Taking Submissions: The Theatre Phantasmagoria Fresh Starts (Early Listing)

Submission Window: December 1st-31st
Payment: £10
Theme: Fresh starts and new beginnings

Each month, a new theme will be announced, and we will be accepting flash fiction submissions based around the specific theme for the entirety of that month. From these submissions, four winners will be chosen to be published each Friday of the subsequent month, and at the end of the year, these forty-eight flash fiction pieces will appear in a similarly titled anthology.

We will be looking for original and unpublished fictional stories that run the gamut of the horror genre and all its assorted sub-genres—we’re open to it all, so long as it has a strong horror twist flowing through its veins. Since The Theatre Phantasmagoria series is aiming to offer varied slices of horror, you can really go wild as far as characters, settings, and storylines go. As always, if your story is blatantly racist or homophobic it will be instantly rejected. We also encourage submissions from femaleBIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors, as we’re striving to offer a range of experiences and perspectives in this series.

The anthology will be edited, and the stories selected, by J. D. Keown. He can be found on both Instagram and Twitter @JDKAuthor, and we can be found on Instagram @nightterrornovels. All updates and announcements regarding this project will be posted on each of those accounts, so give us a follow if you want to get the latest news.

The first window to submit will run from the 1st December, 2021 (1/12/2021) to the 31st December, 2021 (31/12/2021), with the selected stories debuting on our website throughout January.

DECEMBER’S THEME: Fresh starts and new beginnings.

How you interpret this theme is largely up to you. As these first stories will be going live in January, we are looking for flash fiction centred around New Year’s resolutions, starting over, resolving to change, or similar horror stories along these lines.

Each month, four flash fiction pieces will be selected, making a total of forty-eight stories to be featured in the final The Theatre Phatasmagoria anthology at the end of the year. See below for all relevant guidelines and details, and please read them carefully before submitting.

Title: The Theatre Phantasmagoria

Payment: Flat rate of £10 via PayPal upon acceptance, and a digital e-Book contributor copy upon release of the anthology.

Guidelines (please read carefully):

  • .doc.docx or .odt formats preferred. No .pdfs, please.
  • Single OR Double-spaced12pt font, preferably Times New Roman, though provided the text is clearly legible, the font doesn’t matter too much. Please format indentation for paragraphs, don’t just use the spacebar or tab keys. See Shunn’s guidelines for reference on how your manuscript should look.
  • Document should contain the story title, the author’s preferred pen name, and the story’s word count, but ideally should NOT contain any headers or footers.
  • Original work only, please. No reprints, no stories published elsewhere (such as on personal blogs, social medias, or other websites). Simultaneous submissions are more than welcome, but please inform us as soon as possible if your story is accepted elsewhere.
  • The only rights Night Terror Novels Publishing are seeking is first print rights on our website, and the non-exclusive right to collect the stories into an anthology, published in 2023, and sold thereafter. No exclusivity is sought. Authors retain all rights to their works after publication.
  • Authors may submit up to two (2) works of flash fiction at any one time for consideration. If your story is rejected, feel free to resubmit with another.

Word Count: Anything up to 2,000 words.

Submissions Open: From 1st December, 2021 (1/12/2021).

Submissions Close: 31st December, 2021 (31/12/2021). All authors will be sent an email of acknowledgement of their submission, and we will be aiming to notify everyone of either acceptance or rejection within one week of the closing date. If you have not heard from us by then, please feel free to chase us up via the email address below.

Anticipated Release Date: Stories will be published on the first, second, third, and fourth Fridays of the subsequent month. The compiled anthology will be aiming for a January, 2023 release.

Please send all submissions in an attached document to our email address, [email protected], with the following subject line:

[your name] – [story title] – [approx. word count]

(an example email: FF Submission: My Name – My Story – 1,000 words)

In the body of the email, please also include a brief third-person author bio, ideally three to four sentences long, which may include up to two links to either your social media accounts or personal websites.

And that’s pretty much it. We cannot wait to read your submissions, and best of luck to you all!

Via: Night Terror Novels.

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