Events

Submission Window: August 1st - 31st, 2022 Payment: $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue Theme: Any genre of short story Note: Reprints accepted Changing the world, one story at a time Mission = Revive the art of the short story, support artists, and produce something wonderful. Payout = Base Pay of $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue to be sent by Paypal, Zelle, or check. Wait, you mean if this substack gets thousands of subscribers, the winner would get thousands of dollars? Yes! The New Yorker pays roughly $7,500 per story and I sincerely hope to go way past that. What does the timeline look like? Submit stories by the end of the month, winner to be announced on the 15th. There is ONE story that wins and receives the full payout. Where do I send submissions? [email protected] What are the rules for submitting? 1. No Fees 2. Send in Microsoft Word or Google Doc form 3. Any genre 4. 6- 10,000 words. Yes, just 6 words, like Hemingway's famous 6-word story "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn." 5. Reprints are ok so long as you still have the rights to distribute. 6. Acknowledge Distribution Rights on this Substack - You can still sell your story elsewhere but we need to be able to save and publish it here. The goal is to create a library for subscribers. 7. Only the winner will be published and rights will only transfer for the winning story. What do I get for subscribing? One beautiful story every month. The complete library. The joy of supporting artists and doing something interesting. Anything Else? Yes! Analytics will be published monthly in terms of subscribers, the number of submissions, and anything else that might be relevant. There is also...

Deadline: August 31st, 2022 Payment: Trembling With Fear was designed as a way to give back to Horror Tree. Since it’s inception we now offer an optional $5 payment on short stories to be paid by the time our yearly anthology which contains the story will be released. At this time, drabble are still considered donations to the site. Moving forward, as our Patreon levels grow, this will change for the better in both areas. Theme: Summer-themed horror Who wants summer to last longer? We do at the Horror Tree! This year, we've extended our Summer Specials submission period by an extra month so that we can collect even more hellishly hot and campfire creepy stories. Send us your tales of horror about backpacking, road trips, glamping, beach adventures, summer camp... anything summer-related goes! You may even want to write a drabble as a summer vacation postcard as a "wish you were here" . The submission window is open until August 31st to submit drabbles of 100 words and short stories up to 2500 words. Themed Calls Please note in your submission if it is for a specific theme and not a standard Trembling With Fear call. As a side note, going forward these will likely be collected in a secondary collection each year. Summer Holiday Special (to be published in August). Submit from February to end of July. Horror on the beach, at a B&B, on a cruise, backpacking, road trips, glamping, end of the pier. Why not even write a drabble as a holiday postcard: Wish you weren’t here? For special editions, we also do take longer work and Unholy Trinities. ‘Trembling With Fear’ is a new ongoing outlet for creatives that we’re trying out on Horror Tree. We’re going to be opening for submissions on drabbles and short...

Deadline: August 31st, 2022 Payment: 10 cents per word, $200 for artwork Theme: Killer Instinct Note: There is ALSO a contest with the same theme that pays $3,000 though that one is a pay-to-play scenario. Do you feel safe? Do you believe doors and locks will protect you? They won’t, but lies are necessary to distract us from the terrifying truth – killers are everywhere. Life is full of danger. The wilds are home to fearsome predators. Sharks smell blood, and other territorial animals will rend you with tooth and claw for the misfortune of crossing their path. But urban spaces might just kill you quicker. Humans have the propensity to kill one another six times higher than the average mammal. Born killers and those brought to it by chance and fate, the true predators of the world wear familiar faces. Sharp teeth lurk behind kind smiles and watchful eyes. History is full of atrocities and bloodshed, and stories of our future suggest more to come. Even good people suffer intrusive thoughts, visualizing horrendous acts for a split second before recoiling. Beware strangers, but keep a closer eye on friends. All new writers can submit work to the magazine. It’s free. We don’t believe publications should charge authors to be published. However, we have a specific submission process you must adhere to in order to have your work considered. Our submissions window opens on the first and closes at midnight on the final day of each month. Each issue of the magazine is themed according to our monthly prompt. The prompts are designed to inspire ideas but leave room for you to tell the story you want to tell. You can always write in any genre. This month’s prompt can be viewed here.  We do host a monthly contest using the...

  Deadline: August 31st, 2022 (reported on Facebook) Prizes: 1st place: $100 via Paypal Author Print Copy, Author Interview published on all WTP socials and website. , 2nd Place $50 via Paypal, Author Print copy, 3rd Place $20 via Paypal Author Print copy Theme: A story about a nemesis There is no fee to enter. All entries whether they place or not will be considered for publication. ​What is Nemesis? The inescapable agent of someone's or something's downfall. A long-standing rival; an archenemy. A person’s undoing. Theme Trope: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Allies, Enemies as Lovers/Friends 1st place: $100 via Paypal Author Print Copy Author Interview published on all WTP socials and website.  ​ 2nd Place $50 via Paypal Author Print copy ​ 3rd Place $20 via Paypal Author Print copy ​ Working Title: Nemesis ​ Premise: Sometimes great loves begin with great fury. These are such tales of passion and partnership that ignite somewhere closer to hate.  Warriors on opposite ends of a battlefield align to oppose a greater evil. Sworn enemies become bound brothers for the greater good. Whatever it is that puts them at odds, it's no match to the power of what binds them together.​ ​ Genres: Keep it speculative. Romance on some level is preferred, but not required—passion, emotion, fierce bonds are what we are looking for. We’re also hoping to see a lot more #OwnVoices pieces, female authors, LGBTQA+ stories, but all are welcome to submit!​ ​ Encouraged Tropes:  Enemies to Lovers Foe Romance Subtext (But skip the sub and make it TEXT!) Belligerent Sexual Tension The Only One Allowed to Defeat You ​ Pairing Examples:  Beauty and the Beast Buffy/Spike Rey/Kylo Negan/Maggie (Enemies to allies) Nina and Matthias (Six of Crows) Batman/Joker (In fanfiction) Grindelwald/Albus Dumbledore (In fanfiction) The Doctor/ The Master...

Submission Window: August 15th - 31st, 2022 Payment: .01 per word and .005 per word for reprints Theme: Flash fiction featuring military and law enforcement science fiction Note: Reprints Welcome Troopers is a magazine of flash fiction featuring military and law enforcement science fiction. All stories in Troopers must feature a fictional military, paramilitary, or law enforcement entity in some meaningful way. Your main character doesn’t need to be a soldier, pilot, or future cop necessarily, but there must be elements of military or law enforcement present in the story. Your character doesn’t need to be human either, sentient space ships, robots, aliens, and the like are more than welcome. Paramilitary characters or groups are also welcome, such as mercenaries, space pirates, cartels, organized corporations with private militaries and/or guards, and other similar entities. We like stories with cool tech and that pack an emotional punch. We have a preference for stories that have a dark and gritty atmosphere and tone as well. We’re looking to push the boundaries of military sci-fi in the flash category and we can’t wait to see what you come up with! Submissions will be open August 15th-31st. See below guidelines for details. Submission Guidelines Troopers publishes flash fiction stories of 1,000 words or less. We publish science fiction. Every subgenre of science fiction is acceptable but the science fiction element must be present. We will have set reading periods each year. Submissions will only be read in those reading periods. Stories sent outside of the reading periods will not be read unless they were specifically solicited by the editor. We pay .01 per word for original fiction, paid on publication of the selected work. Reprints are accepted and paid at .005 per word, half that of original fiction. We accept simultaneous submissions. Just please let us...

Submission Window: August 1 – Aug 31, 2022 Payment: $0.01/word Theme: Horror of all types One new short, published on Mondays, for at least 45 weeks of the next year. We are hoping to begin posting these short stories on February 6th, 2023. “Two-thousand Word Terrors” will be the name of the featured column hosting these stories. Because this call is not specific to Strangehouse Books, all writers are welcome to submit. The theme should be, simply, Horror. What kind of Horror is up to you. Go nuts. One submission per author. Payment: $0.01/word. NO multiple submissions NO simultaneous submissions NO reprints. Submission Length: approx. 2,000 words (a little under is OK but do not exceed 2000) The submission window will be open from August 1 – Aug 31, 2022. Submissions sent outside of this time frame will be deleted. Responses should take no longer than 3 months. Due to the anticipated volume of submissions, there will not be individualized feedback on declined stories. Send submissions to: [email protected] with name and story title in the subject line. Don’t stress about the cover letter! Just get those stories attached and sent. Please do not send PDFs. Emails with PDFs attached will be deleted immediately. Manuscript formatting should follow the Shunn style, which can be found HERE (or you can copy/paste this link: https://www.shunn.net/format/story.html) We will try to notify everyone of acceptances and rejections by December 1st, 2022. Accepted stories/authors will be announced in January 2023. A QUICK WORD REGARDING REJECTIONS: Rejections are not personal. Under no circumstance will we be opening/reading responses to rejection notices. Responses to rejection notices will be deleted, unread. Thanks in advance for your understanding. Best of luck to everyone who submits a story! We look forward to reading. Via: Rooster Republic Press.

Deadline: September 1st, 2022 Payment: $5 Theme: Stories that pay homage to Edgar Allan Poe fan Lifelong Edgar Allan Poe fan, Madame Gray, is in search of horror tales that pay homage to one of the greats of the genre. Whether you gravitate toward The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, Murders in the Rue Morgue, or the Masque of the Red Death, she wants to read your story... Compiled and edited by Gerri R. Gray (Madame Gray's Creep Show, Blood & Blasphemy, Vault of Gore) and published by Hellbound Books, this anthology is open to undiscovered writers and established voices alike. Contributors are invited to send a bio (up to 250 words) with their submission. Multiple and simultaneous submissions are okay. PLEASE read and adhere to our submission guidelines...  * Word format saved in .doc, or .docx * 12 pt times new roman * Double spaced * Absolutely NO extra lines between paragraphs! * 3K - 8K word count * Write 'MADAME GRAY POE' along with your name and story title in the header of your email *The body of your submission email will be considered the cover letter. * The submission documents are to be separated and Word (.doc or .docx) documents are to be attached to your submission email. To submit, email your polished story to [email protected] - Make sure that you check your mss for grammar and punctuation, use our guidelines to help you: DOWNLOAD YOUR HBB GUIDE TO GRAMMAR HERE (PDF) Deadline: September 1st, 2022 NO REPRINTS - ORIGINAL UNPUBLISHED WORKS ONLY Payment: $5.00 for First Rights Capped at 120K words in total. Via: Hell Bound Books Publishing.

Deadline: September 1st, 2022 Payment: Royalties Theme: Military Science Fiction Note: Reprints Welcome An anthology of Future Combat and Mechanized Warfare Call for entries Three Ravens Publishing is accepting entries for a military science fiction-themed anthology to be published in 2022. Focus will be stories in the genre that featured future combat centered around mechanized warfare, ie, tanks, APC’s, cavalry, mounted infantry etc. Stories can be set in existing author owned universes but must be new material. Author bio and link to existing works will be provided at the end of each story. Focus should be on hard military science fiction, with a setting from the near future to thousands of years from now. Ground combat in a combined arms atmosphere. In other words, Close Air Support and air to air combat can be part of the story but not the focus. Dropship troopers and airborne insertion are merely a way to get to the fighting. Mechas are allowed but it has to be a really good story that focuses more on the meatsickle element than the gee whiz fighting suit. Please, no Mary Sue’s. Genre: Military Science Fiction Word Count: 7,000 – 10,000 Edited by: J.F. Holmes & William Joseph Roberts Opening by: David Drake Due Date: Sept 1, 2022 Payment: Stories selected for publication in the upcoming Anthology(ies), will receive a percentage of sales divided equally between the contributing authors. Email submissions to: threeravenspublishing @ gmail dot com with “Blood, Sweat, and Steel” in the subject line Please follow the Three Ravens submission guidelines that can be found here MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES We are looking for amazing stories from any genre that are fun to read and will take us on an adventure of epic proportions. Please download our standards template by clicking here Hard and fast rules of what not...

Deadline: September 1st, 2022 Payment: $5 Theme: Anything Sci-Fi! HellBound Books Publishing is excited to announce its very first foray into the science-fiction genre. We are looking for your very best tales of aliens, strange new worlds, fantastic beings from distant planets, space travel, terrifying glimpses of the future, and whatever else your sci-fi mind may conjure up to horrify our readers. PLEASE read and adhere to our submission guidelines...  * Word format saved in .doc, or .docx * 12 pt times new roman * Double spaced * Absolutely NO extra lines between paragraphs! * 4K - 10K word count * Write 'SC-FI' along with your name and story title in the header of your email *The body of your submission email will be considered the cover letter. * The submission documents are to be separated and Word (.doc or .docx) documents are to be attached to your submission email. To submit, email your polished story to [email protected] - Make sure that you check your mss for grammar and punctuation, use our guidelines to help you: DOWNLOAD YOUR HBB GUIDE TO GRAMMAR HERE (PDF) NO REPRINTS - ORIGINAL UNPUBLISHED WORKS ONLY Deadline: September 1st, 2022 Payment: $5.00 for First Rights Capped at 120K words in total. Via: Hellbound Books Publishing.

Deadline: September 1st, 2022 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...