Events

Submission Window: September 15th to October 15th, 2023 Payment: 3 cents per word Theme: Speculative Fiction in the science fiction or fantasy variety Note: The first week of submissions (March 15-21 and Sept 15-21) is reserved for writers of color. We are open annually for submissions from March 15th through April 15th for our August issue, and from September 15th through October 15th for our February issue. The first week of submissions (March 15-21 and Sept 15-21) is reserved for writers of color. The remainder of the window will be for general submissions. If you’re a writer of color who submits during that first week and you hear back from us before the general window closes, you’re welcome to send a second submission during that time. We are not interested in machine-generated (AI/LLM) characters, plots, or text of any kind. Spellcheckers and grammar checkers that run off machine learning are absolutely fine by us (though we also don’t want you to let a machine strip out your natural writing voice in the name of someone else’s idealized grammar!) WHAT TO SUBMIT The short version: We pay $0.03 per word with a minimum of $20 in exchange for first world electronic rights in English. We ask for an exclusivity period of 3 months from date of publication. Maximum 5,000 words. Your story must contain speculative elements: that means science fiction or fantasy. We do not accept nonfiction. No simultaneous submissions. Only one submission per writer per open period. Save your manuscript as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf and email it as an attachment to [email protected]. As far as manuscript formatting goes, use a readable 12-point font (we like Times New Roman and Courier just fine but we’re not unreasonably picky). Italicize your italics and please double-space; we’re reading on screens and a little white space goes a long way....

Deadline: October 15th, 2023 Payment: 6 cents per word Theme: Fun and thought-provoking stories about magical animal familiars and their humans. A collection of fun and thought-provoking stories about magical animal familiars and their humans. Familiars can be feisty felines or other imaginative animals. This is the fifth anthology put together by the Publishing masters degree students at Western Colorado University, taught by bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and award-winning editor Allyson Longueira, funded by Draft2Digital. Previous anthologies include Monsters, Movies, and Mayhem; Unmasked; Gilded Glass; and the just-released Merciless Mermaids: Tails from the Deep. See the examples at http://wordfirepress.com/gpcw Please read the Guidelines carefully. Submission Guidelines for FEISTY FELINES AND OTHER FANTASTICAL FAMILIARS We're familiar with familiars ... or are we? Gifted adventurers across time and space have traveled with an animal familiar—often a cat, but other fuzzy, scaly, or prickly creatures make appearances, too. These magical companions might lead their humans into mischief, help them out of a sticky situation, or provide opinionated commentary along the way. But when the wizards are away, the familiars will play. Feisty Felines and Other Fantastical Familiars is an original collection that shines the limelight on the sidekicks, the familiars. Familiars have lives of their own, a sense of humor, and a shadowy underbelly that we totally overlook. Does the Siamese cat companion develop powers of telekinesis … maybe to knock deadly potions off the counter? What happens when a rat studies to become a familiar in a class full of cats? Is the circus leopard really the puppet master who makes her handler look good? They don’t all have to be felines. What about unfamiliar familiars? A time-traveling elephant that never forgets a grudge against his warlock? A lowly earthworm horrified to find itself bonded for life to an ungrateful enchanter? Now it's time for these fantastical...

Deadline: October 15th, 2023 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: Cosmic horror and weird tales written by marginalized peoples whose experiences and worldviews have influenced their interpretation of dread. BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF INFINITY is an anthology, edited by Vaughn A. Jackson & Stephanie Pearre, of cosmic horror and weird tales written by marginalized peoples whose experiences and worldviews have influenced their interpretation of dread. The anthology hopes to bring these diverse perspectives to the forefront of the horror community and, of course, make Lovecraft roll over in his grave! We are looking for original short stories of weird fiction and cosmic horror that coil up inside us and leave us begging (and fearing) for more. Any genre is fair game so long as it has a twisted knot of horror for a heart. While stories may contain violence, sexuality, and religion, we are not looking for extreme/splatter-punk, erotica, non-fiction, or religious diatribes. Submission Window: September 15th – October 15th. Stories submitted before or after these dates will be deleted without being opened. Word Count: 2000 – 4000 words. There is a limited amount of flexibility to these, but the farther outside of this range you go the less likely we are to choose your story. Simultaneous Submissions: Yes. Just let us know in your email, and update us if the story is selected elsewhere. Multiple Submissions: No. One submission per person. Target Age Group: Mature Readers Rights: World English first rights in print, electronic, audio, and ebook, including a six-month exclusivity period. All copyright belongs to the author. Response Time: We hope to make selections and respond to authors within 1-2 Months from the close of submission. Pay Rate: 8 cents per word. Diversity – Our definition of diversity includes: Persons of Color Persons of Native American Heritage Persons identifying as LGBTQIA+ Persons with disabilities Neurodivergent persons Women Persons adhering to...

Deadline: October 15th, 2023 Payment: $10 CAD Theme: The death spiral of a great metropolis. MYRIAD is a zine series designed to give experience to emerging editors. Each subscriber-exclusive digital zine features five flash fiction pieces selected to fit a theme chosen by a guest-editor. The death spiral of a great metropolis. What happens when cities are stripped of their purpose? We’re looking for stories of the monsters that lurk in the skeletons of brutalist structures. The strange rituals of those who found ways of surviving. Labyrinths of crumbling stone. Spirits inhabiting a dilapidated ballroom. Plants flourishing in abandoned train stations. Chimaeras stalking the ruins of a long forgotten urban landscape. The cities can be real or imaginary. The editor has a fondness for strange stories which embrace ambiguity. Think weird for this call. As always, Hexagon encourages submissions from diverse backgrounds, such as LQBTQ+, BIPOC, ESL, disabled, neurodivergent and working class authors. You are welcome here. This call is open to original speculative fiction up to 1,000 words. Please submit in Shunn manuscript format. No multiple submissions, simultaneous submissions are OK, but please let us know if the piece is accepted elsewhere. Necropolis will be guest-edited by R.L. Summerling and available exclusively for subscribers of Hexagon Magazine in Winter 2023. All accepted authors will be paid a $10 CAD flat rate via Paypal and sent a PDF contributor copy. Submissions open September 15th. Deadline to submit for general submission is October 15th. An extended window for authors from marginalised communities runs from 16th-21st October. Submit here for NECROPOLIS! Via: Hexagon Magazine.

Deadline: October 16th, 2023 Payment: $10 and a contributor's Copy if in the US Theme: A collection of Pagan Yule Time Tales in any genre OPEN NOW - YULE - a collection of Yule Time Tales Submissions Open September 11 Close October 16 Word count 2,500 to 8,000 Pay: $10 payment and a contributors copy Paperback for US residence Ebook for Non-US residence Please read and Follow All Guidelines Carefully or your story may be discarded without being read. Story should be sent as a separate .doc or .docx attachment, Formatted in Shunn format style Cover letter and bio should be in the body of the email. Title your file and subject YULE-Authorname-title Email your submission to [email protected] "In winter everything lies dormant in the silent earth, it is a sacred time of rest and reflection before the awakening, and the slow build toward brighter days." We are looking for submissions of Pagan Yule stories, not Christmas stories. All genres are welcome, as long as it is Yule and Solstice centered. The winter solstice is the longest night of the year, but the light will return by degrees after that December night. We want stories about what happens in those dark and still winter months. Stories of transformation and growth. Stories of the winter witch, cold forests, elves and magical places. Old ghost stories. Some specifics we are looking for include: Creative nonfiction (aka narrative nonfiction or literary nonfiction) will also be accepted. Including stories of sympathetic or contagious magik to lure back the sun. Modern tellings of the fight between the Oak and Holly Kings. The Roman celebration of Saturnalia for the god Saturn and the Iranian celebration of Shab-e Yalda for Mithras Krampus stories but no graphic abuse toward children No stories of appropriation or using a specific culture’s god as...

Submission Window: November 1st - 21st, 2023 Payment: $80 per story Theme: 500- to 1000-word speculative fiction stories with crisp prose, well-developed characters, compelling plots, and satisfying resolutions. Our submission portal for original stories is OPEN from the 1st to the 21st of each month* unless we reach our submission cap of 425 stories. We are committed to publishing stories written and edited by humans. We reserve the right to reject any submission that we suspect to be primarily generated or created by language modeling software, Chat GPT, chat bots, or any other AI apps, bots, or software. We reserve the right to ban submissions from accounts, emails, or users who we believe or suspect have submitted AI-generated content. We are looking for complete 500- to 1000-word stories with crisp prose, well-developed characters, compelling plots, and satisfying resolutions. We want stories that engage our minds and emotions. We publish across many genres, including speculative (science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and horror) and literary fiction. For more information on the type of stories we enjoy, please read a few issues and check out our "What We're Looking For" page. FORMATTING: Please format your submission in a double-spaced, 12pt Times New Roman or other serif-type font (NO Courier), with standard 1" margins and black font on an unadorned, white background. No PDF submissions.  No Images and no graphics. ANONYMOUS SUBMISSIONS: Do not include your name, address, email, or other identifying information on your manuscript (header, byline, file name, etc). SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: Please do not submit works that are currently under consideration elsewhere MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: You may submit one original and one reprint story concurrently (multiple submissions), but may not submit more than 1 original and 1 reprint simultaneously. QUERIES: You can check on the status of your submission at any time via your Submittable account. If, after 8 weeks, your submission is still marked as "in-progress," you may email [email protected] with QUERY in the subject...

Deadline: October 22nd, 2023 Payment: $20 AUD Theme: Apocalyptic stories featuring neurodivergent characters Note: Australian and New Zealand authors who identify as neurodivergent EMBRACE THE SILENCE: A Neurodivergent Anthology is now open for submissions. We want apocalyptic stories featuring neurodivergent characters, and we welcome submissions from all Australian and New Zealand authors who identify as neurodivergent, and will also encourage submissions from neurodivergent Indigenous and LGBTIQ authors. EMBRACE THE SILENCE will be assembled – from the cover to the footnotes – by a team of neurodiverse individuals, including the wonderful E. J. Dawson and the sleep deprived Austin P. Sheehan. The anthology will be open to all speculative fiction subgenres (an apocalypse can occur as easily in a fantasy realm as it can on a futuristic earth), and we should advise that an apocalypse need not be all doom and gloom – tales of hope, strength, and survival are encouraged. The idea behind the title EMBRACE THE SILENCE refers to characters accepting and embracing their neurodiversity, as well as adapting to a changing and challenging new world. We encourage you to be as creative as you like in your approach to the theme. Our preferred length for short stories is between 4,000 and 6,000 words, however this is just a guideline, we won’t auto-reject stories based on word count alone. Submissions will open on July 1st and close at midnight on Sunday the 22nd of October. Please only submit unpublished pieces. We will not be accepting AI-written stories. We will be paying contributors $20 each when the anthology is published. Please send you submissions to [email protected] with the story title, word count and ‘EMBRACE’ in the subject line. (Pleased to Unmeet You – 4,000 words – EMBRACE) We can’t wait to read your stories!   Via: Dead Set Press.

Free Submission Window: September 22nd - October 22nd, 2023 Payment: $50 Theme: Stories about how we seek out, discover, and grasp onto connection Note: This market alternates between free and pay periods, The next free window is listed above At Astrolabe, we’re looking for work about how we seek out, discover, and grasp onto connection. Into the woods. Across a line. Beneath the ocean. Along a seam. Into the branches of an alternate present or the crevasse of an alternate future. Across the rifts between one another. And then, once we find one other, the myths we make. We’re excited to see as many interpretations of this broad theme as there are stars in the night sky. We’re open to work of all genres, with a particular fondness for anything that moves beyond realism in form or content or spirit. Read about Astrolabe for details on our mission and what we’re doing with the Universe. The details Astrolabe is open for submissions year-round. We pay a $50 honorarium upon publication of one or more pieces from your submission. To help fund those payments, we alternate between free and paid submission periods throughout the year. Our free periods begin the day we publish new work—on the spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox, and winter solstice—and stay open for a month. Here are the free periods for 2023: March 20th to April 20th June 21st to July 21st September 22nd to October 22nd December 21st to Jan 21, 2024 Some additional details: We currently accept three types of work: fiction, creative nonfiction, and photography & art. See below for genre-specific instructions. We’re not a market for lineated poetry at the moment. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please let us know if your work was accepted for publication elsewhere—we’ll be thrilled for your good news! No multiple submissions—and if we...

Submission Window: October 23rd-30th, 2023 Payment: €0.01 per word, with a €20 minimum Theme: Diverse sci-fi and fantasy fiction. Submissions received outside of these dates will unfortunately be lost and therefore not responded to. When open, we seek and offer the following: Length: 1,000-5,000 words. These are firm limits, not absolute ones. Generally speaking, the further a story goes beyond these bounds the more it will need to impress, but the door is not shut in advance. Compensation: €0.01 per word, with a €20 minimum. Please be aware that payment is via PayPal only. If you do not receive an acknowledgment within 24 hours of submission, please get in touch. We aim to accept or reject within 14 days of acknowledgment, but rl (real life) and rl (reading load) can get in the way. If you do not hear from us after 30 days, feel free to query. REQUIREMENTS We acquire First Print and Digital rights with a six month period of exclusivity from the date of publication. We also ask permission to potentially include accepted pieces in future anthologies; in event of agreement, an additional payment and digital copy will be offered in compensation. All other rights remain entirely with the author. Simultaneous submissions are not only accepted, they are encouraged. Please tell us if you sim-sub, and we merely ask that you notify us of acceptance at another market as soon as possible. In the event that we accept first, we expect a positive and timely confirmation. Therefore we recommend sim-subbing to markets of equivalent status – we won’t wait for someone else you’d like better to turn you down. If a story has previously been rejected by Mythaxis, please do not resubmit or inquire regarding doing so, unless explicitly invited to by the editor during the original rejection. Feedback: Unfortunately, due to...

Deadline: October 31st, 2023 Payment: $0.01 CAD per word Theme: Cryptids of all kinds! Engen Books is now accepting submissions to the latest From the Rock anthology, for release in 2024. Editors Ellen Curtis and Erin Vance are accepting submissions for short fiction under 7000 words that focus on cryptids, animals whose existence permeate urban myths but are not recognized within the scientific community.  Popular cryptids include Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Mothman, the Ogopogo, the Jersey Devil, and the Loveland Frog, but stories concerning lesser known cryptids or creatures of the writer’s own imagination are also welcomed. ​ Stories for this collection might include close encounters with a cryptid, dealing with a cryptid hoax, be written as a horrifying ordeal, or as historical fiction. Writers are encouraged to let their imagination play, but we ask that you read the following carefully before submitting. ​ As always, the From the Rock collections are intended to highlight the fantastic, varied writers Newfoundland and Labrador has fostered. When submitting, we request that authors indicate if they are current or former residents of the province, and if their story is linked to the province in any way (though it need not be). While we will accept submissions from across Canada and internationally, authors with a connection to the province are given preference for this series, and this information will be given to editors during the jurying process. ​ As with all content at Engen Books, misogynistic, racist, ethnocentric, homophobic, or transphobic messaging will result in the submission being rejected and may result in the author being barred from future submissions. Authors should take care to avoid cultural appropriation or fetishization of historically marginalized and underrepresented groups and are responsible for avoiding the use of harmful stereotypes in their submissions. In an effort to...