Ongoing Submissions: Nocturne Magazine

Payment: $10 per story, $25 per cover art
Theme: Stories that may *sort of* fit into the genres of horror, dark fantasy, or speculative.

Nocturne Magazine accepts work that may *sort of* fit into the genres of horror, dark fantasy, or speculative. However, we can be convinced of branching out as long as there’s something deeply unsettling about your submission.

We want something that makes us stay awake at night. Or have strange dreams. Or wake up still thinking about your piece while we drink our morning coffee. We don’t just want “eww,” or “yikes.” We want to scroll through your submission with trembling fingers.

We vibe with Stephen King’s weird dream scenes, Shirley Jackson’s “castles” and murderous young women, and Grady Hendrix’s fierce vampire-fighting book club, and anything else surreal, unusual, or downright terrifying.

But we also have some things we don’t love:

• Gratuitous rape/sexual assault, abuse, torture
• Children’s horror
• Fan-fiction
• Chapters or excerpts from other work
• Non-fiction pieces that disclose confidential information about any of the non-authors in the piece
• Fiction pieces that about real victims of murder, no matter how highly publicized.
• Nothing about pandemics/viruses. Please. We’ve had enough.
• Husbands killing wives. We get dozens of these, so it’s a hard sell.

Here are the guidelines for fiction, art, and errata. Don’t worry too much about the formatting. We aren’t fussy. We accept simultaneous submissions, but please let us know if your piece is accepted elsewhere. We aim to respond to your submission within one month, but please do not query until 90 days has passed. We do not accept reprints or AI generated stories. Submit only once per submission period per category. Submit all written work in a a single document, either Word, rtf, txt, or PDF.

*If we have previously rejected your submission, please do not resubmit it, even if it has gone through major edits*

Fiction: Submit a single story 6000 words or less. For flash fiction (less than 1000 words), submit up to 3 pieces in a single document.

Cover art: We take one piece of art per issue. This piece will be featured on our cover. See past issues for examples of what we like. Ideally size 5×8″. Send a tremor down our spines. Please refrain from sending: sexually graphic images, illegal images we feel compelled to report on, AI art, or photo-illustrations (sorry, but we really don’t want to be concerned about the photo occupants in scary situations!). Submit up to 5 pieces.

Errata: Do you have a poem-ish piece? Non-fiction that nobody will believe? Something that we don’t yet have a name for or that doesn’t fit into any category? Send here. Submit up to 5 pieces totaling 5000 words or less in a single document.

Please note that if your submission doesn’t adhere to the guidelines that we will notify you and reject your submission.

Payment upon publication is $10 per contributor and $25 for the cover art.

So, do submissions cost?

Submissions are free! Just email us your work at [email protected]!

Via: Nocturne Magazine.