Events

Deadline: July 31st, 2024 Payment: 50% cut of net royalties Themes: Traditional/classic/high fantasy stories We are delighted to report that we will be opening for submissions on June 1st! The window for submissions will remain open until July 31st, and we will be reviewing all types of work from novels to flash fiction, or anything in between. Please keep in mind what we at OMAM do, and do not, publish. We want traditional fantasy stories. By this, we are largely focused on classic fantasy settings, as in second-world and pre-modern. We don’t want anything with modern technology (electricity, cars, modern weapons, magical doors in the London Underground, lovestruck vampires brooding on the roofs of skyscrapers, etc). Also, we do not want stories set on Earth, whether historical or mythological. That being said, our focus on classic settings does not at all preclude the exploration of new ideas inside those settings. Issues of class, sex, gender, racism, mental health, education, economics, politics, war, trauma are all welcome. Indeed, we find that pre-modern, second-world settings are often idea for exploring such topics without being bogged down by technology or earthbound inferences. That being said, your story does not need to have a heavy social moral. If you just want to write a story about a hero who does hero stuff, that’s fine by us. Just make sure you have a great character arc, since character is what drives traditional fantasy. Now, let’s dive into the details. What are we looking for? OMAM would like to pick up a limited number of full-length projects for publication in 2025. These can include novels, novellas, short story collections, or the like. The number of projects we accept will largely depend on the combined length. For this reason, among others, we have a slight preference for novella length...

Submission Window: July 1st - 31st, 2024 Payment: 1 cent per word Theme: Stories with traditional historical and mythological settings from heroic fantasy, but they will have a lot more nudity, sex, and gore than what you usually see published Hi! My name is J. Manfred Weichsel, and I am an author and editor who has self-published twelve really wild books. I would like to invite you to submit your scandalous adventure story to my latest anthology. “Sword & Scandal” is a play on the popular Italian sword and sandal genre of epic films. These will be stories with traditional historical and mythological settings from heroic fantasy, but they will have a lot more nudity, sex, and gore than what you usually see published. They will be subversive without becoming Grimdark and will retain the sense of fun you would want from a pulp adventure, and the sense of wonder you would want from a weird tale. If you have read my books, then you know that I am an experimental author who takes big risks with everything he does. Unlike other publishers who tend to play it safe with their selections, I am looking for the wild, strange, and outrageous. So, if you have an off-beat or off-the-wall idea rattling around in your head, but which you have been afraid to write because you don't think you can place it, now is the time! I believe that literature should be dangerous, and I want to provide you with a safe space to write unsafe fiction. Humor is also a big part of what I do. I am actively looking for stories that incorporate a similar sense of humor as mine: dry, sardonic, and satirical. But any type of humor is acceptable and encouraged, from farce to surreal humor, to...

Submission Window: July 1st - 31st, 2024 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: July 31, 2024 Payment: Royalties and Digital Copy Theme: Scary Campfire Stories You're sitting around the campfire; it's dark, the moon is high in the sky, the wind is whistling through the trees, and the sense of isolation is pervasive. You hear a twig snap in the darkness, everyone is tense. What's the story you tell your friends to terrify them? What's in the dark, stalking the camp: an axe murderer, a werewolf, or something so far beyond our mortal understanding that just the sight of it will drive each of us insane? Tell me a ghost story, I want to be afraid and I want everyone reading to be afraid of what they'll read yet feel brave enough to turn the page. Submission Requirements: This will be a horror anthology, so tell me a scary story. Content doesn’t entirely matter but it should make sense (I do not object to erotica or gore if it makes sense, stories should include a content warning if it's appropriate), which means the story should be a complete story. I’m not looking for any story that attacks a specific ethnic group, gender, religion, etc (if your story is about a ghost that only attacks women, that’s different, I’m talking about pure hate speech); if I read it I’ll reject it. The deadline is July 31; I’ll strive to make a final decision by August 10, and contracts will be sent out soon after with a 2 week deadline (the sooner they come in, the sooner the book goes to the printer). I am one person so, while I’ll strive to contact everyone who submits, that’s not always possible. The distributor is Draft2Digital which primarily releases ebooks but also offers print books to physical retailers (it’s a large market that includes Amazon, Barnes...

Deadline: July 31st, 2024 Payment: 2 Contributors Copies Theme: Tales from the darkside. Its contents range in tone from the quiet horror of Shirley Jackson to the bleak stylings of Thomas Ligotti — and everything in between. Note: Chthonic Matter Quarterly is open to submissions. Close date is July 31st, 2024. Chthonic Matter is a quarterly offering of tales from the darkside. Its contents range in tone from the quiet horror of Shirley Jackson to the bleak stylings of Thomas Ligotti — and everything in between. In order to better understand the type of fiction I am looking for, be sure to review my previous series, Nightscript. All eight volumes are available for “free” via Kindle Unlimited. Each edition of Chthonic Matter will include eight stories. New editions will appear at the outset of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, and will be published in paperback and eBook formats. Authors should submit their original tales (between 2,000 and 6,000 words) via the email provided below and allow up to two months for a response. > Submit: .doc or .pages files to: [email protected]  Send only one story per submission — and, please, no reprints. Simultaneous submissions are welcome — just let me know. Payment is two contributor copies. Thank you for your interest, and I look forward to reading your work! C.M. Muller, editor & publisher Via: Chthonic Matter.

Deadline: July 31st, 2024 Payment: $20 and a contributor's copy Theme: A store that takes place in the 1980s or 1990s that features a porcelain doll found in a unique private collection, details below Deadline: July 31st, 2024 at 11:59pm CST Length: 5,000-10,000 words   Format: Must be submitted as a Google Doc file which must have [email protected] as an owner with editing turned on. You will provide the shareable link in the form upon submission. Use only one tab and do not use spaces to start a new paragraph. Do not write "The End" at the end of the story. In the header, please include the following: 1) your name, 2) the title of the story, and 3) the word count of the story. Submissions that do not follow these guidelines will not be read.   Compensation: Selected authors will receive (1) contributor mass market paperback copy of the anthology as well as a one-time payment of $20, along with two copies of the audiobook, and a copy of the ebook. You will also receive a discount on author copies when purchasing through Terrorcore.   International Submissions: While Terrorcore Publishing loves receiving submissions from international writers, the truth is that is very costly to ship items across the world. At this time, we ask that if you are international (outside of the U.S.A.) that you provide the difference. Terrorcore will pay at most $10 to ship the contributor copy and anything in excess will need to be covered by the author. In lieu of shipping the item, international writers can receive $25 (which is the standard commission + the cost of the one copy you would have received).  Rights: The author will retain all rights to their story. It can be published elsewhere in full. The publisher will not keep said rights nor prevent the author from selling their story elsewhere. However, it is...

Submission Window: July 15th - 31st, 2024 Payment: $10 for flash – 2 per issue, $25 for shorts – 4 per issue, $30 for cover art Theme: Stories that are both funny and scary What we want: That sweet spot of horror comedy that is genuinely funny but also genuinely scary. Can be as goofy, gory, or smutty as you like! Work that punches up, not down. (“If the person on the gallows makes a grim joke, that’s gallows humor. If someone in the crowd makes a joke, that’s part of the execution.” – Alexandra Erin, Twitter.) Do not self reject! (Unless your story has one of the below unfunny things, in which case feel free to self reject.) For cover art submissions, please see toward the bottom of the page. What isn’t funny? Overall, bigotry (racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, antisemitism, fatphobia, etc, etc) has no place here. (Laughing AT bigots is fine, BEING bigoted is not – as Ria’s mom once said, making fun of fascists is a Mitzvah.) Sexual assault as a punchline or Holocaust jokes will have your story yeeted into the sun faster than you can say “you just don’t understand my comedic genius!” Mel Brooks says comedy is tragedy plus time, but we prefer to avoid specific and true tragedies when it comes to humorous horror. When is Die Laughing accepting submissions? We’ll be accepting submissions for Issue 1 from July 15-31, 2024. Anticipated date of publication is October, 2024 (spooky!). When submissions open, the link will be at the bottom of the page. More details: Word count: Up to 1000 (flash), 1001-5000 (shorts). We tend to prefer stories less than 3000 words long, and have a soft spot for the ever cursed 1000-2000 word region. Payment: Token ($10 for flash – 2 per issue, $25 for...

Submission Window: July 1st, 2024 – August 1st, 2024 Payment: $25.00 (USD) per piece Theme: Quiet Horror and Intimate-Scale Dystopian Fiction Accepting: Short Stories up to 3000 Words Flash and Micro Fiction up to 1200 Words Fiction-in-Verse up to 1200 Words Author Compensation: $25.00 (USD) per piece Rights: We request first worldwide and digital rights for four months following publication. Thereafter all rights revert to the author. All copyright remains with the author. Genre: Quiet Horror and Intimate-Scale Dystopian Fiction (see our updated FAQ page for more on how we define Quiet Horror and Intimate Dystopia). Publication: Digital Format (PDF) Submission Period: July 01, 2024 – August 01, 2024 Decisions By: September 30, 2024 Release Date: October 31, 2024 EMail Submissions To: [email protected] ~ Submission Guidelines ~ For all open calls, submit your work by email to [email protected] with the subject line formatted as such: “ ” (ex.“2024 – Vampires Of Mars – Emily Young – Adult”). Please submit your work as an email attachment in .doc/.docx format. Authors may submit up to two pieces per issue. We request that each piece be submitted via its own individual email. Annual issues of The Quiet Ones do not have a specific theme, but keep in mind that your submission should be within the realms of quiet horror and/or intimate dystopia. Ensure your document contains your story title, your name (or pen name), and an approximate word count. In the event that your story is selected for publication, we will need your legal name for the contract. Please include a header on each page of your document with your surname, title and page number. Your document should be formatted in Times New Roman, 12pt., with double line spacing and indented paragraphs (double line spacing does not apply to poetry). We presently do not accept works in translation, visual art, non-narrative poetry, or nonfiction. In case of acceptance, please also include a brief...

Deadline: August 1st, 2024 Payment: $10 for poetry, $25 for artwork, 1 cent per word for fiction Theme: False Memories Note: Reprints Welcome NonBinary Review is currently open for submissions on the theme of FALSE MEMORIES. False memories first came to public consciousness in the 1980s when a group of pre-schoolers at a California preschool were coached by well-meaning social workers and police investigators into "remembering" Satanic abuse that never happened. The fallout from that episode wasn't just the persecution of an innocent family, but a nationwide mass delusion now known as "the Satanic Panic," where authorities were warning the public about supposed widespread satanic cults committing heinous acts of abuse. Not a single one of these warnings were founded in fact, and it is now known that a large number of them were propaganda. But false memories aren't always bad. There is a common phenomenon wherein people hear stories of their early childhoods so often that those stories turn into "memories." It is common in dreams to have "memories" of things that happened to the dream self, but not to the real self. Or a person might believe that they took their regular medication, brought in the garbage bins, or picked up the mail when they haven't. We're looking for weird and wonderful stories of not just the memories themselves, but of their production, their repercussions, their wider meanings. We're looking for false memories that might have changed history, that led to remarkable discoveries, that impacted lives. We're NOT looking stories of recovered memories. Recovered memories are memories of real events that have been suppressed because they're traumatic, and are a widely disputed phenomenon. We would also like to avoid stories centering abuse, trauma, and violence. Zoetic Press publishes the best in speculative lit - experimental, interstitial, luminous. We welcome submissions from EVERYONE....

Deadline: August 1st, 2024 Payment: $0.01 per word for new stories or $25 for reprints. Theme: Pirate Horror Editor: Austrian Spencer Note: Reprints Welcome In conjunction with the successful Kickstarter campaign for DarkLit Sails and the editor that brought you The Sadeiest, comes a new collection of piratical horror stories that are certain to plunge readers into the heart of darkness on the high seas, where cursed pirates and spectral ships reign with terror and betrayal, promising no soul safe passage through their nightmarish waters. THE ROUGHER THE SEAS, THE SMOOTHER WE SAIL Please read carefully. Submissions must meet the guidelines to be accepted. Submissions will be accepted up to August 1st, 2024. Please submit to [email protected] , ensuring In The Gallows Wake is in the subject line. What we are looking for: Diverse voices in pirate stories transform the high seas into a vibrant canvas of human experience, weaving a rich tapestry that blends historical accuracy with untold narratives, ensuring every wave and whisper carries the weight of authenticity and boundless imagination. This approach not only breathes life into the sails of traditional tales but also charts a course toward a more inclusive and multifaceted exploration of freedom, identity, and adventure. What we are NOT looking for: Please, do not submit stories that do not fit the theme. Submissions cannot contain graphic rape scenes. Please ensure any scenes of a sexual nature are necessary and non-exploitative. Submissions must be between 4,000 and 6,000 words. Title, Author’s name, pen name (if different), word count, and author's email address must be centered at the top of your submission. Submissions must be written in 12 pt. Times New Roman and double-spaced. We do not require exclusivity. You hold the copyright, licensing us for this publication. If your story is a reprint, please include its...