Events

Deadline: August 1st 2013 Payment: Winners will split the profits of the collection evenly. Calling all writers: Announcing the start of Dark Hall's first short story competition! Now through August 1st (2013) we will be accepting short Ghost stories for possible inclusion in a late summer anthology. Ten slots are available, and the contest will be highly competitive. The base concept for these stories is ghostly happenings, but this is open for broad interpretation, and there are no rules for where you take your story. Submissions should be no longer than 4,000 words, submitted in PDF format, and include a brief author bio and contact information. Please include the word GHOST in the e-mail heading. We cannot accept previously published material. Winners will split the profits of the collection evenly. Winners will be contacted after August 1st. In submitting work for consideration we ask that writers include the first chapter/section of their project, a brief (one page) synopsis of the overall work, and some background information on themselves. PDF format preferred. Note that we will not entertain simultaneous submissions. Response time is generally one week. Direct all submissions to: [email protected]

Deadline: August 1st, 2013 Payment: $10 from Enchanted Conversation and paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press Anthologist: Kate Wolford You know the Jolly Old Elf of Christmas, right? Of course you do. You can’t avoid him. Yet, Santa Claus isn’t just a kindly old expert at breaking and entering and leaving gifts he didn’t actually buy for the children of a house. At least he isn’t in Austria and many other parts of Europe. In these ancient places, where, perhaps, the old, old gods still add a touch of mischief, Krampus is the angry, punishing sidekick of St. Nicholas (Santa’s counterpart in much of Europe). Known for his willingness to punish rotten children, Krampus might even be considered Santa’s dark side or evil twin. Krampus is the sort of guy more and more North Americans want to explore. He’s definitely having a moment this side of the Atlantic. To that end, World Weaver Press and Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine are pleased to announce a joint venture: An anthology of Krampus short stories. Although the book is yet to be named, we hope you’ll explore every possible Krampus angle via short stories. He’s a nasty old dude, and we hope your imaginations will get the better of you. Rights and compensation: Payment: $10 from Enchanted Conversation and paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press. We are looking for previously unpublished works in English. We are seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for life of the anthology. Open submission period: June 15 – August 1, 2013. Length: Under 10,000 words. Submission method: Email cover letter and story to enchantedconversation...

Deadline: August 1st 2013 Payment: Winners will split the profits of the collection evenly Calling all writers: Announcing the start of Dark Hall's first short story competition! Now through August 1st (2013) we will be accepting short Ghost stories for possible inclusion in a late summer anthology. Ten slots are available, and the contest will be highly competitive. The base concept for these stories is ghostly happenings, but this is open for broad interpretation, and there are no rules for where you take your story. Submissions should be no longer than 4,000 words, submitted in PDF format, and include a brief author bio and contact information. Please include the word GHOST in the e-mail heading. We cannot accept previously published material. Winners will split the profits of the collection evenly. Winners will be contacted after August 1st. PDF format preferred. Note that we will not entertain simultaneous submissions. Response time is generally one week. Direct all submissions to: [email protected]

Deadline: August 1st 2013 Payment: 20% of the total profit will be paid for each accepted story (at quarterly intervals; if more than five stories are accepted, they will be placed in another anthology in this series. We’d dislike reducing your pay) Read the giant quote. It’s required. “Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold. . . .The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys lost.”— J.R.R. Tolkein, “On Fairy-Stories” See that quote? I could go on for a dozen pages, pussy-footing ‘round what we want; but there, in Tolkien’s seven lines of text, is exactly what we want in every way—the adventure, the fantastic, the allencompassing sehnsucht. The tone and style. Everything we wish is hidden there. We aren’t looking for a Tolkien rehash, mind. We want stories that comfortably fit into the subgenre made up of Silverlock, Stardust, Watership Down, Wind in the Willows, Labyrinth, G. K. Chesterton's entire output from The Innocence of Father Brown to Orthodoxy, Gaiman’s The Sandman, The Hobbit, The Silver Chair, the first few chapters of The Last Unicorn (before everything descends into fairy tale questioning madness—for when fairy tales are questioned, there is nothing left but barbarities), Tangled, and Anastasia,...

Deadline: August 1st 2013 Payment: $20 Our first book is a sort of companion piece to our wildly popular short story collection from SHB’s own D.F. Noble, SCARY F*CKING STORIES. Only this time, we’re collecting THE strangest fiction from the most talented authors in weirdo underground horror fiction. This anthology is called STRANGE F*CKING STORIES. We are looking for stories that will leave the readers scratching their heads asking, wait, what the f*ck did I just read? And by that, we do NOT mean experimental, stream-of-consciousness, or surreal fiction. We’re looking for STRONG characters, STRONG plots and STRONG conflict, only the weirdest characters, plot and conflict you can dream up. Make em scary, funny, sexy, gross, haunting, whatever, as long as it leaves us questioning our sanity and yours! -5,000 to 8,000 words. -.doc format ONLY! That means ONLY! -double spaced. -emailed as attachement to StrangeHouseSubmissions (At) Gmail.com. -In the body of the email, please put your contact information. -The subject of the email should read: submission title-your name-story title-word count. -NO TABS! Use your word processor’s paragraph settings to create paragraphs -No simultaneous submissions. That doesn’t mean submit it to 3 or 4 places and tap your foot while you impatiently wait for our response and then send us a really apologetic email when your story gets picked up by another publisher. it means NO simultaneous submissions. Sometimes we work slow, sometimes it takes 30-60 days AFTER the deadline for us to choose ALL of the stories for our anthologies. Just because you haven’t heard back from us yet, doesn’t mean we haven’t already selected your story for the book. Telling us it got picked up by someone else first does not a happy publisher make. Are we clear on that one? Good. Deadline is August 1st 2013. Payment...

Deadline: August 1st 2013 Payment: $20 Our second new anthology is a book that originally started as a quick turnaround passion project for Kevin Strange. Well, after sitting on it for the better part of the year, Strange has decided to turn it into a full fledged anthology set for release on November 1st 2013! A VERY STRANGEHOUSE CHRISTMAS is a dark, twisted, bizarre vision of Strange’s favorite holiday. Write a story about a savage viking Santa Clause, write about the murderous rampage of Frosty the Snow man or ghastly child eating elves from the north pole. Make it dark, make it scary, and by all means make it STRANGE! -5,000 to 8,000 words. -.doc format ONLY! That means ONLY! -double spaced. -emailed as attachement to StrangeHouseSubmissions (At) Gmail.com. -In the body of the email, please put your contact information. -The subject of the email should read: submission title-your name-story title-word count. -NO TABS! Use your word processor’s paragraph settings to create paragraphs -No simultaneous submissions. That doesn’t mean submit it to 3 or 4 places and tap your foot while you impatiently wait for our response and then send us a really apologetic email when your story gets picked up by another publisher. it means NO simultaneous submissions. Sometimes we work slow, sometimes it takes 30-60 days AFTER the deadline for us to choose ALL of the stories for our anthologies. Just because you haven’t heard back from us yet, doesn’t mean we haven’t already selected your story for the book. Telling us it got picked up by someone else first does not a happy publisher make. Are we clear on that one? Good. Deadline is August 1st 2013. Payment is 20 dollars flat and one contributor copy of the anthology. Good luck, gang! Give us your STRANGEST!

Deadline: August 15th 2013 Payment: $200 NOTE: This isn't a primarily horror anthology but if it fits in their guidelines it'd be worth a shot We’ve been talking about it forever but now it’s here. The submission process for the first Sword and Laser anthology. If you’re writer in either the sword and or laser genre or somewhere close to being related, this is your chance to be involved. OPEN SUBMISSIONS FOR WRITERS (STARTING MARCH 1ST) Anybody can submit a story to the first Sword and Laser Anthology. We have two eligibility requirements: your story must be written in English, and you (or your legal guardian, if you’re a minor) must be willing and able to sign a contract if the story is accepted. SUBMISSION PERIOD Submissions will be accepted from March 1 – May 15, 2013. We expect to make our final selections by August 15, 2013. PAYMENT We pay $200 (US) upon acceptance. LENGTH We recommend a length of 1,500 – 7,500 words. We may choose to print shorter or longer stories in some cases, but this should be your target word count. RIGHTS If your submission is accepted we will buy the following rights: • World anthology rights in English and translation • Audio and ebook anthology rights World anthology rights and audio/ebook anthology rights are specific to anthologies. These are non-exclusive licenses allowing us to use your story in an anthology only. Specifying “in translation” allows us to request that your work be included in any potential foreign editions as well. You retain all other print rights. So you’re free to also sell your story to magazines, or websites, or podcasts, or as an individual short story (say, on Kindle), or in a collection of your own work, or even sell it to another anthology after...

Deadline: August 15th 2013 Payment: $25.00, payable upon publication for First Worldwide Print and Electronic rights. Reading Period: 3/15/13 through 8/15/13 Tentative Publication Date: October 2013 Payment: $25.00, payable upon publication for First Worldwide Print and Electronic rights. Word Limits: 2000 to 6000 words. Submissions will only be accepted as DOC (Word) or RTF formats, submitted through our submissions link. Genres Accepted: Dark Fiction, Horror and Sci-Fi. No Fantasy or poetry accepted at this time. Original, unpublished work only. No reprints, please! No simultaneous subs (submitting to emby and another press at the same time). No multiple subs, please (keeping in mind that I will notify all authors as soon as possible if a story is declined so that they may submit that story to another market and hopefully submit another story to our book). Please read and follow our submission guidelines. Maybe 1,000 years ago, a poet wrote one of the most compelling tales of adventure that the world has ever known. That poem, Beowulf, is about a monster hunter. This particular hunter slew more than one monster and ultimately died from the wounds of a battle with a monster. In doing so, the pursuit was personal. The monsters had names. The pursuit was not some blind exercise in violence… Melville wrote of another hunter, as did Stoker. History and literature are filled with monster hunting stories. This is your chance to continue the tradition. We want to get to know the hunter and the hunted. We want to anguish in their pain, thrill in their victories and bow our heads to their defeat. MONSTER HUNTER – BLOOD TRAILS will explore these characters. Make us love or hate them; show us their strengths, their weaknesses and their idiosyncrasies. Make these characters come to life on the page and make...

Deadline: Aug 25th, 2013 Payment: Exposure and Royalties TALES OF THE UNDEAD SUFFER ETERNAL – Volume III Deadline: Aug 25th, 2013 Payment: Exposure and Royalties Flash fiction & Short Stories (1,000 – 6,000 words) Poetry accepted- Reprints too. Eternal life, what does it mean to live forever? What is the cost of such a prize, and is it worth the price? The scope of such a topic brings forth boundless notions for the budding author. Tales of the undead, and those who cheat the reaper give hope to a readership, or can just as easily take it away. I want stories of Eternal life. Give me deals with the devil, illegal experiments, and mysterious miracles. Zombies, Vampires, and Spirits are welcome. Make them dark, make them decadent, make them scary – these should be the kind of stories that wouldn’t usually see daylight. No taboos, just let your imagination run wild. Dark fairytales, bizarre, horror, surrealism, dark science-fiction are all cool here. Submission guidelines: Deadline for submissions – August 25th, 2013. Word Count: 1,000 – 6,000 words. Please submit your manuscript as a *.doc or *.docx file (all other formats will automatically be rejected. Contact me prior to submitting if this presents an issue for you.) Font and formatting: Please submit in Times New Roman, 12 point font; single line spacing. Please format the document to 1st line indentation of 1″. The page margin should be set to .2″ Please check grammar. Upon acceptance into the anthology, you agree that Horrified Press holds exclusive publishing rights for six months from the date of publication; after that date has passed, all intellectual property rights revert to the author with the proviso that Horrified Press retains distribution rights in the format of the contracted anthology. This title will be available as an...

Deadline: August 31st 2013 Payment: 5 cents per word Who needs machines to lend that steampunky feel to Victorian stories? We sure don't. That's why we're really excited about this Gaslight Fantasy issue of Penumbra. We love the foggy streets of London, the creature inching ever closer to the oblivious heroine, and, hopefully, her blood spraying all over the passed out prostitutes on the corner. But then, everyone knows we're a little bit sick. So send us your best gaslight fantasy—blood on the prostitutes is optional—so we can read this issue by the fire on a crisp, late autumn night. CALL BEGINS ON JUNE 1, 2013 CALL ENDS ON AUGUST 31, 2013 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 to the author. Penumbra has multiple issue calls open at the same time, therefore it is imperative that you include the issue theme in the subject line of your email. Submissions that do not include this information risk getting lost in our queue and not read before the deadline. Penumbra uses Musa Publishing's house style guide, which relies upon the Chicago...