Taking Submissions: Arkham Institutions (tentative title)

Deadline: June 30th, 2024
Payment: 6 cents per word and a contributor’s copy
Theme: Cosmic Horror stories set in and around Arkham, Innsmouth, and other mythos related areas that take place in or are associated with Lovecraftian tales AND which feature a public or private institution of some sort

Dragon’s Roost Press is please to announce the open call for our next anthology. We have previously published collections of short stories which mix Lovecraftian Mythos with elements of Romance (Eldritch Embraces: Putting the Love Back in Lovecraft) and with Humor (LOLcraft: A Compendium of Eldritch Humor). This time instead of focusing on emotions, we want to look at setting. Specifically, we want to look at how different institutions have to deal with the eldritch abominations of Lovecraftian horror.

Arkham Institutions (tentative title) will feature 10 – 15 short stories focusing on the various aspects of government and business and their relationship with the oddness that creeps up in and around that most (in)famous New England Town.

What We Are Looking For

We want to see Cosmic Horror stories set in and around Arkham, Innsmouth, and other mythos related areas that take place in or are associated with Lovecraftian tales AND which feature a public or private institution of some sort. What does Arkham Elementary teach? What weird cases does law enforcement have to deal with? What kind of people are seen in the Emergency Room? The psych ward? The local library?

We are still looking for character driven stories, but make sure that these places are characters in their own rights. Draw us in and make us feel like we are there.

NOTE: We are not looking for stories set at Miskatonic University nor the Orne Library. There are plenty of stories with these settings. Give us something new.

What We Want

Original short stories, 3 – 5K words in length. While we have covered romance and humor in other anthologies, we don’t mind if these elements feature in your stories, so long as they scare us. Make sure we get that sense of cosmic dread. Humor and PG-13 rated spiciness are just fine. We are fine with gore, so long as it is not used as a replacement for plot. We do not require a happy ending. In fact, we kind of enjoy that hopeless bleakness.

What We Don’t Want

S.A./non-consensual sex, including minors in sexual situations, will not be accepted. We are not looking for sexually explicit material for this anthology. Consensual sex is OK, if germane to the story, but cut away before anything happens. Please, no tentacle porn.

Animal cruelty is not welcome here. You can kill as many kids as you want, but the dog better live.

Old Man Howard created a fascinating cosmology and left us a lovely sandbox to play in, but his problematic viewpoints have no place here. We saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at the drive-in during its original run and we live by the idea that “isms…are not good.”

All stories must be original works which you retain the rights to. Fan Fiction, Slash Fiction, and any other material containing characters which you did not create are not acceptable for this publication.

We don’t like being sued.

We are not looking for poetry, novellas, flash fiction, or artwork at this time.

The Nitty Gritty Stuff

The reading period will be from 1 May – 30 June OR UNTIL FILLED. All of our previous anthologies have closed early due to the number of submissions received, so don’t sit on your story. Get it to us ASAP.

That being said, make sure that your work is properly edited before you hit the send button. We don’t mind a little light editing, but an egregious number of spelling and grammatical errors will lead to a rejection.

Arkham Institutions is open to all. BIPOIC and LGBTQIA+ characters and authors are very welcome.

AI generated content is NOT welcome. A clause in the author contract will stipulate that the story was not created using AI. Violation of this clause will lead to a ban from this and any future Dragon’s Roost Press anthologies.

Submissions should be sent as attachments to [email protected] (note, this e-mail address is different from some previous submission calls).

The subject line should read Arkham Institutions/story title/author’s name (example Arkham Institutions/Really Cool Story/Doe).

E-mails which do not follow this format will be deleted unread. In the body of your e-mail, provide a short (500 words or less) biography.

Submissions should be sent as .doc, .docx, .odt, or .pages attachments.

Multiple submissions are OK, but please wait until you have received a response on your first piece before submitting your second. Simultaneous submissions: no.

We prefer Shunn Modern Manuscript Format (found https://www.shunn.net/format/story/), but any standard format is acceptable so long as you use the formatting tools in your word processing program. In other words, do not manually indent paragraphs using tabs or spaces.

Please convert your manuscript to Times New Roman before sending. We really, really hate Courier. You can write in whatever font you choose, but we want to read it in Times New Roman.

Payment will be $0.06/word (sent upon publication) plus one contributor’s copy in both paperback and digital formats. We will be running a Kickstarter campaign later in the year to help offset some of the production costs, but this will not affect payment or publication. As with our previous anthologies, a portion of the profits will be donated to the canine rescue organization Last Day Dog Rescue.

Primary publication will be via Amazon’s KDP POD service, but the title will be available through Ingram and Baker & Taylor. The book will be released in paperback and digital formats. Expected release date Oct 2024.

Note to New Authors: Most publications seek First North American Rights. While you may be able to sell your story again as a reprint, publication in this anthology may limit your story’s future marketability and may affect the amount of money you will be able to receive from other markets. Please take this into consideration before submitting.

Via: The Dragon Roost Press.