Events

Deadline: September 30th, 2020 Payment: Based on word count: 5,000-8,000 – $75, 8,000-12,000 – $100, 12,000-15000: $125 Theme: How to fix our broken world The world is broken. Fires, hurricanes, famine and disease haunt the and. We all need a little hope. For this anthology, we’re looking for stories that depict a (near) future Earth that’s somehow better than this one, Show us a world post-climate change, where we made peace with the planet. Or a world where we moved past racism and into a broader understanding of the connectedness of all the races of humanity. How about one where gender no longer matters? Or where borders are no more. We’re not looking for preachy. We want realistic depictions of the Earth that could be, even it it’s not perfect. Whatever fix you choose does not have to be the main plot – in fact, it’s probably better if it isn’t. But it should be very clear in the story – how we got from here to there. The Details: Length: Minimum 5,000, Maximum 15,000 words Payment: Flat Fee: 5,000-8,000 – $75 8,000-12,000 – $100 12,000-15000: $125 Rights: 12 months exclusive print rights; additional 24 months non-exclusive. Sunsets at 36 months and all rights revert to author. Due Date: Closes September 30th, 2020 Publication Date: Winter 2020-21 Format: Please use standard manuscript formatting: 1 Inch Margins Font: Times New Roman 12 Point Double spaced Half inch indent at start of each paragraph (please do not use tabs for this) Otherwise we’re not all that picky. No cover letter is needed. Please include a short one paragraph summary of what your “fix” is. Please, no simultaneous submissions. Send your submissions to [email protected] with the subject line: Submission: Fix the World If you have any questions, email us at the link above. Via: Other Worlds Ink.

Deadline: September 30th, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: A "strange mystery" about a holiday of your choice! It's tentatively titled "Strange Holiday Mysteries." Like most of our "Strange Mysteries" series, it will contain some 20 stories, each 3000 words. Submissions are open July, August and September, ending September 30. We hope to publish the book in October. What's different about this "Strange Mysteries" collection is that you writers choose which holiday on which you wish to base your story. As Associate Editor Arthur Sanchez says, "It doesn't have to be a major holiday. If your favorite is National Taco Day, go with it!" Send your submissions to [email protected]. . Be sure to include your email address and 50-100 word bio on your submission. We are paying (the usual) $10 per story. We can't consider submissions without a return email address. Happy writing! We offer here a selection from our Whortleberry Press Stylebook: (A stylebook is a collection of information setting out how a variety of language choices should be made in this publication.) Manuscript Submission: Please send manuscripts to [email protected]. Please put your email address at the upper left corner of your manuscript. Please put your name on your manuscript. Word count: 3000 words. (Yes, it used to be 5000, but we find readers like shorter stories.) Please re-read your story before sending it. You would be surprised at the number of stories rejected because of too many typos, indicating they were not read before being sent. Please do not use double spacing. Single is satisfactory. Please add your 50-100 word bio at the end of your story. Numerals: We spell out one through ten; after that, all are numerals. Thanks for reading our stylebook. We will now read your story with our best attention.. --Jean and Arthur Via: Whortleberry Press.

Deadline: September 30th, 2020 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: The future of the East Asia region in an optimistic, positive way. We’re currently open to fiction submissions ONLY in the following categories: Open themed submissions call – open to all authors. For this call we’re seeking science fiction stories that envision the future of the East Asia region in an optimistic, positive way. No dystopias, please. You can interpret this widely, but the theme has to be at the core of the story. It isn’t enough that the story be merely set in the region. This call is open to all authors, other than that please follow all the guidelines below. Please mark the submissions as an “East Asia issue submission” in email subject line or cover letter. Deadline: September 30, 2020 We consider fiction of 500-10,000 words (under 5,000 words strongly preferred.) Translated fiction. Author or authorized translator may submit fiction  that has been previously published in source language but not in English. Fiction written by authors for whom English is not their first language and who reside outside of the following primarily English-speaking countries: – United States – United Kingdom – Canada – Australia – New Zealand – Ireland Please include the author’s primary language/country of residence and/or original publication info for translations in the cover letter. Submissions that do not include this information will not be read. We’re currently CLOSED to other unsolicited fiction submissions, but will eventually open to those as well. Please do not query regarding this; we will post an update here when a general reading window opens. We seek science fiction stories (no horror, fantasy, fan fiction, or erotica) of up to 10,000 words. Stories must not have appeared anywhere in English, including your personal blog, social media, or Patreon page. We acquire first world rights in the...

Deadline: September 30th, 2020 Payment: $5 Theme: Erotic Halloween with a happily ever after Halloween at home. Curled up on the couch with the lights down low. Mini horror movie marathons. Sexting with your partner(s) instead of Netflix and chill. It’s all going to look a little different this year. Too early, you say? Never. Halloween is every day for this editor. So in the spirit of getting a jump on things – pun intended – I’m putting out the 2020 Circlet Press Halloween Microfictions call for submissions a little early this year. The same rules apply with one little twist. Since everything is a hell fire this year let’s try and keep things positive. That means every submission needs to have either a HEA (Happily Ever After), or at least hint at an HEA. But they must still fit into the theme of Halloween/Autumn/October/Horror, and also be erotic as well as story/character driven. If you are unfamiliar with Circlet Press please have a look around our website to get a sense of what we do. As always, I especially encourage marginalized voices to send a submission. BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ folks especially, though all are welcome to submit. Word count limit is 1,500. No fan fiction. No reprints. All characters must be of legal age to consent and consent must be clear within the story. Multiple submissions are okay. Please send as a Word doc or RTF (or in the body of the email) and follow standard manuscript formatting guidelines. The deadline is September 30th. Payment will be $5 and the author retains all rights. Please include a short bio with your submission. Send submissions to [email protected] Via: Circlet Press.

Deadline: September 30th, 2020 Payment: Roughly $25 for stories under 1,000 words, $50 for stories between 1,000 and 5,000 words, $75 for stories between 5,000 and 7,500 words and $100, for stories of 7,500 words and over. Theme: sword and sorcery Heroic Fantasy Quarterly will be OPEN for submissions in September, 2020! Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is generally open to fiction and poetry submissions four months per year. The months you can submit are: March June September  December  If you submit fiction or poetry in any other month, you will receive an auto-response and your tale will not be reviewed. * * * As its name suggests, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is a quarterly ezine dedicated to publishing heroic fantasy — in both prose and poetry. We are unrepentant in our goal of elevating unapologetic sword and sorcery to a rightful high place. We pay $100 for stories and $25 for poems, upon publication.  (Scroll down for info on art submissions.) We purchase first world English language electronic rights, electronic rights for 90 days, archival rights for twelve months, and excerpt rights. Our fiction word limit is a soft 10,000 words, although we are willing to serialize at a maximum of 50,000 words over four issues. You may submit up to three poems, with a cumulative maximum of 30 pages.   No simultaneous submissions, please. While we don’t have iron-clad rules regarding our fiction payment, we roughly pay $25 for stories under 1,000 words, $50 for stories between 1,000 and 5,000 words, $75 for stories between 5,000 and 7,500 words and $100, for stories of 7,500 words and over. Tolkienesque (as in really long) poetry epics/sagas/vedas will most likely be treated — and paid — like fiction. Similarly, prose pieces of fewer than 1,000 words will be paid at poetry’s standard rate of $25. Art: HFQ is looking for quality...

Deadline: September 30th, 2020 Payment: $75 Theme: The holiday season In Krampus Tales: A Killer Anthology, the holidays have lost their cheer. Evergreen boughs hang brown and brittle. Sweets taste bitter. The little ones are restless and will not sleep. There’s something stirring in the dark, but only the bravest writers will explore what horrors stalk across the rooftops. It could be a tempestuous ghost seeking its stolen past. Maybe it’s a malevolent shadow come for its sworn promises. Krampus might be lying in wait for his chance to punish the wicked children. The only way to find out is to brave the dark and tell the story of what you find. We will be accepting the twelve best submissions for inclusion in this anthology. Stories must take place during the holiday season and be part of the horror genre, but no excessive gore or adult content. Think YA or PG-13 horror rather than adult or R-rated horror. Please carefully consider your submission before you send it to us. Check for simple errors. Have a beta reader comb through it. Do everything you can to make us say yes. We are looking forward to seeing what you found in the dark. Submission Guidelines 1. Submissions are due on or before 11:59 a.m. PST on September 30, 2020. Please submit all stories to [email protected] with subject line JHP Krampus Tales Anthology and the title of your work. 2. All submissions must be in English and double spaced with 12-pt TNR font. 3. Please submit your story as a .docx file. Your name, the work’s title, and the work’s word count must be on the front page. Please also include a 50- to 100-word author’s bio with your submission. 4. Story length is 6,000 to 9,000 words. Your story must meet the minimum word count. Submissions below 6,000 words...

Deadline: September 30th, 2020 Payment: £10 Theme: Genies G is for Genies – Submissions open August 1st. Deadline September 30th. Forget the Genie from Aladdin. Think about wishes gone wrong, a disobedient genie, or even from the perspective of a disgruntled Djinn. SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR A-Z OF HORROR 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 (glorification of child abuse, rape, etc.). 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...

Deadline: October 1st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Theme: Horror! - shipwrecks, your lost passengers and mysterious creatures. Tantalize me with gripping tales of horror and drown me in tears of sorrow as we discover what lies within the deepest crevasses of the ocean or in the innocent creek. It Calls From The Sea Submission Open: July 1, 2020 Submission Close: October 01, 2020 2:00 a.m. EST Publishing timeline: December 2020 Theme: Bring me your shipwrecks, your lost passengers and mysterious creatures. Tantalize me with gripping tales of horror and drown me in tears of sorrow as we discover what lies within the deepest crevasses of the ocean or in the innocent creek. ​ As with all our "It Calls From" Series this one is HORROR, so I want to be scared. Be it real or mythological creatures of lore that attacks, make our hearts race and our nightmares come alive. We also want it to be within our reality, so please keep your stories on our earth. If you are doing a future earth story, we would still like it within our relative timeline, so don't go too far into the future. ​ The ocean is deep, dark and vast. There are real dangers lurk not only below but above. Raging storms or unrelenting heat can create madness. ​ Storm drains and murky creek beds are also a great source of inspiration. ​ Word count: 1000 - 10000 (preferably over 2k under 8k but we will read all within these) ​ Compensation: Equal royalty split per story. Digital copy emailed to you. ​ Formatting guidelines: See our Submission Format guide below All fiction manuscripts should be in standard manuscript format. Most important: Pen name, title and email on top, double-spaced, 12 pt standard font (e.g. Times, Arial, Courier), and page numbers. ​ How to submit: CLICK THE VIA LINK BELOW AND USE...

Deadline: October 1st, 2020 Payment: One cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) Theme: Fantastic Fiction You really NEED to read the description below. The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges. As a type of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined. Therefore, we're interested in stories by writers who write about what they don't know, take us places we couldn't possibly go, and don't try to make us care about the characters. We would also suggest you take a look at the current issue, archives, and theory (especially the essay, "What is irrealism?") pages on this web site. We accept unsolicited fiction up to 2,000 words in length. Translations are welcome. There is no minimum length. We accept only electronic submissions via e-mail at [email protected]. We cannot, due to the various computer viruses and worms, accept attachments anymore, so please paste your story into the body of the e-mail. Also include your name, address, e-mail address, and a short bio in the text of the submission; please put the word "submission" in the subject heading of the e-mail to ensure that your submission doesn't get lost among all the spam. We pay an honorarium of one cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum) to buy first-time internet rights (the story will then be archived). Payment is made upon publication. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DON'T ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS and are only interested in reprints in unusual cases (e.g., the story has appeared in print but...

Deadline: October 1st, 2020 Payment: 5% of the gross profit will be paid for each accepted story. These payments will be issued to you at quarterly intervals. Stories under 1,500 words will only receive 4% of the gross profit. Theme: Cthulhu Mythos stories set in the Arthurian world. Note: Reprints welcome “They were the pointed Saxon minuscules of the eighth or ninth century A.D., and brought with them memories of an uncouth time when under a fresh Christian veneer ancient faiths and ancient rites stirred stealthily, and the pale moon of Britain looked sometimes on strange deeds in the Roman ruins of Caerleon and Hexham, and by the towers along Hadrian’s crumbling wall.” —H.P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward   The stars are right over Camelot. Despite Merlin’s arts, and the goodness of the land, the stars are right. Dread things rise up from the sea, worse than any Saxon. The ground grows cursed with strange colors. Strange cults proliferate through Logres. Shadows rise over Avalon. WHAT WE WANT Cthulhu Mythos stories set in the Arthurian world. THE ARTHURIAN “Arthur’s Kingdom, the Realm of Logres, the model of chivalry and right striving against the barbarism and evil which surrounded it and, at length, engulfed it” (Roger Lancelyn Green). We do, of course, want stories about the primary characters of the Arthurian world: Arthur, Merlin, Morgan, and the others. But we’re also interested in stories focusing on the less well-known personalities. In particular, we’d love stories about Bleys, Bors, Bertilak the Green Knight, Galahad, Kay, Palamedes, and Percival. When and where is the Arthurian world? Logres and its capitol, Camelot, are centered somewhere either in Wales or southern Britain—and extend up toward what we would today recognize as Scotland. It is somewhere roughly between 400-600 A.D. The cultural and technological level can...