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Deadline: March 31st, 2025 Prizes: First-place receives $200 and publication in the Confluence program book.*, Second-place receives $100, Third-place receives $50, Youth Story Prize receives $50 Theme: Roots The 29th annual Parsec Short Story Contest opens on January 1st and closes on March 31st. There is never a fee to enter the Parsec Short Story contest thanks to the donations from our members and supporters . . . people like you! Thank you for your support! If you would like to help support the annual contest, please make a donation here. Your donation ensures the continuation of this writing contest. VIEW PREVIOUS WINNERS HERE The 2025 Contest theme is “ROOTS” Roots. The point of origin, the source of life. Buried in earth and history, they are links to the unseen. Roots can crack stone and carry messages; they can bind us to solid ground or trip us up and send us sprawling. The 2025 Parsec Short Story Contest welcomes science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories that include all types of roots: family legends, genetic inheritance, plant-like aliens, root directories, symbiotic mycorrhizal systems . . . you get the idea. Convey the theme through setting, plot, characters, dialogue; the only limit is your imagination. The theme must be integral to the story in some way and not just mentioned in passing.   Please note: We do not accept stories written by AI! We trust you to honor this request. Any submissions known to be created using AI will be automatically disqualified. (Use of spell check and voice-to-text dictation tools are unobjectionable.) We welcome submissions from young writers for our Youth Story Prize! Teen writers age 19 or younger and currently attending high school may submit to either the main short story contest or to the youth story prize, but not both. Dates and Deadlines: Contest opens on...

Submission Window: March 1st - 31st, 2025 Payment: $500 advance and royalties Theme: Cosmic horror novellas by BIPOC authors Sobelo Books announces a cosmic horror novella call for BIPOC authors. BIPOC is generally intended to reflect people whose ethnicities or racial groups include: Black, Indigenous or Native American, Latino/a, Asian & Pacific Islander. If your ethnicity or racial group is not the majority in the country in which this novella will be published, the United States, this means you! Why are we doing this? To us, there is a difference between placing a welcome mat on the porch and opening the door. Sobelo Books is opening the door. Les and Lucas are on the couch, waiting for you. Don’t worry, there’s room between us. And don’t mind the dog, he’ll only bite if he doesn’t trust you or really wants to. We want to read the story only you can tell and are excited at the diverse perspectives this call will bring. Why cosmic horror? There’s more room in the horror sandbox than ever before, but there are some underexplored corners of it. Claim your corner. Plant your flag. What does cosmic horror mean for a person of color? Again, this is the story only you can tell. How will this call work? By HWA definition, a novella (long fiction by Stoker category) is less than 40K words. Whether you reach that word count or get close, it’s a significant investment of time and creativity. For this call, we want to see 2.5K words of your story. This could be a short story version of your novella or a chapter of it. In addition to this, we want your outline of the story. This will give us a sense of your voice and writing skill as well as an understanding...

Deadline: March 1st–31st, 2025 Payment: 1¢ per word for accepted stories (with a minimum of $20 regardless of length) Theme: Speculative fiction that explores connection, family, relationships, comfort, and the natural world. These submission guidelines our for our standard magazine issues. Are you in the right place? (Or are you looking for our anthology, Springtime Fair, submission guidelines?) Reading periods/When to send Submissions will be open as follows: March 1st–31st (closing at 10pm PST on the 31st), for a June release September 1st–30th (closing at 10pm PST on the 30th), for a December release What to send Hearth Stories publishes slice-of-life stories with a focus on nature, forests, connection, family, romance/relationships, and comfort/kindness. We are primarily focusing on stories set in a pre-industrial-revolution time period (or a fantasy world resembling such), preferably not in city settings. We accept works from 1,000 words up to 10,000. However, the ideal length may be something in the 1,500-3,500 word range. We do not currently accept poetry or non-fiction. We will potentially accept literary fiction (i.e. non-speculative work) if it takes place before ~1825 or so, please let us know in your cover letter if you are submitting a story that is not speculative (this is a new type of submission for us and we want to gauge interest). Things we are looking for Cozy, sweet, cute, kind, hopeful, and romantic stories (especially, but not limited to, queer romance) Medievalism, peasant life, arthurian-style settings and stories (without the war and combat), chivalry Rural/pastoral life, village fairs/festivals, herb gathering, traditional crafts (sewing, weaving, spinning), and song (include lyrics or sheetmusic if you have them) Works that take place in nature, wooded spaces, mountains, and fields, stories that feel like spring (or, really, involve or evoke any seasons in a meaningful way) Stories involving food and cooking. However, we are a vegan publication;...

Submission Window: March 1st - 31st, 2025 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...

Deadline: March 31st, 2025 Payment: Royalties Theme: Vampires that are doing good in unique and interesting ways (see below for more!) Submission Period: 1 January to 31 March 2025 Maximum Word Count: 8000 Submission Email: [email protected] “When Vampires Save the Day Night: Heroes, Anti-Heroes, and Not-So-Reformed Villains” is seeking nontraditional vampire stories for an anthology to be edited and released by Rebecca Buchanan. What do we mean by “nontraditional”? We want stories of vampires as beings of order, continuity, preservation, and conservation; beings concerned with their legacy, with their connection to humanity and the world at large. For example, — a vampire who guards a hidden library of banned and forgotten books; — a vampire with gardens of extinct plants and secret seed vaults scattered around the world; — a vampire linguist leading an expedition into the wilds of northern Canada to record a dying language; — a vampire who has dedicated their fortune to bringing back extinct animal species through genetic research; — a vampire archaeologist who tires of misinformation about their ancient birth civilization, and leads a dig to uncover it; — a vampire guarding an isolated wilderness from those who would exploit it; — a vampire anthropologist arranging for an endangered culture to be transported safely off-planet; — a vampire hematologist working to cure a blood-borne illness; — a vampire who offers shelter to the restless souls of suicide victims; — and more. We’re interested in fiction, essays, poetry, comics, recipes, plays, and more. Surprise us with your creativity! Draw from the world’s vast and varied vampire mythology and lore, but please don’t send in a rehash of “Dracula” or “Carmilla.” Yes, your vampire can and should still be scary — because they’re vampires, duh! And, yes, their vampiric nature must be a key narrative element in the story,...

Deadline: March 31st, 2025 Payment: $50 Theme: Your take on: where connections lead. Speculative stories welcome, if horror, gore needs to be off page We are seeking short stories for an anthology based on the theme of "Where Connections Lead." This theme invites writers to explore the connections between things, computers, people, events, ideas, or places, and the paths they create—whether they bring people together, reveal hidden truths, or lead down unexpected or even dangerous paths. This broad theme allows for both individual stories (e.g., a character seeking answers through the connections they make) and collective stories (how groups or communities bond, interact, or misunderstand each other). Stories can be any genre—mystery, dystopia, sci-fi, fantasy, literary fiction, horror, and beyond—such as a person piecing together clues, an exploration of connections in a futuristic society, or even unexpected interactions between ideas or technology. This is a broad umbrella meant to capture most stories. Take us on your journey. Send us your story if in doubt.  Guidelines: Word Count: 1,000 to 10,000 words (slightly longer considered) What would we love to see? Imaginative interpretations of the theme. How are connections impacting your world or character in exciting unexpected ways. Not interested in stories written by generative AI. This project is to support community of writer development. We want to develop your creativity and writing, not that of AI. Content: Safe for work. No explicit sex or graphic violence (if horror, graphic content should happen off-screen). Compensation: $50 per story following a successful Kickstarter. 50% of proceeds will support Second Life writing SIMs.  Support for Emerging Writers: We offer editorial help to bring accepted stories up to publication standard.  Submission Format: Submit to email below. Use standard manuscript format (e.g., Times New Roman 12 pt, double-spaced) in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format. Note: in-world note cards...

Deadline: March 31st, 2025 Payment: $1 Theme: Foil Submissions for the 100 Word Project from Manawaker Studio are open January thru May and July thru November. The 100 Word Project is an ongoing project focused on 100 word stories which will be published as a monthly, themed online journal and in a yearly print anthology. Each month (except for June and December) will bring a new prompt, and on the first half of the next month nine of the submitted drabbles for that prompt will be posted in the public-facing section of the Manawaker Patreon alongside one drabble from Manawaker EiC, CB Droege. At the end of the year, the ten stories from each of the ten prompts will be assembled into the next volume of the 100 x 100 series. The project is curated and edited by CB Droege. 100 x 100 is published by Manawaker Studio as part of their regular line of anthologies. Current prompt The Prompt for March 2025 is ‘Foil‘. The stories The only restrictions are that the stories are 100 words long (granting small leeway for different methods of counting, and not including the title (you don’t have to have a title, but we do like them)), previously unpublished, and written entirely by a person (We know it’s particularly tempting to get a generative AI to help meet the wordcount more precisely, but it’s totally against the spirit of our project.) The idea is that each contributor is writing a brand new story for each prompt as they are announced, but if you happen to have an unpublished drabble that already fits the theme, that works too. There are no genre requirements, but please keep content family friendly (No gore, no explicit sex, use profanity sparingly. General guideline: Would you feel uncomfortable reading the story to a group that includes at least one 12...

Deadline: March 31st, 2025 Payment: AUD 5c/word Theme: A military or action focus story with the theme of contagion SNAFU: Contagion, featuring action-filled tales of viral, fungal and bacterial horror. Whether it be giant brutish mutations, fungal infections gone wrong, or experimental nightmarish creatures made with super soldier experiments, it always ends with people fighting to survive the horrible, seeping creations that result from contagion and infection. Combine The Last of Us with Resident Evil, throw in some 28 Days Later and see what comes out of the mix! ​Authors we love who have written in this theme are: Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Anthony J Melchiorri, Jeremy Robinson, Jonathan Maberry, Michael McBride, James Cook, John O’Brien, to name a few. ​For film and TV content, we like the REC/REC2 double feature, Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Planet Terror, Doomsday, and loads of other content with creatures that want to kill the hell out of you (and have the unnatural mutations to do so). WHAT WE WANT ACTION-BASED HORROR: Please ensure the action is central to the story, from start to finish, and don’t forget monsters! It really should be in the style of military or paramilitary action. RANDOM THING: Please begin your cover email with ‘Hello Geoff (I read the guidelines)’. This is for two reasons. One, I hate being called Mr Brown. Two, I wanted to make sure you are reading these guidelines. No proper greeting, we won’t read your work. We will delete and not respond to your email. And to say it again, full action. Nothing less. Hoo-rah! We actively encourage submissions from all cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, and identities. Storytelling is for everyone, and we are richer for it when all voices are heard. WHAT WE DO NOT WANT AT ALL RAPE AS A PLOT DEVICE/BACKSTORY RACISM, BIGOTRY,...

Deadline: April 1st, 2025 Payment: Royalties Theme: Mad Scientists create their own peer journal because no legit journal will. Who’s ready to blast off from this dirty little rock? In this anthology, we explore the extremes of science and technology as our heroes make there way off of the little blue ball we call home. Theme: Mad Scientists create their own peer journal because no legit journal will. Concept: All original stories. You are writing as your mad scientist . The mad scientists of the multiverse have decided to create a science journal of their very own since all other journals (even World New Weekly) Genre: Pulp Mad Science Fiction Word Count: 5,000 – 10,000 Opening Essay by: To Be Determined Edited by: Doug Triplett Anchor Author: To Be Determined Due Date: April 1, 2025 Email Submissions to: [email protected] with “Eccentric Science” in the subject line Payment: Stories selected for publication in the upcoming Anthology(ies), will receive a percentage of sales divided equally between the contributing authors. 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 ***NOTE*** We publish genre fiction with aspects of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. If your work does not include one of these aspects, we are less likely to pick up the title unless it is of exceptional quality.   What we are NOT currently accepting: Poetry Single-author collections of short stories. Hard and fast rules of what not to send: Fan-fiction: Just simply don’t. It will be immediately deleted or tossed into the recycle bin. Gratuitous Sexuality: (i.e. smut, softcore porn) (Please, we know that there is a market out there for stories in this genre, but it’s not for us. Contact our affiliate, Tanglewood press for submissions...

Deadline: April 1st, 2025 Payment: 15GBP Theme: Rot (Vol 108) ROT, 1st April 2025 Begin the disintegration. Mind, body, society, the fabric of reality itself. Unearth beauty in the grotesque, the life that springs from decay, the renewal of all things. If you think you’ve got what it takes to terrify, scar and haunt our audience of 10,000 daily listeners, then we want your stories! If accepted, we'll get our fantastic narration team to lend their voices, our editor will sprinkle some magic pixie dust on the track, and you could have your story heard by thousands of listeners each week. *** WHEN WILL I HEAR IF MY STORY HAS BEEN ACCEPTED OR NOT? We carefully review every single submission that comes through our door. If you’ve submitted a story to us, please be patient. We WILL let you know if your submission has or hasn’t been successful. Having said that, if you haven’t heard anything up to twelve weeks after the deadline has passed, feel free to ping us an email to check in on it. Submission Guidelines • Stories must be 2,000 (10% tolerance +/-) • Save stories in a Word document - Times New Roman font, size 12 • Include a 1-2 sentence log line for your story at the end of the document • Ensure that your name and an email address are somewhere on the document • Stories must fit an upcoming theme • By submitting your story to us, you are confirming that you are the original creator of the story • We will consider entrants whose work has been entered and published elsewhere, however please ensure you state where and when your story has been used elsewhere on the document • You will be allowed to place one call-to-action for your own work...