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Deadline: January 1st, 2024 Payment: One cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) Theme: Fantastic Fiction You really NEED to read the description below. The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges. As a type of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined. Therefore, we're interested in stories by writers who write about what they don't know, take us places we couldn't possibly go, and don't try to make us care about the characters. We would also suggest you take a look at the current issue, archives, and theory (especially the essay, "What is irrealism?") pages on this web site. We accept unsolicited fiction up to 2,000 words in length. Translations are welcome. There is no minimum length. We accept only electronic submissions via e-mail at [email protected]. We cannot, due to the various computer viruses and worms, accept attachments anymore, so please paste your story into the body of the e-mail. Also include your name, address, e-mail address, and a short bio in the text of the submission; please put the word "submission" in the subject heading of the e-mail to ensure that your submission doesn't get lost among all the spam. We pay an honorarium of one cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) to buy first-time internet rights (the story will then be archived). Payment is made upon publication. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DON'T ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS and are only interested in reprints in unusual cases (e.g., the story has appeared in print but...

Deadline: January 1st, 2024 Theme: My Bloody Valentine: dark love stories, Tinder dates gone horribly wrong, bitter romance, a lover’s revenge, tragic love, etc. Payment: 8 cents a word for fiction and essays (1500 words or less). $25 – $50 per poem (depending on length). Includes one contributor copy. Book Worms Zine is selling out on Etsy and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. We have another issue planned for Winter 2024. This time around the theme is My Bloody Valentine: dark love stories, Tinder dates gone horribly wrong, bitter romance, a lover’s revenge, tragic love, etc. Dark humor is okay, but it should fit the themes of horror and romance. Specifically looking for original poetry (any length). Submission Guidelines Deadline: January 1, 2024 Payment is 8 cents a word for fiction and essays (1500 words or less). $25 – $50 per poem (depending on length). Includes one contributor copy. No reprints or multiple submissions please, including poems. Exclusive rights for six months after publication. ACCEPTING MAIL-IN SUBMISSIONS ONLY! Mail your submissions to: La Regina Studio/Grundy Commons/925 Canal Street/Bristol, PA 19007 *In the past, we’ve made some special allowances for writers living outside the USA. But due to the overwhelming amount of submissions we receive, we are now only accepting mail-in submissions. Acceptance notices are sent through email so there is no need to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Please include your email address with your submission. All submissions must be typed (cover letters preferred but not mandatory) and be properly formatted. Be sure to check out the Book Worms Horror Podcast and follow us on Instagram. Via: R. Saint Claire.

Submission Window: January 1st - 31st, 2024 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. 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! 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 authors and artists. We welcome, but do not require, a brief description of the author’s/artist’s identity in their cover letter. We invite you to submit if you 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...

Deadline: January 1st, 2024 Payment: $5 and a contributors copy Theme: Stories about everyday items that have become imbued with the curse just from existing in the home where the story takes place, details below! The Yardsale Anthology (Full title to be revealed at a later date). ‌ Open call: November 1st 2023 - January 1st 2024. ‌ Payment: $5 upon publication and one physical contributor copy. ‌ Adult Horror Anthology (no extreme horror or splatterpunk please) see more details below. ‌ 𝙿𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜: 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚎. 𝙰 𝚋𝚒𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚌𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚒𝚛. 𝙾𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚖 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚠, 𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚜𝚊𝚢. ‌ 𝙱𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚑𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚕; 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝙿𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝, 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗. ‌ 𝙰𝚝 𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚞𝚝. 𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊 𝚋𝚞𝚖𝚙 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝. ‌ 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚘 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚙, 𝚒𝚝’𝚜 𝚜𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚢. ‌ At this sale, every item carries a curse, simply for having existed in the home or on the property (more details on this part of the story to come later). All you need to know for now is that we are looking for stories about how the object of your choice acquired at our sale now affects its new owners. ‌ We are looking for more everyday items that have become imbued with the curse just from existing in this home. ‌ You may use any of the following terms: yard sale, garage sale, estate sale to refer to where you acquired your object/piece of furniture but please don’t spend any significant amount of time at the...

Submission Window: January 1st-2nd, 2024 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...

Submission Window: January 1st – January 7th, 2024 Payment: 3 cents per word for original fiction. 5k words = $150, 20 dollars for artwork chosen as interior content. Negotiable, 100 dollars for cover art. Negotiable. Theme: cosmic horror, Lovecraftian, and weird fiction and non-fiction essays that explore the state of horror as well as philosophies often found in cosmic horror Cosmic Horror Monthly is a horror and weird fiction magazine edited by Charles Tyra. Submission periods are twice yearly from January 1st – January 7th and July 1st – July 7th. January stories accepted will appear in issues July – December July stories accepted will appear in issues January – June SUBMISSION PROCEDURES We are now accepting non-fiction submissions as well as fiction. We would love to see non-fiction essays that explore the state of horror as well as philosophies often found in cosmic horror, i.e. pessimism, nihilism, existentialism, etc. Instructions: All writing must be submitted via email to [email protected]. When submitting, include a little background information about yourself in the body and attach the story in the form of a Microsoft Word file. Please include a word count and a brief synopsis of the work. For artwork, please put a link to the gallery/pieces in the body of the email along with any relevant background information. You may also attach example art. Acceptable file formats for attachments are DOC and DOCX for fiction, JPG, and PNG for art. The subject line of the email should read: “CHM Fiction Submission” for fiction, “CHM Non-Fiction Submission” for non-fiction, and “CHM Art Submission” for art. Guidelines Cosmic Horror Monthly is seeking cosmic horror, Lovecraftian, and weird fiction. If you aren’t sure if your work qualifies, submit it. No subject is off-limits and we do encourage writers to try and push the status...

Submission Window: December 1st 2023 - January 8th, 2024 Payment: $15 per poem, $0.01 per word ($40 minimum) for short stories, and $50 per art piece via PayPal Theme: Gothic stories, no set genre Opens on Friday, December 1, 2023 12:00 AM UTC (in 24 days) From December 1st - January 8th, Diet Milk Magazine will be accepting submissions for its Spring/Summer issue. We will be open to poetry, prose, and visual art of all kinds. While the most detailed information can be found on our website, here's a quick rundown of what potential contributors need to know! GENERAL GUIDELINES: All submissions must fall under the Gothic umbrella, but aren't required to be a specific genre No reprints or multiple submissions Simultaneous submissions permitted, though we ask to be informed promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere! Poetry/Prose submissions should be .doc, .docx, or .pdf // Art submissions should be .jpeg or .png If you receive a rejection, you may submit again (with new work) immediately P O E T R Y : Poets may submit up to three poems at a time. No single poem should exceed five pages in length. P R O S E : Authors may submit one short story at a time, up to 5000 words. This doesn't have to be on the dot, but stories exceeding 5025 words will be rejected automatically. A R T : Artists may submit up to two pieces at a time. We'll consider any type of visual art. If you're unsure whether or not your work falls into this category, query us first. Reach out to [email protected] using the subject line "QUERY: YourName ". We'll let you know within 24 hours if your preferred medium is eligible. Responses, Rights, & Payment Please allow up to three weeks for a response. After that, send a gentle nudge via email Diet Milk Magazine asks for first serial rights....

Submission Window: January 1st - 14th, 2023 Payment: Fiction: 1500-7500 words ($.08 per word, $100 minimum), Poetry: up to 5 poems or 5 pages of poems, whichever is shorter. ($40 per poem), Nonfiction: 1000-2000 words ($75 per essay or article, Cover Art: $100 for reprints, $200 for original unpublished, Interior Art: $50 for reprints, $100 for original unpublished Theme: Solarpunk is a prefigurative, utopian artistic movement that envisions what the future might look like if humanity solved major modern challenges like climate change, and created more sustainable and balanced societies. As a genre and cultural aesthetic, it encompasses literature, visual art, fashion, video games, architecture, and more. Solarpunk carries many aspects of punk ideologies such as rebelliousness, humanitarianism, egalitarianism, animal rights, decolonization, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, and anti-consumerism. Similar to the cyberpunk genre, the big difference between the two is that in solarpunk technology and nature are in harmony with one another rather than in conflict. Submissions are closed for the rest of 2023. Our 2024 submission window schedule will be published by the end of September. (At the moment, our nonfiction department is current and always open for submissions. If the fiction portal is closed and you submit fiction through the open nonfiction portal, your submission will be rejected.) All submissions to Solarpunk Magazine are done via Moksha. Any submissions received via email will be deleted without a response. Please don’t email us to describe your story and ask if it’s something we’d be interested in before submitting. We appreciate the consideration, but its easier if you just submit the story through Moksha. Please read the full submission guidelines on down below or on our Moksha page before submitting your work. All submission periods end at 11:59 pm PST on the 14th of their given month. 2024 Submission Window Schedule: January 1-14 April 1-14*...

Deadline: January 14th, 2024 Payment: $10 Theme: Space Opera Length: We prefer short, compressed stories that are nevertheless complete and cohesive narratives (1500 to 2500 words). These limits are firm. No more, no less. Stories over or under the limit will not be read. We mean it, friends! This limit serves two functions: (1) the limit is an artistic challenge. It takes skill to tell a compressed, punchy story. (2) We are an amateur publication and only pay a token honorarium, so save your longer works for better paying markets. Style: We prefer "dialog light, action heavy" fiction with vivid imagery that is unselfconsciously literary but nevertheless takes joy in an occasional technical word or pseudo-scientific jargon that immerses the reader in a sci-fi imaginary setting. Please eschew typographical emphasis and variation--e.g. bolding, italicizing, underlining (there are more artful ways of rendering verbal timbre). Questions? E-mail us at [email protected] Publication, payment, and rights: Issues will be published as .pdf files. If work is selected for publication in WAYSTATION, authors will (1) be paid an honorarium of $10 and (2) will be asked to provide, by contract, "First North American Serial Rights." In our opinion, this means that copyright is NOT transferred. All copyright stays with you, the writer; however, you will have sold/transferred a form of "exclusive use rights" called "First North American Serial Rights" (FNASR). This is the right to publish your unpublished work for the first time, and ONLY the first time, no more. The important thing to remember is that some professional publications may ask for FNASR upon acceptance of a specific work; you are not legally permitted to provide those for that specific work after publication in WAYSTATION, for you have already rendered their use to us. In other words, once you publish a work in WAYSTATION, that works' associated...

Deadline: January 15th, 2023 Payment: 1 cent per word and a contributors copy Theme: short stories to novelettes that are about death Note: Reprints from 2023 ONLY We want to read your death-related fiction! Psychopomp will be publishing Afterlives: The Year’s Best Death Stories 2023, curated by Vajra Chandrasekera Please read the full guidelines before submitting so you can learn about: what we’re looking for how much we’re paying what rights we are buying and how to submit Submission link below the guidelines. What We’re Looking For: We’re looking for stories specifically that have been published on and between January 1st 2023 through December 31st 2023, with a word count between 1,000 words and 19,000 words (so: short stories and novelettes) that are about death. This could mean exploring what happens to us after we die, traveling to the Underworld, Death gods, Death personified, metaphors for death, grieving, funerals, graves, stories based on death myths from cultures across the world, death magic, ghosts, resurrection, and so on. We specifically are not interested in stories that are centered around: the traditional Christian afterlife/pearly gates zombies Note: in our experience publishing The Deadlands, we know that a lot of people interpret “stories about death” to mean slasher/true crime/gore-y horror. We are not opposed to horror as a genre, but it should be ABOUT death, not just MURDERING PEOPLE. Stories should be previously published online, in print, in audio, or via email subscriber list, by an independent magazine or press. Stories published via your own Patreon, blog, or tumblr are not eligible. If the story will be printed before 12/31/23, but has not yet appeared, you may submit the work as soon as you have the final edited version. We will be accepting submissions through January 15, 2024. We DO encourage authors of historically marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds to...