Taking Submissions: Close My Eyes Forever: Crime Fiction Inspired by Heavy Metal Hits

Deadline: August 31st, 2024
Payment: $25
Theme: Crime Fiction Inspired by Heavy Metal Hits

Ozzy Osbourne. Lita Ford. Metallica. Megadeth. Kiss. So many heavy metal bands have put their stamp on the music industry. With searing guitar riffs, fierce drums and a headbanging attitude, heavy metal continues to rock out and melt faces from their origins in the 1970s through today. The intensity of that music genre lends itself perfectly to crime fiction. That’s where you come in.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1. Your work must be based on a song that’s an original heavy metal song and cannot be a cover of a pop song. For example, although Peyton Parrish has an amazing metal cover of “Let It Go” from Frozen, it is not eligible for this anthology. Feel free to reference the list HERE for inspiration.
2. Your work must relate strongly to the song it’s inspired by, whether that’s by the lyrics or the name.
3. You still must have a STORY and a good crime/mystery.
4. LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC characters and authors very, very strongly encouraged. Be authentic!
5. All works must be original to this publication and cannot have been published or self-published previously.
6. We’re perfectly ok with simultaneous submissions to other publishers, but please let us know if you’d like your story withdrawn from consideration.
7. Please make sure your song choice is not too obscure. From past musical mystery anthologies we’ve found that readers have a lot more interest if there are songs they immediately recognize.

TECHNICAL GUIDELINES

1. We’re not looking for flash fiction, but we’re not against it if it works. Prefer more in the regular short story length (3000-5000 words).
2. All submissions need to be in DOC, DOCX or Pages format. Everyone knows by now that we don’t care about fonts and spacing and all that other stuff.
3. All entries should be sent to [email protected] with METAL in the subject heading. All entries will be acknowledged.
4. All submissions need to be received no later than 11:59PST, August 31st, 2024. Decisions will be made by September15th. We will do our best to notify authors early if their work is not accepted, but they cannot be resubmitted. Estimated publication is November 2024 but may be pushed to January 2025.
5. Stories will pay $25 per contributor, due within 90 days of publication of the anthology. All contributors will receive an ebook copy and deep discounts on paperback versions. Our anthology agreement gives us exclusive rights for six months from publication date, then non-exclusive rights thereafter, meaning that contributors are free to reuse their story in any manner they wish after the first six months of publication.
6. Original stories only, no reprints.
7. Only one story per song title will be chosen. The anthology will be limited to no more than 12 stories.
8. This anthology will be published under our White City Press imprint.

Please direct all questions to Editor-in-Chief Jay Hartman at [email protected]

Via: Misti Media, LLC.