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Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: We’re looking for speculative literary poems that touch the heart as much as the head; poems of the liminal, the fluid, and the fantastic. In anthropological terms, liminality is the midpoint of a ritual: the threshold where a person is no longer quite who they were, not yet who they might become. In between masks, what face might you have? What might you be in transit? Where will you go? Everything is possible in that moment; change is its own goal. Liminality is the space between. Liminality is an online quarterly magazine of speculative poetry edited by Shira Lipkin (co-founded and co-edited through our third year by Mattie Joiner). We are very pleased to meet you. We’re looking for speculative literary poems that touch the heart as much as the head; poems of the liminal, the fluid, and the fantastic. We’d love to see work that shifts shape, refuses to be to be easily pinned down or categorised. We actively welcome diversity; we want to hear new as well as established voices. Tell us tales we thought we knew, the way only you can tell them. Give us new myths. Liminality pays $10 per poem, for first worldwide publication rights and non-exclusive anthology rights. We will be open: January 1-February 28 April 1 – May 31 July 1 – August 31 To submit, send up to five poems to liminalitypoetry AT gmail.com with the subject line “SUBMISSION – ”. Please include your poems in the body of the e-mail; if you have formatting that makes that untenable, you may attach the poem as an .rtf. You may send up to five poems per reading period. We do not accept reprints or simultaneous submissions. (If the poem has been publicly viewable online, yes, it would be a reprint.)  “Dear Editor”, “Dear Shira”, and “Dear Mx. Lipkin” are...

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $5, royalties, and a contributors copy Theme: All stories must be centered around Mardi Gras and contain a crime. Back by Popular Demand: Mardi Gras Mysteries, a new Mardi Gras mystery anthology for 2021. All stories must be centered around Mardi Gras and contain a crime, up to and including murder.  Supernatural/occult content is allowed, as long as the story is a mystery. Please refrain from being too explicit with sex or gore in your story, although some detail is acceptable. The focus should be on the holiday and the mystery or crime. Women flashing their breasts for beads is one thing; detailed sexual acts are another. Man waking up naked in bed next to a dead body is acceptable; having sex with it 'on-screen' is not. Story length should be 2000-5000 words. The submission window is July 1st - August 31st, 2020. Please do not sub sooner. Publication of Mardi Gras Mysteries will take place in late December 2020/January 2021.  Send your submissions to [email protected] with “Mardi Gras Mysteries” in the subject line. If we buy your story, you will receive a free print copy of the book and a $5 USD advance on royalties. For further information on royalties and publishing rights, please go to our Submission Guidelines page.  Via: Mystery and Horror LLC.

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $20 and contributors copy Theme: Lovecraftian Tales The guidelines are simple. The working anthology title is Strange Aeon: 2020 (Lovecraftian Tales). That alone tells you most of what you need to know. I want good, solid Lovecraftian stories. I specifically say Lovecraftian rather than Cthulu because I’d like stories across the entire Mythos including additions by the original group of Mythos authors like Robert Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Likewise, specific Mythos references are not as important as getting the right style and tone. For example, I would happily take Smith’s Seed From the Sepulcher over a Deep One tale. This style preference also applies to gore and sex: think early Weird Tales. Having said that, science fiction horror is strongly encouraged; this is not an anthology of period pieces. For this anthology I’m asking for non-exclusive rights and will happily take reprints. Simply tell me the publication history so that I can give proper copyright acknowledgement. Simultaneous and multiple submissions are acceptable (please do so in a professional manner.) Though I am not especially interested in non-fiction or poetry, I will consider it. At most only one non-fiction piece and one work of (long) poetry will be used. I’m not overly concerned about length. 2,500 to 10,000 words is preferable but I also know from personal experience that horror doesn’t always lend itself to a strict word count. I don’t care about submission formatting as long as it’s legible, clean copy. Electronically, I need the story either in the body of an email or an as RTF file. Please submit to the email address mkeatonauthor (at) gmail (dot) com with the word Submission in the header. The goal is a final book with about ten stories averaging 5,000 words apiece. I be receiving submissions...

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: Original Stories: $25.00, Reprint Stories: $15.00, Flash Fiction: 1 cent/word, Poems: $5.00 (for minimalist poetry such as scifaiku, etc., the rates for Scifaikuest apply) Theme: Original stories with plot, tension, suspense, conflict, and character development. Note: Reprints welcome IT CAME FROM HER PURSE is a paperback anthology of stories, poems, and art, and will be published by Hiraeth Publishing. Editors for IT CAME FROM HER PURSE are Terrie Leigh Relf and Marcia Borell. IT CAME FROM HER PURSE is open to submissions as of 1 May 2020. We expect to close on 31 August 2020. We expect to publish on 1 January 2021. IT CAME FROM HER PURSE wants original stories with plot, tension, suspense, conflict, and character development. Remember, if readers do not care what happens to your main character(s), they won’t read the story. The narrative should maintain a sense of wondering what’s going to happen next; of what’s lurking just around the corner. Showing is better than telling. Frex, instead of telling the reader that it’s cold, show your character shivering, stomping feet, or having ice form on beard or hair. The inner thoughts and emotions of your character(s) are just as important. ​ IMPORTANT NOTE: “Purse” is not limited to a bag one carries around. It can be a wallet, a billfold, a coin pouch, a sachet. It can even refer to the prize for winning a horse race. Avoid getting hung up on a bag with a strap. If you’re looking for inspiration, think Roger Corman and what he might have done with this. If you saw the movie My Step-Mother is an Alien, remember the purse in that one, which carried a living computer shaped like a snake. Stories submitted to IT CAME FROM HER PURSE should be between 4K...

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $5, royalties, and a contributors copy Theme: A story that must be funny and have supernatural/paranormal elements. This annual collection of funny paranormal stories is the press' flagship series. Your tale must be funny and have supernatural/paranormal elements. Examples of stories from previous collections: Homicide is summoned to a halfway house for the undead, a finger transplant from a serial killer leads to hilarious consequences, a mummy regrets hiring a cheap embalmer. Lovecraft humor is welcome; shaggy dog stories are not. Story length should be 2000-5000 words. If you sub something longer or shorter, it better be really funny. The submission window is August 1st - August 31st, 2020. Please do not sub sooner. Publication of SF VIII will take place in April/May 2021.  Send your submissions to [email protected] with “Strangely Funny” in the subject line. If we buy your story, you will receive a free print copy of the book and a $5 USD advance on royalties. For further information on royalties and publishing rights, please go to our Submission Guidelines page. Via: Mystery and Horror LLC.

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $0.03 per word, minimum of $30.00 dollars for short stories. $30 per poem Theme: Satisfaction Note: This call doesn't officially open until the 15th but is going live early due to the short submission window 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 2020 will be: Experimentation (Submission period November 15-30, 2019 CLOSED, Published January 2020) Transfiguration (Submission period February 15-29, 2020, CLOSED Published April 2020) Redemption (Submission period May 15-31, 2020, CLOSED Published July 2020) Satisfaction (Submission period August 15-31, 2020, CLOSED Publishing October 2020) Our previous themes for 2019: Resistance (Published January 2019) – Ambition (Published April 2019) – Retribution (Published July 2019) – Euphoria (Published October 2019) for 2018: Apparition (Published January 2018) – Delusion (Published April 2018) – Vision (Published July 2018) – Diversion (Published October 2018) Apparition Lit also holds monthly flash fiction contests. These stories are published online only. We accept submissions for the flash fiction contest between the 1st and 15th of each month. Stories must be under 1k words and based on the theme for that month. You can see each month’s theme, and guidelines, in the flash fiction drop down below. For detailed submission guidelines, please see each category drop down below. PAYMENT: Apparition is a semi-pro rate magazine, paying $0.03 per word, minimum of $30.00 dollars for short stories (excluding flash contest. See details in the Flash Fiction dropdown for flash rates) and a flat fee of $30 per poem. 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...

Deadline: September 1st, 2020 Payment: $20 Theme: 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? “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...

Deadline: September 1st, 2020 Payment: $30 with potentially more depending on Kickstarter and a contributors copy Theme: A feminist bicycle science fiction anthologies focusing on witchcraft We are accepting submissions now for the witchcraft-themed ninth volume of the Bikes in Space series of feminist bicycle science fiction anthologies, scheduled to come out at the beginning of 2022. Working title: Bicycles & Broomsticks Please submit your original short fiction that combines themes of witchcraft and bicycling, through a feminist lens. Both witchiness and bicycles must be inherent to accepted stories—ie, if you swapped these elements out for detectives and toasters, the stories would not work. The witchcraft can be informed by actual Paganism or another tradition, or be more along the lines of Kiki’s Delivery Service or Sabrina the Teenage Witch, or something entirely new. Creative, subversive, feminist magic is key. Stories should have a feminist perspective, even if feminism and identity are not overt topics. We especially welcome submissions from queer, trans, disabled, and BIPOC authors and welcome stories that portray more diverse perspectives than are found in mainstream sff. All fantastical genres welcome: science fiction, fantasy, mythology, speculative fiction, climate punk, slipstream, supernatural horror, fractured fairy tales, or anything in between or beyond. No fanfic, poetry, or erotica for this series. Black and white comics and illustrations are also welcome. If you’re not sure what works, you may find it helpful to familiarize yourself with other books in the series. Word count: a 1,000 – 6,000 word range is typical, but make your story the length it needs to be, and if it’s right for the anthology, we’ll work it out in editorial. Format: Google doc or Word preferred; PDF or text documents are also fine. If submitting an illustration, please get in touch about format and dimensions before you start working on it. Payment: A portion of profits...

Deadline: September 2nd, 2020 Payment: Contributors copy Theme: Poetry CircleShow is currently interested in publishing the work of both known and unknown poets. 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. To submit please send 1-5 previously unpublished poems in a single file (.doc, .docx or .pdf). Please put each poem on its own page with each title in bold. Include your name and email at the top of the first page. Title both your submission and the file name as "Poetry Submission-YourName." We are interested in all forms of poetry. By submitting to SCP you are agreeing to our Online Copyright Policy. Via: Seven Circle Press's Submittable.

Deadline: September 2nd, 2020 Payment: $5 Theme: Stories that expand our shared narratives of experience by recognizing and giving value to our greatest resource — each other TWD Magazine accepts original, unseen creative work in the following categories: Fiction Creative Nonfiction Poetry Art Photography Combined Work Work must be original and unseen. Please do not send work that has already been published or is pending publication. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. There is no creative limitation on the style of work submitted. There are no fees for submission. No work submitted by a third-party (i.e. a public relations firm) on a contributor’s behalf will be considered without an authorized release affidavit signed by the represented party. No exceptions. NEW: Accepted Contributors will receive a $5 payment for their work. A max of 2 Contributors per category will be featured. General Guidelines Submission Period: January 1st to March 1st (Summer Issue) Reading Period: March 2nd to April 30th Tentative Digital Magazine Release: June 30th** July 1st to September 1st (Winter Issue) Reading Period: September 2nd to October 30th Tentative Digital Magazine Release: December 31st** **Dates are subject to change due to volume of submissions received; may be delayed by a week or two. Cover Letter Subject: Name of Category, Your Full Name (Or Pen Name) Body: Brief introduction, short bio (300 words max) with publication links (if applicable). No bio picture. Please indicate if your submission is simultaneous and at what date it was first submitted elsewhere. PayPal to Accept $5 Payment: If work is accepted, please be prepared to provide a valid PayPal email address where you would like to receive your payment. Until further notice, only electronic payments via PayPal will be made; no paper checks will be issued. Complimentary Close: Your full name declares that your submission adheres to TWD Magazine submission guidelines. Attachments: Please read specific category guidelines. Specific Category...