Taking Submissions: Cursed Cooking: A Horror Community Cookbook and Food Horror Anthology

Deadline: April 30th, 2024 and May 10th for writers of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other underrepresented groups
Payment: 5 cents per word for original fiction works and 1 cent per word for reprints. Accepted recipe submissions will receive $5
Theme: Real-world recipes and food horror fiction
Note: Not looking for cannibalism stories
Note: Reprints Welcome

Cursed Cooking: A Horror Community Cookbook and Food Horror Anthology

Open call submission window: March 15 – April 30, 2024.

Extended submission window exclusively for writers of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other underrepresented groups: May 1 -May 10, 2024

Cursed Cooking is a horror community cookbook and food horror anthology, featuring both real-world recipes and food horror fiction. This hybrid publication aims to feed not only your body with frighteningly good food, but also your imagination with cleverly crafted horror stories.

So, send us your tales of haunted hamburgers, killer chocolate chip cookies, monstrous manicotti, world-ending wontons, and everything in between. Cook up a story filled with genetically modified grossness, fast-food freakiness, or homemade horrors. Get creative. Get hungry. Think outside the pizza box. But also, send us the recipes that you love, recipes that make your mouth water and have people screaming for seconds (and thirds and fourths). We want it all!

Submissions Categories

Cursed Cooking accepts horror stories and recipes for three categories of submissions: appetizers, entrées, and desserts.

• Appetizer recipes and drabbles (100-word stories) to introduce readers to Cursed Cooking in bite-sized portions.

• Entrée recipes and short stories (1,501–4,000 words) will serve as the book’s main course.

• Dessert recipes and flash fiction (500–1,500 words) will round out the book—they’ll be short and oh so sweet.

You can submit fiction, recipes, or both. Whatever you choose to do.

Fiction should fall reasonably in the food horror subgenre. The story should involve food and horror in some way, but other than that, the world is your oyster! We will, however, be hard pressed to accept any cannibalism stories.

As for the recipes, we want to make this publication special, so please, don’t send us recipes copied and pasted from the Food Network or conjured up by AI. Submit real recipes you would be proud to serve up to your friends and family. Send us something that’s a special treat, something with your own unique twist on it, or something passed down from generation to generation. If your recipe comes with a backstory of any kind, we’d love to hear it and may just include it in the publication if accepted! There are no word limits for recipes.

Submission Format

Fiction submissions should follow something that looks like the Shunn manuscript format (Times New Roman, 12 pt font, double-spaced). Please note, however, we don’t need your physical mailing address, just a good email address to contact you.

Recipes should, well, be formatted as something like a recipe. Please include ingredient list (with quantities, preferably in American units but no worries if not) and a step-by-step list of instructions to make the dish. Again, if your recipe comes with a backstory of any kind, we’d love to hear it and may just include it in the publication if accepted!

All submissions should be attached as a .doc or .docx. Please DO NOT paste the story or recipe in the body of the email.

Multiple and Simultaneous Submissions

For this publication, multiple submissions are welcomed, within reason. You can submit fiction, recipes, or both, so long as you don’t exceed the limits below:

• Short Stories (1,501–4,000 words) Limit: 1

• Flash (500–1,500 words) Limit: 2

• Drabbles (100 Words) Limit: 3

• Recipes (No Word Limit) Limit: 5

We’re fine with simultaneous submissions as well. Just let us know immediately if your work gets accepted elsewhere. That said, we’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Emails and Cover Letters

Send your stories and recipes to submissions [at] cateyepress [dot] com with the subject line: SUBMISSION CATEGORY – STORY TITLE(S) or RECIPE(S) – AUTHOR NAME. Please send fiction submissions of the same category in one email, and recipes of the same category in a separate email (basically, keep fiction and recipes separate). Break up multiple story titles or recipes by using a slash.

Examples:

ENTREE – HORROR STORY – JOHN SMITH

DESSERT – FLASH #1/FLASH #2 – JOHN SMITH

APPETIZER– DRABBLE #1/ DRABBLE #2/ DRABBLE #3 – JOHN SMITH

Cover letters should be relatively short. Introduce yourself and the name of your story or recipe. Include word count and any relevant content warnings. Please don’t summarize your story (we want to be surprised). Include a third-person bio containing some of your relevant publications credits if you have them. If not, don’t worry! We’re looking first and foremost for strong stories, not impressively long bios.

All submissions should be attached as a .doc or .docx. Please DO NOT paste the story or recipe in the body of the email.

Payment

We pay 5 cents per word for original fiction works and 1 cent per word for reprints. Accepted recipe submissions will receive $5. All payments are made via PayPal.

Diversity and Inclusivity Statement

Horror is for everyone. We at Cat Eye Press encourage BIPOC, women, people with disabilities, LGBT+ and gender expansive people, and anyone from traditionally marginalized or underrepresented communities to submit their work to us. We want to hear your stories and share in the great diversity of the horror genre.

Content Warnings

Look, some people need them. Don’t be an ass about it. We don’t want to spoil anything, so content warnings will be placed at the back of the publication, where people can find them if they want them.

With this in mind, if your work has any particular triggers for people, please let us know in your cover letter. In particular, please include content warnings about suicide, sexual assault, car crashes, and animal death.

What We Don’t Want

We understand that the horror genre is filled with all sorts of messy issues, but there are a few things that we don’t want to see in our inbox, including:

• Super duper graphic depictions of violence for the sake of violence

• Stories that promote hate speech, defamation, or racial/ethnic stereotypes

• Graphic depictions of sexual violence, especially those involving children

• Work created by or with the assistance of AI in any capacity.

Failure to follow these guidelines may cause you to be banned from submitting /your work going unread and discarded in the future.

Via: Cat Eye Press.