Events

Submission Window: May 15th-31st, 2025 Payment: 2 cents per word Theme: Reprints of self-published horror stories Calling all self-published horror authors! Get those short stories ready! Open submissions begin next week for this brand-new anthology geared toward spotlighting the best in indie horror! In this unique collaboration project, Paul Carro and Candace Nola have teamed up to create a new opportunity for self-published authors! The incredibly talented Laurel Hightower is on-board to write the foreword, and the book will be published in all formats by Uncomfortably Dark Horror. Self (S)care Submission Guidelines This is a paid opportunity for self-published horror stories only. To be eligible: stories must have been published and be available for ordering, download or purchase within 2025, on a platform such as Godless, Google Books, D2D platforms or Amazon. Submission Windows: There will be four submission windows. First & last windows will be slightly longer. No submission will be accepted outside of these windows. 1.      May 15 through May 31 2.      Aug. 15 through Aug. 20 3.      Nov. 15 through Nov. 20 4.      Dec. 15 through Dec. 31   Submission Process: Document cover page should contain Story Title and Word Count only.  Standard formatting (size 12 font, Times New Roman, 1.5 spacing). No identifying information can be on the story document. Email submission to: [email protected] with SELF (S)CARE in subject line with your story title. Email body must contain your story title, word count, and prior publication details, including original date of publication, where it is available, and if it was a solo title or part of a collection. One submission per author. (No Exceptions). Word Count: 8500 max.   Other Details: Reprints only. The selected stories will be paid at .02 per word. Anticipated Release Date is April 15, 2026. Anthology will be produced as an...

Deadline: May 31st, 2025 Payment: $0.08 CAD per word for short fiction (500-3,500 words) and $60 CAD flat per poem Theme: Speculative fiction focused on long-term friendships and relationships. We're looking for short fiction and poetry focused on long-term relationships: platonic, romantic, or familial. We don't want the blaze of new love or the obsession of a new friend. We want pieces that show that comfort that develops when people know each other for years. Give us deep space, dusty frontiers, or dreamy fantasy. We want stories and poetry with strong, confident relationships amid all the sci-fi/fantasy. While we are primarily looking for stories with happy endings (yeah, yeah), we also want endings that are earned. If things get a little teary or gory, that's ok. We are especially interested in stories featuring queer platonic relationships, ace/aro love stories, and polycules. Payment Payment is $0.08 CAD per word for short fiction (500-3,500 words) and $60 CAD flat per poem. We are purchasing first publication rights, to revert back to the author after one year. Canadian Writers Since Heartlines Spec is primarily a Canadian magazine, we're looking to feature writers identifying as being from Canada/Turtle Island. This includes expats, refugees and displaced people living in Canada, new immigrants, and people who refuse/resist Canadian Identity. Heartlines welcomes submissions from writers of all identities. If you are comfortable, we encourage writers to indicate their intersections in their cover letter. Disclosure is not a requirement to submit, and we recognize that not all people are safe to disclose their identities. We are committed to addressing barriers and systemic discrimination faced by equity-deserving groups, which includes (but is not limited to): Racialized people People with disabilities LGBTQIA+ people Indigenous people Women Neurodivergent people Our goal for each issue is to publish at least 50% Canadian content. Submission...

Deadline: May 31st, 2025 Payment: $1 Theme: 100-word drabble involving: Troll 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 in 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 (An audio edition will be available to Patreon patrons as a subscriber perk). 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 to be published as a print, digital, and audio book. 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 May 2025 is ‘Troll‘. 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...

Deadline: June 1st, 2025 Payment: 2 cents per word for fiction, 3 words per word for poetry Theme: The history and power of Memento Mori artifacts or relics Memento Mori Ink Magazine, in collaboration with Crystal Lake Publishing has issued an open call for submissions to our 2026 anthology. In this collection, we explore the power of Memento Mori artifacts or relics. We want ancient objects or seemingly mundane items which have the power to whisper to those who possess them. We are looking for character-driven stories with a focus on the history and source of power behind their chosen object which must be tied to the afterlife, the passage of time, or the thin veil separating the living from the dead. As these objects reveal their secrets, characters must confront their deepest fears and the inevitable reality of their own mortality. Submission Guidelines: Short Stories: 3,000–5,000 words Poetry: 250–1,500 words (accepting three poetry pieces for this anthology) Compensation: Short Stories: $0.02 per word Poetry: $0.03 per word Important Details: •Deadline: June 1, 2025 •No reprints or simultaneous submissions •Email and word count at the top of your document •Payment via PayPal or Zelle upon acceptance; please include preferred payment method and details under your email •Submit a 100-word bio and a black-and-white photo •No AI-generated content; originality is essential Acceptance letters will go out approximately September 1, 2025 but we reserve the right to move this date. Submit here: https://form.jotform.com/243066993006055 Via: Memento Mori Ink Magazine's Facebook.

Deadline: June 1st, 2025 Payment: 15GBP Theme: Eldritch (Vol 110) ELDRITCH, 1st June 2025 Peel back the curtain of reality and reveal the ultimate indifference and the horror of the infinite beyond. 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 at the end of the episode. Be sure to...

Deadline: June 1st, 2025 Payment: AU 1c/word Theme: What happens to a person after a major transformation Submissions open until 1st June 2025 The Morning After is an anthology about what happens after a sudden transformation. This could be an individual person transforming into something new or a mass change that effects humanity as a whole. How does this person or society react to no longer being human? As an editor, I am keen to see how people react in this unique situation. Focus on struggles and adaptation to new forms are highly encouraged. Despite the name of the anthology, the story does not need to begin with waking up in this new reality - but it should start shortly after the transformation has taken place. Submission guidelines Stories should be within 2000 words and 10,000 words. Please enquire with stories above or below this wordcount. Stories may be of any age rating including explicit 18+ stories. Stories may be of any genre so long as they include the transformation elements. As a variation to our usual guidelines, authors do NOT need to be trans, non binary, or female. Cis male authors are encouraged to submit. Payment will be AU 1c/word. Original/unpublished stories only for this anthology. how to submit Submissions should be sent to [email protected] Please use the subject format of: MORNING AFTER SUBMISSION: , by . Include the story as a .doc or .docx file attachment. Via: Transcendent Fiction Publishing.

Submission Window: April 15th - June 1st, 2025 Payment: 40% royalties for net eBook sales with a chance to increase to 50% should a specific threshold of sales be met. Theme: Novels and novellas in dark fiction, horror, dark romance, and horror romance. Publishing Opportunities for 2026 We are happy to announce that our focus for 2026 is to highlight the voices of underrepresented Canadian authors. We are seeking submissions from Canadian authors who identify as BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, or are from marginalized communities. We are seeking two novels or novellas in the genres of dark fiction, dark romance, horror romance, or horror, to be published in the latter half of 2026. If you are a Canadian author with a unique story to tell, we encourage you to submit your work for consideration. Let's bring your voices to the forefront of the literary world. Our submission window will be from April 15 - June 1. We are seeking completed manuscripts. Eerie River Publishing only publishes a handful of novels a year. Regrettably, this means we will have to pass on some fantastic writing. We wish we could publish them all but the truth is we wouldn't be able to put the resources needed behind each project to make them a success. And that is what we are here to do. We are an inclusive company that accepts submission from anyone regardless of race, gender or sexuality. We accept agented and non-agented submissions during our submission window. What are we looking for?IN DARK FICTION ​​ We are seeking high-quality, novel and novellas in dark fiction, horror, dark romance,  and horror romance.  ​ We want unique, well-crafted stories with compelling plots, terrifying twists, and entertaining characters, for mature audiences. Give us your grim, heart-wrenching twist. The perfect story would balance the light and...

Submission Window: May 1st - June 1st, 2025 Payment: $5 Theme: Poetry or short fiction about the Gods and Goddesses and heroes of the world’s many Pagan/polytheist traditions that somehow features Music Summer Solstice 2025: Music. Submission Period: 1 May through 1 June 2025. Jazz and blues. Rock and opera. Ballads and filk songs. Music has been an integral element of human creativity and culture since we first learned to carve holes into bones. Send us your best poems, short stories, and essays about music — in all its forms — from a Pagan/polytheist, witchy, and mythological point of view. Send us poems about the duel between Apollo and Marsyas, Bragi wooing Idun, and Pan stalking a poacher with madness-inducing pipe music. Send us short stories about a desperate musician making a crossroads deal with Dionysus, a composer praying to Hymen for inspiration, an archaeologist uncovering a temple and sacred instruments of Kothar-wa-Khasis. Send us essays about Väinämöinen as archetypal musician, Mozart’s opera Apollo et Hyacinthus, and the rise of the modern Pagan music scene. What is Eternal Haunted Summer? EHS is an ezine dedicated to 1) original poetry and 2) short fiction about the Gods and Goddesses and heroes of the world’s many Pagan/polytheist traditions. We feature 3) reviews of books, graphic novels, academic journals, magazines, movies, plays, and so forth which have a Pagan focus, or which otherwise might interest our Pagan readership. And 4) interviews with established and new Pagan authors, or authors of texts that interest a Pagan audience. And finally, 5) essays concerning the Gods, Goddesses, heroes, myths and folklore of the world. What do we mean by “original?” The submission must not have been previously published in hardcopy, or on another ezine, or website, or blog. Since people often discuss their writing on email lists and messageboards,...

Deadline: June 1st, 2025 Payment: $10 and a contributors copy Theme: New and unique takes on the legends and realities of the Lizzie Borden story Everyone knows the legend of Lizzie Borden, especially the dark nursery rhyme...   Lizzie Borden took an axe Gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, Gave her father 41 Riverdale Avenue Books has teamed up with the Historical Lizzie Borden house to put together an anthology of stories, under the direction of award-winning horror author Sèphera Girón, who has visited the house multiple times over the past few decades. The “Official” Story of the Lizzie Borden House Lizzie Borden was born in 1860 in Fall River, Massachusetts. Since her mother had died when she was young, she had been at odds with her stepmother, Abby, who she and her older sister, Emily, believed married her father for his wealth. Their father, Andrew, was a prominent developer in Fall River. Lizzie grew up an upstanding member of her community, being heavily involved in the church and performing services for the poor. As Lizzie grew older, the tension between the parents and the daughters grew. Lizzie and Emily remained unmarried, bringing negative attention to the family from their peers and the sisters were critical of the way their father was distributing his wealth to their stepmother’s family.. The story says that Lizzie, blind with rage, hacked her father and stepmother to death in the house. The trial that followed became one of the most sensationalized courtroom cases in American history, attracting hundreds of tourists to Fall River. Lizzie was acquitted due to lack of evidence and reasonable doubt although the fact that she destroyed the clothes she wore have convinced some of her guilt. She lived the rest of her life in relative anonymity, but...

Deadline: June 1st, 2025 Payment: $5 for poetry sets (up to 5 pages), $10 for flash fiction (up to 1000 words), $25 for fiction stories up to 5000 words, +$2/1000 words for over 5000 for fictions stories up to 10,000 words Theme: Canadian authors telling stories about community: finding it, building it, maintaining it, being expelled from it. SF and F are called out as acceptable, no word on H so probably a hard sell This anthology’s theme is “It Takes a Village” – I’m looking for stories about community: finding it, building it, maintaining it, being expelled from it. How do we build our villages as adults? How do we grow connections with those around us? What do we do when we’ve lost them? We’ve heard the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child” but also “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” How do we tackle these emotions as adults? As this is a bit trickier of an anthology theme than the last one, the reading period is going to be much longer, and the final evolution of the anthology’s theme will come from what the overarching theme and tone from the submitted and accepted pieces create. What I am looking for: Poems, flash fiction, short stories, science fiction, fantasy, romance, literary, contemporary, and more. We want a wide variety of fictional stories! Works from Canadian writers/authors only, with some preference for writers from British Columbia. Special consideration/interest for writers who are Former Foster Youth or Adopted Flash Fiction up to 1000 words Short Stories up to 10000 words – very limited spots for over 5000-word stories Poetry sets of up to 5 pages Polished works – please don’t send your first draft. Make sure to...