, 2019. The judges will not read submissions as they arrive; they will begin to read submissions on June 21. You will receive a status notification (rejected or accepted) approximately three months after submissions close (around September 21). Judges will only offer an acceptance or rejection email, without feedback. Along with their thanks for submitting of course, either way. There Is No Reading Fee You may submit up to three stories, but we will accept a maximum of two stories per author. We will pay $10 USD via PayPal per story accepted. Contributors will receive one copy of the book electronically (even if two stories are accepted). We will plaster your name around the universe as best we can. In other words, wherever we market the book, publicize the book, or mention the book, the contributing authors’ names will be mentioned. We expect to publish paperbacks and eBooks, which will be available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and online....

Taking Submissions SubTerrain #83

Deadline: June 24th, 2019 Payment: (CA)$50 per poem $.10 per word (to a maximum of $500.) subTerrain publishes original fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essays, and commentary three times a year. Submissions must be previously unpublished material. (Note maximum number of submissions per issue in General Guidelines below.) subTerrain welcomes submissions from both emerging and established authors. We are happy to consider work from all corners of the identity spectrum, including works by underrepresented writers, including but not limited to writers who are indigenous, of colour, immigrants, women, LGBTQI+, low-income, no-income, and writers with disabilities. Submitters are welcome to state demographics such as race, age, gender, etc. in their cover letter if they so choose. ______________________ TWENTY-NINETEEN ISSUES SPRING -- OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS! Shame (#82) — With our Spring issue we will once again delve into uncomfortable territory with an issue devoted to the exploration of shame. Shame as a cultural phenomenon, a personal crippler, and all of its associated sub-types: false shame, secret shame, toxic shame, vicarious shame. “… shame is important because no other affect is more disturbing to the self, none more central for the sense of identity. In the context of normal development, shame is the source of low self-esteem, diminished self-image, poor self-concept, and deficient body-image. Shame itself produces self-doubt and disrupts both security and confidence. It can become an impediment to the experience of belonging and to shared intimacy....It is the experiential ground from which conscience and identity inevitably evolve. In the context of pathological development, shame is central to the emergence of alienation, loneliness, inferiority and perfectionism. It plays a central role in many psychological disorders as well, including depression, paranoia, addiction, and borderline conditions. Sexual disorders and many eating disorders are largely disorders of shame. Both physical abuse and sexual abuse also significantly...

Taking Submissions: Grumpy Old Gods Vol. 3 Halloween Edition

Deadline: June 29th, 2019 Payment: Royalty Split The Grumpy Gods are back for another round, and this time, we’re celebrating all those spooky myths! That’s right! Ancient cultures might not have celebrated Halloween exactly, but every mythology has stories that can be mined for great scary tales. WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR: We’re looking for stories from 3000-4000 words in length, concerning ghosts, ghouls, underworlds, and just plain creepy critters that give you the heebie-jeebies. Ideally, this anthology will have a great mix of the wit and humor our readers crave and enough chills and thrills to make it a fun Halloween read. We want stories of cantankerous gods, aging heroes, and creepy critters that are about to get a whole barrel of well-earned karma. Ghosts that get the last laugh, curses gone awry. Just make sure there is an aging, waning, defunct, or otherwise AWOL god or goddess in the mix. Is that a tall order?  Sure.  You might even say it is a Herculean task. But we know you guys are up to it! SUBMISSION DEADLINE:  Submissions are due June 29th, 2019 with an eye to releasing the anthology mid-to-late September. Required: Must Have (Grumpy Old Gods 3 Submission) in the Subject Line of your Email to be read. **NOTE**If you just put Grumpy Old Gods (without the 3) we will assume it is a submission sent for the first two anthologies in this series. (Grumpy 1 and 2 submissions are both closed. ) This helps us sort through our emails and spot G3 among all the emails sent and other communication about other Grumpy anthologies. So PLEASE be specific to get noticed by labeling correctly. (Amendment added April 25th, 2019–applies to all emails after this date.) Genre: Speculative Fiction. What is Speculative Fiction? Well, Wikipedia says… “It encompasses the genres of...

Taking Submissions: Dream Realms of Cthulhu

Deadline: June 30th, 2019 Payment: $25 and a contributor's copy What darkness dwells in the realm of dreams . . . “There are so many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and proasic with the poison of life.” ― H.P. Lovecraft, Celephaïs ​ What We Want An integral part of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft dealt with forays into, and results from explorations of, a dream realm. A frequent traveler to that realm, Randolph Carter, brought back many tales of his experiences – of the fantastic cities, the exotic peoples, and the terrible dangers. We want you to tell us more about those realms, but we want the stories to be true to the Lovecraft ideas. If you haven't already, we suggest you read or become familiar with at least a few of the following stories: Celephais,Hypnos, Ex Oblivione, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Silver Key, The White Ship, and Through the Gates of the Silver Key. These stories are all available to read for free at the H. P. Lovecraft Archive online (http://www.hplovecraft.com/). There are some things to consider, however. When relating your story, you will be walking a fine line between psychological and blatant horror. The following issues will cause your story to be instantly rejected: Sexual content not inherent to the story line, adult content, or erotic fiction. Explicit description of torture or sacrifice, human or otherwise. Violence or abuse against a minor, infant to teenager. Overuse of profane language. Hate language against a race, creed, or Quoting previously published material not in the public domain. ​ Publishing Details Lead editor for this...

Taking Submissions: Suddenly, Cows! Tales of Experiments Gone Wrong

Deadline: June 30th, 2019 Payment: $25 The fire alarm clanged all around the building, sending thundering waves of pain through his skull. Slowly, carefully, he got up from the explosion. He was surprised he was alive, and though he felt like death warmed over he was still fully intact. As he looked around the smoke filled room he noticed that his fellows were similarly alive and intact, but they looked angry and strange in the smoke. Firefighters burst into the room and put out the raging inferno that was devouring Dimensional Communicator they’d spent so many years working on. When the smoke cleared, Henry Michaels sighed and slowly made his way over to the blackboard. A collection of angry moos followed him. He carefully erased one of the numbers in an equation with his muzzle and used an open marker in his mouth to carefully write the symbol for Pi. An angry, but vindicated moo from his rival, Sarah Douglas, indicated she was happy he finally saw her equation to be the most accurate. He wondered if it mattered at this point and how they were going to rebuild the Dimensional Communicator now that they were cows. ​ ​ What We Want Things are too serious around here. We have all sorts of absolutely amazing stories of dark terrors, shapeshifting monsters, and epic fantasies. We really need to lighten the mood. To that end we present Suddenly, Cows! We want silly stories of experimentation from all sorts of places; beit the 1950’s style “scientist” using their “radio tubes” to stop aliens, or a wizard trying to figure out how to create a better spell for conjuring demons, or even someone of today trying to do something as simple as wash a load of laundry and ending up in the 6...

Taking Submissions: Chew on This!

Deadline: June 30th 2019 Payment: 3 cents per word Everything that is living EATS!  Plants, animals, humans, aliens, monsters, sea creatures, they all eat in one form or another. For the Chew on This! anthology we are looking for food-related stories, but we need you to dig deeper and get creative when it comes to the substances that keep us alive. Food should be integral to the story in some way, but not the entire focus. The plots can revolve around a wide range of cultures and belief systems, science and superstition, settings in the future or past. Above all we want stories that are macabre, scary, unsettling, and even gross. There's room for every subgenre of horror from quiet and unsettling physiological tales to extreme and bizarro. Well written, imaginative, frightening, and unique perspectives that make readers afraid to visit restaurants, try cuisine in a foreign lands, attempt new cooking recipes, etc. Food Allergies: Cannibal stories- Sure they’re good enough to eat but not for this anthology. No zombies, werewolves, vampires, or other well-tread tropes. If it’s off the dollar menu we won’t be ordering. Pizza stories. We love a good pie but don’t want past anthology leftovers. Predator and prey without any substance. Reasoning is the seasoning! Fan fiction. Give us a fresh recipe! Ingredients: Email: [email protected] Subject: Chew on this: Story Title by Author Name Length: 3k - 7K Deadline: June 30th 2019 Multiple Submissions: No Simultaneous Submissions: No Reprints: No Format: Doc or Docx Payment: 3 cents per word Chef: Robert Essig Via: Blood Bound Books.

Taking Submissions: SNAFU: The Last Stand

Deadline: June 30th, 2019 Payment: AUD5c/word and one contributor copy AU5c/word / 2k-10k words Opens Apr 1st / Closes June 30th Fantasy, Horror, or Science Fiction Theme – Last stand military horror. What we want: Military action-based last-stand horror, and lots of it. Think 300, the Alamo, the Battle of Mirbat, the First Battle of Mogadishu, the Battle of Hel, or Custer’s Last Stand (but with unnatural monsters)… anything that can be called a high-action potentially-last stand monster story. For level of unnatural creature we will give priority to, think Dog Soldiers or Aliens. We want lots of monster goodness. We will also be looking for soldiers, mercs, police, private security/paramilitary. Hell, even a group of bodyguards protecting some arsehole druglord on his jungle property. Just ensure the last stand aspect is both overt and unique, and don’t forget monsters! This volume is like the previous volumes squared. All action. We want extreme action, and it has to be military or paramilitary action. And to say it again, full action. Nothing less. Hoo-rah! Introduction by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator, Love, Death & Robots) Edited by Amanda J Spedding, Matthew Summers, and Geoff Brown Payment: AUD5c/word and one contributor copy in each format released. Wordcount range: 2,000 – 10,000 words (query for shorter or longer) Submissions open April 1 2019. Closing date is June 30th 2019 Anything submitted outside this period will be deleted without being read or replied to. No selections will be made until after the period closes. Projected publication date: Late 2019 Please follow these guidelines when submitting to us: Please put your full contact details and word count top left of the first page of the manuscript. Standard submission format, with minimal document formatting. Courier, Palatino Linotype, or Times New Roman set at 12pt. Italics as they will appear. No underlining....