Events

Deadline: January 31st, 2023 Payment: 5 cents per word for original fiction, 4 cents per word for reprints Theme: The rewritten lives of female literary legends Note: Reprints Welcome The rewritten lives of literary legends You suffer. You die. You exist so the hero can have his journey. Who are you? You're a woman in classic literature. Of course this isn't the destiny of every woman, but from Anna Karenina to Jocasta to Cio-Cio-San, from Esmeralda to Aida to Mrs Rochester, death, madness, or suffering is the fate of far too many women in classic stories. Anna Karenina Isn't Dead undoes that. In this anthology of literary women, these women live. Do they have a happily ever after? Maybe. Do they have a happy-right-now? Oh yes. Feel free to bring your woman to the present, future, to anywhere or anywhen. How your classic heroine finds her peace is up to you. Tell us a reimagined tale of the famous, the infamous, the barely mentioned woman in an old story, poem, or legend. Give her a better journey than the one she got. This call is open to writers of any gender and in any location; we accept simultaneous and multiple submissions (up to 3 stories per writer); payment is five cents American per word (four cents for reprints) up to 5,000 words – your story can be longer, but payment stops at 5K words. The deadline is 31 January 2023. Please send your manuscript as a .docx attachment, Times New Roman, 12-point – with your name and story title on the first page. In your email be sure to tell us who your character is, and from what story she comes. No characters still under copyright please. Submissions or questions to Atlin Merrick (she/her): [email protected]. Via: Improbable Press.

Submission Window: January 1st-31st, 2022 Payment: $100 for the chosen story + 50% of subscription revenue Theme: Any genre, short story 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. What if I can’t pay right now? That’s ok! If you publish a blurb about this site on your website, blog, or social media, I will send you one full story of your choosing. Best of all, it is on the...

Submission Window: January 1st-31st, 2023 Payment: 1 cent per word for fiction, $5 for poetry, 1 cent per word for non-fiction, $35 for cover art Theme: Speculative fiction Note: Limited Demographic: Authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups. Submission Windows General submission window February 01-28 April 01-30 June 01-30 August 01-31 October 01-31 December 01-31 Limited demographic window January 01-31 March 01-31 May 01-31 July 01-31 September 01-30 November 01-30 It's our goal to publish diverse voices from around the world, and to do that, we are actively seeking stories, poems, and non-fiction pieces by authors from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy canon. Our submission cycle is therefore split into two categories, where every other month is explicitly reserved for submissions by authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups. The interposing six months remain open to everyone. Guidelines for Fiction We are seeking stories in the English language up to 6,000 words by writers from around the world. We favor submisions that have not been published before (including on your own website), though we do accept a limited number of reprints not currently appearing anywhere online. For our two issues focused on the climate crisis, we're particularly interested in publishing stories from people displaced by or threatened by the climate emergency (see our themes below). For our other four issues, we're open to a wide variety of stories across the SFF and weird spectra. We pay 1¢ per word for fiction, and we try to respond to all submissions within ten weeks. We will also accept a limited number of previously published stories, so please indicate on the form if your submission is a reprint. All submissions must use the Shunn manuscript format...

Deadline: January 31st, 2023 Payment: £30 plus a copy of the zine Theme: Ruins Note: British authors and authors of other nationalities living in Britain Submissions are open until midnight GMT on the 31st of Jan 2023. The theme of issue two is ruins. We want crumbling castle ramparts and wrecks haunting the sea bed. Give us derelict shopping centres and condemned flats. And don’t forget, people can be ruins too. We’re looking for submissions from British authors and authors of other nationalities living in Britain. We are particularly keen to hear from under-represented groups, including BIPOC, LGBT, and disabled writers. GUIDELINES Submit your story to [email protected] Stories must be no shorter than 3000 words and no longer than 4000. No previously published work, please. One submission per person. Submit your story as an attached Word file with your name and the story title in the filename, double spaced, font size 12. Please title your email SUBMISSION: CLOISTERFOX 3. Include a short biography in the third person – 150-ish words – along with any websites or social media you might have. Author payment: £30 plus a copy of the zine. WHAT WE WANT The best way to gauge what we like is to read the zine. But, for the uninitiated, we are looking for: Genre-crossing speculative fiction with a strange, uncanny bent. Stories that make you feel. It isn’t enough to creep us out – tweak our heartstrings, make us laugh. Take the prompt and play with it! We’re flexible and love to be surprised. WHAT WE DON’T WANT We don’t publish poetry, reviews, non-fiction, comics, or art. We’re not looking for straightforward genre fiction, erotica (though it’s fine to be spicy), or anything promoting fascist views. Original stories only, please – no reprints. Via: CloisterFox.

Deadline: February 1st, 2023 Payment: $10 and a contributors copy Theme: Horror stories that must be cannabis related in some way 420 Horror: You guessed it. We want horror short stories between 1000 and 5000 words in length (can go over a little bit, we aren’t too particular. Just not shorter than 1000 words). The stories must be cannabis related in some way. It could be a group of stoners getting lost in the woods that find a witch house…with a bong in it. How about a group of humans partying on April 20th in the year 2560 A.D. Use your imagination folks. Payment: Authors shall receive a payment of $10 along with a paperback & digital copy of the anthology once it is completed. Rights: First Print and Electronic Publication rights, the non-exclusive rights to include the story in a print and digital book, and a one-year (12 month) period of exclusivity from the date of publication. We also ask permission to potentially include accepted stories in any future anthologies but will provide full payment and digital copy in compensation. All other rights remain entirely with the author. OTHER STUFF: No poetry or reprints. No novel extracts. Authors are welcome to submit more than one story for the anthology (no more than two per author though) but please submit them in separate emails. Submission Deadline: February 1, 2023. Expected Publication Date: October 2023. Email submissions to [email protected] with story either: 1) attached in Microsoft Word Format; or 2) with the entire story pasted inside the body of the email. Either one is fine. We try to reply and let you know if we are not using your submission within 3-4 weeks…but if you do not hear from us by the submission date (check your Spam folder) then we did not...

Deadline: February 1st, 2023 Payment: $25.00 - $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 - $10.00 for poetry Theme: Story must begin with: "I am the second Mrs. Roberts." 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 lines, or we run fun, gimmicky competitions for free stuff, but the actual journal is not a contest in the traditional sense. Fiction: All stories must be written...

Submission Window: January 1st, 2023 - February 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: Active Shooter Last Girls Club Spring Issue Theme is Active Shooter. Think of the new training videos/protocols for students and teachers, office spaces, public spaces, the sense of inevitability of every news cycle including a shooting. Embrace the the sense of resigned acceptance of terrorism. Welcome to the future. No whining allowed. Please go to our website www.lastgirlsclub.com to get a feel for what we print. No more than two fiction or flash fiction stories per author per submission period. Fiction is limited to 2,500 words or less. Authors are paid $0.01 per word upon acceptance ($25 USD max). Flash fiction is limited to under 1,000 words. Authors are paid $0.01 per word upon acceptance ($10 USD max). No more than three poems per poet. Poems are limited to 200 words or less for each poem. Poets are paid $10 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] Via: Last Girls Club Duotrope.

Deadline: February 1st, 2023 Payment: Fiction: 1 cent per word, Poetry: $10 per poem, Art: $25 flat fee, Cover art: $50 Theme: Food NonBinary Review is open for submissions on the theme of "food." Food touches every single person on the planet, and can be one of the most fraught relationships a person can have. We're not looking for recipes, or stories in which food is incidental. We want to read about how food joins people, divides people, shapes those with too much and those with not enough. Who grows food? Who hauls it around? Who cooks it? How is working professionally with food different than cooking at home? There are so many aspects of this necessity of life, and we want to hear them - especially the unexpected, the complicated, the life-changing. All submissions must have a clear relationship to our theme, and be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or they will be rejected. NonBinary Review  pays 1¢ per word for prose with a limit of 3000 words. Zoetic Press publishes the best in new lit - experimental, interstitial, luminous. We welcome submissions from EVERYONE. The only requirement is that they be in English, or translated into English (we love a translation). If your writing is outstanding, no matter who you are, we have a place for it. NonBinary Review, our award-winning themed lit journal is published quarterly. Each issue revolves around a specific theme, but we're asking contributors to go beyond the old familiar media tropes. We're looking for work we can read with our whole body - work that gives us goosebumps, makes us see the world differently, has the tang of authenticity, makes us sit up and listen, and smells like....something. This analogy got out of hand. What we're saying is that we're not looking for re-hashes of...

Submission Window: January 1st - February 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: Active Shooter Last Girls Club Spring Issue Theme is Active Shooter. Think of the new training videos/protocols for students and teachers, office spaces, public spaces, the sense of inevitability of every news cycle including a shooting. Embrace the the sense of resigned acceptance of terrorism. Welcome to the future. No whining allowed. Please go to our website www.lastgirlsclub.com to get a feel for what we print. No more than two fiction or flash fiction stories per author per submission period. Fiction is limited to 2,500 words or less. Authors are paid $0.01 per word upon acceptance ($25 USD max). Flash fiction is limited to under 1,000 words. Authors are paid $0.01 per word upon acceptance ($10 USD max). No more than three poems per poet. Poems are limited to 200 words or less for each poem. Poets are paid $10 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 homage to the scary comics and zines of the late 20th century. Please check on the website for the theme in detail. Submissions will be accepted from Jan 1-Feb 1, April 1-May 1, July 1-Aug 1, Oct 1-Nov 1. Final notifications will be Feb 15, May 15, Aug 15, Nov 15. Authors must be 18+. Submissions from underage authors will not be considered....

Submission Window: February 1st-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...