Deadline: August 1st, 2022
Payment: 3 cents per word and a copy of the magazine
Theme: YA Horror

Dark Moon Digest, the quarterly magazine published by Perpetual Motion Machine, is now open for submissions to our special annual young adult edition titled Night Frights. We want to introduce young minds to the fabulous world of horror fiction. Click HERE to purchase the previous two issues, especially if you want to get a better sense of what kind of stories we’re looking to publish in issue two.

Interested in submitting to Night Frights? Read on…

What we want: the same awesome stories that we use for our quarterly magazine. We want stories with complex characters and new ideas. Scare us. But also, inspire young readers into a lifelong obsession with the genre.

Cool it on the profanities, no overly graphic sexual situations, etc. Consider the following scenario: we are selling books at a local county fair. A family approaches with their kids (9 and 11 years old, maybe). One of the parents asks, “Is this okay for my kid?” We want to be able to confidently answer, “Yes,” without going through a long interrogation of what they’re allowed to read and watch at home. If this seems like a very specific scenario, that’s because it’s something we’ve lived through more times than we can count, as we sell books at many local fairs.

Stories should not exceed 3,500 words. No reprints. No multiple submissions. Simultaneous submissions are fine.

All submissions should be in a legible font (think TNR) with your contact information in the upper left-hand corner. We are not too strict on format, but some consistency to readability would be nice.

Deadline is August 1st. Please do not query us asking the status of your story before September 1st. Payment will be 3 cents per word and a copy of the magazine upon publication.

Send all stories to [email protected] as an attachment only with [STORY TITLE] – [AUTHOR] – [WORD COUNT] in the subject line. Please include a brief bio in the cover letter. Direct all inquiries to the same email address.

Follow Night Frights on Twitter, and support us by pledging to our Patreon and purchasing an annual paperback subscription.

Via: Perpetual Publishing.