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Submission Window: October 1st-2nd, 2022 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: October 3rd, 2022 Payment: 50% are split evenly among contributors Theme: Halloween Note: Reprints Welcome Black Widow Press, is publishing a Halloween Anthology titled Halloween Horrors. Submission Guidelines - Deadline: October 3rd - Stories must be 1000-5000 words and at least loosely related to Halloween - Send story in any format to [email protected] - No extreme violence/extreme sexual content/other offensive content - It's fine if the story has been published in a book before, but check your contract to make sure the rights are available for us to print it. Most anthology contracts lock up a particular story for 1 year. - We're generally looking for creepy/spooky/chilling/suspenseful tales than gruesome/violent/disturbing ones, but all submissions will be considered! Payment/Usage Details - No payment upfront. - 50% of royalties go to publisher, the other 50% are split evenly among contributors (not proportional to word count of story.) -"Royalties" means gross royalties, not net profit. All costs for marketing, cover, etc. are paid by publisher. - The book will NOT have "exclusive" rights to your story for any length of time; you retain all copyright to the story you submit; etc. This will be outlined in the contract.

Deadline: October 4th, 2022 Payment: 3 USD cents/word, 1 USD cents/word for reprints Theme: Science Fiction and Tarot Note: Reprints Welcome The Science Fiction Tarot will contain 22 stories, one tale standing in for each of the cards of the major arcana and placing the anthologies word count at approximately 90-110K words. Stories of up to 7,500 words will be considered, but please be advised that submissions of 5,000 words and under will have the best chance to be selected. Each author will be expected to submit a 1-3 word science fiction concept for a card, along with a story that exhibits that idea through character, plot or theme. Please have a clear archetype, setting, or SF subgenre and center your submission around the concept: the focus of the tale should be the idea conveyed, not tarot cards themselves. For example, take the following images. They are followed by possible sample submission details (our form will ask for a few more things, naturally): Tarot Concept: A.I Story Title: Mechanized Justice Number of words: 3,500 Tarot Concept: The Geneticist Story Title: The Vats of Dr. Qualim Number of words: 5,000 Be advised the above are examples—both 'A.I' and 'Geneticist' are not taken and could be open options for your story, complete with new, different illustrations (although another author might potentially try the same.) Other concepts might be a general location, such as a colony, or even a subgenre, such as post-apocalypse—anything that might be distilled down into a tarot card. Wow us with your ideas! Upon acceptance, an artist will be commissioned to work on a black & white illustration of the author's card concept to accompany their published story. Based on selections made, we may reach out to chosen authors concerning their card concepts. Your story will always be your story, full-stop, but your submitted card choice may require adjustment....

Deadline: October 4th, 2022 Payment: 3 USD cents/word, reprints will pay 1 USD cent/word. Theme: SF Stories in for each of the cards of the major arcana Note: Reprints Welcome The Science Fiction Tarot will contain 22 stories, one tale standing in for each of the cards of the major arcana and placing the anthologies word count at approximately 90-110K words. Stories of up to 7,500 words will be considered, but please be advised that submissions of 5,000 words and under will have the best chance to be selected. Each author will be expected to submit a 1-3 word science fiction concept for a card, along with a story that exhibits that idea through character, plot or theme. Please have a clear archetype, setting, or SF subgenre and center your submission around the concept: the focus of the tale should be the idea conveyed, not tarot cards themselves. For example, take the following images. They are followed by possible sample submission details (our form will ask for a few more things, naturally): Tarot Concept: A.I Story Title: Mechanized Justice Number of words: 3,500 Tarot Concept: The Geneticist Story Title: The Vats of Dr. Qualim Number of words: 5,000 Be advised the above are examples—both 'A.I' and 'Geneticist' are not taken and could be open options for your story, complete with new, different illustrations (although another author might potentially try the same.) Other concepts might be a general location, such as a colony, or even a subgenre, such as post-apocalypse—anything that might be distilled down into a tarot card. Wow us with your ideas! Upon acceptance, an artist will be commissioned to work on a black & white illustration of the author's card concept to accompany their published story. Based on selections made, we may reach out to chosen authors concerning their card concepts. Your story will always be your story, full-stop,...

Submission Window: August 31st, 2022 - October 7th, 2022 Payment: 6¢/word Theme: Original “dark mermaid” short stories and poetry SUBMISSIONS OPEN AUGUST 31 Old sailors tried to warn us. You can find their stories in water-stained journals and letters throughout histories and cultures. People of the land laughed at them, calling their stories mere legends and fairy tales. Now it’s your turn to tell the real stories behind these tails found in the deep, the dangers in dark waters.   MERCILESS MERMAIDS: Tails from the Deep Think deep—the deep of the sea, the deep of space, the deep of our souls, our fears, ourselves. Here, it’s not the monsters under your bed; it’s the mermaids under your boat. Can you see the shapes in the waters that watch you? Can you hear the mermaid’s call? Old sailors tried to warn us. You can find their stories in water-stained journals and letters throughout histories and cultures. People of the land laughed at them, calling their stories mere legends and fairy tales. Now it’s your turn to tell the real stories behind these tails found in the deep, the dangers in dark waters. Will the merfolk prey on humans once the land-bound civilizations fall? Do they snatch men for research? What of the siren who is wildly tone deaf? Does your merman surface on some faraway planet, stare through mists at the newcomers and think Never. Again. We're sounding the ship's bell for stories about malevolent and merciless merfolk of all kinds. Give us your mermaids who fought for the wrong reasons, made tough by their circumstances or by their own choices. Show us their schemes and villainous wiles, the fairytales that end in blood. Or laughter. Tempt us with their twisted workings across time and space, colors and creeds. Deep down you...

Submission Window: October 1st - 7th, 2022 Payment: 8 cents per word for fiction. $40 per poem. $75 per essay. Theme: Original fantasy and dark fantasy stories. All types of fantasy and dark fantasy are welcome. Note: This is an early listing to give you some time to plan ahead for next month or to remember to finish revising your story for the upcoming month! Note: We are trusting that the submission windows listed in the ongoing call are valid for this publisher. If they are not, please let us know and we'll look into revising accordingly. Instructions for submitting to Fantasy Magazine follow. Please read everything on this page and read the magazine before submitting. SUBMISSION PROCEDURES Submission Periods: Fantasy is open to submissions the first week of every month (1st-7th). Please do not query about submitting outside our open submission periods. Anonymous Submissions: Fantasy only accepts anonymous submissions. Do not include your name, address, phone number, or other similar identifiers on the manuscript. All original short fiction, flash fiction, and poetry submissions will be read anonymously on first read: moving out of slush depends on the merits of the story alone. Please make sure the title is on the manuscript. Simultaneous and Multiple Submissions: We do not accept simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions. Please do not submit more than one set of poems at a time, more than one piece of flash fiction at a time, or more than one story at a time. You may, however, submit a single entry in each category at the same time: you can submit one batch of poems, one flash fiction piece, and one short story all at the same (or overlapping) time, and each category will be considered a separate submission. If we are already considering work in any given category, please wait until you have received an acceptance or rejection before...

Deadline: October 13th, 2022 Prize: $50 Theme: Using a quote from the image blow to craft a story Welcome to our annual Halloween Challenge! Brought to you by Mr. Jason Voorhees himself along with all of the other gruesome nasties we’ve paid homage to over the years. Below you will find a list of 16 movie quotes (okay, we made one up). Your challenge is to take one movie quote and turn it into a story any way you see fit. Of course, we don’t want a retelling of the movie the quote is from, we want an original from you, simply use the quote as a guide. You do not have to use the actual quote in your story, but it’s perfectly ok if you do! Please write at the top of your submission which quote you are using. $50 goes to the grand prize winner! Below the image you’ll find the quotes listed. We realize Mr. Voorhees has many talents, but communication may not be one of them. Unless he doesn’t like you, then he’s quite an effective communicator! Stories will be judged on two criteria: How well the story is fashioned around the chosen quote Story creativity, writing quality, and style Please scroll for standard challenge rules and we appreciate when you follow them. We look forward to reading your submissions! QUOTED ABOVE: Oh yes, there will be blood They’re here Fine, walk home then Sometimes, dead is better They’re coming to get you, Barbara When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly It’s not the house that’s haunted, it’s your son It’s just the wind The last man on earth sat alone in a room....

  Deadline: October 13th, 2022 Payment: $10 Theme: Dark, eerie, speculative stories. Horror is not a necessary element, although fiction should contain some aspect of the weak, frail, changeable human condition. 8/25/22: We are now OPEN to story and poetry submissions for our Halloween 2022 issue to be published October 2022. We are also open to Halloween Challenge submissions. Deadline for regular submissions and the Halloween Challenge is October 13th, 2022. To track and see if we received your story, visit: Where’s My Story? Please note: If you do not want your story title added to the tracking page, let us know when you submit your work. (Author name is not listed, only story title). Tales from the Moonlit Path publishes dark, eerie, speculative stories. Horror is not a necessary element, although fiction should contain some aspect of the weak, frail, changeable human condition. Gore and explicit sex for the sake of visceral shock will not find a home here, though we are not opposed to it in general, if it belongs in the story. We are interested in character-driven stories more so than plot-driven, and we prefer dark fiction that makes us think, makes us feel, wraps us in its well-spun dream. Hard sci-fi and fantasy are a hard sell for us, but not impossible. Revenge and ironic stories are also a hard sell. Although we would love to publish fiction longer than 2,000 words, it is our experience that reading stories longer than that on a monitor can be tiresome and hard on the eyes. So please, fiction must be no longer than 2,000 words. Please include a short cover letter with your story, your name, email address, paypal information for payment, word count (please make sure an accurate word count is included in your short cover letter) and bio if...

Deadline: October 14th, 2022 Payment: $10 Theme: Crime Fiction Submissions for the print magazine OPEN September 1st at 1am EST. Submissions of under 1k words for the flash series also OPEN. See the flash guidelines for details. Please read the entirety of the guidelines before submitting as guidelines have changed. ​Submissions that do not follow the guidelines will deleted unread, without response to the submitter. Guilty publishes crime fiction. It is strongly suggested that you read an issue of the magazine to get a solid feel for what we are looking for. Crime fiction covers a wide range of potential topics, and we are interested in your take on it, but please note, we are looking for stories of criminals, from their perspective. There are still many ways that can be interpreted, but there are some things we will not consider: Cozies. Police procedurals. Anything with a speculative element. Anything that glories in violence for the sake of violence, particularly against women, children, minorities, or animals. Violence can be an element of many types of crime stories, but it must be an integral part of the story. Detective stories will be a hard sell, not because we don't like them, but because they are not typically crime stories, per se, but have more in common with the police procedural than with other types of crime story. We really are looking for stories from a criminal's perspective. Serial killers are also a hard sell, unless your take on them is truly unique. It shouldn't need to be said, but any type of hate-speech, whether homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism or any other type you can think of, will not be tolerated. Submissions including such will be deleted without response to the submitter. ​ For fiction for the magazine: Stories from 2,500 to 5,000 words will...

Submission Window: For Black, Asian, Latin, LGBTQ+ and other under-represented authors: October 1st-14th, For All authors: October 8th-14th Payment: Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories Theme: $0.08/word for original fiction Cossmass Infinities is open for submissions on the following dates: For Black, Asian, Latin, LGBTQ+ and other under-represented authors: February 1st-14th October 1st-14th For All authors: February 8th-14th October 8th-14th i.e. Open during the first week of February and October for BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and other under-represented authors then opening to general submission for the second week. Submission windows may close early if there is a high number of submissions. This is to allow us to meet our response deadlines. Submission windows open and close at midnight UTC. Submissions made outside of these times will be automatically rejected. Cossmass Infinities is a Science Fiction and Fantasy short story magazine edited by Paul Campbell. We are looking for original science fiction and fantasy short stories. We are NOT looking for reprints at this time. We are actively interested in stories from Black, Asian, Latin, LGBTQ+ and other under-represented authors. We encourage new authors to submit. We are looking for short stories (1000-7,500 words). We pay $0.08/word for original fiction. We can only accept manuscripts in these formats: docx, doc, html, htm, rtf, odt, txt, azw, mobi. The rights we wish to obtain are listed in the sample contract for original fiction. Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Multiple submissions are not accepted. Held submissions do not count against you. Payment is through Paypal. Submit only complete stories. Please allow 3 months for a decision, then feel free to reply to your notification email to enquire as to the status of your story. An email confirming receipt of your submission will be sent within 20 minutes of us receiving it. Note that your submission is sent to us...