Events

Deadline: May 1st, 2020 Payment: 3 cents per word and a contributors copy Theme: Extreme horror which involved alcohol Some call it courage in a bottle while others perceive it as the devil’s cocktail. Alcohol comes in all shapes and sizes, bringing along with it the temptation of sin, the eagerness of confusion and the psychological bombardment on the mind and senses forcing us to play a game between life and death. BREWTALITY will dive deep in the subconscious where the demons swim, blinding our judgment and guiding us to make bad decisions without revealing the consequences. 3,000 word max Must have elements of Extreme Horror. NO REPRINTS No simultaneous submissions No violence/sex towards children Pay: 3c per word paid through Paypal + (1) print contributor copy 1-year exclusive rights Send as a .DOC or .DOCX attachment to [email protected] with the subject line: BREW SUBMISSION: Title by Author Name Do not copy/paste story in body of email. Include a very brief bio just to break the ice. Deadline May 1 Responses by June 1 Via: The Evil Cookie.

Deadline: May 1st, 2020 Payment: $30 Theme: Modern faerie tales to explain the 20th and 21st centuries Myths and faerie tales have been historically used to explain the world or enforce societal behaviors. The Gray Sisters are looking for tales that explain the events or enforce the behaviors of the 20th and 21st centuries in fanciful ways. The stories don't strictly need to take place in this world, but they do need to relate back to its existence or behavior. ​ Examples:        - A new explanation for a phenomena or occurrence that has happened or conceivably          will happen within your lifetime.        - Using old characters or creatures in new stories.        - Telling an old story in a modern way, (it should be nearly or completely unrecognizable          from its old form.) ​ Submissions may have adult themes and language and they may be violent or graphic. However, these things should be used for the quality of the story and not shock value or shortcuts. ​ Submissions should be between 1000 and 3000 words, in English, fully edited and on theme. ​ If you have any further content questions, please see the FAQ section or the Contact Us sections of this site. Submissions for our Summer 2020 Issue are open from December 22nd 2019 to May 1, 2020. Selections will be emailed out from mid to late May, and critiques (for those who chose them) will be emailed out before the next issue is published. Submissions should be between 1000 and 3000 words, in English, fully edited and on theme. ​ If you submit a piece you are attesting that                                              - it is your own work,  ...

Deadline: May 1st: 2020 Prizes: £75 (1st), £50 (2nd) and £25 (3rd) Themes: One Last Chance It’s 2020 and believe it or not, our fifth year of producing audio anthologies! Keeping this show on the road entails a lot of work and money, but I’m sure you’ll agree the outcome has been very entertaining. What makes all of this possible though are your stories that you submit and the precious time our judges give up to read the shortlisted work. So with it being our fifth anniversary we wanted to do something a little different and run a theme for this year’s anthology. The title will be ‘One Last Chance’. There’s no specific names or worlds, it’s simply going to be an image. All of the other rules around submissions still apply which you can check here, only the tale must include the scene from the picture below… CLICK HERE TO SEE IMAGE Stay tuned as we release further updates on this year’s judging lineup and the additional authors that will share a spot with our winners on Remastered Words 2020 Audio Anthology. Also why not take a look at some of our Write Advice articles on short story writing to get you started. We can’t wait to see what you’re going to come up with and the tales you’re going to tell! Prizes Authors of the top three selected stories will receive a one time payment of £75 (1st), £50 (2nd) and £25 (3rd), as well as having their stories produced as an audio work by Remastered Words. Samples of these stories will be made available to listen to on our website and will also be created into an audio anthology. Authors will receive a 30% share of the royalties that will be split between the winners.   Schedule We are open...

Deadline: May 2nd, 2020 Payment: .10/word Theme: Horror and dark fantasy, cosmic horror, swords and sorcery, dark science-fiction, and downright weird. Stuff that doesn’t really fit elsewhere. Cross-genre stories welcome. Stories that define ‘weird’. Our next issue will be out this summer and we’re starting work on the issue after that. Although we have a solid roster of amazing talent, I’m holding ONE slot for open submissions. Here are the submission guidelines. THEME: Horror and dark fantasy, cosmic horror, swords and sorcery, dark science-fiction, and downright weird. Stuff that doesn’t really fit elsewhere. Cross-genre stories welcome. Stories that define ‘weird’. EXCEPTIONS: No gratuitous sex (story appropriate sexuality is okay). Harsh languages is not a problem. LENGTH: 5-8k words. No exceptions. PAYMENT: .10/word on acceptance FORMAT: Word document only (no RTF or PDF) Times New Roman, 12 point, double-spaced. Standard 5-7 character indent on paragraphs; no extra spaces between paragraphs except to indicate specific breaks in the story. No exceptions. MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: Yes, but as separate emails. SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: No. REPRINTS: No. We are only considering original works. FIRST PAGE: Include your name, address, email address, and word count on the first page of the story. No additional title page. SUBMISSION DATES: The window for submissions will be open for ONE WEEK, from Sunday, April 26, 9m Eastern time to Saturday, May 2nd, midnight Pacific Time. SEND TO: [email protected]  Put WEIRD TALES OPEN CALL in the header (without that the story will not be read). IMPORTANT NOTE: Please follow the submission guidelines. -Jonathan Maberry Editor, WEIRD TALES MAGAZINE -Dana Fredsti Submissions Editor Via: Weird Tales.

Deadline: May 4th, 2020 Payment: $30 for each accepted submission Theme: Digital Fingers, Digital Roots, Digital Families SUBMISSIONS FOR OUR FOURTH ISSUE, COMMUNITY THROUGH TECH, WILL OPEN APRIL 20TH AND WILL CONTINUE THROUGH MAY 4TH. Digital Fingers, Digital Roots, Digital Families In times of crisis, certain parts of us are put on hold, and other pieces may begin to come into play. Families crop up where they need to, communities fill new space. One thousand pairs of hands clap in unison and you step onto the narrow flap of a sun-starved balcony for one of only a handful of times. Turns out there are stars in this city, odors of plant-life rising from the tiles. Roads become rivers you cannot ford, the light from the window opposite feels further away than the world’s first telephone call. But we can still synchronize; we are still mass movements, one hopeful world of applause in the night. Our digital selves are never met with solitude; our digital selves are held by others’ digital arms, nets that buoy us when, otherwise, we might feel most alone. Many of us live online. We are the internet, an uprising of webpages tugging and turning us into new formations. What are we making with it, with each other? How many interiors can we unite within these collective spaces? Issue 4 of Kanstellation asks for reflections around the theme of what digital families and communities mean to you. How do you express and define your selves within and through the digital roots you’ve found or inherited? General Submission Guidelines Rights By submitting to Kanstellation Magazine, you are agreeing to grant us First Electronic Rights and Non-exclusive Archival Rights if your work is accepted. All other rights remain with the author. After that, republishing with attribution is welcome. All submissions...

Deadline: May 5th, 2020 Payment: 2 cents per word Theme: Black market businesses during a pandemic The COVID-19 quarantine has us all shut up in our homes. Businesses have ground to a halt, the economy is slowed to a snail’s pace, and nobody is entirely certain how long it is going to last. In the middle of all of this, black market businesses have begun to operate: underground hair salons, photography studios, businesses once completely legitimate and now illegal simply for operating. If I’d written this call a year ago, it would stop there–but that’s no longer speculative fiction. That’s happening. So instead, Impulsive Walrus is asking for stories about the long haul. What does our world look like if the quarantine just…stays? We’re looking for near-future science fiction stories exploring the comedy, horror, and human drama of a life spent six feet away from each other, and a world where our interaction is done digitally, lest we be ravaged by disease. Impulsive Walrus Books will be paying a semi-pro rate of two cents per word. Reading period will begin on May 5, 2020, and will end when the anthology has hit its goal of 80,000 words. Looking for stories of between 2,000 and 8,000 words. Please submit by e-mailing a .doc or .rtf file to [email protected] with the subject line GOING VIRAL SUBMISSION. Via: Impulsive Walrus Books.

Deadline: May 10th, 2020 Payment: $20 per piece of fiction / creative non-fiction between 1000-3000 words and $30 per piece between 3001-6000 words. We offer $20 per poem. Theme: Pieces related to all things love, sex, and eroticism.  **Submissions for UnSung Volume II Close May 10th** ​ Submissions should be sent through the submission page, but any inquiries or concerns can be sent to:    [email protected].  Share Your Sauciest UnSung Literary Magazine is accepting pieces of poetry, micro or flash fiction, and short creative non-fiction. We would also like to feature visual artists, and are accepting illustrations and photography. ​ UnSung Literary Magazine is choosing to focus on marginalized voices; priority will be given to artists and authors who are Black/POC, LGBTQ, or identify as womxn.  ​ We are looking for pieces related to all things love, sex, and eroticism. But, we want to see your sensual expressions living within intersections. Have a piece about a Black, Queer AFAB (assigned female at birth) late- night tryst? Maybe prose detailing your attraction to another lesbian with masculinity similar to yours? Show us the tender poem of how his hand grazing yours first time made your heart flutter. We want to know how the moonlight looked reflecting off of their dark skin that night at the lake. Formatting and Correspondence ​ If submitting poetry, multiple pieces are allowed, but please no more than 5 at a time; if poems are each longer than 2 pages, submit no more than 3. Not all submitted may be accepted. For prose, we're looking for flash (included micro) fiction, so please limit submissions to 3000 words. Please put SUBMISSION: – – – in the header to help us weed out spam. ​ Example: SUBMISSION: – – – We invite you to add a cover letter detailing your publication history (if any, non-mandatory) and any relevant details. These...

Deadline: May 10th, 2020 Payment: 50% of the sales will be split between each author of each particular book after printing costs Theme: Horror To submit your short story to the Bi-Monthly Breaking Rules Publishing Horror Anthology, starting in January 2020 - released by the end of the month - please send an email to [email protected] by the 10th of the book release month. ​ In your email - please include your contact information, including location in the body of your email, as well as a "Word Doc" attachment of your work. We will confirm your submission within 24 hours, as well as get back to you within one week on the possibility for publishing options. All submissions must - Be sent in a "Word Doc" - 8.5 x 11 format - a clean, edited story with the authors name and title at the top of the page - please, no special margins - your story should be indented properly - single spaced - in a 12 font - no double spaces between paragraphs - and no headers or footers. Page limit is 30 max  - 15 min - all submissions but be sent in by the 10th of the book release month. Publishing starts January 2020. Work that is sent incorrectly will be sent back. We sincerely appreciate your interest in Breaking Rules Publishing but also don't want to add additional work for our formatting team. ​Editing: By submitting you agree to allow Breaking Rules Publishing to provide a light edit, spell check, formatting, appropriate grammar, to all stories published. Copyrights: The author retains all copyrights to the submitted work. With your consent, BRP may publish of your work in future journals and publicity pieces, and other formats or contexts determined by, and at the discretion of, Breaking Rules Publishing. Please note that other publications may not accept...

Deadline: May 14th 2020 Payment: 0.08/word for original fiction, $0.03/word for reprint fiction. Theme: Science Fiction and Fantasy Note: Reprints Welcome Cossmass Infinities is OPEN for submissions. Submissions are open until May 14th 2020. Cossmass Infinities is a Science Fiction and Fantasy short story magazine edited by Paul Campbell. Please read and follow the instructions below before submitting to Cossmass Infinities. Submissions must be made using this form. Incomplete forms will be automatically rejected. We are looking for original science fiction and fantasy short stories. We are also interested in previously published stories. We are looking for short stories between 2000–10,000 words. We pay $0.08/word for original fiction. We pay $0.03/word for reprint fiction. The rights we wish to obtain are listed in the sample contracts for original fiction and reprint fiction. Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Multiple submissions are not accepted and will be rejected automatically. However, once you have received a rejection, you may immediately submit another story. Your manuscript should be a plain document, containing ONLY the story title, author by-line, and the complete text of the story. Do not use underlining in your manuscript for emphasis. Italics and bold are sufficient. File formats must be either Word (.docx) or OpenDocument Text (.odt) file formats. Files in other formats will be rejected. Payment is through Paypal. Submit only complete stories. An email confirming receipt of your submission will be sent within 20 minutes of us receiving it. Note that your submission is sent via a email from the form processor service (formspree.io) which may occasionally take longer than 20 minutes. If you haven’t received a notification after a day then either resubmit your story or contact us. Please allow 3 months for a decision, then feel free to reply to your notification email to enquire as to the status of your story. Cossmass Infinities will be published...

Deadline: May 15th, 2020 Payment: $5 USD Theme: "Most" Speculative fiction, read below for specifics. Note: Open only for women-identified authors. Simply follow the schedule below to be notified when we close and open for submissions. Criteria Luna Station Quarterly publishes speculative fiction written by women-identified authors. We think women write awesome characters and really cool stories and we want to show it to the world. We will consider stories submitted by any woman writer, regardless of experience or writing resume. If you consider yourself on the woman end of the gender spectrum in any significant capacity, you’re welcome here! Stuff we want: Fantasy Science Fiction Space Opera New Fairy Tales (not retellings) Some creepiness Stories that explore the nooks and crannies of an original world Big events from the everyman perspective Unique settings and storytelling forms Well written stories with strong characters Stuff we don’t want: Anything biased toward any religion, race or moral preference Extreme gore or sexual content, in particular no explicit rape or sexual assault. (everything in moderation) Bizarro fiction Poetry Fan Fiction (original stories only, please) Bad grammar/punctuation (please proofread and watch your sentence structure!) Plagiarism A further note about sex and violence in submissions. Science fiction has a long-standing tradition of pushing boundaries and asking difficult questions. It is meant to challenge us and ask us to look at ourselves and how we treat each other and the world around us. That said, LSQ is centered on uplift and so any story that contains explicit sexual situations or violence especially toward women will be considered more carefully than other stories and the content must be justified within the story’s arch. Format and Details Stories should be 500 to 7000 words in length. We may publish longer or shorter works, but the greater your story is...