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Deadline: January 1st, 2014 Payment: Authors of fiction chosen for the anthology will receive two free copies of the book as compensation. Poets will receive as compensation one contributor’s copy. Cairo by Gaslight Edited by Brandon Black Poetry Editor: Cathy Chandler Call For Submissions: This is a general call for poetry and fiction of a steampunk and gaslamp fantasy nature set within the city of Cairo, Egypt. Stories need not remain within the confines of Cairo for their entirety but those stories that are well-written and make use of the unique setting and culture of Cairo as a colorful backdrop will be more favorably regarded. Writers of fiction may send no more than two works unless they have published with Black Tome Books before (i.e., in the pages of New Orleans By Gaslight), in which case they may submit up to three stories. Novel excerpts are acceptable so long as they work independently as short stories. Poets may submit no more than five poems. While short stories are expected to be both steampunk (or gaslamp fantasy) and set in Cairo, our requirements for poetry are less stringent. Poems should be about 19th century Cairo, or steampunk themed or both. As we seek to publish the highest quality steampunk fiction and accept both traditional and experimental writing, we place no arbitrary limits on length. Writers, however, should be aware that short shorts and longer manuscripts, such as novelettes and novellas, will have to be exceptionally good to be accepted for publication. While writers are encouraged to present a nostalgic view of Victorian-era culture as such is in general keeping with the optimistic ethos of the steampunk genre, we encourage authors to present the various and sundry evils of Victorian-era society (religious persecution, slavery, classism, racism, poverty, a lack of child labor laws,...

Deadline: January 1st 2014 Payment: 5 cents per word March--A Night at the Villa Diodati During the Summer of Darkness in 1816, literary giants includng George Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and John Polidori embarked upon a contest to write the scariest story. The contest resulted in the writing of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Pollodori's lesser known tale The Vampyre. Both were the first novels to introduce two horror staples--the reanimated man and the vampire. So what does this have to do with Penumbra? We want an issue filled with stories that we could have told to these masters by candlelight, pausing occasionally to wet our throats with wine as we read the stories aloud. We want the 19th century elegance paired with the creation of new horror staples in the 21st century. We do NOT want to see stories about vampires, werewolves, re-animated humans/zombies. So channel Byron and Shelley, and write a story worthy of the Villa Diodati. CALL BEGINS NOVEMBER 1, 2013 CALL ENDS JANUARY 1, 2014     Penumbra is looking for original, unpublished stories of 3500 words or less. We prefer that writers use Standard Manuscript Format for submissions. (You can read this article by Chuck Rothman on the SFWA site on preparing a manuscript for submission if you are unfamiliar with SMF.) Please send your stories as file attachments in .rtf or .doc formats only. Please include a cover letter in the body of your email, with the manuscript title, you pen name if applicable, the exact word count of the story not including title and byline, and a publication history if applicable. Penumbra is a professional rates paying publisher, paying 5 cents per word. We will evaluate poetry submissions for each issue. We will also consider previously published stories with rights reverted...

* Deadline: January 1st 2014 Payment: $20 and contributor's copy CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS My shadowy but sensational small press Mega Thump Publishing** is now accepting Short Stories to be considered for its upcoming Horror/Science Fiction Hybrid Anthology (title TBA), to be edited by yours truly. Submission Details: Mega Thump Publishing is looking for quality short stories that mix both science fictionand horror elements. Evil robots, mad scientists, bloodthirsty aliens, and haunted spaceships would all qualify. Think of films like ALIEN, THE THING, EVENT HORIZON,INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, THE BLOB, PHANTASM, and FROM BEYOND. As long as they fit the above criteria, stories can be horrifically humorous or dead serious in tone. They can be completely over-the-top in gore, sex, and any nastiness you can think of (no YA stuff here). They can even be thought-provoking. Most importantly, all stories must be well-written and entertaining. Submission Guidelines: Stories should range between 1,000-15,000 words. Stories must be written in English. Stories should be submitted as an MS Word doc/docx. Stories must be received in proper manuscript format. See example HERE. Stories must be original to author. Persons submitting must hold copyright to the material, or have legal authority to submit work on behalf of author. Stories previously published in magazines, on websites, or in other periodicals are eligible; however, they cannot have before appeared in another published anthology or collection of works. Selected authors will grant one-time anthology rights for publication in the English language throughout the world, with no publication elsewhere for 12 months after acknowledging Author/Publisher Agreement, upon which time rights revert back to the author. Authors of stories accepted for this anthology will receive as compensation $20.00 USD and a free copy of the book (your choice of print or digital). Deadline for submitting is JANUARY 1, 2014. Submissions should be emailed to [email protected] Use “H/SF Anthology – Your...

Deadline: January 1st 2013 Payment: This will be our first anthology and all profit (if any) will be evenly distributed to the contributors on a quarterly basis. December is the final month to submit for our upcoming Anthology. The Theme for this one is supernatural horror. The dead-line for submissions is January 1st. Stories should be within the horror genre and have a supernatural element. All lengths will be considered, by primarily looking for short stories that are between 2000 and 5000 words. If you have a masterpiece that's over 5000 words, please submit it. This will be our first anthology and all profit (if any) will be evenly distributed to the contributors on a quarterly basis. If you contribute, it is in your best interest to promote it...a lot... See how smart we are :P Submit at: Submittables.

Deadline: January 1, 2014 Payment: Royalties Submissions are now OPEN for Big Bad 2 – An Anthology of Evil Volume 2 The immediate success of The Big Bad has been mind-blowing, and Dark Oak has signed us on to do it all over again! Emily Lavin Leverett and I are back to create another anthology of the greatest bad guy stories we can find. This is a mixed anthology, which means that there have been some folks invited to participate, and we will accept some stories through open calls. The invitations have gone out, and we have ten open slots, so we expect the competition to be fierce. Send us your best short story (3,000 – 9,000 words, if it has to be longer contact me first) that features a bad guy or evil character as the protagonist. It can be fantasy, urban fantasy, superhero, sci-fi, horror, whatever. Just send us your best bad guy story. We’re taking ten. That’s right, there are only ten slots available in this anthology. Email submissions to johnhartness AT gmail DOT com, as a .doc or .docx attachment. Include a brief author’s bio, please. Please do not send RTF files. I hate them and will delete them unread. Please single-space in Times New Roman 12 point. Please label the file NAME.TITLE.doc and include “Big Bad Submission” in the email header. This is a royalty-based anthology, with exclusive rights for one year. This is not a “for the love” antho – Dark Oak is a real publisher that sends out real royalty checks. I should know, I’ve already received one for Big Bad 1. After the first year we retain rights to publish electronically in the anthology only, and in print in this anthology only, but you can take it and sell it somewhere else,...

Deadline: January 5th, 2014 Payment: Contributor's Copy and $5 advance on royalties An anthology of mystery stories set during Mardi Gras. We expect the majority of the stories to be set in New Orleans, but it is not mandatory. The holiday, its celebration, and its depredations should set the stage. Paranormal elements (e.g. Louisiana Voodoo) are acceptable if they are appropriate to the traditional Mardi Gras locations and events. We're seeking stories that are 2000 - 8000 words in length. Query about reprints. We will accept multiple submissions, but not simultaneous submissions. Open submission period: October 21, 2013 - January 5, 2014. All contributors will receive a free trade paperback copy of the book, plus a $5 advance on royalties. Contributors will also be able to purchase more print copies at a 50% discount on the cover price. We're seeking first world rights in English to publish in print and electronic format for 12 months, beginning on the date of publication. Please see our Guidelines and Payment page for further information on the rights we ask for and the compensation we offer. Publisher's note: Mystery and Horror is a market that welcomes LBGTQ, multiethnic,multinational, nontraditional, and unusual fiction. We are concerned with well-written stories involving well-developed characters. Via: Mystery and Horror LLC.

Submission Period: December 26, 2013 and January 10, 2014 Payment: $25 and a contributor's copy WRAPPED IN WHITE Thirteen Tales of Spectres, Ghosts, and Spirits Here is your chance to be a WRAPPED contributor! We are very excited to have several up-and-coming authors featured in this anthology and we look forward to filling the other available slots through open-call submissions.You may submit your story as an attachment to [email protected] between December 26, 2013 and January 10, 2014. Remaining contributors will be announced by February 2. Expected release date for Wrapped in White is March 2014. Original stories only please. No reprints. Any submissions or inquiries sent anywhere other than [email protected]  will be deleted. Submissions received before or after open call dates will be deleted. Stories should range from 4,000 to 6,000 words. In your email, make sure to include your full name, the title of the work you are submitting, and a word count. A short Bio will be requested upon acceptance of story. Please spend time proofing and editing your submissions before sending them. Submissions with incorrect grammar, misspellings or formatting will be automatically excluded from the review process. Those submissions that are accepted must be open to receiving minor editorial corrections. If your story is chosen, payment includes $25 within 30 days of acceptance/signed contract and one print copy of WRAPPED IN WHITE within 90 days of publication. Publisher will retain first worldwide publication rights for one year from publication date. Good luck Submission Guidelines: TITLE Author Name Word count e-mail address 12pt Garamond or equivalent Single Spaced Do not use TAB key. New paragraphs should be formatted with a 0.3 indent. Do not use symbols such as # or * between sections. A single blank space is sufficient. Now go write a ghost story! Via: Sekhmet Press.

Deadline: January 15th, 2014 Payment: Exposure Only The Shadows Only Hide the Monsters: A Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Micro (100-500 words), Flash (500-1K) and Short Stories (1k up to 2500 words). Lovecraft and Poe style horror stories. Special win for a good-old Poe style detective stories (it has to have monsters, though) and new takes on the Cthulhu Mythos. Deadline: January 15th 2014. Submissions should be sent to [email protected] Copy and paste your submission in the body of an email. Attachments will not be opened. No exceptions. Please do NOT format your stories in blog-format style. Format it as you would for a regular print submission. Formatting blog-style (no paragraph indents, spaces between paragraphs) causes me horrible headaches when I try to load the stories onto a post. Spaces between paragraphs adds more than one extra space on the post, due to the HTML horror known as a div tag. I truly hope the son of a bitch who came up with that rots in hell. WordPress automatically inserts a crapload of div tags whenever it encounters space, adding even more space. (I know, WTF? Right?) I am a college student and I don’t have time to take out extra space, which would really make your stories look horrible if left in. But please DO indent paragraphs. If you don’t, I won’t know where new paragraphs begin and will have to reject your story just because of that. Please include with your submission a 50-100 word author bio. You can include a brief publication history and any web/social media links you’d like readers to know. For the subject line, follow the directions listed for each issue on the Call for Submissions page. The basic format is: NAME OF ISSUE-TITLE OF YOUR STORY. In all caps. Easier...

Deadline: January 15th, 2014 Payment: 2c/word or a percentage of net sales Note: The publisher doesn't list 'horror' as a theme so I'd keep this in the light horror or suspenseful to most likely have a shot. Just a thought and not advice you need to listen to. Local Magic This is your opportunity to add a little magic to the past. Tell me the tale of a real place, in a real time, but with a fantastical science element. The story must feature a real geographic place, a building, a street. It doesn’t have to exist now, but it has to have really existed. A lake? A saloon? An alley? Stories we will be including in this anthology should include: 1 part Magic Your choice of wizards, artifacts, monsters or the like. 1 part Science The magic component above is fueled by Science! 1 part Local History Set your story in a real place that you know well. The location is not just window dressing. The location should be integral to your story. Culture and geography and real world history have conspired to create events that could have occurred no where else. Email submissions to: [email protected] Subject ATTN: LOCAL MAGIC Word count: short stories of 3,000 to 5,000 words, novelettes of 7,500-10,000 words. Pay: 2c/word or a percentage of net sales. This is going to be a digital-only publication. Your story should arrive in Microsoft Word and be formatted in the industry standard (or come so close that no one will notice: i.e. Times New Roman or Courier, double-spaced). Antimatter Press welcomes submissions from all people, regardless of age, color, religion, gender identity or writing experience. Deadline is January 15, 2014. Via: Antimatter Press.

Deadline: January 14th, 2014 Payment: In most cases payment will be 5 cents per word within 60 days of acceptance and a contributor's copy within 30 days of publication. Debuting in 2014 Jamais Vu - The Journal of Strange Among the Familiar is a new pro journal from Post Mortem Press, set to feature the absolute best in dark fiction, poetry, factual morsels, criticism, and more. Issue Two is scheduled for release April 15, 2014. Submission Window is open December 1, 2013 - January 15, 2014. Decisions will be made no later than March 1, 2014. The title comes from the French--The strange among the familiar--and is as close to a "theme" as we're looking for. Confused?  Think Richard Matheson, Jack Finney, Neil Gaiman. Specifically, we're a horror/thriller market, but are open to crossing genres, given that one of the crossed genres is horror/thriller (no western-romance, or science fiction-mystery, okay?) Language and violence are not a problem if both components are integral to the plot, dedicating 3,000 words of your 4,000 story to the graphic depiction of human mutilation would have a hard time. The tropes--vampires, zombies, serial killers, werewolves--will have also struggle to get noticed unless the writer presents them in a completely new light. Stories that really work to act out your latent parental issues or your insecurities with the opposite sex are best given to your therapist, not us. Stories which exist solely to depict the abuse of children, women, or animals will be rejected outright.  Similarly, NO torture or splatter-punk. More concise than we could ever put it, the folks over at Strange Horizons have compiled a list of "Horror Stories We've Seen Too Often".  Check it out: http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common-horror.shtml  Granted, some of these things offer an interesting premise within which a brand new and different story can be written, but if your story...