Events

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 Payment: $0.08 per word and contributors copies Theme: Identity, security, and community are inexorably entwined DARKNESS BLOOMS Identity, security, and community are inexorably entwined. For our anthology, Darkness Blooms, we’re looking for stories touching on at least one of these themes. We want you to explore the boundaries of who we are, what makes us feel safe (and at what cost), with whom we choose to surround ourselves, and our darkest secrets. Let’s explore how they influence us and our perception of reality. IDENTITY Identity is formed by not only things like race, culture, and class but also by the relationships we cultivate, the opinions and moral codes we adopt, and our choices. What secrets lie in the dark expanses between where we came from, who we think we are, and how we want others to perceive us? SECURITY Security—stability, order, dependency, structure—is an innate human need. In practice, security tends to be an illusion designed to make us feel more in control over our surroundings. What makes us feel safe, and what are we willing to sacrifice to feel that way? What happens when safety nets aren’t there to catch us when we fall? What dreadful secrets are we willing to keep to preserve the status quo? COMMUNITY Humans often seek security through community. We align ourselves with others who share our interests, culture and religion, geographic location, and workplaces. How well do you really know your neighbors, your friends, your coworkers, your family? How do we build these communities? What erodes a community, makes it crumble? SUBMISSION GUIDELINES + All submissions must inspire dread. Genre definitions tend to be subjective, so we encourage you to become familiar with the stories we’ve published here to get an idea of what sort of content we’re seeking. +...

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 Payment: 2 cents USD per word Theme: An Anthology of Humorous Mysteries Die Laughing: An Anthology of Humorous Mysteries This summer we will be publishing our first hardcover anthology. We're looking for original 1k-8k word stories with off-beat characters, bungling detectives, or funny premises. Be creative, but make it about a mystery/crime, and make us laugh! Payment is 2 cents USD per word, B&W comics $25 USD. Submit using the form below before June 1, 2021 If your story is accepted, a digital agreement must be signed and payment will be sent by PayPal to the email address you specify below. We are a Mystery Writers of America approved publisher. Details can be found below: Via: Mystery Weekly Magazine.

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 Payment: AU$100 Theme: Speculative Fiction Note: Australian writers (residents and citizens) only A cicerone is a guide who shows and explains the curiosities of a place to strangers. We want you to lead us to interesting and unseen places, and help us to understand these places. We want you to be just as curious as we are. Tell us something unusual. Show us an old thing in a new light. Point out something we never noticed. Take us to a side street, dark alley, or hidden trail. Cicerone Journal is currently OPEN for submissions for Issue 5: Curious Worlds, our first Speculative Fiction showcase. For our current issue, please send a maximum of two pieces of short fiction to [email protected]. For our Curious Worlds issue, we will be accepting short fiction of 1000-5000 words from any speculative fiction genre. This is a paid opportunity: we will pay AU$100 for each piece that is published. Genres accepted include, but are not limited to: Fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy Dystopian and utopian fiction (including apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic) Climate fiction (cli-fi) Magic realism Historical fantasy Supernatural fiction Superhero fiction Indigenous futurisms Afrofuturism Punk subgenres, such as steampunk, cyberpunk, solarpunk, silkpunk, capepunk, biopunk, etc. Unsure if your piece counts as speculative fiction? Contact us via email at [email protected] or follow us on facebook at Cicerone Journal where we will be discussing some of our favourite speculative fiction genres throughout the submission period. Send your submissions to [email protected] with the subject line – . Submissions close midnight AEST 31 May 2021. If your piece is topical or time-sensitive, we are open to altering our publication schedules to accommodate it. Please include ‘TIMELY’ or ‘URGENT’ (or some equally galvanising word) in the subject line of your email submission if the piece you are submitting is time-sensitive. We will try to...

Deadline: May 31st: 2021 Payment: $5 and a contributors copy Theme: Poetry about body horror Note: Open to all poets who are women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes. To celebrate National Poetry Month, Black Spot Books will be publishing its inaugural Women in Horror Poetry Collection in April 2022: UNDER HER SKIN. This collection is open to all poets who are women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes. Submissions open March 2021 and will close May 30, 2021, with decisions made on a rolling basis. Poems to be included in the collection will be chosen by Black Spot Book's editorial staff and guest judges. The theme of the inaugural collection is body horror. This is a broad spectrum and poets are welcome to interpret the prompt in their own vision--so long as it's dark, unsettling, an on-theme. The showcase will feature a cover with hand-drawn illustration by respected horror artist Lynne Hansen and will be distributed in both print and ebook. Poems must be previously unpublished, though published poets are, of course, welcome. We accept submissions of poems up to fifty lines. Free verse preferred (please, no forced rhyme or clichés). We accept up to three poems per poet. Submissions should be submitted along with a brief bio. Each poem chosen for publication will be paid $5 and each poet will receive a copy of the collection upon publication. Poet will retain rights to any accepted poem, with first right of publication by Black Spot Books. Showcase Judges: For the 2022 collection the judges will be Black Spot Books president and award-winning author/editor, Lindy Ryan, and Toni Miller, a founding member of the Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF). Lindy Ryan is the president and publisher of Black Spot Books, an imprint of Vesuvian Media Group. She is an award-winning and bestselling author and editor....

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 Payment: £10 Theme: J is for Jack-o’-Lantern J is for Jack-o’-Lantern – Submissions open April 1st. Deadline May 31st.  Halloween in theme for these stories but the Jack-o’-Lantern must play a key role. We are currently calling for submissions for a series of horror anthologies – The A-Z of Horror. The series will be based on a variety of themes and will consist of twenty-six books in total. We are looking for short horror stories, between 4000 and 8000 words, on each of the themes listed below. You may submit to more than one book, but we will only include a maximum of one story from each author, in each book. Being accepted into one book does not guarantee acceptance into one of the others. The story must be your own work, to which you hold the rights. The story must not be available elsewhere and, if accepted, we will hold the rights to it for three months from the date of publication. After that time, you may use the story however you wish. Any sub-genre of horror is suitable, even extreme, so long as the story fits the theme of that book and does not include anything which may unnecessarily cause offence Payment for the story will be £10, to be paid by PayPal, as well as a contributor’s e-book of the finished book. Please send submissions in a Word document (ideally Times New Roman 12pt, single spaced) to [email protected] with the title of the book you are submitting to in the subject line. Please ensure you have included your name on the Word document. If you have any queries, feel free to get in touch using the Contact page. We aim to respond to submissions within 2 weeks of the deadline, but feel free to get in...

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 (Original call had windows that has been modified to this date) Payment:CAD 2c/word for originals; 50% rate for reprints Theme: Speculative Fiction of Spirituality, Belief, and Practice Note: Reprints welcome As a special way to accommodate people developing stories for Strange Wars or Strange Religion, authors have the option of requesting to make late submissions. This is intended for authors who expect not to be able to finish writing and polishing their submission before the close of our submission window. If you think you will need any additional time, you can request to make a late submission here. Strange Religion: Speculative Fiction of Spirituality, Belief, and Practice Strange Religion thoughtfully and respectfully explores religious traditions and ideas through speculative fiction.  These are stories about the rituals, theology, and spirituality of aliens, AI, and the denizens of fantastic worlds depicted by scripture and religious folklore. How do Muslims on other planets pray and perform the hajj? How would AI worship or read scripture? How would interreligious dialogue change if shamanic magic turned out to be real? What would the Bible be like if it were written by elves? How would the Buddha get by today? Suppose the remains of Krishna were found—what then? What if prophets didn't only see the future but were from the future? These stories depict religion with the complexity it has in the real world, where gods aren’t just plot devices to create political tension or to give characters magical powers. They delve into the struggles of adherents of tomorrow’s religions and religions that might have been. Strange Religion fills a lacuna in the field of speculative short fiction, which often does not treat religion with sufficient depth and thoughtfulness. These stories reconsider theological topics—incarnation, reincarnation, revelation, miracles, and the like—through the lens of science fiction and fantasy.  They put...

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 (Original call had windows that has been modified to this date) Payment:CAD 2c/word for originals; 50% rate for reprints Theme: Speculative Fiction of Coalitions in Conflict Note: Reprints welcome As a special way to accommodate people developing stories for Strange Wars or Strange Religion, authors have the option of requesting to make late submissions. This is intended for authors who expect not to be able to finish writing and polishing their submission before the close of our submission window. If you think you will need any additional time, you can request to make a late submission here. Strange Wars: Speculative Fiction of Coalitions in Conflict Strange Wars explores military conflict through speculative fiction. These are stories with an original take on organized aggression. For science fiction stories about war: What will warfare look like in a hundred years? How will technology reshape war? Will they still be fought on traditional battlefields, or will completely new frontiers open? Will the major parties to conflict change? Will wars between nation states be replaced by corporate wars, proxy wars, and insurgent conflicts? We are interested in stories that explore military implications of: drones, Lunar and Martian colonies (or expansion into space generally), cryptocurrency, privatized military forces, non-state actors in military conflict, 3D-printing, hacking, environmental catastrophe, renewable energy sources, artificial intelligence, and other themes. For fantasy war stories about war: How can magic, gods, parallel worlds, or otherworldly societies reshape our conception of war? Are other forms of organized conflict possible? Can such fantastic visions serve as thought experiments and expand our understanding of conflict? What kind of magic could make a world without war possible? If it's not possible, why not? If it is, at what cost? These fantasy stories explore war through speculative world-building, inventing fantastic premises and revealing their consequences through...

Submission Window: May 1st-May 31st, 2021 Payment: An advance and royalties Theme: Novel and Novellas that are literary; incorporating the fabulist, the uncanny, the dark, the weird, the horrific, the numinous, the surreal, the gnostic, the esoteric, and the avant-garde. Strange tales for strange times. It’s that liminal area where genre and literary fiction meet. WE WILL BE OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS FROM MAY 1, 2021 TO MAY 31, 2021 FOR NOVELS AND NOVELLAS ONLY. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Note - Manuscripts must be original and previously unpublished anywhere, in any format, on any platform. Please do not query about reprints. We are unable to return manuscripts. Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please inform us if you place the manuscript elsewhere. Translated work is welcome as long as you are offering first English-language rights. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Undertow Publications only publishes a few books a year. Regrettably, then, we have to turn down good work. We publish in hardcover, trade paperback, and eBook, though not all projects will be published in all formats. So as to not waste your time and our time, please make yourself familiar with our books. Our aesthetic is literary; incorporating the fabulist, the uncanny, the dark, the weird, the horrific, the numinous, the surreal, the gnostic, the esoteric, and the avant-garde. Strange tales for strange times. It’s that liminal area where genre and literary fiction meet. We accept submissions from anyone—regardless of race, gender, or sexuality—and think it is imperative to promote new writing from a diverse cross-section of society. Agented and non-agented submissions are welcome. WHAT WE WANT: We currently have 2 open slots in our 2022 publishing schedule. NOVELLAS We are seeking previously unpublished standalone novellas, in English. Word count should be between 17,500 - 42,000 words. We offer a small advance against royalties. NOVELS...

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 Payment: £50 Theme: Stories that involve the supernatural in connection with railroads, railways, or any aspect of rail travel or location. I hope to publish this anthology of supernatural fiction in the summer of 2021.   Submissions are invited. The closing date will be 31 May 2021.   WHAT I WANT: I'm looking for 10 outstanding stories of between 2.000 and 10.000 words that involve the supernatural in connection with railroads, railways, or any aspect of rail travel or location. The stories should be set at any point in the past and be historically accurate where appropriate.         WHAT I DON'T WANT: Badly written and constructed stories. To me, spelling and grammar are important. That doesn’t mean you can’t push the boundaries, but remember that you have to know the rules before you can break them.   Slasherfests that rely on violence and cliché to propel the stories.   Poor, badly constructed characterization whose only function is to drive the plot towards an unconvincing, or contrived conclusion.   Waffle that bears no relationship to the plot, but only serves to slow down or unnecessarily bulk out the story.   Excessive strong language that does not help to shape characters or events. If it’s necessary & appropriate: no problem.       CONDITIONS: The deadline is currently the end of May 2021 but may be extended if I require more submissions. I'm looking for stories of between 2.000 to 10.000 words. Word limits outside of this will be considered if the work is, in my opinion, exceptional. Please do not send simultaneous submissions. Send one story at a time.   No multiple submissions, please.     Payment for First British print and electronic anthology rights will be £50 for original, previously unpublished stories, payable upon...

Deadline: May 31st, 2021 Payment: 0.01 USD per word Theme: Body horror stories by women Since the earliest creation myths, womens’ bodies have been a site of conflict, venerated and feared in equal measure. We’re looking for body horror stories by women writers that explore, celebrate and dissect (perhaps literally!) femininity and the female experience. There are no limits on content: gore and sexual content is fine. However, don’t feel your story has to be extreme. We always enjoy reading unexpected takes on our prompts, so feel free to interpret it as you wish. We would love to include as diverse a range of voices in this anthology as possible, and as such would like to encourage LGBTQ, BIPOC, disabled and writers of other marginalised backgrounds to submit. Length: Anything between 1,000 – 6,000 words. Publication: E-book and print. Deadline: 31st May 2021 Author Compensation: 0.01 USD per word, plus an electronic contributor’s copy. Rights: We request first worldwide and electronic rights for 3 months after the date of publication, after which rights revert to the author. All copyright remains with the author. We accept simultaneous submissions but no reprints please. Multiple submissions not accepted. Email your submission as a Word document to [email protected] with “Blood & Bone – ” in the subject line. Please see our Submission Guidelines for more information on formatting. Via: Ghost Orchid Press.