Deadline: April 1st, 2024
Payment: $10 and a contributors copy
Theme: The kiddos are ready for their night of mischief and mayhem as the evening of Trick ‘r Treating gets started. Write a horror story that takes place on Halloween night and centers around a child/children visiting the neighborhood’s houses. The horror element can be from either angle: either there is something spooky going on in the house or with the child/children. Location details below

Deadline: April 1st, 2024 at 11:59pm CST

For additional author copies beyond the compensation value, you will be given a special code to use in the Terrorcore Publishing store in order to get your author copies at the printing cost plus shipping.

International Submissions: While Terrorcore Publishing loves receiving submissions from international writers, the truth is that is very costly to ship items across the world. At this time, we ask that if you are international (outside of the U.S.A.) that you provide the difference. Terrorcore will pay at most $10 to ship the contributor copy and anything in excess will need to be covered by the author. In lieu of shipping the item, international writers can receive $15 (which is the standard commission + the cost of the one copy you would have received). 

Rights: The author will retain all rights to their story. It can be published elsewhere in full. The publisher will not keep said rights nor prevent the author from selling their story elsewhere. However, it is important to note that after the author is selected if they choose to publish it elsewhere they need to ensure with that publisher that they aren’t getting sole rights to the story and that Terrorcore will have the right to continue to publish it in this anthology, as well as future “best of” anthologies, if any come about.

Style: Set in the 1980s or has a 1980s vibe.

Genre: Horror. Any kind. It can be paranormal, slasher, psychological, mystery, thriller, etc. There is no such thing as TOO FAR for this anthology.

Prompt: The kiddos are ready for their night of mischief and mayhem as the evening of Trick ‘r Treating gets started. Write a horror story that takes place on Halloween night and centers around a child/children visiting the neighborhood’s houses. The horror element can be from either angle: either there is something spooky going on in the house or with the child/children.

Setting: The neighborhood is to be kept vague but will be somewhat North Eastern USA. You should NOT name the neighborhood and any reference should be to “the Neighborhood”. You will need to pick a house number from the map below. If your story is tied precisely to that location/number then that should be indicated in the submission form as there may be a need to move stories around in the editing phase and the preference is to give it to the story that needs it more.

Map: Your story must take place at a location on the map. As such, you are allowed to make references to other locations and houses on the map, but those items are subject to change within the editing phase. You should keep references to neighbors to a minimum as those too will need to be cohesive with the other short stories. If you are using the address in a sentence, please abbreviate Street to “St.” and if you’re just vaguely referring to the street, then spell it out.

For example: “I live at 13 Pike St.” vs “Do you want to go to Pike Street?”

This year, the horrific street will pay homage to Christopher Pike and the horror stories he has created. Therefore, we will welcome Trick or Treaters to Pike Street.

PHASES

Selection Phase: Stories are estimated to be selected by May 15th, 2023. This timeline may change depending on the number of submissions received.

Editing Phase: Selected stories must agree that they will be able to participate in an editing phase where a small reference to a neighbor and/or neighborhood will be weaved in. This is done to make the stories feel as if they exist in the same space, which we believe is what makes the Doors of Darkness anthologies unique and special. The editing phase is estimated to occur during May-July 2024.

Proofing Phase: Proofs will be done in July 2024.

Preorder Phase: Preorders will go live in August 2024.

Publication Phase: The tentative publication date is Tuesday, October 1st, 2024. Link to form if the submission box below is not working. A valid Google Account will be required! If you do not have any way to use Google, please reach out on Instagram and we can discuss another option.

Via: Terrorcore Publishing.