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Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, “Until Filled” markets (if any) are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
31 July 2017 — Chthonic: Weird Tales of Inner Earth — Martian Migraine Press
Pelucidar. The Hollow Earth. DEROS, and the Shaver Mysteries. Blue-litten K’n-yan, red Yoth, and black, lightless N’kai. The Amigara Fault. Derinkuyu. Agartha. The world (and worlds) below. Inner earth, a near infinite space of vast, echoing potential … our (possible?) birthplace, and the place where we all return, either as corpses, or something other? … the churning, chaotic underworld, and true home of all that is weird, unconscious, and forbidden. Descend with us in this anthology of weird fiction; descend to the realms CHTHONIC.
We are looking for weird fiction that explores the mystique and terror of caverns, abyssal spaces, and subterranean worlds. As with previous MMP anthologies, we will be including a seed story from H. P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre (in this case, The Rats in the Walls, though many of his stories went underground). We want to see bizarre civilizations, mind-boggling physical and biological phenomena, horrific rituals, mad science and madder sorcery. We want to feel the tunnel floors beneath our feet shake with the passage of beasts, machines, and gods that have never seen the light of the sun; sentient oils, intelligent muck, living rock, molemen, formless spawn and Efts of the Prime, worms, Dholes, and ghastlier things. But CHTHONIC won’t be just a serving of pop culture “surface” material, if you’ll pardon the pun. We like to see stories with depth (oh god, another one, sorry!); emotional and psychological explorations of the internal spaces of the human mind and soul, as well as the ground below. Write us stories that induce crushing claustrophobia or open us wide to new dimensions of thought and being. If your story can do both, so much the better.
Final story count for the anthology will be determined based on quality and number of submissions. CHTHONIC: Weird Tales of Inner Earth will be released as a softcover paperback and as an electronic book in multiple formats.
Submission period closes JULY 31, 2017. The anthology will be released in early December of 2017.
Please use Standard Manuscript format when submitting. That’s double spaced, left justified, Times New Roman or Courier or something at least readable, a header on the first page (at least) with your author info and word count and… well, you know the drill. RTF or DOC files preferred, but DOCx and text files also accepted. Obviously, you could send us something that’s not in Standard Manuscript format, but it will lower your chances of it being looked at seriously.
We will look at both original work and REPRINTS.
To submit a story to CHTHONIC: Weird Tales of Inner Earth send an e-mail (with the story file attached, not in the body of the email) to: email@example.com, with subject line: “CHTHONIC, [title of your story] [your name]”.
For short fiction, we’d like to see anything from 1,500 to 7,000 words.
FLASH FICTION: got something under 1500 words? Send it in. However, the following still applies…
All accepted submissions will be paid .03CAD per word, via Paypal, as well as two contributor copies (paperback) of the anthology, and copies in all electronic formats (mobi, EPUB, and PDF). Authors are also entitled to electronic copies of three additional Martian Migraine Press titles of their choosing.
Replies and Queries
We will try to acknowledge receipt of your submission within a week of its arrival in our inbox. The submission period itself will close on July 31, 2017 and we should be responding to all submissions, yes or no, throughout the submission period and no later than August 2017. We do our best to ensure that all submissions are contacted and kept up-to-date, but sometimes items fall through cracks, so, if you haven’t heard from us by September 15 2017, please query.
31 July 2017 — Sharp and Sugar Tooth — Upper Rubber Boot Books
Announcing an open call for submissions for Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good, an anthology of dark, speculative fiction, edited by Octavia Cade and to be published by Upper Rubber Boot Books in late 2018 or early 2019.
Sharp & Sugar Tooth is looking for creepy, seductive stories about the dark side of culinary life. The emphasis should be on the preparation, or the consumption, of food—horrifying, mouth-watering stories that make us hungry despite ourselves.
Sharp & Sugar Tooth is part of Upper Rubber Boot’s in the Women Up To No Good anthology series, so subversive, diverse stories with protagonists who identify as girls/women are appreciated. We want these characters in the kitchen—and out of it—using their butcher knives and baking skills to create meals that are dark and lovely and empowering, because consumption has a dangerous and tempting taste…
Stories can be any variety of fantasy or science fiction, provided the element of horror is present. Strong language and sex is no problem, but we’re not interested in torture-porn of humans or animals (regardless of whether they end up on a plate).
== Word/page count: Up to 5,000 words/story.
== Payment: six cents per word.
== Publication history: Original stories only. Reprints may be submitted by invitation only.
== Multiple submissions: No.
== Simultaneous submissions: No.
== Deadline: 31 July 2017. All stories will be replied to by the end of August.
== To submit: Please send stories in standard manuscript format, attached in .doc or .rtf files, to firstname.lastname@example.org with the subject line SUGAR TOOTH. Be sure to provide mailing address and a short bio.
== If the work is a translation, please also provide a statement from the rightsholder that you are authorized to translate and submit it (both author and translator will receive full payment).
Authors must identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity.
We encourage and welcome stories from voices underrepresented in speculative fiction, including (but not limited to) writers of color, LGBTQ writers, writers with disabilities, and writers in translation.
31 July 2017 — The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias — ed. M.J. Sydney; Lycan Valley Press
Word count: 4,000 to 6,000
Payment: $50 per story, a digital copy of the anthology and a discount code for print copies from Lycan Valley Press
Details: Phobias are defined as an irrational and extreme fear to something. Some of the most widely known phobias include arachnophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, acrophobia, etc. Anything can be a phobia if it irrationally causes an intense and debilitating fear.
What happens when these irrational fears/phobias become reality? Make the fears and the horrors associated with that fear real. Take them from irrational to rational. Pick a phobia from the list below and take that fear to the next level. Make it come to life and give us a reason to be scared. Your characters don’t have to overcome their fears, but if they do, show us how. If they don’t, why not?
We don’t want characters sitting on a sofa in the psychiatrist’s office detailing their childhood or even characters with diagnosed phobias necessarily. Focus on the object of the phobia rather than the phobia itself as much as possible. We want you to make these phobias come to life in ways that will make readers sleep with the lights on, double check the locks on their doors and question reality.
There must be a strong pulp element to the story as well, keeping in mind that pulp doesn’t mean poorly written. If you’re unfamiliar with the original pulp magazines and stories, please do some research before submitting. Check out Black Mask Magazine http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/ and here’s a pulp archive to get you started (warning: reading on this website may be addictive).
http://www.pulpmags.org/ and also here https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive.
Although you are free to write in your own style and that which best suits the story, Lester Dent’s Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot is here for reference should you wish to use it. http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html Here, James Scott Bell talks about writing pulp fiction: http://www.rachellegardner.com/why-i-write-pulp-fiction/
Titles: Please do not use the name of the phobia itself in your titles.
Formatting: Please follow Shunn Short Story Manuscript formatting which can be found here: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html. Or use the downloadable template for Word found here: http://www.shunn.net/format/templates.html
Simultaneous and Multiple Submissions: No simultaneous submissions. Multiple submissions from the same author for two different phobias will be considered but please note that only one story per author will be accepted to allow for greater variety and diversity. Previously unpublished stories only, no reprints unless requested.
Email questions to: MJSyd99@gmail.com with “PHB Question” in the subject line.
The available list of phobias as well as the submission form has moved and can now be found on the Lycan Valley Press Submittable profile at http://lycanvalleypress.submittable.com/submit under THE PULP HORROR BOOK OF PHOBIAS.
15 August 2017 — AFTERMATH: Explorations of Loss & Grief — Radix Media
The inevitable breakdown of a long-term relationship; losing your home due to gentrification; struggling with the deportation of a loved one; navigating the crumbling healthcare situation in Trump’s America.
How do you define loss and grief?
Radix Media presents AFTERMATH: Explorations of Loss & Grief, an anthology that will examine what it means to face the consequences after tragedy strikes. The theme is left intentionally open, giving contributors the freedom to tell their story as it is most relevant to their experiences.
We prefer previously unpublished pieces (though previously published pieces will b considered on a case-by-case basis), and they can be fiction, personal essays, or poetry, between 500 and 3,000 words. We will also accept comics, illustration, and photography that will retain its integrity in black and white. Accepted works will be collected into either a zine or paperback book, depending on the volume and length of accepted works. Visual submissions should be able to fit a print size of 5″ x 8″.
CONTRIBUTORS & PAYMENT
Contributed pieces will be paid for at the following rates:
Fiction & Non-Fiction: $0.06 per word
Poetry: $35 per work
Comics, Photos, & Illustration: $10 per page or $50 per work, whichever is greater
We strongly encourage typically underrepresented voices to submit. If you are a person of color, queer, trans, disabled, or any combination of these, we would especially love to hear from you.
Pieces should be submitted via e-mail to email@example.com by August 15, 2017. Please include your name, e-mail address, and telephone number. Also let us know if the work has been previously published or not, or whether it is currently being considered for publication by another publisher.
For written works, please paste the text directly into the body of the e-mail. For visual pieces, low-resolution versions are preferred (we will contact you for a hi-res version upon acceptance). For this call, we will accept multiple submissions, but please limit to 3.
Accepted contributors will be notified within 3-4 weeks after this deadline, and payment will be issued upon receipt of your signed publication contract.
15 August 2017 — Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinns — ed. Rhonda Parrish
The ability for people to control (to some extent at least) fire has long been held as one of the major events that contributed to human evolution, but when fire eludes or escapes our control it is also one of the most destructive forces on earth. Associated with passion, power, transformation and purification, fire is a ferocious element with an unquenchable appetite.
We want to explore the many facets of this beautifully furious element and the creatures associated with it so Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinns will be filled with stories about every kind of fiery creature you can imagine, not only those listed in the subtitle. We’re looking for phoenixes, ifrits, salamanders, lava monsters and fiery beasts no one has ever heard of before. And of course this anthology will not be complete without at least one demon, dragon and djinn!
Rights and compensation: Payment: $50 CAD flat fee and a paperback copy of the anthology. In exchange we are seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology.
Open submission period: June 1, 2017 – August 15, 2017
Length: Under 7,500 words
No simultaneous or multiple submissions.
Because I’ve been asked — though payment is in Canadian dollars you do not need to be Canadian to submit. Everyone is welcome.
[NOTE: there is a long section at the top of this page (actually, it’s like 3/4 of the page) where the editor talks about what she wants, what she means by “fire,” what kind of fire-inpired stories she’s hoping to get, etc., along with some pretty cool artwork. Definitely click through and check it out if you’re at all interested in this antho.]
31 August 2017 — Hidden Animals: A Collection of Cryptids — The Dragon’s Roost Press
CRYPTOZOOLOGY: the study of and search for animals and especially legendary animals (such as Sasquatch) usually in order to evaluate the possibility of their existence
CRYPTID: an animal whose existence or survival to the present day is disputed or unsubstantiated; any animal of interest to a cryptozoologist
We’ve explored loneliness, isolation, and solitude in our first anthology. We Put the Love Back in Lovecraft in our second anthology. Now we are looking for stories involving the creatures which hide in the shadows — the monsters of cryptozoology.
Bigfoot, Nessie, el Chupacabra, The Jersey Devil — cryptids so well known that they have become part of the cultural zeitgeist.
For our new anthology, tentatively entitled Hidden Animals: A Collection of Cryptids, we are looking for lesser known cryptids, creatures of the dark corners of cryptozoology. They can be the antagonist, the protagonist, the creeping dread which drives the story, but they must be present.
What We Want:
Finely crafted works of Dark Speculative fiction which feature one (or more) of the lesser known, but established cryptids. Authors are encouraged to put their own spin on the classic creature. Make them terrifying. Make them sympathetic. Make them humorous. Above all, make them feel real.
What We Don’t Want:
Non-fiction. We want fictional stories with a plot and a well defined story arc. While we are interested in hearing about your own personal experience, or that of your friend or family member, this is not the book for that.
New Monsters. While we appreciate your creativity, we are looking for stories which feature creatures that readers will have at least a passing knowledge of. Give us your giant cats, dogboys, and lake creatures, but please do not create your own creature.
[Note: There are plenty of website which describe various cryptids. A brief list appears here.]
Stories where nothing happens. Keep the creatures in the shadows if you like, but give us something. There’s a reason that we don’t watch that show where they look for but never actually find Bigfoot.
Retreads of established stories. This is going to be a little tougher. We do want stories based on “actual encounters.” Feel free to incorporate material from real life sightings. Sprinkle the history of the creature in your prose. Do not simply give us a fictionalized version of a story that you read in another book or saw on the big or little screen.
We don’t like being sued.
Aliens. Yes, there is some overlap between the study of some cryptids (e.g., el chupacabra) and extraterrestrial beings, we are not looking for stories that exclusively feature visitors from other worlds. Maybe in a future anthology, but not this one.
Important Note: We are going for cryptozoological diversity. Towards this end, we will only accept ONE story featuring each cryptid. Authors may consider focusing on a lesser known cryptid, or getting their submissions in early.
The Specifics: We are looking for short fiction up to 6,000 words. While we prefer original material, we will consider reprints. Please query before submitting reprints. Naturally, we will only consider stories which you retain the rights to. Please provide original publication information for all reprints. Fan Fiction, Slash Fiction, and any other material containing characters or setting which you did not create, are not acceptable (so no returning to Boggy Creek). Submissions should follow standard format. For an example of what we are looking for in terms of formatting, please visit Shunn’s website. The only addendum to this is that the editor prefers Times New Roman.
Please edit your material carefully. Common spelling errors (they’re/their/there, your/you’re) may be acceptable in social media posts, but not in works submitted for publication.
Word (.doc/.docx) format is preferred, but we will also accept submissions in Open Office (.odt), and Pages (pages). Send your stories to firstname.lastname@example.org. In the subject line of your e-mail list “Hidden Animals,” the title of your story, and your last name. For example:
Hidden Animals / Really Awesome Story / I. M. Ayeti
E-mails which do not follow this format will be deleted unread.
Provide a short (500 words or less) biography in the body of your e-mail. Also, feel free to provide a brief description of the cryptozoological being which appears in your story along with links and/or citations.
We are looking for North American Print and Digital Rights. Rights revert back to the author upon publication. Submissions accepted until 31 Aug 2017 or until filled. Our previous anthologies have each closed to submissions a month or more before the deadline. For this book, we are only looking for 13 – 15 stories (instead of the 21 – 30 stories of our previous anthologies) Don’t delay, start writing today!
Please wait four weeks before querying.
Direct queries to email@example.com.
Multiple submissions are OK, but please wait until you have received a response on your first piece before submitting your second. Simultaneous submissions: no.
Estimated publication date Winter 2017 via Create Space and Smashwords.
At this time payment is three cents per word ($0.03/word) plus one contributor’s copy and one digital version in the format of the author’s choosing. We will be running a crowd sourcing campaign with the goal of providing higher monetary recompense to our authors. As with our previous anthologies, this is a charity anthology to raise money for the canine rescue organization Last Day Dog Rescue.
Note to New Authors: Most publications seek First North American Rights. While you may be able to sell your story again as a reprint, publication in this anthology may limit your story’s future marketability and may affect the amount of money you will be able to receive from other markets. Please take this into consideration before submitting.
31 August 2017 — Mother of Invention — ed. Tansy Rayner Roberts and Rivqa Rafael; Twelfth Planet Press
Mother of Invention will feature diverse, challenging stories about gender as it relates to the creation of artificial intelligence and robotics. This ambitious anthology from award-winning Australian publishing house Twelfth Planet Press will be edited by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Rivqa Rafael.
From Pygmalion and Galatea to Frankenstein, Ex Machina and Person of Interest, the fictional landscape so often frames cisgender men as the creators of artificial life, leading to the same kinds of stories being told over and over.
We want to bring some genuine revolution to the way that artificial intelligence stories are told, and how they intersect with gender identity, parenthood, sexuality, war, and the future of our species. How can we interrogate the gendered assumptions around the making of robots compared with the making of babies? Can computers learn to speak in a code beyond the (gender) binary?
If necessity is the mother of invention, what exciting AI might come to exist in the hands of a more diverse range of innovators?
WHAT WE WANT
We want to cover a variety of AI tropes, from the virtuous to the dangerous, from the purely computerised to the freshly built physical body. We want robots and programs and disembodied voices and steampunk and nanotech. We want stories that unpick the erroneous gendered assumptions around biological reproduction that so often underpin AI stories (do people who can gestate still want to make robots? We think so!). We’ll even accept sexbots and Stepford spouses if the story is good enough. It became pretty clear during our crowdfunding campaign that the notion of “feminist robot stories” struck a chord with our readership, so keep that in mind.
We anticipate that some stories will tackle gender issues (broadly defined) directly; others indirectly. Both approaches are OK! The only hard-and-fast rule is that the CREATOR of the AI or robot must not be a cis man. All other characters in the story, including the robots/AIs themselves, can be of any gender (or non-gendered), and we welcome other exploration of gender in this area too. (We also stress that the protagonist need not be the creator!)
Point of view, theme, setting, everything else is completely up to the author. We’re looking for a diverse range of authors, story settings, time periods, cultural backgrounds and protagonists. Magic, history, fantasy, steampunk and mythology are all options for you to play with; we do not require this to be a 100% science fiction anthology.
In addition to stories about women (both cis and trans) as creators of robots and AI, we are explicitly interested in stories about creators who are trans men or non-binary people (including but not limited to agender, bigender, transfeminine and transmasculine non-binary folk). The creator (or other characters, of course) can be intersex, regardless of gender. We’re especially interested in own voices authors in the case of trans and/or intersex protagonists.
We’re interested in hearing from marginalised writers more generally: for example, people under the QUILTBAG umbrella, including intersex people; people of colour, including Indigenous and Native writers from around the world; and disabled people. That said, we also welcome stories from authors who aren’t marginalised. Please don’t self-reject – we want your stories! If you feel your intersections are relevant to your story, you may mention them in your cover letter, but this is not required. We respect your privacy.
We are looking for stories of 500–5000 words, within our stated theme and not published previously in any medium, including limited audience media such as Patreon. Payment is US$0.06 per word.
Submissions open on 6 July 2017 and close on 31 August 2017.
Send your story to motherofinvention AT twelfthplanetpress DOT com in DOC, DOCX or RTF format.
No multiple submissions or simultaneous submissions. We aim to respond to all submissions by the end of November 2017.
1 September 2017 — The Beauty of Death 2 — Death by Water — ed. Alessandro Manzetti and Jodi Renee Lester; Independent Legions Publishing
Independent Legions Publishing is seeking original horror stories in English for the new anthology The Beauty of Death 2 — Death by Water, edited by Alessandro Manzetti and Jodi Renée Lester, to be published October 2017 in print and digital editions.
We’re looking for stories that fit the theme: Death by Water. All types of horror are welcome. Sex or violence in a story should be artistically justified; no excessive gore. No stories about child abuse of any kind. We welcome all subgenres and forms of speculative fiction.
Word Count: We are open to stories of 4000-5000 words.
Deadline: September 1, 2017
Pay Rate: We pay (via PayPal) $100 for each original story.
We buy first exclusive English-language rights for three years.
We do not accept multiple or simultaneous submissions, nor do we accept unsolicited reprints.
Submissions should follow standard manuscript format (12 pt Times New Roman or Courier fonts, 1” margins all around, line spacing 1½ or 2 spaces). It must be in .doc or .docx format or it will not be considered. Your name and contact information must be at the top of the first page of the story. Page numbers with author’s last name and/or partial story name on subsequent pages would be appreciated.
Cover letter is optional, but if you do include one, please add a short bio (up to 200 words).
Response time is currently within four weeks. After that, if you haven’t heard from us, please query. We will not be sending confirmations of receipt.
To submit a story, go to our story submission form below. To submit your story via email, put “SUBMISSION – TBOD2” in the subject line and send to: firstname.lastname@example.org.
30 September 2017 — Tribe Anthology — ed. Lois Peterson
TRIBE: A print anthology about the lives of older single women seeks work by emerging and experienced writers, providing insights into the situations and roles of older single women in our times.
Women aged 55+
From anywhere in the world
Single, which for our purposes means:
== You are single – by choice or circumstance – widowed or divorced
== Do not currently live, or plan to live, in a permanent domestic relationship with a partner of either gender
We are looking for well-written prose, poetry, prose poems, memoir, personal narrative, fiction ….Your submission could be about sexuality, health, music, family, reading and writing, travel, the outdoors and nature, dating, finances, art, creativity, loneliness, community, volunteerism, work, politics…
Your work could be serious, humorous, self-reflective, dramatic — about the condition of single life in modern times – your own experience and those of women you know, philosophical, sociological, analytical, revelatory…
We especially welcome work that reflects diversity.
Previously published work will be considered.
Prose submissions 1,200 words to 3,000.
Poetry max 45 lines
Completed work – no queries
A maximum of two pieces of prose and/or two piece of poetry from each submitting writer
Complete submissions sent at one time as a single Word attachment
Include in the attachment:
== Your name
== Mailing address
== Email and phone#
== Month and year of birth
== If your submission has been published previously, please include info. about where and when
Rights: First North American Serial rights… the rights to the work return to the author 30 days after publication.
Email to email@example.com with ‘Submission ^your last name^’ in the subject line.
Submissions accepted period May 1 – September 30, 2017
Remuneration: Initially* $25.00 CAN per piece (paid on acceptance), plus two copies of the anthology. *Sales/profits will determine further royalties paid to contributors.
50% of net profits will be donated to a charity, tbc.
Authors of work accepted for the anthology will be given the opportunity to sign off on any editorial changes made to their work prior to publication.
Tribe will be published by LPwordsolutions of Nanaimo, BC.
Submitting authors will be periodically informed of the progress of the project.
The publisher retains the right to cancel the project if the work submitted is not of the caliber required.
We are unable to provide specific editorial comment on submissions that are not accepted for the anthology, but will try to respond in a timely manner to all writers’ submissions and enquiries
We will also be seeking line drawings for the cover art and inside pages. Please contact firstname.lastname@example.org for further details.
[NOTE: there’s more info on what the editor is looking for on the project web site. If you’re interested, click through and poke around.]