Taking Submissions: ProleSCARYet: Tales of Horror and Class Warfare (EARLY LISTING)
Deadline: November 30th, 2020 Payment: $75 Theme: The horrors of capitalism Note: This market does not open until November 1st and will not take submissions prior to that. ProleSCARYet: Tales of Horror and Class Warfare will be a print and e-book anthology about the horrors of capitalism. We want monstrous bosses, jobs from literal Hell, working class folks fighting back against great cosmic evils, and any other wild idea you can come up with. As long as it’s anti-capitalist and horror, it’s good. We also welcome dark weird fiction and horror-adjacent sci-fi. The anthology is open to all writers, but we would especially like submissions from anti-capitalist writers of marginalized groups. Stories should be between 1,000 and 4,500 words. Multiple submissions are not allowed. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but withdraw your submission immediately if it gets accepted elsewhere. No reprints. Open for submissions November 1st, 2020 – November 30th, 2020. We will announce accepted submissions by January 15th, 2020. Anthology will be published in spring 2021. OTHER SUBMISSION CONSIDERATIONS If you’re retreading old ground and well-established tropes, make it fresh. We’re fine with horror that has erotic elements, but emphasis should be on the horror. Yes, make it anti-capitalist, but don’t be moralizing. We want nuance. Stories that deal with bigotry are fine, but bigoted stories are not. Splatterpunk is fine, but gore and extreme elements should serve story, character, and theme. FORMAT Use standard manuscript format. Send a doc/docx attachment. Do not copy-paste your story into the body of the email or submit it in any other format — we won’t read it if you do. Please send submission to [email protected]. Include your name, story title, and word count in the subject heading (e.g., Karl Marx — “Capitalism Bad” — 3,500 Words”). Include an author bio of under 100 words and...
Taking Submissions: Stitched Lips (Early Listing!)
Deadline: November 30th, 2020 Payment: 5 cents per word and a contributor's copy Theme: Silence Note: This anthology is open to those from any oppressed group: examples include Women, People of Color, LGTBQ+, Persons with a Disability. Guidelines: This anthology is open to those from any oppressed group: examples include Women, People of Color, LGTBQ+, Persons with a Disability. If you do not fall into this category, please refrain from submitting. There are plenty of other opportunities for you out there. The theme of this anthology is Silence. How you interpret that is up to you, so long as it’s clearly a significant part of the story. Do not send a story with Silence tacked on as an afterthought. You will waste my time and yours. Stories should be horror. We are open to most types of horror though prefer, for this anthology, to shy away from the more extreme: no splatter. Sex and gore are acceptable, provided they are not gratuitous. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, just so we’re absolutely clear: no stories that glorify the oppression of any of the Silenced groups listed above (or any we may have left out). This is an automatic rejection and we will probably never speak to you again either. Standard Manuscript Formatting, please: Times New Roman (or something equivalent) preferred, 12-point font, double spaced. First page, upper left, should contain your contact information and approximate word count (round to the nearest hundred). Word count is between 3,000 and 5.000. There is some wiggle room at both ends but please try to keep it close to that. Your subject line should read Submission: (story title), (your name). Failure to follow this may result in your story getting lost in the shuffle. We are only looking for original...
Taking Submissions: Green Inferno
Deadline: November 30th, 2020 Payment: Flash: $25 plus 2 comp copies.. Short Fiction pays $.04/word plus 4 comp copies. Theme: Weird Horror, atmosphere, dread, and slimy things. Thanks for your interest in Green Inferno! What We Are: A quarterly 120-page trade paperback anthology of original short comics and fiction centered around Terrestrial Horror: stories that take place on or involving our planet, often (but not always) with an environmental or ecological bent. That is to say: not every story has to be Man v. Nature-- that would get old pretty quick!-- but Man v. Nature is a good germination point for what Green Inferno seeks to be, and it definitely falls under the umbrella. Here are some stories that, in our opinion, fall under the umbrella of Terrestrial Horror: The Fog - John Carpenter The Low Low Woods - Carmen Maria Machado & Dani Swamp Thing - Alan Moore & others Threshold - Caitlin R. Kiernan The Godzilla franchise The Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer The Birds - Alfred Hitchcock *Even Cosmic Horror like The Color out of Space, though extraterrestrial in origin, explores the horror wrought on Earth. We’d say that falls well within our purview. So, yeah, it’s a big umbrella, but we do think the title sums it up quite nicely: Green Inferno. The World Celebrates Your Demise. What We’re Looking For: Short Stories (8000 words or less) and Flash Fiction (1000 words or less). How Do We Want to Scare You Today…? -We love Weird Horror, atmosphere, dread, and slimy things. -Splatterpunk or moody Gothic creepiness are both super keen. -Throwback-y and uber-contemporary are equally great. -Sci-Fi and Fantasy angles welcome, but please keep it Earthbound (terrestrial) for now. -We like Horror comedy… sometimes. Everyone’s “funny” is different, but give it a shot! For Fiction Submissions: We are seeking Short Stories (8000 words or less) and Flash Fiction (1000 words or less). Flash Fiction pays $25 plus 2 comp copies. Short Fiction pays $.04/word...
Taking Submissions: Halldark
Deadline: November 30th, 2020 Payment: 5 cents per word Theme: movie/monsters ruin the holidays horror anthology Note: Sorry for the short window. The amazing Gabino Iglesias took this from rough idea to Cemetery Gates Media funding it yesterday afternoon. 2-5k words Deadline: November 30 (tight, I know, but it'll be out December 2020, so non-negotiable) Payment: $.05/word No reprints/poetry/romance/nonfiction I'm editing, so you know everyone is encouraged to submit. Looking at you, new writers, LGBTQ+ writers, writers of color, etc. This is a horror anthology, so make it dark, creepy, scary, gory, and horrific while using the smalltown/holidays/crappy movie aesthetic. No Hallmark tribute stories, please. Send submissions to [email protected] You're awesome Via: Gabino Inglesias's Twitter.
Taking Submissions: Dancing with Devils
Deadline: November 30th, 2020 Payment: $0.005 per word. Theme: Blending spells/rituals/magic with sex Note: This anthology is seeking authors who identify as LGBTQ+. Dancing with Devils is an anthology looking to blend spells/rituals/magic with sex. Published under Red Ferret Press Payment: $0.005 per word. Word Count: up to 8000 words. It's rare that I look at anything over. If we're talking 100 words over that's ok, but not much more than that. And I typically don't include your title in your word counts. Deadline: November 30, 2020. This anthology will be released Summer or Fall 2021 This anthology is seeking authors who identify as LGBTQ+. Please note that this is not a space for allies. We are seeking queer authors. Additionally, we would love to see queer authors of color, authors with disabilities submit to this anthology. This submission call is for stories containing anthropomorphic characters otherwise known as Furry. I'm not really looking for human characters here, and if they do exist I would prefer they remain in the background of the story. Here's what I don't want Straight Narratives. This is something you can find anywhere and has been boring to sit through. Most media you see incorporates a heternormative take on things like relationships, family, societal structure, and honestly I'm tired of it. I'm tired of straight people being the focus. Send me works that go against this; that say "f*ck all straight people." Fiction that contains racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, non-consensual/rape. Just because a character is queer, does not mean you have to stereotype them. Oh and white people who think it's ok to incorporate AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) into their white coded characters? F*ck off, I ain't here for that either. Cultural appropriation has no place in this anthology. If you need...
Taking Submissions: “Worldbuilding” Fantasy Anthology
Deadline: December 1st, 2020 Payment: $100 for a short story, or $200 for a novella. Theme: “Politics as Story Conflict.” Lagrange Books is soliciting short stories and novellas by new and established authors in the fantasy genre, between 3,500 and 7,000 words in length for short stories and between 9,000 and 15,000 words for novellas. (Shorter or longer works will be considered in cases of exceptional merit.) The goal is to select at least ten entries for publication* in a short-story anthology. Theme: “Politics as Story Conflict.” Your story must include as a significant plot element a political conflict that makes up a key piece of the worldbuilding. (For guidance on how to do this, you can refer to Beyond Kings and Princesses: Governments for Worldbuilders, from Lagrange Books.) Accepted authors will receive $100 for a short story, or $200 for a novella. Submission Rules How to submit: Email your manuscript (acceptable document formats: Word, PDF, Pages, TXT, RTF) to the following address: editor at lagrangebooks dot com. Begin the subject line with “”, and make sure to list your contact information in the email itself. (Also, please mention how you heard of this anthology!) Submission deadline: December 1, 2020. Genre: Fantasy, broadly defined. This includes traditional high fantasy, urban fantasy, or any other flavor that includes a magical or fantastical element. (If you are interested in other genres, please suggest them for our next project!) Details Entries must be your own work, must be previously unpublished, and may not be plagiarized. You must own all copyright to work submitted. No exceptions! Read this post and then this post for discussions of my editorial preferences. Be warned especially that even though the focus of this anthology is on worldbuilding, that does not free you from the need to have a strong plot. Works must show adequate command of the English language, grammar, and punctuation. Rule-breaking for effect, as...
Taking Submissions: Contrary Winter 2020 Issue
Deadline: December 1st, 2020 Payment: $20 Theme: We ask our fiction writers to imagine their readers navigating a story with one finger poised over a mouse button. Can your story stay that finger to the end? “Turning words into art is unnatural. It begins with a contrary attitude. It says, I am unhappy with the way things are and desire to make things different. Rather than represent the world, I will make something wildly and savagely new. I will defy logic. I will invest in new perceptions. I will combine and recombine and fabricate and juggle until something that I have never experienced is experienced. The process is alchemical. The process is violent. It goes to the heart of creativity. It disrupts and shatters. It is splendid with provocation. It is an aggression against banality. It is sharp and loud like a janitor scraping frost from a window. The hectic bounce of steam on a street after a truck roars by. The anarchy of waters, the comedy of the face, dangerous feelings vented from a cage of skin.” ~ John Olson Poetry — We believe poetry is contrary by nature, always defying, always tonguing the tang of novelty. We look especially for plurality of meaning, for dual reverberation of beauty and concern. Contrary’s poetry in particular often mimics the effects of fiction or commentary. We find ourselves enamored of prose poems because they are naturally contrary toward form – they tug on the forces of exposition or narrative – but prose poems remain the minority of all the poetic forms we publish. Please consider that Contrary receives vast amounts of poetry and that we can publish only a small percentage of that work. Please submit no more than three poems per issue. Our poetry editor is Shaindel Beers. Fiction — We ask our fiction writers to imagine...
Taking Submissions: The Art of Being Human
Deadline: December 1st, 2020 Payment: AUD$100.00 Theme: Remind readers of the hope and beauty of the Arts, and the way our engagement with writing, music, film, theatre, artworks in all media, and craft of all kinds are at the core of our humanity. The world in 2020 has been tipped upside down and shaken in ways we could barely have imagined, except perhaps in the post-apocalyptic and dystopic worlds of story. Amidst pandemic illness and death, political machinations and despair, one of the casualties has been, at least in a financial sense, the Arts. Governments across the world have slashed funding, galleries, theatres and entertainment venues have closed amid lockdown restrictions, money is being carefully metered with jobs more uncertain than ever, meaning our creatives across all industries are suffering. And yet, more than ever, we are turning to art to stay sane in lockdown, to keep our spirits up in isolation, and to remind us that despite the hardship, there is beauty in this world. To that end, FableCroft is coming out of hiatus in this year of social distancing and staying at home, to call for submissions on a brand new original anthology, The Art of Being Human. Co-edited by Tehani Croft and Stephanie Lai, this anthology seeks to remind readers of the hope and beauty of the Arts, and the way our engagement with writing, music, film, theatre, artworks in all media, and craft of all kinds are at the core of our humanity. Stories should be between 2,000 to 20,000 words long, and not previously published. Poetry of any length is also welcome. Works are invited from all over the world, but must be primarily in the English language. Stories must contain speculative elements – science fiction, fantasy and horror and their sub-genres are all welcome, but we...
Taking Submissions: Artificial Divide
Deadline: December 1st, 2020 Payment: 0.06CAD per word Theme: Multi-genre allowed by Blind and visually impaired writers Note: Will consider reprints Artificial Divide is an own voices anthology by Blind and visually impaired writers. It’s a multi genre anthology with visually impaired protagonists. It will feature a diverse array of short stories with protagonists that are visually impaired. For this anthology, edited by Robert Kingett and Randy Lacey, we’re looking for short stories between 500 and 8,000 words. We are looking for own-voice stories featuring blind or visually impaired protagonists, written by authors who are blind or visually impaired. The story need not be about being visually impaired or blind, and can be any genre of fiction. Stories must be in English, though we invite diversity and dialects, including AAVE. We will reject any story with racist, ableist, or homophobic, or otherwise bigoted themes. We don’t want to see those kinds of stories. Period. One of the editors will be using a screen reader to review submissions, so make sure your document does not contain any tables or graphs or charts. Layout tables are acceptable but highly discouraged because your submission will be converted to Proper Manuscript Format. If you already have your story in Proper Manuscript format, send it along in that format. If you’re visually impaired and need a screen reader friendly template, this page is a bit dated, but it has templates that work in all versions of Microsoft Word <https://www.shunn.net/format/templates.html>. Submit your manuscript in either docx or doc format. We’re especially looking for writers of color, LGBT+ writers, and other marginalized identities. Please note that priority will be given to Canadian writers from diverse backgrounds, though we are open to authors from around the world. In your cover letter, provide your name, your primary email address,...
Taking Submissions: Don’t Touch That: An Anthology of Parenthood in SFF
Deadline: December 1st, 2020 Payment: $0.06/word Theme: Parenthood in SFF Note: Only 2 stories available An anthology exploring the theme of parenthood from science fiction and fantasy authors who are parents themselves! Thank you SO MUCH for your support for this anthology. Now that we've reached our funding goals, behind the scenes we're organizing our timelines and getting started with writing. And thanks to your help in reaching our stretch goals, we'll be open to TWO SLUSH STORIES! The theme is, not surprisingly, parenting in SFF. You can interpret that any way you like, and take it in any direction you like. We'd love to see what you come up with! Stories should be no more than 5,000 words, and when they're all edited and ready to go, can be submitted in a .doc or .docx file to [email protected] no later than 11:15pm EST on December 1, 2020. Please remember to include your name, pen name if you use one, and contact info on your submission (not part of your word count). Thank you again, and stay tuned to our Kickstarter page for monthly updates and we move forward writing these fantastic stories of parents and kids in SFF! - Mike, Kai, and Keena Via: Don't Touch That's Kickstarter.