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Taking Submissions: Reimagining Classics

March 1, 2019

Deadline: March 1st, 2019
Payment: $25

Left Hand Publishers is announcing their call for submissions for their next anthology. The working title is “Reimagining Classics.” It’s going to be a collection of short stories based on classics. Take a classic story, character, or theme of your choice (of any type) and reimagine it. The writer must make it easy for the reader to identify the character or storyline from the classic, but then take the reader in a different direction by reimagining the story – perhaps with humor where there wasn’t before, or maybe tragedy, or even mystery. Word count will be 4,000 to 10,000 words.  Do not submit before the submission date stated in the call.

Submissions begin: Friday, January 4th, 2019, 12:00 a.m. EST
Submissions close: Friday, March 1st, 2019, 5:00 p.m. EST.
Notice of acceptance or declination will be emailed approximately: Friday, March 29th, 2019
Submission URL: https://lefthandpublishers.com/reimagining-classics/ (available Jan. 4th)

COPYRIGHTS

The trick is to make the story or characters recognizable WITHOUT violating copyright law. For example, if you were reimagining the story of Superman, you need to find a creative way to do that without using any proper names such as “Clark,” or “Lois,” or “Superman.” HINT: Stories over 75 years old are rarely active in copyrights. If you submit a really good story but it dances all over copyright issues, we may send it back with a note regarding same. Left Hand Publishers reserves the right to decline any short story that could infringe on copyright law and have legal ramifications.

TWIST OR MORAL

All short stories submitted MUST have a twist or a moral somewhere in the story, preferably at the end. Good twists (and morals) will catch the reader off guard and surprise them with more than a touch of irony or shock.

NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

No simultaneous submissions, please. We ask that you do not submit a story to us and another market at the same time. This has come up a number of times. It wastes your time and ours if we read, edit, review, and possibly accept your short story only to have it be accepted somewhere else at the same time.

In order for our titles to be unique and original, we insist that all submissions be previously unpublished works and properly formatted. Please read and adhere to ALL the guidelines.

Reimagining Classics

In our Call for Submissions for our anthologies we accept only short stories. (Novels, novellas, and short story collections (as an entire book) should be submitted to https://lefthandpublishers.com/open-call-for-submissions/. ) We will review your submission and contact you on the viability of Left Hand Publishers accepting it to be published. Please use this form to submit your book manuscript and the form on this page for short stories. If you do not receive a receipt of your submission within 72 hours, please email us at [email protected] to confirm that we have received your document.

WIN A FREE AUTHOR WEBSITE

Submitting your story automatically registers you in our Register To Win contest where you could win a FREE author website (some restrictions apply). IF you do win the free website, you will need to provide hosting for it. We recommend GoDaddy.com. This does NOT register you in our Win A Free Kindle contest. In order to be registered for that, you must register here and then review some of our books in order to complete the registration.

 

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES:

  • No simultaneous submissions, please. We ask that you do not submit a story to us and another market at the same time. This will not only remove you from this submission but all future submissions.
  • GENRES: Open to Speculative Fiction (works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements); Suspense; ThrillerSupernatural; HorrorMysteryCrime; or Science Fiction (or some combination of any of those genres) is acceptable. Please note below which genre you think your story fits. It may be more than one. LHP reserves the right to place any submission into what they deem the appropriate venue.
  • SPECIFICALLY UNACCEPTABLE GENRES: Romance/Erotica, Middle School, Biographical, Autobiographical, Memoirs, Poetry, Non-Fiction, or Adult Content.
  • WORD COUNT: 4,000 to 10,000 words.
  • Title of submission shall not contain variations of the phrase “Reimagining Classics” – do not use the words “reimagined,” “classics,” or “reimagining” in your title.
  • Standard manuscript format. (Go to www.lefthandpublishers.com for complete guidelines and to download the format template.)
  • Submissions must be made as .doc or .docx attachment only and NOT copied into the body of the email. Only electronic submissions accepted.
  • In accordance with Left Hand Publishers’ standards, stories containing pedophilia, overtly descriptive rape, or graphic gore will not be considered.
  • Factors in anthology acceptance:
    • How well does the story fit the theme of a given book;
    • Quality of the story based on characterization, conflict, moral, TWIST at the end, and how engaging it is;
    • Word count, length, and formatting (while minor considerations, they indicate a certain professionalism about the craft);
    • Technical writing quality: sentence and story structure, pacing, split infinitives, an overabundance of adjectives, adverbs, similes, filter words, etc.
    • Quality of the manuscript’s editing/proofreading (again, both indications of professionalism about the craft)
  • Failure to submit story according to guidelines will be cause for immediate rejection.
  • Multiple story submissions (to LHP) are accepted if individually submitted in compliance with guidelines.
    • Stories shorter than the 4,000-word minimum may be submitted with a second work. The two works together will be considered one submission (to meet the minimum word criteria), and if accepted, the author will be awarded one compensation check when the book is printed and one electronic copy of the book. No story shorter than 4,000 words will be accepted (and more importantly, compensated for) without a second piece that brings the word count up to at least 4,000 words. This is to be fair to the writers who are submitting at least 4,000 words.
  • Only previously unpublished stories may be submitted. Upon acceptance into the anthology, author will receive a standard short story/anthology agreement from Left Hand Publishers.
  • Exclusivity – the rights to the short story are reverted back to the author 12 months after the initial publishing. Left Hand Publishers reserves the right to continue to reprint the anthology, but the author may also shop the story to other markets with the understanding that it may still be in print with LHP.
  • Multiple authors – one story may have multiple authors, but only one royalty check per story will be distributed and one electronic copy of the book. It is up to the multiple co-authors to figure out how to divvy that up.
  • Compensation – will be to a PayPal account only.
  • SUBMISSION – Only submit the form once. It may look as if it is still processing (spinning), but we have most likely received it. If you think we did not get it, email us to ask, or resubmit via email.
  • SUBMISSIONS OPEN: Friday, January 4th, 2019 – We absolutely will not accept anything earlier than that. Just hold on to your stories until January 4.
  • SUBMISSIONS CLOSE: Friday, March 1st, 2019  (5:00 p.m. EST)
  • SELECTION PERIOD: Friday, March 29th, 2019 – Acceptance or declination notification e-mails will be sent out then.
  • CONTRIBUTOR COMPENSATION: $25 per story (or combination of stories) selected for inclusion and one electronic copy of the anthology. Payable upon book going on sale (estimated date: early summer, 2019).

Via: Left Hand Publishers.

Details

Date:
March 1, 2019