Events

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Publication – November 2020 Word Count – 5,000-15,000 Theme – A new twist on fairytales with a fresh element: dragons. Each fairytale has been reimagined with these beasts based on the author’s preference. Wise dragons, evil dragons, elemental dragons, oh my! These classic characters will never see this coming. Note: Any kind of dragon is welcome. Fairytales can be from any country and dark or cheerful. * Introduction of yourself should be a short biography in 3rd Person between 100-200 words. Upon acceptance, this will be used within the anthology. Send a bio with every single anthology submission. We work with hundreds of authors and will not take time to retrieve yours from a previous anthology. * Poetry submissions: All poetry needs to be contained within a single e-mail. Each poem should be in a separate document. Haikus may be grouped together. * All e-mails should be addressed to “Dear Editor.” After receiving edits back, the author has two weeks to return the submission for formatting. All submissions will be reviewed within thirty (30) days of the anthology’s submission deadline. This ensures submission calls do not close early and gives everyone a chance to submit. You will know your submission has been received for consideration by receiving a generic response. Whether accepted or rejected, you will always receive a response. View our blog articles on how to submit to a publisher and how to write a proposal.   Failure to submit following all of the guidelines will result in an immediate refusal. You are able to submit again before the submission call deadline.   Rating – Check each anthologies‘ rating. Word count – Check each anthologies‘ word count requirements. E-mail address to submit to – [email protected]   NOTICE –  Failure to submit correctly will result in refusal of submission. Via: Dragon Soul Press.

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Deadline – July 31st, 2020 Publication – October 2020 Word Count – 5,000-15,000 Theme – In a world where so many dark things go bump in the night, terror awaits around every corner as these authors take horror stories to the next level. * Introduction of yourself should be a short biography in 3rd Person between 100-200 words. Upon acceptance, this will be used within the anthology. Send a bio with every single anthology submission. We work with hundreds of authors and will not take time to retrieve yours from a previous anthology. * Poetry submissions: All poetry needs to be contained within a single e-mail. Each poem should be in a separate document. Haikus may be grouped together. * All e-mails should be addressed to “Dear Editor.” After receiving edits back, the author has two weeks to return the submission for formatting. All submissions will be reviewed within thirty (30) days of the anthology’s submission deadline. This ensures submission calls do not close early and gives everyone a chance to submit. You will know your submission has been received for consideration by receiving a generic response. Whether accepted or rejected, you will always receive a response. View our blog articles on how to submit to a publisher and how to write a proposal.   Failure to submit following all of the guidelines will result in an immediate refusal. You are able to submit again before the submission call deadline.   Rating – Check each anthologies‘ rating. Word count – Check each anthologies‘ word count requirements. E-mail address to submit to – [email protected]   NOTICE –  Failure to submit correctly will result in refusal of submission. Via: Dragon Soul Press.

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: $15 or more Theme: Stories with a unique perspective and honest insight into our world We are looking for submissions of poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction and visual art. Writing that grabs us conveys a unique perspective and honest insight into our world. We are especially interested in underrepresented voices of all kinds, and we want to see submissions from writers and artists of all races, sexualities, nationalities, religions, and genders, as well as disabled and neurodivergent creators. Genre fiction submissions are welcome, particularly speculative fiction. We are all writers and artists, so simultaneous submission are encouraged, but please let us know immediately if it has been accepted elsewhere. Previously published work will not be considered, and this includes work published on social media and personal websites. If it available publicly online, that means it is published. Once you have received a response to a submission, please wait two months before sending us a new work. Submitting is free, but please consider tossing a couple of dollars in the feedback option – you’ll receive personalized feedback on your submission! We are closed to regular submissions during the months of January, May, and September as we put together the new issue, although feedback and visual arts submissions will remain open. ****NOTE**** Due to the uncertainty of when things will return to a normal schedule, we will be publishing May’s issue combined with September’s in a special jumbo 20th issue. We will remain open to submissions until July 31st, 2020, with scheduled printing of the jumbo issue coming the beginning of September!! Prose Submissions: There is no minimum number of words, although we most frequently publish fiction and non-fiction between 500-5,000 words. We accept up to three prose submissions per author as long as the total number of words...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Theme: The Wonderful Weird Volume 3, Issue 1: Winter 2020 Coming in November 2020 Theme: The Wonderful Weird Preferred Genres*: Weird Fiction Word Count: We are looking for short stories and novelettes ranging from 2,500 to 15,000 words, and poetry of up to 20 pages in length**. Submission Deadline: July 31, 2020 Show us the strange side of your imagination, from tales of cosmic horror that explore the unknowable to delving into supernatural mysteries. Weird fiction is a genre that both pre-dates and defies speculative fiction genre conventions. Blending fantasy, horror, and science fiction with elements of the supernatural; it is more an exploration of tone and theme than one of genre conventions. Learn more about what we’re looking for in The Origins and Evolution of Weird Fiction by our Editor-in-Chief, B.K. Bass. *We hope to ensure that the majority of each issue fits a theme, but will consider other submissions for each issue. Stories in the Preferred Genres will receive primary preference, related genres and or themes will be considered next, and unrelated content will be given tertiary consideration. ** 20 pages in an 8.5″ x 11″ Word doc at 12 pt TNR or Courier, single-spaced with spaces between stanzas. Submission Guidelines Please read through this section thoroughly before sending your story! Submissions that do not follow these guidelines may not make it through our initial screening process. What to Include in the Email An introduction is always nice. Tell us who you are. Have we met, or did somebody refer you to us? Here is a good place to remind us. The elevator pitch. In one to three sentences, what’s the selling point for the story? What’s it about? What makes it stand apart? What are the genre(s), main theme(s), and word count? The...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: 1000-3000 words is $5 and longer is $10 Theme: Unique and exceptional speculative fiction Unfading Daydream is looking for unique and exceptional fiction to be showcased in our quarterly literary magazine. We strive to feature stories within the genres that have inspired us (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc) as well as stories that feature LGBTQ+ themes. We are currently not open for submissions. Basic Details We are open to established and new, emerging authors. In terms of length, we’re looking for stories between 1000 and 7000 words. Shorter or longer stories will be evaluated on a case by case basis. No previously published works. Please no simultaneous submissions If you are under 18, we require parental permission and have made a permission form. The form can be found HERE Reading periods are May to July and November to January. All submissions must be in by 11:59pm CST on the last day of the reading period (July or January). Be advised that if we get enough stories before the end of a submission period, we may close submissions early. Please do not send submissions outside of our reading periods. Submissions received outside of reading periods will not be considered. Expect a decision within 4-6 weeks of the reading period closing See full guidelines below Payment Stories that are between 1000-3000 words will receive $5. Stories that are longer than that will receive $10.  All contributors receive a hard copy of the magazine. In time, we would like to pay contributors more! Submissions We accept submissions only by email. Free to submit! Please send your submission to submit  unfadingdaydream com with the title of ‘Unfading Daydream Submission’. Full Guidelines We want to see your unique sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc. We prefer stories that are between 1000-7000 words, but if you feel that your 8000 word story or your 700...

Deadline:July 31st, 2020 Payment: $15 USD Theme: Stories that the editors can connect with and be moved by Regular submissions for mojo 18 are now OPEN. Fiction: We are interested in stories that excite us with innovation in form, structure, and language, but above all, we’re looking for stories that connect us, touch us, and revolutionize our worlds. Experimental or not, give us a quality story.   Please send a single story under 6,000 words. If you’re submitting flash fiction, include up to three stories in a single document. Poetry: Our staff is interested in poems that blur contemporary styles with traditional modes, poems that light up with raw energy but point in a specific direction, and poems that push through leaps of image and gesture but resound with a strong emotional core. Above all, we enjoy poems that are willing to take risks while maintaining clarity of expression.   Send up to 4 poems at a time or 8 pages maximum. If you have a single long poem that exceeds 8 pages, we welcome you to submit it as an exception to the page-limit rule and as the totality of your submission for that issue. Please submit all of your poems in one document. Nonfiction: We enjoy creative nonfiction pieces that embrace the tactics of fiction, but we don’t shy away from the innovative and experimental (in fact, we’re rather interested in what you can show us)! But keep in mind, we’re looking for engaging nonfiction stories, not journalism or academic essays.   Pieces should be under 6,000 words. Comics: We’re interested in narrative-driven art and comics that embody any number of different styles and techniques. Show us something that uses the visual medium to push boundaries and says something important.   We are looking for anything. Political commentary. Comedy. Memoir. Or just a good...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: €15 per poem and €15 per page of prose up to a total maximum fee of €60 Theme: A particular interest in work which encourages reflection on human interaction with plant and animal life, landscape and the self We are now inviting submissions across all forms for Issue 3, and will be accepting fiction and poetry until 31 July. Essay submissions, which will be considered for online publication as well as for future print issues, are accepted ongoingly. What We Publish We publish new, previously unpublished work that engages with the natural world. We have a particular interest in work which encourages reflection on human interaction with plant and animal life, landscape and the self. Each issue includes a mix of poetry and fiction, alongside a selection of essays which may include creative non-fiction, criticism, and the occasional review of new creative work or of community-based environmental projects. We also welcome submissions in translation. Essay – [email protected] We accept both completed essay submissions and proposals. Completed essays (including creative non-fiction, reportage, commentary, and criticism) should generally not exceed 6000 words. We ask that you send your essay as a Word document attachment to the above-listed email. If you have a proposal for an essay or an interview, please contact us directly with a brief description of same. Essay submissions exclusively will be accepted on a rolling basis, regardless of the dates of submissions windows. As well as accepting essay submissions for print, we welcome submissions for online publication on the Channel blog. Pieces of 1500 words or fewer which explore a particular issue in current events or explicate upon a community-based environmental project are particularly encouraged for blog publication. If we feel that a piece submitted for the magazine would do well online, we may also offer...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: $0.01 cent a word and a contributors copy Theme: Diverse sci-fi and fantasy fiction. MYTHIC is seeking diverse sci-fi and fantasy fiction. We want original short stories that have never been published. Authors are encouraged to submit their stories during the specific reading periods listed below. Reading Periods June 1 through July 31 (Reading for Fall and Winter Issues) December 1 through January 31 (Reading for Spring and Summer Issues) Guidelines Please submit in standard manuscript format. Works should be between 2,000-6,000 words. (No wiggle room above or below.) Submit in Standard Manuscript Format We prefer Times New Roman or Courier and 12 point type. Double-spaced pages. Please include your name and contact information at the beginning of the story. Submit in .doc, .docx, .rtf format. Please no simultaneous or multiple submissions. No reprints. Rights Purchased: We are purchasing World English Rights on all short stories. Following an exclusivity period, all other rights revert to the author. MYTHIC retains a nonexclusive right to keep stories in the issue they appear for as long as the issue remains in print. Compensation: At this time, we pay $0.01 cent a word for short fiction. We provide authors with one free copy of the issue in which their story appears. Payment made upon publication via PayPal. (We are not responsible for any transaction fees). To submit fiction: Send all stories to [email protected]. Your story should be attached. Put “Fiction Submission: Title of Your Story” in the subject line for fiction. Please include your name, title, word count, and contact information in the body of the email. Note on nonfiction: All articles and other content are chosen in-house. Please do not submit queries at this time. If you have further questions, use the contact form.   Thank you for your interest in MYTHIC. Via: Mythic Magazine.

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: $8 Theme: Cutting edge Science Fiction, Slipstream, Classic and Modern Fantasy Submissions Welcome to the Silver Pen Writers Association group of publications. From this web page, you will have an opportunity to submit your work to Silver Blade Magazine. General Guidelines (Updated February 2020) Give us something unexpected and well written.  Technique, voice, characterization, and language will all play a part in our decision to publish.  Amaze us with your writing, use of language, sense of story, and memorable characters.  Give us a story readers will not be able to forget and will eagerly recommend to others. The following are “hard sells” here: Stories possessing several of the cliché elements listed here. Fan Fiction or erotica Anthropomorphism (talking cats, foxes, toasters or whatever) Sloppy work–significant typographical, spelling, or grammatical errors (please proofread before you submit) Publicly available items (seriously, why would we pay to publish something being given away on a blog, forum, social media, etc?) Our editorial policies respect the artistic license of our authors.  However, there are occasions when changes are needed that go beyond basic spelling, grammar, and punctuation corrections. In any case, the author will be given the choice of final approval, prior to publication, over substantial edits made by our staff. We appreciate your willingness to work with us in this regard. Do not submit if you are not open to suggestions. Formatting All submissions should… Have 1 inch margins, 1 1/2 line spacing and double space between paragraphs. NO fancy headers or footers, text effects, background colors or images. Use a standard font (Arial, Calibri, Times Roman, Courier) in 12 point size. Exceptions will be made ONLY for poetry submissions (see below). Silver Blade Poetry Poetry up to 1,000 words: Submit Now Our poetry reading periods are as follows: December and January (For the February Issue)...

Submissions Window: June 15th to July 31st, 2020 Payment: A royalty percentage of ebook, print, audio, and merchandise profits. The exact numbers will be available when the call opens on the 15th. Theme: Dark Fantasy Note: I would usually wait to schedule until all payment details are available but ER has a good track record and if anyone was close to finishing a novella or novel in this style I wanted to give you extra time to prepare. Open Submission Window June 15 - July 31, 2020 What are we looking for? DARK FANTASY We are seeking high-quality stand alone novels and a potential novella series in the dark fantasy genre. At this time we are not interested in short story collections, full erotica, strictly religious fiction, or poetry. We want unique, well-crafted worlds with compelling plots, exciting adventures, entertaining characters, and new dark fantasy concepts. We are drawn to the fantasy worlds with a grim heartwrenching twist. The perfect story would balance the light and the dark storyline with humour alongside the emotional twists and turns. In essence, if you can envoke a gambit of emotion throughout the story we will be hard-pressed to say no. Manuscripts should be written in good taste and be aimed for a mature audience that enjoys the darker side of fantasy. As this is dark fantasy, we encourage a step toward some of the darker and horror tones within the storyline, and we won't shy away from some use of violence and gore. However, we will not be accepting any manuscripts with detailed rape scenes, pedophilia, or untoward behaviours to animals of any kind. (you know what I mean) Submissions of novels should be between 60,000 and 120,000 words. Submissions of novellas should be approximately 25,000 - 50,000 words with a series potential...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: $50 Theme: Stories that are "scary, disturbing, unsettling, and sad" What We Publish At 34 Orchard, we like dark, intense pieces that speak to a deeper truth. We’re not genre-specific; we just like scary, disturbing, unsettling, and sad. We like things we can’t put down and things that make us go “wow” when we’ve finished. But our main goal here at 34 Orchard is to publish the stuff we like to read, and you’re not in our heads. So don’t over think it. Just submit. *Update: There has been some question floating around social media in some writing circles as to whether or not writing about the world’s recent pandemic is appropriate, as in, is it “too soon?” At 34 Orchard, we do not think it is too soon. Some of the best art emerges from the darkest tragedies, and often during or immediately afterward. If you have a dark, emotional piece about the pandemic—any aspect of it—we are more than happy to consider it when we are open again for submissions.* Word Counts Short fiction from 1000 to 7500 words Poetry any style or length When We Publish We publish two issues per year, one in the spring (April) and one in the fall (November). Issues are hosted on this site as PDFs. Reading Period Our reading period for the Spring Issue is January 1-January 31. Our reading period for the Fall Issue is July 1-July 31. We only accept submissions, therefore, during January and July. Anything submitted to us outside those months will be deleted unread, and no response will be sent. Simultaneous Submissions Yes, we welcome and encourage them! Just notify us at [email protected] if it’s been accepted elsewhere as soon as you know. Multiple Submissions No. We only consider one piece of fiction per writer at a time. Poetry: you may send up...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: $25 AU Theme: Wierd stories - multi-eyed heads in jars, things from swamps, or killer robots-anything really-except copy-and-pasted wolves or lightning. We're looking for fantastic fantasy, super-duper science fiction,  Wonderfulliy Weird, and Macabre. ​ Think classic outer-worldly.  Think swashbuckling adventure.  Think stuff that would give Lovecraft the shivers.  Mad professors, demons of the dark, heroes, monsters, giant robots...  We could could go all day.  You get the idea. ​ New, unpublished writers are welcome! ​ Think you've got the chops?  Here are the rules: Under 18? No problem. Just send a note from your teacher or guardian with your submission, telling us it's ok for you to write for us. No gratuitous sex or excessive profanity.  No nasty sex of any kind unless it's inherent to the story, and not glorified.  Gore is fine if it's written well.  Hate speech, or material we might find offensive is not. ​ We pay a flat rate of $25 AU per original piece of fiction.  That’s low right now, but Rufo’s Dog is still a pup.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to pay more soon.  The best way for that to happen is for you to you tell all your friends to buy a copy and or subscribe, then we’ll have more moolah to throw at the next issue. We pay a flat rate of $100AU for any original colour artwork that makes the cover, and $25AU for any other artwork.  For commissioned work, payment is subject to negotiation with the individual artists. ​ For contributors with an Australian bank account, payments made via bank transfer are possible.  For international contributors, we prefer to pay via PayPal.  We do not pay via Western Union or similar services which charge payment fees.  WU charges $15 AU per transaction, and we just can't afford that. ​ Rufo's Dog will also provide a password and...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: 8 cents/word Theme: Speculative stories--science fiction, fantasy, horror--with Christian themes, characters, or cosmology. We are looking for speculative stories--science fiction, fantasy, horror--with Christian themes, characters, or cosmology, and for artwork for this site. Fiction Guidelines Technical details Stories can be up to 9000 words (thanks, Patreon supporters!). This is a hard limit--our submission system will enforce it. We pay 8 cents/word for original stories (or original translations of stories that have not previously appeared in English), and 4 cents/word for reprints (thanks again, Patreon!). Authors are paid once we've agreed on edits and signed a contract, prior to earliest publication (generally on our Patreon page). We are seeking 6 months' exclusive worldwide publication rights for original works (with exceptions for established Best of the Year anthologies), and non-exclusive worldwide print and electronic rights thereafter for both original works and reprints. We want to publish your story online in our webzine and keep it there indefinitely. We're also acquiring the right to offer ebook versions of the stories we publish, as Patreon rewards or for purchase; and to publish a print and ebook anthology of all the stories that appeared in the webzine over a given 1- or 2-year period. For original fiction, we want to be the only place publishing it for the first 6 months; after that, you're welcome to publish it anywhere else in any format you like. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. If multiple writers co-write a story, we consider each distinct group of writers a different submitter. In other words, if two people co-write a story, and they submit the co-written story, and each of them also submits a story written on their own, that would not violate our no multiple submissions policy. Submitting two stories co-written by the same two people would violate our no...

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Theme: Dark Fiction, Horror, Suspense, Fantasy, or Thriller. We are now open to novel and novella subs for only the third time in our eight years of publishing. This submission window will be open throughout July. We only ask for a one to two page, detailed synopsis, an author bio, and the first three chapters (we will ask for the full manuscript if our interests are piqued). Accepted titles will be published throughout 2021 and early 2022. No reprints. Only one submission per author. Simultaneous subs allowed. Here are some more details on what we’re looking for: Length: 30,000 to 120,000 words Genre: Dark Fiction, Horror, Suspense, Fantasy, or Thriller. Subgenres/Tropes: We love them all, although we’re more interested in dark, suspenseful fiction than just outright horror. Our readers want to go on an emotional rollercoaster of fear, fright, sadness, joy, loss, and the beauty behind every character’s story. What we’re not looking for: Romance/Erotica (although they can certainly be used in subplots) Anthology pitches Short stories Short story collections Poetry Screenplays Young Adult Submission guidelines: Email your CV, synopsis, and sample to [email protected] The subject of your email should be ‘Open subs 2020’. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please inform us if you’ve subbed it elsewhere, and be sure to withdraw it in case it’s accepted elsewhere. Only one submission per author, so make it count. In the body of the email, be sure to mention the title of your book and the total word count of finished manuscript. A one sentence tagline that encapsulates your main plot. No reprints/previously published or previously self-published. Your novel/novella needs to be at least 80% finished when you submit your first three chapters. As attachments (or one attachment containing all the required info): a one...

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: 5 cents per word Theme: Your personal local lore/oddities We’re currently looking for previously unpublished horror stories, 3-6k words, for a themed anthology to be released in September 2020. The theme is: your personal local lore/oddities. Write something dark into a setting you’ve experienced — it could be a place you’ve lived, or even just somewhere you’ve visited on a vacation. Is there a landmark in your town or city that you can write a nightmare scenario into? Have you ever legend tripped somewhere and thought, well, that cave/mausoleum/torture tree was neat, but I wish there was more to the story? If so, you’re welcome to send us (1) submission at [email protected] in DOC or RTF form. Deadline August 1, 2020. Paying .05/word per accepted submission for First Rights Publishing, asking that you don’t republish your story until August 1, 2021. In our fifth year of publishing we’re looking to expand our reach into 21st Century folklore, urban legends, and the space between creepypasta and literary horror. For examples of what we’re looking for, see Other Voices, Other Tombs; At the Cemetery Gates: Year One and Volume 2; or Corpse Cold: New American Folklore -Joe Sullivan, Editor Via: Cemetery Gates.

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: $50.00 Theme: Giallo/Slasher, Sci-fi Horror, 80's Splatter, Japanese Body Horror, 50's B-Movie Creature Feature, Southern Gothic, Satanic Cult, Lost World, Lost Tribe. Other sub-genres could apply as well, but must have a strong horror connection, including: Carsploitation, Blacksploitation, Spaghetti Western, Women in Prison, Vigilante, etc. Our second fiction anthology, Violent Vixens, will focus on Grindhouse horror films, made famous by movies such as Night of the Living Dead, Death Proof, and Suspiria. Since this genre encompasses so many different styles and mashups, we have decided to focus solely on Grindhouse horror stories featuring a strong female lead. The lead may be the protagonist or the antagonist. In 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez set out to revitalize this genre with their excellent double-feature, Grindhouse. Although it was met with critical success, it ultimately failed at the box office. However, in recent years, the genre has gone through a resuscitation of sorts, and a new era of filmmakers are now creating homage-style exploitation films using the borrowed aesthetics of the 70s and 80s--successful films like House of the Devil, Turbo Kid, and Mandy. This is exactly what we are looking for in your stories; we want to see your particular homage to this style of storytelling in narrative form. We are looking to publish around twelve pieces of original fiction for this anthology. Overall, we tend to lean more toward fun, action-oriented stories like Army of Darkness, Planet Terror, and Blood Drive over anything too serious and brooding. Genre mashups are HIGHLY encouraged. All stories and characters must be original works. Fiction Submissions: Giallo/Slasher, Sci-fi Horror, 80's Splatter, Japanese Body Horror, 50's B-Movie Creature Feature, Southern Gothic, Satanic Cult, Lost World, Lost Tribe. Other sub-genres could apply as well, but must have a strong horror connection, including: Carsploitation, Blacksploitation, Spaghetti Western, Women in Prison, Vigilante, etc. Word Count: 2,000 -...

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: $30 Theme: Super heroes! Super-powered pulp heroes. Supers with a single power who fight crime or villains. Good folks versus bad folks, no gray areas, no amorality, no Byronic heroes. And no non-powered heroes. So think of characters like Doc Savage, the Rocketeer, Zorro, The Phantom, and Flash Gordon, but with powers and ideals like Superman and Wonder Woman (in their earlier renditions). Sorry, this means no Punisher, Logan, or even The Batman. It also means no Superman or Wonder Woman with those surplus of powers. Blatantly heroic original-to-the-author-only characters with no ambiguity in their pursuit of stopping villainous behavior. Super Beings & Wondrous Entities only.   Current or alternate or future world settings. No rules on how superpowers exist (they can be the result of science, magic, disease, aliens, mutation, etc.) or on how they are employed (inherent, learned, bequeathed, device-driven, etc.). 11 week submission period. We will be accepting 13-15 stories, and stories should be 2k-9k words in length. Nothing shorter will be read, and our sweet spot is in the 5k-7k range. Publication is intended for Christmas 2020. Payment of $30 flat per story shall be rendered after publication. Authors will receive electronic copies and permanent discount on print purchases from RBE. You can submit at Rogue Blades' Submittable. Via: Rogue Blades.

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: $25.00 - $50.00 for fiction, $5.00 - $10.00 for poetry Theme: Story must begin with: The Simmons public library was a melting pot of the haves and have-nots, a mixture of homeless people and the wealthy older residents of the nearby neighborhood. We love that writers around the world are inspired by our first lines, and we know that not every story will be sent to us. However, we ask that you do not submit stories starting with our first lines to other journals (or post them online on public sites) until we've notified you as to our decision (usually three to four weeks after the deadline). When the entire premise of the publication revolves around one sentence, we don't want it to look as if we stole that sentence from another writer. If you have questions, feel free to drop us a line. Also, we understand that writers may add our first line to a story they are currently working on or have already completed, and that's cool. But please do not add our first line to a previously published story and submit it to us. We do not accept previously published stories, even if they have been repurposed for our first lines. One more thing while I've got you here: Writers compete against one another for magazine space, so, technically, every literary magazine is running a contest. There are, however, literary magazines that run traditional contests, where they charge entry fees and rank the winners. We do not - nor will we ever - charge a submission fee, nor do we rank our stories in order of importance. Occasionally, we run contests to help come up with new first lines, or we run fun, gimmicky competitions for free stuff, but the actual journal is...

Deadline: August 1, 2020 Payment: $25.00 CAD Theme: Elemental magic Submission Open: April 1, 2020 Submission Close: August 1, 2020 Publishing timeline: December 2020 OPEN DARK FANTASY Rated R Stories welcome ​ Theme: Elemental Magic - Earth, wind, fire, water and spirit. Dark versus light. We are giving a lot of leeway for story building, but magic must play an integral part in your world and there must be a dark fantasy element. Create a fantasy world for this to all play out in, or build something in ours. The choice is yours. The only requirement is that you must feature elemental magic. Fae and other realms, magic and witches, dragons or orcs, all magical and fantastic creatures are welcome. This one has opportunities for a lot of world-building so the call out is for larger stories. We will only be accepting a limited number of stories for this project, but volume II is under consideration. Stand-alone stories only, no to be continued. ​ Word Count is 5000 - 15000 we are looking for longer stories and small novella's. ​ Compensation: $25.00 CAD. Digital copy & discounted author copies ​ Formatting guidelines: See our Submission Format guide below ​ How to submit: Access submission form here, or use the submit button ​ Multiple Submission: Yes - We will be happy to read up to two stories per author, but note we will only be accepting one story per book. Please send each story in a separate form. Reprints: Yes we are accepting a small number of reprints. ​ Things that are a hard pass: any animal erotica and all forms of rape Via: Eerie River Publishing.

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Theme: A 1980's genre story that involves a haunting and pizza parties Note: Reprints Welcome What’s the coolest place around? The Mall! Outrageous neon-drenched, air-conditioned corridors welcome us inside. It’s an oasis. From the food court pizza parlor to every hip store, you could totally find everything you ever wanted. It’s good times to the max! But that’s not all you can find at the mall. Not even! Pastel paint streaks the walls, flowing over the occasional gaps between shops. But if you stare at it, the colors shift and combine, and follow you. The music store is rockin’, but don’t get the used cassettes. Debbie Gibson gives way to electric howls as something screams from the void. And don’t even think about trying that weird game at the back of the arcade! The guys say it’s giving them nightmares and weird vans are following them. But I saw the van, and I know it was Bobby driving and trying to scare us. So don’t encourage them! I love the Mall. But you wouldn’t want to be trapped here alone at night…   WHAT WE WANT THE BASICS: Supernatural stories set in the 1980s. Not horror stories, necessarily, but stories that use the 1980s and its culture in an engaging way. Bring us supernatural adventures, supernatural mysteries, supernatural fantasy, or supernatural pulp. First and foremost, aim to capture the spirit of the era. That’s something we feel both Speakeasies & Spiritualists succeeded in for the 1920s, and Sockhops & Séances succeeded in for the 1950s. If you’re looking to know exactly what we want, reading those books is the best place to start. THE PIZZA PARTIES: Historical accuracy is required. This extends beyond technology to attitudes, beliefs, and so on. See below for a full discussion of historical...

Deadline: August 1st, 2020 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: SF, F, H, steampunk, cyberpunk, mythology, satire. Stories could feature puzzle solving and ingenuity, inverted tv tropes, inventions (clockwork, practical, or Rube Goldberg), masterful creations (like JS Bach's Goldberg Variations), and social commentary Brain Games: Stories to Astonish - SF, F, H, steampunk, cyberpunk, mythology, satire The left side of the brain is associated with logical and analytical characteristics, while the right brain with creativity. We'd welcome stories from both sides of the brain. Stories could feature puzzle solving and ingenuity, inverted tv tropes, inventions (clockwork, practical, or Rube Goldberg), masterful creations (like JS Bach's Goldberg Variations), and social commentary Reading period: July 1 - August 1, 2020 Writer deadline: August 1, 2020 Publication date: October 15, 2020 Third Flatiron Publishing is based in Boulder, Colorado, and Ayr, Scotland. We are looking for submissions to our (approximately) 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, Iain Banks, Alastair Gray, and Ken Kesey. We want to showcase some of the best new shorts available today. 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...

Deadline: August 2nd, 2020 Payment: 6 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints Theme: Well written original work in science fiction, fantasy, myth, legend, fairy tales, and eldritch, in written, podcast, video, and/or graphic story form, and from around the world. Note: Reprints welcome     Submissions Schedule We have a new submissions schedule as of June 1, 2020: The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T. Only one submission per person. For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers. We pay 6¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 6¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles. For new poetry, we pay $1 a line, reprints would be 50¢ a line, up to 40 lines. We’ll look at longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 6¢ per word. We began The Kepler Award to recognize and encourage writers of excellent science fiction and fantasy stories that creatively extrapolate on known science in constructive and exciting ways. You can learn about The Kepler Award here. You can read a copy of our standard contract here.   It can be varied as needed to include the rights of translators, voice actors, etc. Writers Guidelines We accept new work as well as reprints, prose and poetry, anywhere from 1000 word flash fiction on up, but all else being equal, shorter pieces will be favored.   We have tough standards but only care about the quality of the writing, storytelling ability, characters, plot, and ideas, not whether you’re new or established.  Submit only work you are proud of —...

Deadline: August 2nd, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: A character with a sixth sense of some sort SIXTH SENSE OPEN | Deadline: August 2, 2020 What if a detective could see sound or taste light? Give us some synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense elicits a response from a different sense. Or how about proprioception? That’s the sense responsible for letting you close your eyes and touch your finger to your nose. Imagine a ninja with superhuman proprioception! Go classic with extra-sensory perception. Do your characters see dead people, sense the past of objects when they touch them, or wake up with premonitions of alien invasions? Then there’s the heightened senses of the animal kingdom—sensitivity to electricity, magnetism, x-rays, and sonar! Show us what life could be like beyond the five senses. We’re only human, but we’re capable of imagining so much more. (Publishes in October, so this is your chance for ghost stories and other supernatural encounters.) Havok provides sharp, memorable fiction under 1,000 words. We want stories that hit fast and strike hard––stories that, no matter the genre, can cut through the day’s troubles and grip distracted readers. And there’s no quicker way to get your masterpiece rejected than to ignore our submission guidelines. So read through the following information and be sure to follow it to the letter. Or else… Your Story Your well-edited story should be between 300 and 1,000 words long. We only accept stories that fit our daily genres (mystery, science fiction, comedy, thriller, fantasy) and Season Themes. Check ’em out. The themes function as story prompts that will help us together craft story collections that readers will love. Tip: Make sure your opening lines have a strong hook! Hook our editors and you’ll have a better chance all around. WE DO NOT PUBLISH: Previously published flash fiction. Poetry. Fan...

Deadline: August 3rd, 2020 Payment: $100 Theme: We’re looking for horror: dark, weird fiction. We run the spectrum from grim realism or crime drama, to magic-realism, to blatantly supernatural dark fantasy. We publish highly literary stories reminiscent of Poe or Lovecraft as well as vulgar shock-value pulp fiction. Note: Reprints Only There are a number of short stories in anthologies and collections that deserve to get in front of more readers. We want to shine more light across our community and widen our circle to make room for more writers and readers. In specific, PseudoPod has penciled out space in a large portion of November and early December 2020 to support this effort. Publishers, please send us your collections and anthologies, and identify any stories original to that publication. Authors, ask your publisher to send us the book; if they’re not interested, we still want you to submit your story here — just include the collection or anthology title in the cover letter for your individual story. Our preferred format is a MOBI, followed by EPUB then Word Doc. We will also accept PDF’s, but please understand that PDF’s provide more barriers for consideration (they are less friendly to a wide array of reading devices.) We will be purchasing non-exclusive reprint rights. Please let us know if there is an exclusivity period for which we will need to request a waiver. PseudoPod will be reading during the spring and summer to allow for reading the books and scheduling the stories.   Frequently Asked Questions: Where do I submit? Right here on our new Moksha platform: https://escapeartists.moksha.io/publication/escape-artists-special-project-teams What kind of stories are you looking for? The same as we always have. If you’re unfamiliar with what we publish, we encourage you to start here: https://pseudopod.org/new-to-pseudopod/ How much are you paying? These stories will be purchased at...

Deadline: August 7th, 2020 Payment: $15 Theme: A horror anthology that focuses on people full of rage, not monsters Incendiary is a horror anthology that pushes aside the monsters and focuses on people. We're looking for fiction that carries some form of rage with it. An angry, bloody short story that will stay with us after we've read it. You can write about the serial killer next door (or be the serial killer). or the craziest car chase on open road. Every horror anthology editor wants to be unsettled, terrified, forced into insomnia, etc. We're no different, but I want to see what you can come up with by leaving the ghosts, demons, werewolves and other monsters aside and focusing on the dread that people and rage create. Think Rob Zombie's 31 or Mike Flanagan's Hush. Your story does not have to be home invasion, but it has to feature people and their use of rage in horror. There are things I don't want for this anthology: Revenge narratives Dark Sci-Fi Dark Fantasy Supernatural & Paranormal fiction Time travel narratives apocalypse/pandemic narratives Things I won't tolerate: Use of: Racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, pedophilia, necrophilia, rape, sexual abuse, bigotry, copywritten characters. Note: This is not a furry anthology and is not seeking furry fiction. The form accepts up to 3 files, meaning you can only submit up to 3 stories. use the same form for your submission. Deadline: August 7, 2020 Word Count: up to 5000  (a little over is fine, but don’t overdo it) Payment $15 per accepted story Via: Weasel Press's Submittable.

Deadline: August 7th, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: Flash Fiction horror in the style of NoSleepReddit containing anthropomorphic animals as characters Deadline: August 7, 2020 Theme: Flash Fiction horror in the style of NoSleepReddit containing anthropomorphic animals as characters Word Count: up to 1000 words Payment: $10 per accepted story Editor: Weasel   Dread is an online horror furry magazine that focuses on flash fiction (1000 words or less). I am seeking short scenes of dreadfully frightening stuff containing anthropomorphic animals (humanized animals). I'm trying to create something along the lines of a furry No Sleep (see Reddit No Sleep for example stories). Suspension of disbelief is key. The story will have to feel real. Dread asks that stories be written in 1st person. Things I'm not looking for: Fantasy horror Sci-fi Horror Stories containing perspective shifts/narrator switches Stories told by god-like characters Stories from the perspective of inanimate objects, ghosts, or A.I. Outer Dimension stories/Time Travel/Post-Apocalypse/Pandemic fiction Essentially, I want this to feel like it's something that could happen in your apartment parking lot or the grocery store or anywhere we go. If your main character sees an unidentified monster or creature that's fine. If your main character time travels to the 1800s, that's not fine. If you want more insight on how NoSleep stories are written, I recommend reading some and checking out their rules section. https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/wiki/believability https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/ Notes on word count: I know 1000 words seems like it's not much. Most authors are looking at this and asking "how can I fit a whole story into 1000 words?" Think of it this way, you're focusing on a moment. Make good use of your title, and keep your characters limited. It can be done. There are loads of resources on writing flash fiction. There's even whole journals dedicated to...

Deadline: August 7th, 2020 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: Original fantasy and dark fantasy stories. All types of fantasy and dark fantasy are welcome. Instructions for submitting to Fantasy Magazine follow. Please read everything on this page and read the magazine before submitting. SUBMISSION PROCEDURES Submission Periods: Fantasy is open to submissions the first week of every month (1st-7th). Please do not query about submitting outside our open submission periods. Anonymous Submissions: Fantasy only accepts anonymous submissions. Do not include your name, address, phone number, or other similar identifiers on the manuscript. All original short fiction, flash fiction, and poetry submissions will be read anonymously on first read: moving out of slush depends on the merits of the story alone. Please make sure the title is on the manuscript. Simultaneous and Multiple Submissions: We do not accept simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions. Please do not submit more than one set of poems at a time, more than one piece of flash fiction at a time, or more than one story at a time. You may, however, submit a single entry in each category at the same time: you can submit one batch of poems, one flash fiction piece, and one short story all at the same (or overlapping) time, and each category will be considered a separate submission. Instructions: All fiction must be submitted through our Moksha online submission system. Please do not email your submissions. If one of the Submission Type options is grayed out, that means we are currently closed to that Submission Type. Questions/Problems: Email [email protected] for all submission-related inquiries, or if you have any trouble using our online submission system. Please do not email your submissions to this address. All submissions must be submitted via our Moksha online submission system. Rejections/Response Times: Be aware that we expect to receive several hundred submissions during our submissions periods. As such, we cannot offer personalized feedback...

Deadline: August 14th, 2020 Payment: contributor's copy Theme: "The ultimate collection of robotic art and stories" When I was young, I spent a summer reading I, Robot by Issac Asimov, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. Those two books formed the foundation of my fascination with the Science Fiction genre, and with those wonderfully diverse creatures, we call robots. Through the years, I’ve enjoyed the myriad of depictions of robots in books, art, and entertainment. So, when the ArtOrder team sat down to discuss our next themed book - it was no surprise that I pushed heavily for a robot theme. I want When Robots Dream to be the ultimate collection of robotic art and stories. I’m looking for images and stories that get out of the typical clichés and offer the fans something unique and exciting.  Jon Schindehette ArtOrder llc Founding Member The Jury When Robots Dream will be a book filled with amazing stories and art! To help us deliver on that promise, we have pulled together a stellar panel of jurors. Jean-Pierre Jeunet Jean-Pierre is an award-winning French film director, producer, and screenwriter. His films mix elements of fantasy, realism, and science fiction to create idealized realities or to give relevance to mundane situations. A former animator, his movies are marked by quirky, slapstick humor, alongside surrealist visuals. Jean-Pierre’s work in notable films such as Amélie and City of Lost Children certainly endeared him to us, but his love of robots and sci-fi won us over. Neil Clarke Neil is the editor of the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning Clarkesworld Magazine and several anthologies, including the Best Science Fiction of the Year series. He has been a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Editor (Short Form) eight times, won the Chesley Award for Best Art Director three times, and received the Solstice...

Deadline: August 15th, 2020 Payment: $15 for short stories Theme: Gothic fiction for the 21st century. What we’re looking for: We’re looking for previously unpublished short stories that embrace and reimagine Gothic fiction for the 21st century. Compelling plots with a strong literary bend. Eerie atmosphere is key. Stories with Weird elements are welcome. You can’t have Gothic without a little bit of terror & horror… that being said, we are not a horror fiction magazine. Our previously published works will provide the best indication of what we are looking for. Our past issue is available for free here. What we’re not looking for: Stories that contain gruesome violence, gore, or explicit sexual content. Fantasy. Strong science fiction. True Crime. Word count: 1,500 – 6,500 words (though we keep an open mind) Rights: We want authors to retain all the rights to their work. We ask for non-exclusive rights, meaning you are free to take your work elsewhere even after we publish it. Payment: Upon publication, we currently pay $15 for short stories we publish. In this early stage, we acknowledge that this payment is merely a token; however, as we grow, increasing our compensation for writers is our highest priority. How to submit: Please submit your work to [email protected], using the subject line (Submission-). In the body of the email please include a very brief cover letter with a 1-3 sentence bio describing your relevant writing background. Please, only submit one work at a time. We will not consider multiple works submitted at once. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere. Your submission should be: Double spaced In a standard font (Times New Roman) 12 pt. font PDF or .docx Word count on title page Timing: we do respond to submissions as quickly as we are able. Please allow at least five weeks for us to...

Deadline: August 15th, 2020 Payment: $20 for the first 3,000 words, then a 1/2 cent per word + print contributor’s copy Theme: The Wendigo Hunger. Insatiable hunger. Hunger that changes you…consumes you…turning you into a nightmare version of what you once were. Denver Horror Collective is looking for stories of the Wendigo. The point of view could be a person becoming the Wendigo, from a Wendigo, pursued by a Wendigo, or a witness to a Wendigo-esque situation unfolding. Submissions may cover cannibalism, lust, plague, war, anxiety, greed, power, or any topic a person or animal could become obsessed with. Read the Wiki on the Wendigo at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo, then feel free to think outside the box and let your imagination run wild. Submissions do not have to have characters turn into a literal Wendigo. Character(s) must go through some sort of a transformation due to the “hunger.” You do not have to use the term Wendigo. We just ask that authors use the core concept of the Wendigo as inspiration for their story. Please take a moment to read the KEY NOTES and all submission information below to ensure your story content and format fall within guidelines. DEADLINE: August 15, midnight WORD COUNT: 3,000-12,000 words (lower limit firm, query for longer) PAYMENT: $20 for the first 3,000 words, then a 1/2 cent per word + print contributor’s copy REPRINTS: No SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: No MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: No (if you have more than one idea, you’re welcome to query as to which concept we would be more interested in) FORMAT: -Use the Shunn format ( https://www.shunn.net/format/classic/ ) with the following caveats: -12-point Times New Roman, Courier New, or Arial font -Use paragraph formatting for paragraph indents. Do not manually tab or space in. -No headers, footers, or page numbers SUBMISSION: -Submit in DOC, DOCX, or RTF...

Deadline: August 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...

Deadline: August 15th, 2020 Payment: $0.08 per word for original fiction. USD $100 per story for reprint fiction. Theme: Potential (and hopefully positive) futures that involve alternatives to modern day policing. Note: Reprints Welcome After the brutal murder of George Floyd by the police, the world responded in righteous protest, with cries of “Black Lives Matter.” The police responded to these calls in large part with even more brutality, with video after video emerging that showed an assault on the public. And more cries came forth, with calls to defund the police. But what’s that mean? Science Fiction writers, this is your call to arms. Give us your potential (and hopefully positive) futures that involve alternatives to modern day policing. We want stories that replace the police entirely, dramatically reform them, or create parallel systems to refocus policing. We’re also seeking alternate concepts of rehabilitation and punishment as well, more emphasis on the carrot. In a world where police are perpetually brandishing their batons, I think we’ve all seen enough sticks.   SUBMIT TO NO POLICE KNOW FUTURE Now, We know it may be difficult to think of a world without the police. They have been there all of our lives, in meticulous uniform, reinforced by countless movies. We recommend this article https://lifehacker.com/lets-abolish-the-police-force-184392… and this infographic at https://www.reddit.com/…/what_do_we_mean_when_we_say_defun…/ for inspiration. Story length is up to approximately 4,000 words for original fiction. We’re not going to reject something that stretches this limit out of hand, but know that the longer it gets, the harder a sell it becomes. Reprints can be up to 6,000 words. Most veins of SF welcome, with the exception of steampunk, dieselpunk or other SF that nestles us comfortably in a previous era. We are here now, in tumultuous times, and cannot go back. Let’s face a possible, achievable future bravely....

Deadline: August 15th, 2020 Payment: £10 Theme: Open to: LGBTQIA and POC Note: Payment: £10 and ebook Theme: Dante’s Inferno Closing Date: 15th August 2020 Open to: LGBTQIA and POC Length: 3-5k The Infernal Clock is the side-project of Stephanie Ellis and David Shakes. After a year’s break, they are bringing it back with the Inferno edition. Stories have been by invite but we are opening up 9 spaces to members of the LGBTQIA and POC communities only in order to be more representative. The theme is Dante's Inferno and each story will be set in one of the circles or the passages to/between circles.  Whilst there are nine circles, there are a number of rings - or pouches - within each circle so there is a lot of scope. How you interpret your chosen circle/ring is up to you, eg it could be set below in the Inferno itself, it could focus on a particular sin, or you could recreate this hell actually on earth.  We are particularly interested in stories set in the Second and Eighth Circles as we do not have any of these yet, although you are welcome to write in the other circles as well. Stories need to be dark (but with the usual boundaries against extremes and gratuity) and 3-5k with flexibility, although we would prefer 4k. Stories must be submitted in standard manuscript format as .doc or .docx to [email protected]. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. No reprints. Payment will be by paypal on publication. If you have any queries please contact us at the above email address.

Deadline: August 16th, 2020 Payment: €20 and a contributors copy Theme: A story about an interruption When the internet cuts off, when the light goes out as you sit down to read, when the heart doesn't beat, when a heart doesn't beat for you, when the visa is rejected, when the binary breaks, when you fall in love, when two worlds collide, when — we pause this program for an important announcement — a dog barks (the autoplay ad starts) when the lightning strikes the picnic the stranger asks for directions the rain starts the statue of the slave trader hits the water when the the rain ends when a missile — Submissions to FU Review Issue 9 are open until August 16. *** ​ All published authors will be paid €20 and receive a print copy of Issue 9. ​ The FU Review publishes prose, poetry, nonfiction, and English-language translations. There is no word-count limit, but please submit no more than 5 poems or 2 prose pieces. Via: FU Review.

Deadline: August 20th, 2020 Prize: $100 and publication of the winning piece of flash fiction in that issue! Theme: Flash inspired by the art above WEIRD TALES FLASH FICTION CONTEST! This is the dynamic cover art by top artist Sam Flegal for Weird Tales #364 (our next issue, debuting in October). We’re announcing a contest: RULES: Submit a piece of original flash fiction inspired by that art. Submissions must no longer that 1500 words. No reprints. FORMAT: All submissions must be submitted as Word docs. Times New Roman font, 12-point, double-spaced, no extra spaces between paragraphs; 7-character indent on all paragraphs. No exceptions. SUBMISSION: Submit to [email protected] with WEIRD TALES FLASH CONTEST in the subject bar. DEADLINE: All submissions must be in by Noon (Pacific Time) August 20. MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: Yes, sent separately. PRIZE: $100 and publication of the winning piece of flash fiction in that issue! Via: Jonathan Maberry's Facebook.

Deadline: August 21st, 2020 Payment: $100 and royalties Theme: This anthology is looking for stories set on or around Halloween Note: Reprints welcome Halloween: a night when the dead roam freely among the unsuspecting living; when the boundary between reality and fantasy, between this world and the next, is as thin as paper mache; when monsters both human and daemonic stalk the shadows, seeking easy prey… All Hallow’s Eve: a night to hide behind your best mask, lock your doors, and keep your Jack-o’-lantern burning till dawn. Because Something is knocking at the door, boys and girls… And it’s hungry. DEMON’S DREAMING PRESS PRESENTS: SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT Guidelines: What I’m looking for: Great horror, well written. Send me literary horror, pulp, dark fantasy, gore, magical realism – whatever suits you as a writer so long as your story is set on or around Halloween, or relates in some way to the holiday and its customs. Give me your Samhain-inflected stories of vampires, witches, werewolves, ghouls, zombies, ghosts, serial killers, aliens, revenge from beyond the grave, mirrors at midnight, etc. Or maybe something more personal, more idiosyncratic – experimentation and uniqueness are always a plus! For an idea of the sort of tone I’m looking for think classic E.C. Comics (Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror) Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside, Trick ‘r’ Treat, Monsters, The Twilight Zone, etc. What I’m not looking for: homophobia, racism, sexism, ableism or any other ism free of narrative context. No rape, excessive torture or sexual violence (especially toward children). How to Submit: Please send all submissions to [email protected] in either a .docx or .rtf file. Include the word Submission in subject, as well as your name and the title of your story. Include a brief bio in the body of your e-mail...

Deadline: August 22nd, 2020 Payment: $10-20 Theme: Cosmic horror that celebrate the ideas of H.P Lovecraft Sentinel Creatives has opened up for submissions for the "LOVECRAFT IN A TIME OF MADNESS" anthology. If you're unfamiliar with Sentinel Creatives, we're an indie publishing and production house based in Cape Town, South Africa. Though our focus is on books and ebooks, we also do audiobooks, and will be doing audio dramas in the near future! WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR As the title suggests, we're looking for stories of cosmic horror that celebrate the ideas of H.P Lovecraft! While it is not necessary for submissions to form a part of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, or other works, it is necessary for there to be some connection to the ideas and themes he grappled with in them. While Lovecraft is known for, among other things, his own particular writing style, we're not looking for stories that try to mimic his prose! Nor are we looking to play a game of "Lovecraft Bingo"! Rather, we're looking for stories that are faithful to the spirit of Lovecraftian horror. Show us to the dark corners of the earth, and the mind, but show us your particular take on it! These stories need not be set in our past, present or even our future. If you think you can do justice to a retelling of folklore or legend, go for it!  We'd love to see stories about King A'rtur'og and his knights of the non-Euclidian table, or Sir Gawain and the Eldritch Knight! Got a story about Anarchists v the Cult of Cthulhu in London during the industrial revolution? Let's see it! SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Send your submissions to: [email protected] with the subject "Lovecraft Submission". All manuscripts should be sent as a word document. Our preference is for Times New Roman, or another...

Deadline: August 25th, 2020 Payment: $5 for anything under 5000 words. $10 for anything over 5000 words. Theme: New tales of cryptid legends Note: Reprints welcome For generations, stories of mythological beasts have captivated the imaginations and nightmares of cultures all around the world. From Bigfoot to the Ahool, from the Chupacabra to the Giant Squid, we want your most creative cryptid stories. Whether on land or at sea, chill us to the bone with your wild imaginations. So many cryptid legends exist across the world and maybe you have a local cryptid you want the world to explore, like the Beast of Bray Road or the Loveland Frogman. Feel free to make it scary, gory, dark, or if you so desire, throw us a curveball and provide us with a scary monster that truly has a heart of gold. The only limit is your imagination…and that it must feature a cryptid, of course!  Submission Deadline:  August 25th, 2020  Word Count: 2,000 - 8,500. A little over or under is fine. Payment: $5 for anything under 5000 words.                                        $10 for anything over 5000 words. Important Bits Include a bio or greeting with your email. We don't need a lot, but at least let us know who you are. Please send all submissions as a .docx or .rtf attachment with the subject line of your email as: DBND -  CryptidChronicles  - Story Title  Stories sent after the submission deadline will be rejected unread. Multiple submissions welcome. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please keep us updated on the status if your story is picked up elsewhere. No extra lines between paragraphs. Reprints will be considered. Don't sit on your submission! If we reach the word count for the anthology, we will close submissions early. Send submissions to: [email protected]  Via: DBND Publishing.

Submission Period: August 23, 2020 to August 27, 2020 Payment: 12.5 cents per word Theme: Fireside has two goals: to find and publish great stories regardless of genre, and to pay our writers and artists well. Fireside holds a submissions period for each upcoming issue of Fireside Quarterly. In 2020, Fireside will be open to submissions for short stories during the following periods: August 24, 2020 to August 28, 2020 Submissions period for the Summer 2021 Issue November 30, 2020 to December 4, 2020 Submissions period for the Autumn 2021 Issue During open submissions periods, there will be a form on this page for uploading your submission. We have no further submissions dates to announce for the moment. Please subscribe to our newsletter if you’d like to be the first to find out about our future submissions dates. Guidelines We welcome previously unpublished work (‘published’ includes work posted on Patreon or on a blog) in English or Spanish from all writers anywhere in the world, and we are interested in seeing work from people of color, LGBTQIA people, disabled people, members of religious minorities, and people outside the United States. We strongly encourage submissions from people of those backgrounds, and all others whom traditional publishing has historically excluded. If you have any questions about how to submit, please email us at: [email protected]. Accessibility We use an online form to gather submissions, but we understand that this may not be universally accessible to disabled people. If you have questions related to accessibility, please email us at [email protected] with the subject line: Accessibility Query. Accessibility Queries should only contain a request to submit by alternate means, and should not include a submission. Any submissions sent via email will be deleted unread. Short Stories We accept short stories up to 3,000 words. Our budget allows us to pay for...

Deadline: August 28th, 2020 Payment: 6¢ a word Theme: Must be set in Motherland, a landyke community, details below. During a panel discussing a number of topics, including queering weird fiction, editor and publisher Steve Berman recalled an article in the New York Times: "Why Doesn’t Anyone Want to Live in This Perfect Place?" The notion of a dying lesbian community instantly seemed an ideal setting for weird fiction. And so Lethe Press is accepting submissions for Motherland. All stories must be set in Motherland, a landyke community founded on the Delmarva Peninsula in 1968 by Ida Marmer and Robinia Atwell. We are currently working on more details about Motherland that authors can include in their story. Please check back to this listing and page. Stories can be set during any time period, from the founding of Motherland to the current day. All stories must feature lesbian or bisexual protagonists. We recommend authors read the NY Times article and the book Landykes of the South before writing their submission. Deadline is August 28, 2020. Stories should be between 2,000 and 10,000 words. Payment is 6¢ a word, split between a sum upon acceptance (up to $100) with the remainder upon publication. Email stories as attachments (MS Doc or RTF files only) to [email protected] with the Subject Line: MOTHERLANDSUBMISSION. Include in the body of your email a brief synopsis of the story and a couple lines about yourself. Via: Lethe Press.

Deadline: August 28th, 2020 Payment: Royalties Theme: Some real-world social issue where denial is causing great harm. Because we had such success and are so proud of our anthologies Strongly Worded Women and Shout, we want to do it again. Co-editors Zack Dye and Benjamin Gorman will be compiling another anthology for publication in the winter of 2020/spring of 2021. This time, the theme will be: Denial Kills. Your story or poem could be about some real-world social issue where denial is causing great harm. Denying global climate change? The dismissal of real news as "fake"? Ignoring the benefits of vaccines? Refusing to acknowledge the world is round and four and a half billion years old? Or it could be more personal. One character refusing to recognize something about her partner? About herself? These can serve as powerful allegories for those other issues without ever mentioning them. And of course your story doesn't need to be set in our world at all. Spaceships and black holes? Wizards and orcs? Fairies and vampires? Bring it! The stories do need to be fictional, though. We're not knocking journalism, long form essays, memoirs, or online rants, but there are other places for those. We want to create a space for fiction and poetry (ideally an equal amount so they can trade off and converse with one another). Short Stories: 2000 to 3500 words Poems: Up to 350 lines, max, for a single poem Multiple submissions accepted. Due date: Friday, August 28th Send your poem or short story to:  [email protected] with the subject line: Denial Anthology Submission from _your name__ Reading fee: Zero dollars and zero cents Payment is in the form of royalties, depending on sales of the anthology. All authors included will divide the profits evenly with the editors and the publishing company. Via: Not A Pipe Publishing.

Deadline: August 30th, 2020 Payment: $20 Theme: Must include some aspect of death, "Ghosts, ghouls, possession, ritual, cultural beliefs, the paranormal, monsters, the occult" etc Death. What would horror be without a little sprinkle of death? Yet it’s not the act of dying that creates the evergreen mystery surrounding the finality that comes with loss of life, it’s the enigma that follows the question: what comes next? The Other Side is a horror anthology which explores the great beyond. We’re looking for stories that tackle the world beyond the living. Ghosts, ghouls, possession, ritual, cultural beliefs, the paranormal, monsters, the occult, this anthology will collect the greatest stories that answer the age-old question: When we breath our last breath, where do we go? Submission deadlines: Sunday 30th August, 2020 Word count: 5,000–10,000 words. Payment: $20 Submission Guidelines A submission Word template is available for download HERE. Stories slightly over or under the word count will be considered Stories must be saved as a Word document, PDFs will not be accepted Times New Roman Size 12 font 1.5 paragraph spacing Place your name, the title of the anthology for which you are submitting, and your preferred contact email address in the header of the document Sex, violence, and coarse language are accepted as long as they serve the story No hate speech or fan fiction Multiple submissions welcome Reprints will be considered Payment for accepted stories will be made within 7 working days of confirmation of entry. Failure to adhere to submission guidelines will result in immediate rejection from the anthology. SUBMIT MY STORY Via: Devil's Rock Publishing.

Deadline: August 30th, 2020 Payment: 3000+ words is $125, Under 3k words is $75, $50 for reprints Theme: Horror by black authors Note: Reprints Welcome if not previously published in audio We will be open August 1-30, 2019. Are you Black? It doesn't matter what part of the world you're from, or where you are now–as long as you're Black and you write horror, you are welcome to submit! Here's what you need to know: Story submissions should be no longer than 10,000 words. We may occasionally do short fiction episodes for stories less than 3,000 words, so feel free to submit shorter stories–it just may be a bit longer before your story airs. Please send only one submission to us at a time. Simultaneous submissions (sending the same story to multiple publications) are okay. We respond within 4-6 weeks. If you found another home for your work, let us know ASAP. We do give personalized feedback, so long as your submission falls within our submission guidelines. If we reject your story, you can submit a different story at any time, but you'll only get feedback for stories submitted 12 months after the rejection. We pay for exclusive audio (first world) and electronic publishing rights for 6 months after the air date. We also reserve the right to continue to broadcast, promote, and/or link to your story on our website/podcast, but after six months, you can publish your story in any format elsewhere. We only accept reprints that have not been published in audio format previously. Just let us know your story has appeared elsewhere and where so we can credit properly. We do have plans to eventually publish “Best Of” anthologies. Should we decide to include your piece, we'll ask your permission first and you'll be paid for inclusion. If you have...

Deadline: August 30th, 2020 Payment: $40 Theme: It needs to evoke a sense of wonder and be appropriate for a YA audience. With a whisper of magic, the portal begins to open. Travel through, fellow wanderers, and tell us of the stories you find. Submissions for Cast of Wonders’ Flash Fiction Contest will run from August 15-August 30th, 2020, via Moksha. To be a valid submission to the contest, each story must adhere to the following rules: The story must be no more than 500 words long, not including its title. Do not use the title to skirt around the word count. Word count will be determined using MS Word. The story must adhere to the general Cast of Wonders Submission Guidelines. Most importantly, it needs to evoke a sense of wonder and be appropriate for a YA audience. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without explicit sex, violence or pervasive obscene language. The story must be original and previously unpublished. Stories will be posted on a members-only portion of the Escape Artists forum, so first publication rights will not be spent if your story does not win. The person submitting the story must be the story’s author (or acting for the author with express permission) and hold full publishing rights to the story. A story that is derived from a previously published work in another format (i.e. not a short story) may be fine, assuming doing so isn’t in violation of copyright, obviously. This is a grey area – a retelling of a classic tale, or popular culture references, are likely to be fine, but other forms of fanfiction would probably not be appropriate. If in doubt, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “QUERY” and ask before submitting....

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: Royalties Theme: A Collection Of Viking Tales A Collection of Viking Tales Zimbell House is holding open submissions for short Viking tales that feature Reanna the Red. These tales must be about her leadership, heroics, and survival of her people. Your point of view character can be a bard telling of her exploits, her second in command explaining why they follow her, Reanna herself, or anyone that has witnessed her actions. However, once you pick a POV do not change it. Let your imagination roam and put our readers in the middle of the action. Our readers want to feel the cold, smell the sea-spray, hear the village sounds. Our readers want to understand the gods that are worshipped, have a true sense of what daily life is like and what the stakes are. Please keep foul language to a minimum-it loses its punch if over-used. Dialogue needs to be believable, and please keep dialects/slang to a bare minimum if you must use them. No head-hopping or POV changes. Pick one point of view and stick with it. Please show more of the action than just telling the reader what happens. Submissions of both short stories and novellas to this anthology are welcome, please keep in mind the minimum word count is 4,500 and the maximum word count is 19,500. This anthology is a great opportunity to showcase emerging writers and allow them to build their professional platforms. Submission Deadline: August 31, 2020, with a targeted release date of late October 2020. Submit your best work. Poorly formatted and unedited work will be turned down. Please use Americanized English spellings. We will be doing light editing as necessary to fit the standards we strive to maintain. Submission Guidelines: Any work under 4,500 words will be automatically disqualified for this anthology. The...

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $5, royalties, and a contributors copy Theme: All stories must be centered around Mardi Gras and contain a crime. Back by Popular Demand: Mardi Gras Mysteries, a new Mardi Gras mystery anthology for 2021. All stories must be centered around Mardi Gras and contain a crime, up to and including murder.  Supernatural/occult content is allowed, as long as the story is a mystery. Please refrain from being too explicit with sex or gore in your story, although some detail is acceptable. The focus should be on the holiday and the mystery or crime. Women flashing their breasts for beads is one thing; detailed sexual acts are another. Man waking up naked in bed next to a dead body is acceptable; having sex with it 'on-screen' is not. Story length should be 2000-5000 words. The submission window is July 1st - August 31st, 2020. Please do not sub sooner. Publication of Mardi Gras Mysteries will take place in late December 2020/January 2021.  Send your submissions to [email protected] with “Mardi Gras Mysteries” in the subject line. If we buy your story, you will receive a free print copy of the book and a $5 USD advance on royalties. For further information on royalties and publishing rights, please go to our Submission Guidelines page.  Via: Mystery and Horror LLC.

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $20 and contributors copy Theme: Lovecraftian Tales The guidelines are simple. The working anthology title is Strange Aeon: 2020 (Lovecraftian Tales). That alone tells you most of what you need to know. I want good, solid Lovecraftian stories. I specifically say Lovecraftian rather than Cthulu because I’d like stories across the entire Mythos including additions by the original group of Mythos authors like Robert Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Likewise, specific Mythos references are not as important as getting the right style and tone. For example, I would happily take Smith’s Seed From the Sepulcher over a Deep One tale. This style preference also applies to gore and sex: think early Weird Tales. Having said that, science fiction horror is strongly encouraged; this is not an anthology of period pieces. For this anthology I’m asking for non-exclusive rights and will happily take reprints. Simply tell me the publication history so that I can give proper copyright acknowledgement. Simultaneous and multiple submissions are acceptable (please do so in a professional manner.) Though I am not especially interested in non-fiction or poetry, I will consider it. At most only one non-fiction piece and one work of (long) poetry will be used. I’m not overly concerned about length. 2,500 to 10,000 words is preferable but I also know from personal experience that horror doesn’t always lend itself to a strict word count. I don’t care about submission formatting as long as it’s legible, clean copy. Electronically, I need the story either in the body of an email or an as RTF file. Please submit to the email address mkeatonauthor (at) gmail (dot) com with the word Submission in the header. The goal is a final book with about ten stories averaging 5,000 words apiece. I be receiving submissions...

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $5, royalties, and a contributors copy Theme: A story that must be funny and have supernatural/paranormal elements. This annual collection of funny paranormal stories is the press' flagship series. Your tale must be funny and have supernatural/paranormal elements. Examples of stories from previous collections: Homicide is summoned to a halfway house for the undead, a finger transplant from a serial killer leads to hilarious consequences, a mummy regrets hiring a cheap embalmer. Lovecraft humor is welcome; shaggy dog stories are not. Story length should be 2000-5000 words. If you sub something longer or shorter, it better be really funny. The submission window is August 1st - August 31st, 2020. Please do not sub sooner. Publication of SF VIII will take place in April/May 2021.  Send your submissions to [email protected] with “Strangely Funny” in the subject line. If we buy your story, you will receive a free print copy of the book and a $5 USD advance on royalties. For further information on royalties and publishing rights, please go to our Submission Guidelines page. Via: Mystery and Horror LLC.

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $0.03 per word, minimum of $30.00 dollars for short stories. $30 per poem Theme: Satisfaction Note: This call doesn't officially open until the 15th but is going live early due to the short submission window Apparition Lit is open for poetry and short story submissions four times a year. February 15-28 May 15-31 August 15-31 November 15-30 Submissions received outside of posted open dates will be deleted unread. Our themes for 2020 will be: Experimentation (Submission period November 15-30, 2019 CLOSED, Published January 2020) Transfiguration (Submission period February 15-29, 2020, CLOSED Published April 2020) Redemption (Submission period May 15-31, 2020, CLOSED Published July 2020) Satisfaction (Submission period August 15-31, 2020, CLOSED Publishing October 2020) Our previous themes for 2019: Resistance (Published January 2019) – Ambition (Published April 2019) – Retribution (Published July 2019) – Euphoria (Published October 2019) for 2018: Apparition (Published January 2018) – Delusion (Published April 2018) – Vision (Published July 2018) – Diversion (Published October 2018) Apparition Lit also holds monthly flash fiction contests. These stories are published online only. We accept submissions for the flash fiction contest between the 1st and 15th of each month. Stories must be under 1k words and based on the theme for that month. You can see each month’s theme, and guidelines, in the flash fiction drop down below. For detailed submission guidelines, please see each category drop down below. PAYMENT: Apparition is a semi-pro rate magazine, paying $0.03 per word, minimum of $30.00 dollars for short stories (excluding flash contest. See details in the Flash Fiction dropdown for flash rates) and a flat fee of $30 per poem. If we accept your story, we are purchasing the right to publish the story online and in the quarterly edition. Rights will revert back to the artist after one year. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR: (Click on the sections to see detailed guidelines for each classification.) SHORT FICTION SHORT FICTION: We will only accept stories between 1000-5000 words. If the story is complete with...

This is a full color digital illustration of a book cover depicting skeletons. Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: 6c per word for original stories, 2c per word for reprints Theme: Speculative fiction about Pregnancy, Birth and Babies Note: AUS Authors only Note: Reprints accepted Deadline: 31 August 2020 Payment: 6c per word for original stories, 2c per word for reprints (Australian currency) Publisher: IFWG Publishing Australia (co-published in North America through the IFWG Publishing International imprint) Note: Open to Australian writers only (citizens, residents and ex-pats) To be edited by award-winning author Deborah Sheldon, Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies will comprise stories from Australian writers obtained via commission and open callout. The commissioned writers are the multi-award-winning and bestselling authors Isobelle Carmody, Jack Dann, Kaaron Warren and Sean Williams. On-spec submissions are welcome from Australian writers of every persuasion including non-parents. Ideally, stories should be between 1500 and 5000 words, give or take. (Stories significantly longer than 5000 words would have to be outstanding.) Reprints will be considered, but must not be available for free anywhere online—the anthology will have only a small number of reprints, regardless. Artwork by commissioned Australian artists will complement selected stories. The anthology will be a visceral, frightening read. Each story must nominally tick the box of “body horror” but there is no restriction on subgenre: anything from sci-fi to fantasy to gothic to supernatural to psychological and beyond will be given equal consideration. Feel free to play with the theme and not take it too literally. Ideally, your story should make the reader feel uncomfortably aware of their physicality, morbidity or mortality. While graphic violence and swearing are acceptable, submissions must have a literary bent. Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies aims to deliver an elegant—and elevated—anthology of body horror. What to avoid: Gratuitous...

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: We’re looking for speculative literary poems that touch the heart as much as the head; poems of the liminal, the fluid, and the fantastic. In anthropological terms, liminality is the midpoint of a ritual: the threshold where a person is no longer quite who they were, not yet who they might become. In between masks, what face might you have? What might you be in transit? Where will you go? Everything is possible in that moment; change is its own goal. Liminality is the space between. Liminality is an online quarterly magazine of speculative poetry edited by Shira Lipkin (co-founded and co-edited through our third year by Mattie Joiner). We are very pleased to meet you. We’re looking for speculative literary poems that touch the heart as much as the head; poems of the liminal, the fluid, and the fantastic. We’d love to see work that shifts shape, refuses to be to be easily pinned down or categorised. We actively welcome diversity; we want to hear new as well as established voices. Tell us tales we thought we knew, the way only you can tell them. Give us new myths. Liminality pays $10 per poem, for first worldwide publication rights and non-exclusive anthology rights. We will be open: January 1-February 28 April 1 – May 31 July 1 – August 31 To submit, send up to five poems to liminalitypoetry AT gmail.com with the subject line “SUBMISSION – ”. Please include your poems in the body of the e-mail; if you have formatting that makes that untenable, you may attach the poem as an .rtf. You may send up to five poems per reading period. We do not accept reprints or simultaneous submissions. (If the poem has been publicly viewable online, yes, it would be a reprint.)  “Dear Editor”, “Dear Shira”, and “Dear Mx. Lipkin” are...

Deadline: August 31st, 2020 Payment: Original Stories: $25.00, Reprint Stories: $15.00, Flash Fiction: 1 cent/word, Poems: $5.00 (for minimalist poetry such as scifaiku, etc., the rates for Scifaikuest apply) Theme: Original stories with plot, tension, suspense, conflict, and character development. Note: Reprints welcome IT CAME FROM HER PURSE is a paperback anthology of stories, poems, and art, and will be published by Hiraeth Publishing. Editors for IT CAME FROM HER PURSE are Terrie Leigh Relf and Marcia Borell. IT CAME FROM HER PURSE is open to submissions as of 1 May 2020. We expect to close on 31 August 2020. We expect to publish on 1 January 2021. IT CAME FROM HER PURSE wants original stories with plot, tension, suspense, conflict, and character development. Remember, if readers do not care what happens to your main character(s), they won’t read the story. The narrative should maintain a sense of wondering what’s going to happen next; of what’s lurking just around the corner. Showing is better than telling. Frex, instead of telling the reader that it’s cold, show your character shivering, stomping feet, or having ice form on beard or hair. The inner thoughts and emotions of your character(s) are just as important. ​ IMPORTANT NOTE: “Purse” is not limited to a bag one carries around. It can be a wallet, a billfold, a coin pouch, a sachet. It can even refer to the prize for winning a horse race. Avoid getting hung up on a bag with a strap. If you’re looking for inspiration, think Roger Corman and what he might have done with this. If you saw the movie My Step-Mother is an Alien, remember the purse in that one, which carried a living computer shaped like a snake. Stories submitted to IT CAME FROM HER PURSE should be between 4K...

Deadline: September 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...

Deadline: September 1st, 2020 Payment: $30 with potentially more depending on Kickstarter and a contributors copy Theme: A feminist bicycle science fiction anthologies focusing on witchcraft We are accepting submissions now for the witchcraft-themed ninth volume of the Bikes in Space series of feminist bicycle science fiction anthologies, scheduled to come out at the beginning of 2022. Working title: Bicycles & Broomsticks Please submit your original short fiction that combines themes of witchcraft and bicycling, through a feminist lens. Both witchiness and bicycles must be inherent to accepted stories—ie, if you swapped these elements out for detectives and toasters, the stories would not work. The witchcraft can be informed by actual Paganism or another tradition, or be more along the lines of Kiki’s Delivery Service or Sabrina the Teenage Witch, or something entirely new. Creative, subversive, feminist magic is key. Stories should have a feminist perspective, even if feminism and identity are not overt topics. We especially welcome submissions from queer, trans, disabled, and BIPOC authors and welcome stories that portray more diverse perspectives than are found in mainstream sff. All fantastical genres welcome: science fiction, fantasy, mythology, speculative fiction, climate punk, slipstream, supernatural horror, fractured fairy tales, or anything in between or beyond. No fanfic, poetry, or erotica for this series. Black and white comics and illustrations are also welcome. If you’re not sure what works, you may find it helpful to familiarize yourself with other books in the series. Word count: a 1,000 – 6,000 word range is typical, but make your story the length it needs to be, and if it’s right for the anthology, we’ll work it out in editorial. Format: Google doc or Word preferred; PDF or text documents are also fine. If submitting an illustration, please get in touch about format and dimensions before you start working on it. Payment: A portion of profits...

Deadline: September 2nd, 2020 Payment: Contributors copy Theme: Poetry CircleShow is currently interested in publishing the work of both known and unknown poets. Issues of CircleShow are posted online in free-to-read PDF format. Issues are also made available for purchase on-demand as trade paperbacks. Please note that while we do not offer monetary payment for accepted work, all contributors do receive a complimentary copy of the printed issue in which their work appears. To submit please send 1-5 previously unpublished poems in a single file (.doc, .docx or .pdf). Please put each poem on its own page with each title in bold. Include your name and email at the top of the first page. Title both your submission and the file name as "Poetry Submission-YourName." We are interested in all forms of poetry. By submitting to SCP you are agreeing to our Online Copyright Policy. Via: Seven Circle Press's Submittable.

Deadline: September 2nd, 2020 Payment: $5 Theme: Stories that expand our shared narratives of experience by recognizing and giving value to our greatest resource — each other TWD Magazine accepts original, unseen creative work in the following categories: Fiction Creative Nonfiction Poetry Art Photography Combined Work Work must be original and unseen. Please do not send work that has already been published or is pending publication. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. There is no creative limitation on the style of work submitted. There are no fees for submission. No work submitted by a third-party (i.e. a public relations firm) on a contributor’s behalf will be considered without an authorized release affidavit signed by the represented party. No exceptions. NEW: Accepted Contributors will receive a $5 payment for their work. A max of 2 Contributors per category will be featured. General Guidelines Submission Period: January 1st to March 1st (Summer Issue) Reading Period: March 2nd to April 30th Tentative Digital Magazine Release: June 30th** July 1st to September 1st (Winter Issue) Reading Period: September 2nd to October 30th Tentative Digital Magazine Release: December 31st** **Dates are subject to change due to volume of submissions received; may be delayed by a week or two. Cover Letter Subject: Name of Category, Your Full Name (Or Pen Name) Body: Brief introduction, short bio (300 words max) with publication links (if applicable). No bio picture. Please indicate if your submission is simultaneous and at what date it was first submitted elsewhere. PayPal to Accept $5 Payment: If work is accepted, please be prepared to provide a valid PayPal email address where you would like to receive your payment. Until further notice, only electronic payments via PayPal will be made; no paper checks will be issued. Complimentary Close: Your full name declares that your submission adheres to TWD Magazine submission guidelines. Attachments: Please read specific category guidelines. Specific Category...

Deadline: September 2nd, 2020 Payment: 6 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints Theme: Well written original work in science fiction, fantasy, myth, legend, fairy tales, and eldritch, in written, podcast, video, and/or graphic story form, and from around the world. Note: Reprints welcome     Submissions Schedule We have a new submissions schedule as of June 1, 2020: The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T. Only one submission per person. For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers. We pay 6¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 6¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles. For new poetry, we pay $1 a line, reprints would be 50¢ a line, up to 40 lines. We’ll look at longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 6¢ per word. We began The Kepler Award to recognize and encourage writers of excellent science fiction and fantasy stories that creatively extrapolate on known science in constructive and exciting ways. You can learn about The Kepler Award here. You can read a copy of our standard contract here.   It can be varied as needed to include the rights of translators, voice actors, etc. Writers Guidelines We accept new work as well as reprints, prose and poetry, anywhere from 1000 word flash fiction on up, but all else being equal, shorter pieces will be favored.   We have tough standards but only care about the quality of the writing, storytelling ability, characters, plot, and ideas, not whether you’re new or established.  Submit only work you are proud of —...

Deadline: September 5th, 2020 Payment: $10 Theme: An amateur magazine that seeks to discover, inspire, and publish emerging authors who are enthusiastic about the tradition of “pulp sword and sorcery.” Submissions: OPEN Submission deadline for Whetstone Issue 2: Saturday, September 5th, 2020, 11:59p. Editorial decisions: Saturday, October 3rd, 2020 Publication of inaugural issue: Saturday, December 5th, 2020 Length: We prefer short, compressed stories that are nevertheless complete and cohesive narratives (1500 to 2500 words). These limits are firm. No more, no less. Style: We prefer “dialog light, action heavy” fiction that is unselfconsciously literary but nevertheless takes joy in an occasional old word that gives the breath of antiquity. Publication, payment, and rights: Issues will be published as .pdf files. If work is selected for publication in WHETSTONE, authors will (1) be paid an honorarium of $10 and (2) will be asked to provide, by contract, "First North American Serial Rights." In our opinion, this means that copyright is NOT transferred. All copyright stays with you, the writer; however, you will have sold/transferred a form of "exclusive use rights" called "First North American Serial Rights" (FNASR). This is the right to publish your unpublished work for the first time, and ONLY the first time, no more. The important thing to remember is that some professional publications may ask for FNASR upon acceptance of a specific work; you are not legally permitted to provide those for that specific work after publication in WHETSTONE, for you have already rendered their use to us. In other words, once you publish a work in WHETSTONE, that works' associated FNASR have been sold/transferred. You CAN publish your previously published work elsewhere as a reprint but only as long as that publication does not require FNASR. This is a long way of saying that WHETSTONE is an amateur...