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Submission Window: April 1st - 30th, 2023 Payment: 8 cents per word and $500 for custom cover art and $100 for cover art drawn from an artist’s existing portfolio. Theme: Fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and any genre in between or around it, as long as there’s a speculative element. THEMED ISSUE: FLASH ONLY Note: You must identify as an immigrant or member of a diaspora in the broadest definitions of the terms. This includes, but is not limited to, first- and second-generation immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, persons who identify with one or more diaspora communities, persons who have been displaced or whose heritage has been erased due to colonialism/imperialism, and anyone whose heritage and history includes ‘here and elsewhere’. khōréō is a quarterly publication of stories, essays, and art: fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and any genre in between or around it, as long as there’s a speculative element. We’re especially interested in writing and art that explore some aspect of migration, whether explicitly (themes of immigration, colonialism, etc.), metaphorically, or with a sly nod and a wink. Most importantly, we’re a new magazine and we’re still finding our identity: therefore, please don’t self-reject because you’re not sure if your work is a good fit. We won’t know until we see it, so please give us a chance to look! 2023 Themed Issue: Flash (April submission period) Our last issue of the year is focused on flash fiction. We’re looking for stories of 1,500 words or fewer; flash submitted in earlier reading periods will also be considered for this issue. Submissions will be open April 1-30 for publication in December 2023. See submission requirements & how to submit at the following pages: Fiction Non-fiction Art Voice actors Who can submit? khōréō is dedicated to diversity and amplifying the voices of immigrant and diaspora...

Submission Window: April 1st-30th, 2023 Payment: $1 per accepted piece Theme: horrorku, horror themed tanka, haibun, see below for details The Submission may include any or all of the following: · Up to seven (7) horrorku or horror tanka  · Up to three (3) haibun · Up to five (5) pieces of cover art All submissions must be original, unpublished work that is not under consideration by a print or web-based journal. Posts in closed, critique-oriented groups and social media sites are acceptable for submission, but public posts on forums such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are not. By submitting a piece to us, you are guaranteeing that it is your original work and not under consideration or published anywhere else in the world. E-mail submission is required. Type poems into the body of the e-mail; no attachments of poetry will be opened. For art submissions, please include all five pieces in a .PDF file or send us a link to a private gallery. If we purchase an art piece for our cover, we will ask that you provide a 300 dpi version of said piece. E-mail: [email protected] Subject: Otoroshi Submission Please include a cover letter noting location in the world. Please include handles for Instagram and Twitter for promotional purposes. At this time, only one submission per issue will be considered unless the editors directly request a second submission. Submission periods are one month long: · January for the Spring Issue · April for the Summer Issue · July for the Fall Issue · October for the Winter Issue Acceptances will be sent shortly after the end of each period. Please note: Although most journals may publish your work as is, we are editors, too. This means we will make suggestions to your work as we see fit. This is to...

Submission Window: April 1st-30th, 2023 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: April 1st - 30th, 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 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 (we prefer Courier New) and be either .rtf, .doc, or .docx. We like stories that are subtle in their telling and stick with us long after we've finished. We're more likely to buy stories that balance a sense of wonder with a bold plot and...

Deadline: April 30th, 2023 Payment: $10 Theme: Your darkest, strangest microfiction in the form of user manuals, FAQs, and how-to guides for the use of (or by) robots! We are looking for your darkest, strangest microfiction in the form of user manuals, FAQs, and how-to guides for the use of (or by) robots! Tell us a story while guiding humans through the use of a strange machine, or guiding sentient robots through human activities they may not understand. Reveal deep yearnings and dark secrets between the lines, show us fascinating futures or weird horrors, and don’t be afraid to mix biology with machine. Let your imaginations go wild to create beautiful, surreal, and dark user-guides for strange machines! Please no simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions. We will aim to have first responses back within 30 days of closing to submissions. Word count: Up to 250 words Payment: $10 Submissions open: April 01 Submissions close: At midnight US central time on April 30. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 1) Submit your work in Shunn Standard Manuscript Format (Modern or Classic) and attach as a DOC, DOCX, RTF, or ODT file format. 2) Maximum word length is a firm 250 words. Anything more will be auto-rejected. 3) Payment for original fiction is $10 and a digital copy. 4) Please include a brief bio in the body of the email; we ask that bios are kept short and sweet, considering the size of the piece being published. 5) If the work you are submitting is an English translation, please include the translator name and email address either in your cover letter or within your manuscript. By submitting, you are verifying in good faith that you have the right to have your translated work published in Apex Magazine. 6) Strange Machines welcomes and encourages submissions from writers of all races, color, religion...

Deadline: April 30th, 2023 Payment: 10 cents per word Theme: Shadows & Knives, and a crow Note: There is ALSO a contest you can enter your work into instead of a magazine for a chance to win $3,000. However, it is pay to play on the contest. Write a story involving Shadows & Knives, and a crow. $3,000 grand prize. Hurry down the street as night falls. Is that movement in the shadows? Don’t look back. Dark figures block your path, steel glinting. No time to think. Do you run, fight, or scream? Murder is as old as time. The lights come on and someone’s dead. Everyone’s a suspect. The genius detective plays cat and mouse with a meticulous villain. Bodies, blackmail, and bloodstained letters. The cozy mystery is anything but for the victim. Prepare your alibi, avoid suspicion, and hope the trail of bodies leads back to the butler. The investigator has a secret, and the killer is working with the police. Conspiracies, confessions, and court intrigue. Assassins and bloody night raids—danger lurks in the dark. So accept the invitation, gather round the campfire, and hope the train doesn’t go through a tunnel. It’s a mystery, and we’re all gathered for the big reveal. This contest invites you to explore shadows and knives, whatever that means to you. Fantasy, contemporary, romance, crime. All genres are welcome. Submissions close April 30th at 11:59 pm EST. Contest only open to new writers 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...

Deadline: April 30th, 2023 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: Science fiction drabbles General Submissions are open April 1st – 30th! What we want more of: Cyberpunk Sci-fi horror Stories with Tech Starships Holograms Stories involving other planets Dark sci-fi Characters making a decision What we want less of: *GASP* we were really talking about humans, Earth, etc. Twist stories where the twist doesn’t change the way we view the story. We caused the apocalypse because humanity sucks. We accidentally called the aliens who are invading us because of some silly reason. General Guidelines Martian magazine publishes drabbles, stories of exactly 100 words (excluding title). Stories submitted of greater than or less than 100 words will be rejected. We use Google Docs to determine word count. We publish science fiction. Every subgenre of science fiction is acceptable but the science fiction element must be present. Submitted works must be stories. They must have a beginning, middle, and at least hint at the end. They may be 100 words, but we are not interested in thoughts or feelings without action or characters that don’t do anything. 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 .08 per word for original fiction, paid on publication of the selected work. Reprints are accepted and paid at .04 per word, half that of original fiction. We accept simultaneous submissions. Just please let us know if your work was selected elsewhere if we have not yet gotten back to you. We accept multiple submissions-up to three at a time, sent as separate emails. We will respond within two weeks with either a rejection or hold request. The rights we...

Submission Window: February 1st to May 1st 2023. Payment: £25 Theme: Cursed Objects Cursed Objects It's a dark and misty evening. A sale begins in an old, crooked auction house. The auctioneer has ten items available, once owned by a mysterious collector of obscure, supernatural items. We are looking for ten stories. Each tale should be based on an object, an auction buyer takes home or has delivered. A haunted painting? A cursed ring? A demon infested box? Let your imagination run wild. The call is open to all. February 1st until May 1st 2023. 3000, to 4000 word count. DOC, DOCx or FTF format. £25 paid for each accepted story. Please send submissions to [email protected] for consideration. Include your name or pen name, email address and word count in your cover letter. No child abuse, gore for the sake of gore, incest, rape, racism etc. No reprints please. Any questions, feel free to reach out. Via: Bloody Hatchet Press's Twitter.

Deadline: May 1st, 2023 Payment: $25.00 - $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 - $10.00 for poetry Theme: Story must begin with: "All the lawns on Mentone Avenue are mowed on Wednesdays." 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...

Submission Window: April 1st - May 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: Reparations Last Girls Club Summer Issue Theme is Reparations. The country I live in is founded with a deep blood debt that will continue to haunt us if we do not acknowledge it. Revisionist history cannot kill ghosts. Colonialism exists everywhere. What do reparations even look like? Please go to our website www.lastgirlsclub.com to get a feel for what we publish. Acceptances will be notified on May 15. 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...