Events

Deadline: March 7, 2016 Payment: $25.00, plus digital and 1 trade paperback copy upon distribution Visual Adjectives is currently accepting stories, art and photography for the SteamPunk Assemblage,New Legends: Mercenary • Engineer  • Captain Book 2   Take to your typographers to help us build a steamtastic collection. The settings can be post-apocalyptic steampunk, time travel steampunk, airship and/or airship pirates. The world can be this one, in any time frame you choose, or another world altogether, just be sure to bring the steam powered flavor into your writing. The characters can be adventurers, inventors, entertainers, well to do or ner’ do well, wealthy or waif, whatever strikes your fancy. We seek submissions from emerging and established authors. We are looking for exceptional, well-written, engaging stories with subject matter reasonably free from sexually explicit content, gore, and obscenities.  This is going to call for a high level of skill to keep your story fast paced and interesting without falling back on those particular crutches to carry the plot along. No copyright infringements please. Characters must be your own, originally created, and not a version or fan fiction of an existing character. Do not use the names or personalities of existing trademarked characters. No references should be made to characters from well-known sources. Only submit unpublished, original stories, and characters. Story length, between 2,500 minimum and 8,000 maximum words. The first page of your submitted document must be a Cover Page (see below for details). Please spend time reviewing the guidelines, this will ensure that your best work is submitted free of editorial issues, such as spelling, formatting, and grammar. GUIDELINES Theme: SteamPunk Story Word Count: 2,500 minimum – 8,000 maximum, (not including information for cover page) Authors Biography: 250 maximum words Story Synopsis: 350 maximum words File Format: Microsoft Word document...

Deadline: March 15th, 2016 Payment: $10 and contributor's copy FunDead Publications is currently seeking submissions for an upcoming anthology of spooky short stories set in Salem, MA. Title TBA. Instructions: Send your submission to [email protected] for consideration, but please read our guidelines below! Submission Guidelines: Submit by March 15, 2016 with a rough release date of September 2016 Word Count: 1,000-6,000 Content Requirements: Your story must take place in Salem, MA. The time-period and content is your choice, but DO be unique and DO make it SPOOKY! Payment: Accepted submissions will be awarded payment in the way of $10 upon printing. It may not be much, but we are a small and humble press just getting our start and it’s all we can offer at this time besides a little social media promotion and beyond. If your submission is accepted, you will also receive a printed copy of the anthology! Anyone wishing for extra copies to distribute to family and friends (or to sell on their own) will pay the flat, wholesale price plus shipping. Format: Format should be in standard manuscript format and submitted as .doc, .docx, or PDF. Unfortunately, we cannot accept reprints at this time. Please include a brief cover letter introducing yourself along with your submission. Response Time: Please be aware that it may be six to eight weeks before you receive a response from FunDead Publications. Diversity Statement: We at FunDead Publications believe diversity is what makes fiction wonderful and unique and we welcome submissions from writers of every race, religion, nationality, gender, and sexual orientation. Via: Fun Dead Publications.

Deadline: March 15, 2016 Payment: 3 cents per word or if a SFWA member, 6 cents per word. "Hyperpowers"- Space opera and military fiction. Plato invented naval superpower Atlantis. Iain M. Banks imagined a future dominant galactic civilization in his Culture series. With all of space and time to choose from, this is your chance to show us your world-building chops. Likable characters optional. Third Flatiron Publishing is based in Boulder, Colorado, and Ayr, Scotland. We are looking for submissions to our quarterly themed anthologies. Our focus is on science fiction and fantasy and anthropological fiction. We want tightly plotted tales in out-of-the-ordinary scenarios. Light horror is acceptable, provided it fits the theme. Please send us short stories that revolve around age-old questions and have something illuminating to tell us as human beings. Fantastical situations and creatures, exciting dialog, irony, mild horror, and wry humor are all welcome. Stories should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Inquire if longer. Role models for the type of fiction we want include Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke, Dan Simmons, Connie Willis, Vernor Vinge, and Ken Kesey. We want to showcase some of the best new shorts available today. See the "Submissions" tab for preferred formats, etc. For each anthology, we will also accept  a few very short humor pieces on the order of the "Shouts and Murmurs" feature in The New Yorker Magazine (600 words or so). These can be written from a first-person perspective or can be mini-essays that tell people what they ought to do, how to do something better, or explain why something is like it is, humorously. An SF/Fantasy bent is preferred. Stories should be submitted in either Microsoft Word (using double spacing), RTF, or plain text. They should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Flash humor pieces (Grins...

Deadline: March 15, 2016 Payment: Contributor's Copy The bayou country is rich in history, beauty, music and culture. Swamps and live oaks draped in Spanish moss, catfish and the blues, Cajuns and pirate treasure and jazz and voodoo, plantations and the dark history of slavery and racism; with Bouchercon finally coming to New Orleans, what better theme for the Bouchercon 2016 anthology than BLOOD ON THE BAYOU? We are looking for stories either set in, or inspired by, the Bayou Country. (Remember, Louisiana is not the only state with bayous!) We want diverse voices and characters, tales of darkness and violence, whether they are noir, cozy, hard-boiled or suspense. Push the boundaries of your creativity and the theme! NOTE: The stories don’t have to actually be set in the Bayou Country, but can be ‘inspired’ by it—so a character can be from here, it can built around a piece of music; etc. If you have any questions as to whether your idea fits the theme, do not be afraid to ask! Specifics: The maximum word count is 5,000 words; the minimum is 2,000. The stories should be crime-oriented; whether it’s the commission, planning or solving of one. It can also be about the after-effects of one. Murder, mayhem, blackmail, embezzlement, robbery—get as creative as you can! Submissions: All submissions will go through a blind-reading process for inclusion. So, do not include your name anywhere on the file; there should simply be a title on the first page. Pages should also be numbered, and in the header, the title of the story as well. Please use Microsoft Word; double spaced, using Times New Roman 12 point font. The name of your file should also be the title of the story, i.e. The Lottery.docx. Please include your name, address, and contact information...

Deadline: March 28th 2016 Payment: $10 As inspired by, the Gift of the Magi Stories featuring romantic partners are welcome, but stories with other duos are preferred InfectiveINk.com is interested in great fiction. Unless specified, we are open to all genres and styles, except erotica. We offer $10 per Short Story, payable via PayPal. We do not currently pay for Short Story submissions under 1500 words, or for any Flash Fiction submissions, bragging rights however, are priceless. Remember, InfectiveINk.com is a prompt-driven publication. Be sure that the story you're submitting corresponds to one of our prompts before sending your work. Submissions should be sent to [email protected] In the subject line please include the word 'submission', your last name, and the prompt you're submitting for, e.g. Submission, Fitzgerald, Monsters. The body of the email includes: Your name Your pen name, if you use one Your contact details (including the email address we would send your Paypal payment to if your story is 1500+ words) The word count An interesting bio that doesn't simply list your publications Your submission You are welcome to paste the submission in the body of the email, we also accept .doc, .docx, .txt, and .rtf attachments. Please replace any curly quotes with straight quotes, curly apostrophes with straight ones. Double and triple check for grammar and spelling errors, watch your possessives, take care with there/their/they're. Write to the prompt and HAVE FUN! These aren't the stories to devote months of intense effort toward. Let your creative juices flow freely (yeah, that sounded gross), and play fast and hard! Edit with a vengeance and submit. Please read over our Author Agreement before submitting. InfectiveINk.com is listed at Duotrope, don't forget to track your submissions! Questions? Need some help/guidance? Email us at [email protected] Via: InfectiveINK.

Deadline: March 30th 2016. Payment: 100 USD Independent Legions Publishing is seeking original horror stories in English language for the new eBook Anthology THE BEAUTY OF DEATH, edited by Alessandro Manzetti, to be published in April, 2016 . All types of horror are welcome. Sex or violence in a story should be artistically justified; no excessive gore. We welcome all subgenres and forms of speculative fiction. We do not accept  multiple submissions. Submissions should generally follow standard manuscript format, Your manuscript may be submitted via email in .DOC format. We can only consider stories submitted through that form. We don't need to see a cover letter, but if you feel like providing one, feel free. Word Count: We are open to stories of 4500-7500 words. Deadline: March 30, 2016. Pay Rate: We pay (via Paypal) 100 USD for each original story. We buy first exclusive English-language rights  for two years, Response time currently within three weeks. After that, if you haven't heard from us, please query. We don't send a message in response to every submission we receive. SUBMIT YOUR STORY Via: Independent Legions.

Deadline: March 30th, 2016 Payment: $30 per story Word count: 2000 - 8000 (flexible, but the longer the story the stronger it must be) Theme: What Went Wrong? Submission limit: Two stories per author max We've all had that day when a spell went south, a glitch ate the code in your doomsday device, and negotiations broke down so  aliens are on the move eat your brains. Okay, maybe we haven't all had that day. We want a story about what went wrong. Tell us about the best laid plans and what turned them on their ear. Make it dark or funny. Make it sci-fi or fantasy. Just make it something we haven't seen before. We're looking for an eclectic mix of stories that are unique and feature strong storytelling.  Please no: Explicit violence or sex for shock value.  Established authors welcomed, newcomers encouraged. All submissions acknowledged within 5 days and acceptances notified by April 15.  We look forward to reading your work. Via: Lit Select.

Deadline: March 31st, 2016 Payment: 1¢/word up to $50 Upheaval. Unrest. Turmoil. Radicalism. These are the ideas that come to mind when we think of revolution. But buried within that word is another. Evolution. The slow, inexorable march of the old giving way to the new. The new, giving way to the newer. And the newer, perhaps forgetting its past, giving way to something come around again. Change. Circumstances change. Climates change. Regimes change. And in each instance, those ideas best adapted for survival are usually those rewarded. This is evolution. But let’s not forget that circumstances can be changed. Climates can be changed. Regimes can be changed. This is revolution. Which brings us to you. Write a story that deals with change, with all the consequences, intended and unintended, that follow. Juxtapose revolution and evolution. Offer us the ascendant avant-garde, or the resurgent old guard. Entertain us. Enlighten us. Give us that moment of exhilaration that comes from the realization of the fantastic. The change starts with you. The change ends with you. The change is you. (Accepting speculative fiction stories between 2,000 and 12,000 words. See Submissions page for more details.) So you want to submit a story? Fantastic! Here are a couple of things you should know: while we have opened our doors to stories originating beyond the Michigan borders, we do still remain committed to showcasing great Michigan writers. Because of that, we will maintain a minimum 60/40 ratio of Michigan-to-non-Michigan authors. We accept story submissions for upcoming projects only in the stated window for each, as listed on the project’s page. Find our open projects at the left. Make sure your story is well-written and edited, and generally free of copy errors. Format your pages with 1″ margins, ragged right, and double-spaced. We prefer a sans...

Deadline: March 31st 2016 Payment: $5.00 plus equal share of 50% of the anthology’s royalties It seems like in today’s world that anytime a new something or other comes out – a few years down the road there are lawyers advertising to get clients because of something that happened regarding that drug, product etc. In some cases there is evidence that the manufacturer new about the issues and opted to ignore. In some cases, it is something that is finally confirmed decades down the road and wasn’t even foreseeable. What we’re looking for are speculative fiction stories involving the creation, manufacture, release etc. of some new technology (or magic) that is supposed to do one thing and later on down the road some unintended consequence is discovered. It can be product that is supposed to be ‘good’ but has a bad consequence or just has something different happen as well. Conversely, you can have something that is supposed to be dangerous or ‘evil’ and have it develop a ‘good’ consequence. An example of unintended consequences from the novel Dispassionate Lies by Eileen Schuh. Decades after the introduction of Birth Control Pills – there is a generation of women who are born asexual—no sex drive or interest in sex. (This would be an unintended consequence of something that supposed to help women take control of their reproduction) Give us the whole story regarding the original intended purpose as well as the good, the bad and the unintended consequences thereof. Break the story-writing rules if you want. If you use a tried and true plotline, twist it in an original and interesting way. Original stories are preferred. Query for reprints. ALL writers are encouraged to submit. Doesn’t matter if you’re a pro with years of credits, a beginner just starting out, or...

Deadline: March 31, 2016 Payment: Royalties BEEN A LONG TIME: STORIES INSPIRED BY ROCK AND ROLL CLASSICS A Pulp/Noir (yes, there’s a difference) Anthology Edited by Sean Taylor (yep, your friendly, neighborhood blogmaster is editing a new book) Theme: I was driving home last night listening to some music, and it hit me that Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" would be a great starting point for a 1950s jazz noir story. Poor musician has to sell his guitar while his girl works in a diner, all the while trying to salvage their strained relationship. Then they get caught up in a local kidnapping with ties to the mob (okay, it takes a turn there...). Which only made my mind wander into this territory: What other great rock and roll songs would make equally great pulp or noir tales if recast to some time between the 1920s and 1960s? Details: We’re looking for stories set in a historic noir or pulp mood and tone between the 1920s and 1960s. No fantasy. No sci-fi unless it’s clearly pulp or noir in tone (a la Blade Runner). Horror is fine as long as it doesn’t go too far into elements of the fantastic (hinted supernatural is fine, but don’t have imps and devils and monsters running around New York or Chicago; think a Lovecraftian story inspired by "Hotel California," for example). Do not simply retell the story of the song. The song must serve as a “jumping off” point to create your story. If you have questions about what that means, just ask. The key word here is CLASSIC. It must be a known song, no obscure indie “hits” only hipsters know. And we’re talking about rock and roll, not so underground, so alternative it doesn’t even sound like music anymore stuff....