Events

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: $40 per original poem or per page of original art., $20 per reprinted poem or per page of reprinted art., $0.04 per word for original prose, based on final published word count., $0.02 per word for reprinted prose, based on final published word count. Theme: Chapter Wizards in Space believes that all writers and artists deserve compensation for their work. In line with this belief, all creators with pieces accepted will be paid and retain rights to their work. Submissions are opening June 19th, 2023, for Issue 09: Chapters. All chapters must have an end. A final sentence, a closing line. And so does Wizards in Space. For our ninth and final issue, we’re ready to hear about the chapters of your own journeys. Which pages have you turned, and which are you now opening? We want your cliffhangers, we want your tidy knots, we want your open endings. Fresh starts and sweet farewells. Send us stories that tell half-truths, that contain muddled middles, or cold opens. Pieces that reflect on an adventure — whether you’re still riding it out or looking back with nostalgia. Share with us the chapters of your life that most want to be shared, the ones that spill over their lines and beg you to keep reading. We invite pieces that say hello, how have you been, or until we meet again. We want this issue to be a reflection of everything that Wizards in Space has been over the years: a beginning, a middle, and now — an end. You write the chapters, we’ll put it in the book. And then we’ll start looking for the sequel. After all, the end of one chapter means the start of another, and whatever is next for us and for you, these...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: Short Stories: $400, Narrative Comics and One-Act Plays: $300, Poetry, Flash Fiction, and Graphic Arts: $100 Theme: Speculative fiction written by Latinx authors in the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America. We are looking for works that take classic utopian ideas and reexamine them through a radical Latinx lens and create something compelling and new. Editors: Alex Hernandez, Matthew David Goodwin, Sarah Rafael García, Sara Rivera We are currently taking original and unpublished short stories, poetry, plays, and graphic arts for Not Your Papi’s Utopia, an anthology of speculative fiction written by Latinx authors in the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America. We are looking for works that take classic utopian ideas and reexamine them through a radical Latinx lens and create something compelling and new. The submissions should not be perfect visions of an idyllic society, but gripping tales of a society trying to do better, to be more in harmony with the environment, and to build more equitable societies. Conflict is necessary for most good stories, but a general sense of optimism about the future or a viable pathway to hope is a must for this collection. We are accepting any of the speculative genres that fit the general theme, but here are some genres we are actively seeking: AfroLatinx Futurism, Indigenous Futurism, Speculative Metafiction, Solarpunk, Ecofiction, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Slipstream, Apocalyptic/Post- Apocalyptic Fiction, Speculative Non-Fiction, Alien Environments, Alternate Histories/Futures, Multiverse or Parallel Worlds, Secret Histories/Futures The anthology will affirm the diversity of interests, and concerns of Latinas/os, as well as the overlapping identities that contribute to the Latinx experience. Although the anthology will be published in English, submissions can be in English, Spanish, or any Latin American indigenous language–or a mix of all of these. Multiple submissions accepted. The majority of what we’ll be taking...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: Short Story-2,500 words or less. $0.01 USD per word/$25 USD max, Poems-less than 200 words $10, Flash Fiction-less than a 1,000 words $0.01 USD per word/$10 USD max Theme: This One's for the Weirdos The Last Girls Club Magazine is a quarterly feminist horror magazine that publishes international short stories and poems from the female gaze. It is an homage to the scary comics and zines of the late 20th century. This season's theme is This One's for the Weirdos. Most of us know what it is like to not fit in, to not know how to fit in or to even want to. This one is for the freaks, the geeks, the neurospicy, and the monsters who can't quite make themselves fit the mold. The villagers are out there with the pitchforks and torches. What are you going to do hotshot? Or are you the one that fits in and undermines from the inside? Take it where you want. No more than two fiction stories per author per submission period. Fiction is limited to 2,500 words or less. Authors are paid $0.015 USD per word upon acceptance ($37.50 USD max). Flash fiction is limited to under 1,000 words. Authors are paid $0.015 USD per word upon acceptance ($15 USD max). No more than three poems per poet. Poems are limited to 200 words or less for each poem. Poets are paid $10 USD upon acceptance. I prefer to use PayPal to pay authors, but will work with authors where PayPal is not available. Nonfiction columns will must be pitched to editor in chief before submission. Email your idea to [email protected] The Last Girls Club Magazine is a quarterly feminist horror magazine that publishes international short stories and poems from the female gaze. It is an...

Deadline: August 1st, 2023 Payment: $25 per poem, $50 for stories less than 1500 words, $50 for Art (1-3 Images), $100 for Art (4+ Images), for work more than 1501 words Theme: "Relief" that is also hybrid, cross-genre work of both emerging and established creatives who often reside outside traditional artistic disciplines. Brink is open for hybrid and cross-genre submissions of any length engaging the theme RELIEBrink is open for hybrid and cross-genre submissions of any length engaging the theme RELIEF. Relief is a form of ease, yes. It’s a delicious feeling of release. It’s that hopeful buoyancy caused by reassurance that overrides our systems when pain and distress are alleviated. Relief is physical. It’s emotional and mental, too. But as a concept, relief implies so much more than deliverance from discomfort. Relief connotes the remains of a thing left behind; the residue, the leftover, the left behind. That which stands when everything else lifts away. Relief is assistance that arrives in the form of aid, support, or help in a time of danger, need, or difficulty. Relief is a distinct vivid contrast. You can throw things into relief. You can bring things into relief. Show us, create for us, those exact things. Take us to the edge, the brink, of relief. Brink has two reading periods per year: January and July. Between July 1 - 31, we will open for submissions engaging the theme of Relief. Through Submittable, we accept a variety of creative work from Nonfiction to Fiction, from Poetry to Translation. But our hearts beat strongest for hybrid work that falls into the cross-genre category we call Evocations. We are interested in work that presses boundaries, uses more than one medium to tell a story, and both looks and feels different on the page. Additionally, we look for submissions...

Submission Window: August 1-2nd, 2023 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...

Deadline: August 4thm, 2023 Payment: 3 cents (euro) per word and 1 cent (euro) per word for a translation reprint Theme: Hard SF that zooms out of the personal and lifts off into the structural, the systemic, the epic. There are plenty of amazing print and online journals out there for ‘character-driven’ fiction, and we encourage you to read them. Sci Phi Journal (SPJ) is not one of them, though. Hence, we are not too keen on stories predominantly about the sentiments and subjective experiences of fictional people. We want hard SF that zooms out of the personal and lifts off into the structural, the systemic, the epic. We yearn for carefully crafted philosophical speculation that puzzles over the questions of the future and alternate pasts. And we have a soft spot for stories created as ‘artifacts’ (fictional, ‘in-universe’ non-fiction). So here are SPJ‘s quests: – Campbellian hard SF. Reaching back to the roots of classic sci-fi, these rigorous tales take themselves seriously and push the boundaries of our scientific imagination, scaling from the nano to the meta. The cast, if any, is functional and disposable. It’s the sociological, technological and indeed cosmic developments that sweep the reader up in an expanding sense of wonder. (For a contemporary long-form example that received mainstream attention, see the latter two books of Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem trilogy.) – Fictional non-fiction. The purest, most intimate form of world-building. A transcript of the last UN Security Council meeting before an extinction-level event. The dental bills of a cybernetic vampire. Interviews with eyewitnesses of a battle between Martians and archangels. (Epistolary fiction falls within this category, though we encourage you to interpret it more broadly, across the full spectrum of artifact fiction.) Think ‘World War Z’, not ‘Walking Dead’. – Speculative philosophy. Extrapolating abstract ideas to examine the implications if they were to manifest. (See for instance The End of...

Deadline: August 6th, 2023 Payment: 8 cents/6 pence per word. Theme: Folk Horror A New Collection of Horror Stories We are very excited to give you advance notice of a new call for submissions on the theme: Folk Horror. Folk horror evokes the spirit of the land. With the steady rhythm of ancient life it breathes in the stories that dwell amongst the shadows, and exhales thick shrouds of darkness to overwhelm the reader with the shivering and writhing of supernatural murmurings. Dark folkloric tales emerge from the forests of the North, the deserts of the south, the mountain passes and the long cold nights under the stars. Can you conjure such fare from your dark imagination? We’re looking for four stories to join the curated selection by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan which will launch our new series, Beyond and Within, next Summer. Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan are the award-winning authors and editors of many books. Together they have co-edited anthologies such as The British Fantasy Society: A Celebration, A  Carnivàle  of Horror: Dark Tales from the Fairground, Hellbound Hearts, The Mammoth Book of Body Horror, Exit Wounds, Wonderland (a Shirley Jackson Award finalist), Cursed, Twice Cursed and The Other Side of Never, featuring authors such as Neil Gaiman, Joanne Harris, Dean Koontz, Catriona Ward and Stephen King. They have also been involved in organizing conventions for twenty years, co-chairing ChillerCon in Scarborough in May 2022. Find out more at their sites shadow-writer.co.uk and marieoregan.net. Submit to: [email protected] Terms: Multiple submissions are fine but must be in separate emails. Simultaneous submissions are fine but you must have the right to license your story in an anthology. Please only submit unpublished/original/new stories for consideration. Reprints will not be accepted for consideration. For accepted stories we pay Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) rates of 8 cents/6 pence per word. We will aim to read each story and confirm its status within 4 months...

Deadline: August 10th, 2023 Payment: $20 Theme: Shapeshifters September Shapeshifters SUBMISSIONS CLOSE: August 10th Submissions Requirements Submissions will be read in the order they are received. Please only submit one previously unpublished story per month. You will receive notification within one week of your chosen month's submission end date. Please be sure to send in your best work; all submissions are final. Do not send us unrequested re-writes after your initial submission. Please note, we will not consider any submissions written, developed, or assisted by A.I. writing tools; please do not submit A.I. written stories to us. We are looking for a total of 4-8 stories per month, so please get your submission in as soon as possible. We are offering $20 per short story. Please attach your 1500-2000 word story in .docx format (12 pt Times/double spaced) to an email with a brief query. Please specify which month/theme you are submitting for. *Please include a trigger warning in your submissions email for any instances of child/animal death/abuse.   Poetry Submissions Requirements Note: Poetry submissions close on the 20th of each month, 10 days after the story submissions close. Submissions will be read in the order they are received. Please only submit one previously unpublished poem per month. You will receive notification within one week of your chosen month's submission end date. Please send to the correct email. We are looking for a total of two poems per month, so please get your submissions in as soon as possible. We are offering $10 per poem. Please attach your 50 word minimum (maximum of 20 lines) poem to an email with a brief query, including its title (if applicable). Please specify which month/theme you are submitting for. *Please include a trigger warning in your submissions email for any instances of child/animal...

Deadline: August 11th, 2023 Payment: 1 cent per word Theme: Cozy cosmic horror UNDERLAND PRESS is publishing SHUB-NIGGURATH'S SWEATER, a cozy cosmic horror anthology. This project will be edited by Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito and Mark Teppo, and it will be launching in October 2023. THE PITCH: We acknowledge the futility inherent in cosmic horror. There are no winners in this life. Ultimately, we are insignificant and existence is meaningless. The best minds gibber at the unholiness of it all, and then cack off because they can't comprehend any alternative. Whatever. The rest of us still have to get up in the morning and go to work. We want to see stories about those who continue on. Stories about those who know their spouses are planning on sacrificing them during the next full moon, but in the meantime, these spouses make a solid mac and cheese and they listen when you bitch about the absurd emptiness that is the day job. Send us stories about those who shed a quiet tear as they wait for the tea kettle to boil, knowing who they buried—for the second time—in the yard less than an hour ago. Tell us tales of those who know where the black wool comes from, but they wear the sweater anyway because it was a gift—an expression of love—and, well, screw being alone because that’s worse than the horror of the unknowable, isn’t it? This is Shub-Niggurath’s Sweater. Wrap it tight. Burn some sage. Light a few candles. Yes, the Old Ones are out there, but there's no reason not to be cozy. THE DETAILS: This project is on an extremely short deadline. The submission window is open now and closes August 11th, 2023. Stories should be between 1,000 and 5,000 words. We'll consider longer stories, but we're not interested in novellas for...

Deadline: August 15th, 2023 Payment: ½ cent a word Theme: Flash feel-good fantasy stories Here are the guidelines for our first flash fiction anthology. It must be a fiction short story, not an essay or poem.1000 words maximum.We want a feel-good fantasy story, if not feel-good, make someone in the story happy. Soft revenge and kismet are under the umbrella of feel good or satisfying, (No outright horror, gore, or overall nastiness.)  IRONY AND HUMOR ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED AS WELL AS A GOOD TWIST. We do not want: Sword & Sorcery, animals living in little animal villages, acting and thinking like humans, and dressing in clothing, current politics or religious opinions in the story, we are not a soapbox, no reprints that have ever been published online and are still available online. (Amazon does not carry eBooks with stories that are available online. ) AND NO AI WRITTEN STORIES WHATSOEVER!!!!!!!Opening The Ides Of May 5/15.  Closing: The dog days of August 8/15 11:59 EST  You may submit up to two stories submitted individually. Submit to: [email protected]  Format: Standard manuscript format. If you don't know what that is look up Shunn Format.  If it is not in proper format it will not be read.   Word .doc and .docx. NOTHING ELSE. Subject line should read: SUBMISSION: Title - author's last name - word countPAYMENT:  ½ cent a word via PayPal. Via: Jersey Pines Ink.