Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

NOTE: I’ve seen reports from various places that Future Visions has been unresponsive or mostly so for a while. Current mean average waiting time for pending submissions on Duotrope is 213 days, and the median is 240, with over 50% of submissions in the last 12 months reported as either “Never Responded” or “Withdrawn.” (“Withdrawn” usually means the writer got tired of waiting.) This was always kind of experimental, so I’m removing it from the listing. It’s closed to submissions right now anyway; if they can clear out their backlog and improve their processes, I’ll consider including it again. Until then, it’s just dead space, so it’s gone.


3 June 19 — Recognize Fascism! — Crossed Genres

Submissions are now open for our second micro-anthology, Recognize Fascism!

There will be a short crowdfunding project, and assuming it’s successful, we will publish Recognize Fascism! in fall of 2019.

FICTION SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We’re looking for personal stories of the moment when people see the fascism in front of them for what it is, accept it as real, and make the choice to fight it. Who are the canaries in the coal mine? When can the long-hidden voice no longer be ignored?

== Word Count: 250-5000 (FIRM)
== .doc, .docx or .rtf files only
== Times New Roman or Arial font preferred
== Name, contact information and submission word count on the first page
== No simultaneous submissions. No reprints.

PAY RATE & RIGHTS

Pay will be $0.08 per word (possibly more, depending on crowdfunded stretch goals). Authors will also receive a gratis print and ebook copy of the anthology.

Crossed Genres takes first worldwide English-language ebook and print rights, exclusively for one (1) year, and non-exclusively for an additional four (4) years. There will be an option to extend the non-exclusive rights for additional compensation.

[NOTE: Click through to submit; the submissions form is at the bottom of the guidelines page.]


14 June 19 — Across the Universe — ed. Michael A. Ventrella and Randee Dawn

The anthology I am co-editing, Across the Universe, is now open for submissions!

Through a Kickstarter campaign, we were able to raise enough to go ahead with this project, and we have confirmations from authors Spider Robinson, David Gerrold, Jonathan Maberry, Alan Goldsher, Cat Rambo, Keith DeCandido, Jody Lynn Nye, Lawrence Watt-Evans and Gail Z. Martin with notes by Janis Ian and Nancy Holder.

We should have room for a few extra stories as well. But only a few.

Book Theme:

The theme of the anthology is “The Beatles – What if?” What if Brian Epstein hadn’t managed the band? What if George Harrison hated sitar music? What if Ringo had been the true star of the band all along? What if the Beatles had been aliens? Or magic users? Or zombies? Or American?

Story Concepts: What to Avoid

The confirmed authors have already begun their stories, so please avoid the following ideas:

== Beatles as zombies
== Beatles as super heroes
== Beatles as time travelers
== Beatles as “the Scooby Doo gang”
== Beatles as medieval fantasy adventurers
== Beatles as Tetrad wizards representing the elements
== Beatles as animatronic robots
== Beatles as paranormal investigators

This is not to say that you cannot do a variation on these, but keep in mind that if we get more than one story with the same theme, your chance of having your story accepted is reduced. That said, do not contact us with your idea first. After all, two authors can take the same basic idea and produce completely different stories.

Story Length:

The story should be no more than 4,000 words. This should be sufficient for what should most likely be a somewhat humorous tale. A ‘short story’ should be defined as not less than 1,000 words for the purpose of this book; we want you to write the story at the length it most makes sense, but we are not publishing drabbles or flash fiction, and prefer stories in the 2,000 – 4,000 range. This is not a strict cut-off, though.

Payment is $200 a story, so there is no advantage to padding your story. Take as many words as you need to make a great story, but if it is too long, it had better be so great that we can’t refuse it. A good but padded story may get rejected over a concise, fast-moving one, because we want to fit in as many stories as possible.

No reprints. And only one submission. If you have two stories, send your best.

I’m Unpublished. Can I submit?

Yes! We encourage that. But you will still face the same standards for submissions as the published authors. (Pro tip: Check your spelling and grammar.)

Formatting:

Submit your story in 12-point, Times New Roman/Times Roman font, double-spaced.

If you have questions about other formatting (like setting up the story’s first page, and page numbering), refer to Shunn’s manuscript formatting guide.

The file should be RTF, not Word or DocX or anything else. The first page should be your cover letter – keep it brief – which will include your contact information and a 50-75 word bio. List previous publications or relevant experience in the bio.

Email:

Send your complete story/cover letter to WhatIfBeatlesAnthology@gmail.com – do not send to Michael or Randee personally. Your bio and story should be in the same document. We will accept submissions until June 14. Please continue to check this space for any updates. We will do our best to contact everyone who submits, but if you have not heard from us by August 1, you can safely assume that your story was not accepted.

[NOTE: Click through to the original guidelines page for a lengthy discussion of copyright issues.]


30 June 19 — SNAFU: Last Stand — ed. Amanda J Spedding, Matthew Summers, and Geoff Brown; Cohesion Press

WHAT WE WANT:

Military action-based last-stand horror, and lots of it.

Think 300, the Alamo, the Battle of Mirbat, the First Battle of Mogadishu, the Battle of Hel, or Custer’s Last Stand (but with unnatural monsters)… anything that can be called a high-action potentially-last stand monster story. For level of unnatural creature we will give priority to, think Dog Soldiers or Aliens. We want lots of monster goodness.

We will also be looking for soldiers, mercs, police, private security/paramilitary. Hell, even a group of bodyguards protecting some arsehole druglord on his jungle property.

Just ensure the last stand aspect is both overt and unique, and don’t forget monsters!

This volume is like the previous volumes squared. All action.

We want extreme action, and it has to be military or paramilitary action.

And to say it again, full action. Nothing less. Hoo-rah!

Introduction by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator, Love, Death & Robots)

Payment: AUD5c/word and one contributor copy in each format released.

Wordcount range: 2,000 – 10,000 words (query for shorter or longer)

Submissions open April 1 2019.
Closing date is June 30th 2019
Anything submitted outside this period will be deleted without being read or replied to.

No selections will be made until after the period closes.
Projected publication date: Late 2019

Please follow these guidelines when submitting to us:

Please put your full contact details and word count top left of the first page of the manuscript.

Standard submission format, with minimal document formatting.

Courier, Palatino Linotype, or Times New Roman set at 12pt.

Italics as they will appear. No underlining. Double spaced.

Please don’t use TAB or space bar to indent lines. Use ‘styles’ only.

If unsure or using a program that has no styles, DO NOT indent at all. That’s still cool.

SEE HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON STYLES

NO SPACE between paragraphs unless a line-break is required. ONE SPACE after full stops.

Please put full contact details on the first page of the manuscript (yes, I said this twice… it’s important).

Send your submission to Geoff Brown at editor@cohesionpress.com as an attachment (.doc/.rtf only)

In the subject line of your email, please put Last Stand: [STORY TITLE] (Replace [STORY TITLE] with your actual story title. Yes, unfortunately I do need to say this)

NO MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS
NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS
NO REPRINTS

Please include a brief ‘hello, this is who I am’ in your email body as a cover letter.

Blank emails with attachments will be deleted.

For a guide to standard submission format, see: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html

The only variations to this format are that italics MUST appear as they will be used – no underlining – and again, only one space after a full stop.

Anyone that fails to follow these guidelines will likely see their story used to line kitty litter trays by Deadpool.


30 June 19 — Illicit — Bronzeville Books

You’ve heard of illicit affairs, illicit sex, and illicit pictures. Bronzeville Books asks why our culture considers so many types of love, sex, and bodies illicit while we don’t blink at the truly forbidden – theft, murder, fraud. In Illicit, the first erotic anthology from Bronzeville Books, we’re looking for stories that showcase the beauty of love once considered forbidden alongside actual crimes and criminal behavior. If you’ve got a kinky bank robber, a queer hitman looking for more than one way to score, or a disabled private eye looking to solve a case and get some lovin’ along the way, we want your story. We want people, sex, and bodies not usually seen in mainstream ideas of sex and sexy, and we want tight, fun crime plots. Pro pay. 3,500 words or less.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted but we will not consider multiple submissions under the same name or a pseudonym.

Sex in stories must be consensual, no minors, no animals, no exceptions.

Send submissions to submissions.desk@bronzevillebooks.com with the subject line: ILLICIT SUBMISSION.

See https://www.shunn.net/format/novel.html for formatting instructions.


30 June 19 — Chew on This! — ed. Robert Essig; Blood Bound Books

Everything that is living EATS! Plants, animals, humans, aliens, monsters, sea creatures, they all eat in one form or another.

For the Chew on This! anthology we are looking for food-related stories, but we need you to dig deeper and get creative when it comes to the substances that keep us alive. Food should be integral to the story in some way, but not the entire focus. The plots can revolve around a wide range of cultures and belief systems, science and superstition, settings in the future or past. Above all we want stories that are macabre, scary, unsettling, and even gross. There’s room for every subgenre of horror from quiet and unsettling physiological tales to extreme and bizarro. Well written, imaginative, frightening, and unique perspectives that make readers afraid to visit restaurants, try cuisine in a foreign lands, attempt new cooking recipes, etc.

Food Allergies:

== Cannibal stories- Sure they’re good enough to eat but not for this anthology.

== No zombies, werewolves, vampires, or other well-tread tropes. If it’s off the dollar menu we won’t be ordering.

== Pizza stories. We love a good pie but don’t want past anthology leftovers.

== Predator and prey without any substance. Reasoning is the seasoning!

== Fan fiction. Give us a fresh recipe!

Ingredients:

== Email: chewonthissubmissions@gmail.com

== Subject: Chew on this: Story Title by Author Name

== Length: 3k – 7K

== Multiple Submissions: No

== Simultaneous Submissions: No

== Reprints: No

== Format: Doc or Docx

== Payment: 3 cents per word


30 June 19 — Funny Queer — Qommunicate Publishing

Seeking humorous original work by and/or about LGBTQ+ people and lives. This is a positive publication celebrating the LGBTQ+ community through the lens of humor. Only pieces supporting this mission will be considered. No homophobic, transphobic or hateful material will be considered.

[NOTE: That “and/or” in the paragraph above is ambiguous. It sounds like they’ll consider work from straight/cis writers so long as it’s about LGBTQ+ characters. But maybe not. If you’re straight/cis, you might query before submitting.]

This premiere edition of our first LGBTQ+ humor anthology will be published in print & ebook. It will be made available in paperback on Amazon, the Barnes & Noble website, QommunicatePublishing.com and wherever books are sold (available to booksellers and libraries through Ingram.) Ebook versions will be compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.
Submission Guidelines

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Funny Queer. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.
Theme

Humor by and/or about LGBTQ+ people. The only criteria is it makes us laugh!

Genres:

Anything meeting the theme, including:

== Fiction.
== Nonfiction.
== Jokes.
== Comics/graphic shorts (black and white only).
== Poems.
== Short scripts.

We will NOT consider:

== Erotica
== Work written for children

Length:

== Prose: up to 3,500 words
== Poetry: Up to 3 pages
== Comics & Scripts: up to 10 pages

These length recommendations are flexible.

Formats:

== All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
== If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions:

== Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

== Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
== Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for More Queer Families: A LGBTQ+ True Stories Anthology.

Reprints:

== Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

== We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
== NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
== We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

== Contributors will receive, as a humble token of our appreciation, $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

== Your submission
== A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
== At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
== IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com

or mailed to us at:
Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

== We do our best to respond to all submissions within 3 months of receiving them. If you haven’t heard from us in that time, please feel free to reach out.


30 July 19 — Not Far From Roswell — ed. Kelly A. Harmon and Vonnie Winslow Crist; Pole to Pole Publishing

[NOTE: The deadline for this book is 30 July OR WHEN FILLED. If you want to submit, don’t wait till the last minute.]

Pole to Pole Publishing is seeking short, original fiction for its upcoming anthology, Not Far from Roswell, to be published October 2019.

Not Far From Roswell will contain dark stories of aliens, alien abduction, alien experimentation, cows, paranormal investigation and more — let your imagination be your guide. We may also include one or two humorous pieces as long as the material is dark.

Update: We’re looking for more stories that take place on Earth and have a strong connection to Roswell.

Stories should be 3,000-5,000 words (firm).

Hard Sells:

Profane and vulgar language. Because we market to both adult and YA readers, if you use an F-Bomb, and we accept your story, we’ll probably ask you to change it.

First person and Present Tense. We’ve published both: when the stories were very, very good. We want to let you know up front that we’re going to reject this most of the time. It’s just not our preference.

Excessive Gore and/or violence. Blood and guts are fine—as long as they’re part of the story and not the story itself.

Sex. See above about marketing to a wider audience.

Edition and Rights:

Not Far From Roswell will be published in electronic and trade paperback in English. We are asking for exclusive, worldwide rights to your work for both electronic and print for six months only, and a non-exclusive right to keep your story in the anthology after that. The anthology may be included with other “Dark Stories Anthologies” in bundles.

Payment: Payment is 2¢ per word, paid at publication, via PayPal only.

If you do not have a PayPal account, please do not submit your work.

Authors will also receive one copy of both the electronic and paperback versions of the anthology. (Authors can buy additional books at a discount.)

What We Don’t Want:

No rape, torture, etc. of children. No animal abuse. No stories with characters from a copyrighted world that belongs to someone else. No reprints. No Poetry. Only one story from each author will be considered.

Formatting:

No tabs. Please format the document with a first line indent.

Curly quotes, please—no straight quotes.

If you’re not sure if your story is suitable, don’t query; just go ahead and submit, and let our editors decide. (Word count is firm, however.)

Deadline: July 30, 2019, or until filled. Be aware that all of our anthologies have filled before the deadline, so don’t wait until the last minute to submit.


31 July 19 — Blasphemous Rumors — ed. David Barnett and Regina Garza Mitchell; Necro Publications

Blasphemous Rumors is a themed anthology of religious horror stories edited by David Barnett and Regina Garza Mitchell. We are seeking dark short stories that focus on religion or spirituality, stories that may be considered blasphemous by the standards of your religion of choice. We are looking for quality dark fiction, not hate-filled rants against religion.

Technical Details: Stories should be formatted in standard manuscript submission format. Stories should be no longer than 5000 words and should be original. Reprints are not accepted. We will not accept simultaneous or multiple submissions.

PAYMENT: $.03 per word up to 5000 words plus two copies of the trade paperback.

Stories should be submitted as an attachment to: blasphemoussubs@gmail.com

Examples of Blasphemy: The term blasphemy refers to saying something about God that is disrespectful. It can also refer to degrading religious concepts or literature. Blasphemy can be included in speech, an act, writing, music, or art.

Blasphemy in Everyday Life:

== Some consider rapper Kanye West’s album name “Yeezus” and his consideration of himself as equal to Jesus to be blasphemous.
== Burning a religious document such as the Bible or the Qu’ran is considered blasphemy.
== Vandalizing a church is a form of blasphemy.
== Worshipping Satan is blasphemous.
== Committing suicide is a form of blasphemy.
== To state that God is unkind, unjust or cruel is a blasphemous.
== Artist Andres Serrano created what he called artwork by submerging a plastic replica of the crucified Jesus Christ in a container of his own urine and photographing it as a means, he stated, of exposing the ills of religion. However, this 1987 piece of work was considered highly blasphemous and was destroyed in 2011 during protests in France. The name of the work was Piss Christ.
== In the popular television show, Sex and the City, one episode featured what some considered to be blasphemous artwork. The episode revolved largely around a painting of a woman, crucified as Jesus Christ was, featured in a New York gallery.
== Pastor Terry Jones is the head of a church in Florida who, in 2010, is considered blasphemous of Islamic religion due to his suggestion to hold a “Burn the Qu’ran Day,” his publication of a book entitled Islam Is of the Devil, and his purveyorship of shirts and cups that spread the same message.
== The animated American television show, The Simpsons, has been taken to task for blasphemy after broadcasting episodes in which the devil purportedly was bullying God, amongst various other perceived blasphemies.
== Also under fire for broadcasting blasphemous language is the American animated comedy, Family Guy. Known for its offbeat humor, Family Guy featured Jesus in one particular episode that painted Him in a perverted manner, causing a firestorm of protest.
== Islam’s Prophet Mohammad is often the source of blasphemy. His image, according to Islamic law, is not to be printed yet many cartoonists and others around the world have been considered blasphemous for doing so. In 2006, Norwegian and Danish newspapers faced serious backlash and threats of retribution from Islamic nations for printing cartoons that featured Prophet Mohammad. While the act of printing the cartoons, themselves, would have been considered blasphemy unto itself, the cartoons also featured the Prophet in poses that were considered “unflattering,” particularly one in which the Prophet’s image was made to look like a terrorist.
== In 2010, American animated comedy South Park, also produced images of the Prophet Mohammad in an episode that featured the Prophet as a bear mascot. Angered by the perceived blasphemy, one Islamic website threatened the producers of the show for what they deemed as a high level of disrespect for the Prophet.

Now you have seen many different examples of blasphemy.


31 July 19 — Monsters in Spaaaace! — The Dragon’s Roost Press

[NOTE: The deadline for this book is 31 July OR UNTIL FILLED. If you have a great idea for a story, don’t procrastinate in writing and subbing, or you might find that they’ve closed the book early, or that they’ve already accepted too many stories about the monster you’ve chosen.]

2019 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest horror movies of all time: Alien. Yes, it is a horror movie, but set in space. There are also plans for a new branch of the military — in space.

We’ve explored loneliness, isolation, and solitude in our first anthology. We Put the Love Back in Lovecraft in our second anthology. We explored the creatures of cryptozoology in our recent pair of anthologies. Now we will go where all good series eventually go…

…to space.

What We Want:

Finely crafted works of Dark Speculative fiction which feature one (or more) classic monsters. Vampires, mummies, creatures built from dead body parts, lycanthropes, mad scientists, and zombies — yes, even zombies — but we want to see them in space.

We want to see these creatures floating around in zero g, attacking astronauts and colonists, and generally menacing those brave enough to go beyond the confines of our pale blue dot.

Each story must take place somewhere other than the Earth. It can happen on a spaceship, on a colony, on a new terraformed planet. There should be humans involved, but they do not have to be the protagonists.

Each story must also feature (at least) one classic monster. We are looking for new takes on the old classics. Feel free to explore, but they should still be recognizable to the average reader.

What We Don’t Want:

Actual characters from other books or films. As much as we love the idea of Dracula in Space, we are pretty sure that Universal owns the rights to that particular vampire. The vampire doesn’t have to be Dracula in particular (for example: Bubba Ho-Tep has a great mummy, but not THE mummy).

We don’t like being sued.

Retreads of Alien/Aliens/etc. We love the Xenomorph, but we are looking for new interpretations of old monsters. The Xeno is only 40. That’s not old.

On a related note, stories where small bands of humans have to fend off a horde of creatures are going to be a hard sell. We love Aliens, but it’s really more of a sci-fi action movie. We’re looking for horror. We want you to evoke that sense of fear that will make us want to turn on a light and pull the covers up.

Important Note: We are looking for monsterial diversity. In other words, we don’t want a whole anthology filled with the same creatures. Two of the same may work, but not more than that. The earlier you submit, the earlier you can nail down that monster.

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 (editor@thedragonsroost.net). 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. Submissions should follow standard format. For an example of what we are looking for in terms of formatting, please visit link. 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), Pages (pages), and Rich Text Format (.rtf). Send your stories to submissions@thedragonsroost.net. In the subject line of your e-mail list “Monster in Space,” the title of your story, and your last name. For example:

Monsters in Space / Really Awesome Story / I. M. N. Alien

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 describe why you chose the particular monster that you did.

We are looking for North American Print and Digital Rights. Rights revert back to the author upon publication. Submissions accepted until 31 July 2019 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. Don’t delay, start writing today!

Please wait four weeks before querying.

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 Fall 2019 via POD (KDP) and on various digital formats.

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.


If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

***

30 April 19 — Geek Out II! — Qommunicate Publishing

[NOTE: Submissions open to LGBTQ+ writers only.]

Queer Pop Lit & Art

Geek Out! – Queer Pop Lit & Art will be published in print & ebook (compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.)

Submission Guidelines:

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Geek Out. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.

Theme:

= Where queer meets geek. Whatever you geek out about, we want to read it!

Genres:

= Genre Fiction (e.g. scifi, fantasy, western, noir, horror)
= Poetry: slam poems and non-traditional formats
= Creative Nonfiction (non-memoir based): opinion essays, topical articles, reviews, comedy
= Comics / Graphic short stories (black & white only)
= Scripts: short stage plays, teleplays, screenplays, video scripts, etc.

Not Looking For:

We are not looking for work in the following genres for this particular publication. (See our other Submission Guidelines homepage for other publications with upcoming deadlines seeking work in these genres.)

= Literary Fiction
= Memoir-based Nonfiction
= Traditional Poetry

Additionally, we rarely accept work in the following genres:

= Erotica*
= Work written for children

( * Look for an upcoming call for submissions for our new adult series “Pan’s Ex: Queer Sex Poetry” – coming soon!)

Length:

= Prose: up to 5,000 words
= Flash Non-fiction: 1 page or less
= Poetry: up to 3 pages (per poem)
= Comics & Scripts: up to 10 pages
= Submissions of longer than 10 pages must be numbered.

Formats:

= All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
= If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions

= Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

= Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
= Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for Geek Out!

Reprints:

= Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

= We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
= NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
= We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

= Contributors will receive $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

= Your submission
= A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
= At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
= IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com or mailed to us at:

Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

= We will respond to all submissions by June 1, 2019.

***

30 April 19 — Nox Pareidolia — Nightscape Press

Nox Pareidolia will open to previously unpublished submissions on April 1st and will close to submission at the close of that month.

Payment

Payment will be 6 cents per word. I prefer shorter pieces but I will accept exceptional tales that are longer, however the payment will be capped 6,000 words.

Theme

The theme is heavily inspired by Robert Aickman’s fiction. Initially, I envisioned a book of stories where it is ambiguous as to whether the nature of the horror/weird element is supernatural or not. But I’ve recently decided to make that a more openly interpreted theme of ambiguous horror/weird fiction. Whether it be ambiguously supernatural or whether what exactly has or is happening is ambiguous, or any creative idea playing off of ambiguity could be interesting to see explored. But the element that is ambiguous must be intrinsic to the story.

Formatting

Standard Shunn formatting is just fine, but we’re finding more and more that we prefer single spaced manuscripts as we read submissions on our devices. And italics should preferably be italicized and not underlined. Single spaces between sentences is also a huge help when final formatting comes around. That said, we will not reject stories if the formatting isn’t perfect. First and foremost make it readable. And where stories require odd formatting for effect, certainly don’t change that on our account.

***

30 April 19 — Hatchet Job — ed. Jerry L. Wheeler; Lethe Press

This horror anthology, to be edited by Jerry L. Wheeler, seeks stories under 10,000 words that involve one of the traditional tropes of campfire tales and slasher films: the axe murderer. Stories need not focus solely on this antagonist, but all stories must somehow involve this threat or concept. Think Angela Carter’s “The Fall River Axe Murders.” Surprise us by breathing new life into this theme. That said, we anticipate most of the book will be reprints – for which we are offering 2 cents a word. Original work pays 4 cents a word but first query the editor with a synopsis.

Specs? Please submit Word docs only, standard formatting, 12 pt Times Roman to me at pfloydian806@gmail.com, using the title of the anthology as the subject line.

***

30 April 19 — Common Bonds — ed. Claudie Arseneault, C. T. Callahan, B. R. Sanders and RoAnna Sylver

[NOTE: Submissions open to LGBTQ+ writers only.]

Common Bonds is an upcoming anthology of speculative short stories and poetry featuring aromantic characters. At the heart of this collection are the bonds that impact our lives from beginning to end: platonic relationships. Whether with family, mentors, friends, colleagues, or found family, these links pepper our lives and their importance is often overlooked. We seek to highlight the various ways platonic relationships can enrich us. Furthermore, we want to explore the way aromantic people often redefine the relative importance of these platonic bonds, centering them in their lives over romantic ones. We dream of sisters on a roadtrip through space, of queerplatonic partners hunting dragons, of an alchemy teacher changing the course of their student’s life, and of neighbours supporting each other through the apocalypse.

While it is not a requirement, we are particularly eager to receive submissions from aromantic writers, especially those who sit at the intersection of another marginalization. Regardless of whether they are aromantic, we will be thrilled to consider submissions from marginalized and under-represented groups in speculative fiction, including but not limited to people of colour, Indigenous people, disabled, chronically ill and/or neuroatypical people, as well as LGBTQIAP+ people. You do not have to disclose your marginalizations in the cover letter but are welcome to do so.

We’re looking for short stories between 3,000 to 6,000 words or poems of up to 100 lines. Both original fiction and reprints are welcome. Submissions must have a canon aromantic character and center a non-romantic relationship. This includes non-romantic relationships with a sexual component. While we welcome submissions with darker elements to them, we are ultimately looking for stories give space to the positive impact of these relationships.

Fiction will be paid at a rate of 6¢/word. Reprints will be paid 2¢/word. Poems would be paid a flat rate of $40. All of these are in USD, and these rates reflect the fact we have met our Kickstarter stretch goal to pay our writers better (yay!).

We will ask for worldwide digital and print rights (first exclusive for original pieces, non-exclusive for reprints).

No multiple submissions, although you’re welcome to try with another story if a first submission was refused. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but let us know the story has been submitted elsewhere.

Please send your submissions in .doc, .docx, or .rtf to commonbondsantho@gmail.com with “[SUBMISSION]” in the e-mail title. If the story has an unusual formatting you wish to preserve, you may also include a PDF.

***

14 June 19 — Across the Universe — ed. Michael A. Ventrella and Randee Dawn;

The anthology I am co-editing, Across the Universe, is now open for submissions!

Through a Kickstarter campaign, we were able to raise enough to go ahead with this project, and we have confirmations from authors Spider Robinson, David Gerrold, Jonathan Maberry, Alan Goldsher, Cat Rambo, Keith DeCandido, Jody Lynn Nye, Lawrence Watt-Evans and Gail Z. Martin with notes by Janis Ian and Nancy Holder.

We should have room for a few extra stories as well. But only a few.

Book Theme:

The theme of the anthology is “The Beatles – What if?” What if Brian Epstein hadn’t managed the band? What if George Harrison hated sitar music? What if Ringo had been the true star of the band all along? What if the Beatles had been aliens? Or magic users? Or zombies? Or American?

Story Concepts: What to Avoid

The confirmed authors have already begun their stories, so please avoid the following ideas:

== Beatles as zombies
== Beatles as super heroes
== Beatles as time travelers
== Beatles as “the Scooby Doo gang”
== Beatles as medieval fantasy adventurers
== Beatles as Tetrad wizards representing the elements
== Beatles as animatronic robots
== Beatles as paranormal investigators

This is not to say that you cannot do a variation on these, but keep in mind that if we get more than one story with the same theme, your chance of having your story accepted is reduced. That said, do not contact us with your idea first. After all, two authors can take the same basic idea and produce completely different stories.

Story Length:

The story should be no more than 4,000 words. This should be sufficient for what should most likely be a somewhat humorous tale. A ‘short story’ should be defined as not less than 1,000 words for the purpose of this book; we want you to write the story at the length it most makes sense, but we are not publishing drabbles or flash fiction, and prefer stories in the 2,000 – 4,000 range. This is not a strict cut-off, though.

Payment is $200 a story, so there is no advantage to padding your story. Take as many words as you need to make a great story, but if it is too long, it had better be so great that we can’t refuse it. A good but padded story may get rejected over a concise, fast-moving one, because we want to fit in as many stories as possible.

No reprints. And only one submission. If you have two stories, send your best.

I’m Unpublished. Can I submit?

Yes! We encourage that. But you will still face the same standards for submissions as the published authors. (Pro tip: Check your spelling and grammar.)

Formatting:

Submit your story in 12-point, Times New Roman/Times Roman font, double-spaced.

If you have questions about other formatting (like setting up the story’s first page, and page numbering), refer to Shunn’s manuscript formatting guide.

The file should be RTF, not Word or DocX or anything else. The first page should be your cover letter – keep it brief – which will include your contact information and a 50-75 word bio. List previous publications or relevant experience in the bio.

Email:

Send your complete story/cover letter to WhatIfBeatlesAnthology@gmail.com – do not send to Michael or Randee personally. Your bio and story should be in the same document. We will accept submissions until June 14. Please continue to check this space for any updates. We will do our best to contact everyone who submits, but if you have not heard from us by August 1, you can safely assume that your story was not accepted.

[NOTE: Click through to the original guidelines page for a lengthy discussion of copyright issues.]

***

1 May 19 — Tiny Nightmares — Soft Skull Press

Tiny Nightmares will be a collection of short and terrifying tales of monsters, madness, and nightmares. The anthology follows up on Tiny Crimes, an anthology of short crime fiction featuring stories by Carmen Maria Machado, Yuri Herrera, Brian Evenson, Amelia Gray, and more.

For Tiny Nightmares, we’re seeking short stories that play with and expand the boundaries of horror fiction — think of the stretch of unlit highway between Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream, and Stephen King’s IT. Stories that turn our understanding of “scary” on its (trembling) head. We’re looking for:

== Stories of new monsters, and old ones that scare us in new ways
== Tiny, intimate horrors to make our hair stand on end
== Horror as cultural/political/environmental funhouse mirror
== Subversions of traditional horror tropes
== Something so scary we haven’t thought of it yet

Guidelines:

Stories should be under 1200 words.

Stories should be previously unpublished.

Payment will be $100 dollars.

***

30 June 19 — SNAFU: Last Stand — ed. Amanda J Spedding, Matthew Summers, and Geoff Brown; Cohesion Press

WHAT WE WANT:

Military action-based last-stand horror, and lots of it.

Think 300, the Alamo, the Battle of Mirbat, the First Battle of Mogadishu, the Battle of Hel, or Custer’s Last Stand (but with unnatural monsters)… anything that can be called a high-action potentially-last stand monster story. For level of unnatural creature we will give priority to, think Dog Soldiers or Aliens. We want lots of monster goodness.

We will also be looking for soldiers, mercs, police, private security/paramilitary. Hell, even a group of bodyguards protecting some arsehole druglord on his jungle property.

Just ensure the last stand aspect is both overt and unique, and don’t forget monsters!

This volume is like the previous volumes squared. All action.

We want extreme action, and it has to be military or paramilitary action.

And to say it again, full action. Nothing less. Hoo-rah!

Introduction by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator, Love, Death & Robots)

Payment: AUD5c/word and one contributor copy in each format released.

Wordcount range: 2,000 – 10,000 words (query for shorter or longer)

No selections will be made until after the period closes.

Projected publication date: Late 2019

Please follow these guidelines when submitting to us:

Please put your full contact details and word count top left of the first page of the manuscript.

Standard submission format, with minimal document formatting.

Courier, Palatino Linotype, or Times New Roman set at 12pt.

Italics as they will appear. No underlining. Double spaced.

Please don’t use TAB or space bar to indent lines. Use ‘styles’ only.

If unsure or using a program that has no styles, DO NOT indent at all. That’s still cool.

SEE HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON STYLES

NO SPACE between paragraphs unless a line-break is required. ONE SPACE after full stops.

Please put full contact details on the first page of the manuscript (yes, I said this twice… it’s important).

Send your submission to Geoff Brown at editor@cohesionpress.com as an attachment (.doc/.rtf only)

In the subject line of your email, please put Last Stand: [STORY TITLE] (Replace [STORY TITLE] with your actual story title. Yes, unfortunately I do need to say this)

NO MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS
NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS
NO REPRINTS

Please include a brief ‘hello, this is who I am’ in your email body as a cover letter.

Blank emails with attachments will be deleted.

For a guide to standard submission format, see: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html

The only variations to this format are that italics MUST appear as they will be used – no underlining – and again, only one space after a full stop.

Anyone that fails to follow these guidelines will likely see their story used to line kitty litter trays by Deadpool.

***

30 June 19 — Illicit — Bronzeville Books

You’ve heard of illicit affairs, illicit sex, and illicit pictures. Bronzeville Books asks why our culture considers so many types of love, sex, and bodies illicit while we don’t blink at the truly forbidden – theft, murder, fraud. In Illicit, the first erotic anthology from Bronzeville Books, we’re looking for stories that showcase the beauty of love once considered forbidden alongside actual crimes and criminal behavior. If you’ve got a kinky bank robber, a queer hitman looking for more than one way to score, or a disabled private eye looking to solve a case and get some lovin’ along the way, we want your story. We want people, sex, and bodies not usually seen in mainstream ideas of sex and sexy, and we want tight, fun crime plots. Pro pay. 3,500 words or less.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted but we will not consider multiple submissions under the same name or a pseudonym.

Sex in stories must be consensual, no minors, no animals, no exceptions.

Send submissions to submissions.desk@bronzevillebooks.com with the subject line: ILLICIT SUBMISSION.

See https://www.shunn.net/format/novel.html for formatting instructions.

***

30 June 19 — Chew on This! — ed. Robert Essig; Blood Bound Books

Everything that is living EATS! Plants, animals, humans, aliens, monsters, sea creatures, they all eat in one form or another.

For the Chew on This! anthology we are looking for food-related stories, but we need you to dig deeper and get creative when it comes to the substances that keep us alive. Food should be integral to the story in some way, but not the entire focus. The plots can revolve around a wide range of cultures and belief systems, science and superstition, settings in the future or past. Above all we want stories that are macabre, scary, unsettling, and even gross. There’s room for every subgenre of horror from quiet and unsettling physiological tales to extreme and bizarro. Well written, imaginative, frightening, and unique perspectives that make readers afraid to visit restaurants, try cuisine in a foreign lands, attempt new cooking recipes, etc.

Food Allergies:

== Cannibal stories- Sure they’re good enough to eat but not for this anthology.

== No zombies, werewolves, vampires, or other well-tread tropes. If it’s off the dollar menu we won’t be ordering.

== Pizza stories. We love a good pie but don’t want past anthology leftovers.

== Predator and prey without any substance. Reasoning is the seasoning!

== Fan fiction. Give us a fresh recipe!

Ingredients:

== Email: chewonthissubmissions@gmail.com

== Subject: Chew on this: Story Title by Author Name

== Length: 3k – 7K

== Multiple Submissions: No

== Simultaneous Submissions: No

== Reprints: No

== Format: Doc or Docx

== Payment: 3 cents per word

***

30 June 19 — Funny Queer — Qommunicate Publishing

Seeking humorous original work by and/or about LGBTQ+ people and lives. This is a positive publication celebrating the LGBTQ+ community through the lens of humor. Only pieces supporting this mission will be considered. No homophobic, transphobic or hateful material will be considered.

[NOTE: That “and/or” in the paragraph above is ambiguous. It sounds like they’ll consider work from straight/cis writers so long as it’s about LGBTQ+ characters. But maybe not. If your straight/cis, you might query before submitting.]

This premiere edition of our first LGBTQ+ humor anthology will be published in print & ebook. It will be made available in paperback on Amazon, the Barnes & Noble website, QommunicatePublishing.com and wherever books are sold (available to booksellers and libraries through Ingram.) Ebook versions will be compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.
Submission Guidelines

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Funny Queer. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.
Theme

Humor by and/or about LGBTQ+ people. The only criteria is it makes us laugh!

Genres:

Anything meeting the theme, including:

== Fiction.
== Nonfiction.
== Jokes.
== Comics/graphic shorts (black and white only).
== Poems.
== Short scripts.

We will NOT consider:

== Erotica
== Work written for children

Length:

== Prose: up to 3,500 words
== Poetry: Up to 3 pages
== Comics & Scripts: up to 10 pages

These length recommendations are flexible.

Formats:

== All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
== If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions:

== Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

== Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
== Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for More Queer Families: A LGBTQ+ True Stories Anthology.

Reprints:

== Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

== We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
== NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
== We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

== Contributors will receive, as a humble token of our appreciation, $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

== Your submission
== A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
== At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
== IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com

or mailed to us at:
Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

== We do our best to respond to all submissions within 3 months of receiving them. If you haven’t heard from us in that time, please feel free to reach out.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

[NOTE: Currently closed to submissions.]

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $100. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $100 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 1666 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

NOTE: Future Visions is now guaranteeing only $100 minimum rather than the previous $150. This might make a difference in your decision whether to submit, depending on the length of your story.

***

31 March 19 — Letters from the Grave: A Collection of Epistolary Horror — Orbannin Books

The epistolary form has a long, proud tradition in the horror genre. From the classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula, through modern classics like World War Z. We want to see your fresh takes on the idea. Remember that the epistolary genre doesn’t just include letters. It can be stories created from nearly any kinds or combinations of documents, i.e. crime scene reports, diary entries, interview transcripts, etc. This can include modern electronic and digital “documents” such as texts, voicemails, Tweets, blog posts, and more. Original stories only, no reprints.

Preferred word count: Up to 10,000 words

Payment and rights: $.05/word on acceptance, and one paperback contributor’s copy. First Print and First Electronic Rights, exclusive for 1 year. The anthology will be published as an ebook and in paperback, and we reserve the right to produce a hardcover edition.

Stories should be submitted to editor@orbanninbooks.com, with the subject line “Letters from the Grave.”

Please don’t send us:

== Fan-fiction or stories using other authors’ characters, settings, etc, unless they are in the public domain.
== Gratuitous bestiality, incest, child sex, sexual assault, racism, etc. This is a horror anthology, of course, so “adult content” and horrific, disturbing incidents are certainly going to be there. Make sure, however, that any of these elements are necessary to the story and that their depiction makes sense in the context of the letter or other documents.
== Random horror stories that you’ve stuck a “Hey, you’ll never believe what happened to me!” email frame around.

***

31 March 19 — I Didn’t Break the Lamp — Mad Scientist Journal

We will be creating an anthology titled I Didn’t Break the Lamp: Historical Accounts of Imaginary Acquaintances. It will be a collection of fictional stories about imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, and imaginary entities that fall somewhere in between. For this anthology, our pay will be 2 cents per word.

We are particularly looking for stories from authors who are underrepresented in fiction: people of color, LGBTQ, non-Western religions and cultures.

Each story is written from the perspective of someone who has been or been near the imaginary acquaintance in question. Like our regular magazine, this narrator will also have a bio. Be certain that your story meets these requirements:

== First person
== 500-8,000 words in length
== Focuses on an imaginary acquaintance
== Not a reprint

Here are some ideas that we pitched when we made our Kickstarter, but this is meant to be inspirational and not definitive.

== A monster under the bed or in the closet who helps or hinders the person they watch over.
== An imaginary friend who always gets their person into or out of trouble … but to what end?
== A creature that no one believes is real, until they prove their impact.

DO NOT send us poetry or screenplays.

Submissions should be in Standard Manuscript Format (Here’s an explanation of what that means) and sent via Submittable. As with our regular submissions, we are asking for exclusive first worldwide electronic and print rights for one year.

***

15 April 19 — Alternative Apocalypses — ed. Deborah Godfrey and Bob Brown; B Cubed Press

Stories of endings, beginnings, and change. As always, a political bent doesn’t hurt but not required. The apocalypse can be big or small, personal or world shattering. Humor is always good. Satire is excellent.

We will include some good poetry and thoughtful essays if you have them. For stories we’re looking for 500 to 5000 words.

We anticipate releasing at World Con in Dublin.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be in Word or RTF attachments, using SFWA manuscript format. Include your name AND email on the document. We’re pretty organized, but sometimes emails and stories get separated, and that is NEVER GOOD.

Email your submission to kionadad@aol.com. The subject should be: “SUBMISSION Alternative Apocolypse”. Really. Just copy it – we’ve made it simple.

Pay is 2 cents a word and royalties for stories. For very short fiction, poems, and nursery rhymes, we offer an option of a flat $25 to the writer. Payment is made on publication.

Multiple and simultaneous submissions okay, reprints as well, but they are held to a higher standard.

***

15 April 19 — Alternative Bedtime Reading for Progressive Parents — ed. Diana Payton and Bob Brown; B Cubed Press

We’re looking for nursery rhymes, poetry, and stories that can be read and enjoyed by children of all ages. There is no lower word limit on poems or nursery rhymes.

The work can be completely original or derived from fairy tales, bible stories, folklore, myths, or similar so long as acknowledgement is made, but absolutely no fan fiction of work that is not in the public domain.

For stories we’re looking for 500 to 3000 words. We anticipate publishing in fall of 2019.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be in Word or RTF attachments, using SFWA manuscript format. Include your name AND email on the document. We’re pretty organized, but sometimes emails and stories get separated, and that is NEVER GOOD.

Email your submission to kionadad@aol.com. The subject should be: “SUBMISSION Alternative Bedtime Reading for Progressive Parents”. Really. Just copy it – we’ve made it simple.

Pay is 2 cents a word and royalties for stories. For very short fiction, poems, and nursery rhymes, we offer an option of a flat $25 to the writer. Payment is made on publication.

Multiple and simultaneous submissions okay, reprints as well, but they are held to a higher standard.

***

15 April 19 — Tales from the Space Force — B Cubed Press

Okay, how could we not. Now that America has an official Space Force, we need to incorporate it into literature.

What to do we want? Camp? Satire? Bug Eyed Monsters? All good. We’ll do serious stories, too. Mostly we want good stories. And if I am to confess, we want campy stories. We want the golden age of pulp to live again.

Political bends are allowed.

Poetry and essays are allowed.

Ask yourself, what would an American Space Force do? Will there be a space wall around the International Space Station? Will NASA and the Space Force get along? I have no idea, but I’m leaving it up to you to tell us. Here at B Cubed, we leave the writing to you.

We’re looking for 500 to 5000 words.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be in Word or RTF attachments, using SFWA manuscript format. Include your name AND email on the document. We’re pretty organized, but sometimes emails and stories get separated, and that is NEVER GOOD.

Email your submission to kionadad@aol.com. The subject should be: “SUBMISSION Space Force”. Really. Just copy it – we’ve made it simple.

Pay is 2 cents a word and royalties for stories. For very short fiction, poems, and nursery rhymes, we offer an option of a flat $25 to the writer. Payment is made on publication.

Multiple and Simultaneous submissions okay, reprints as well, but they are held to a higher standard.

***

30 April 19 — Geek Out II! — Qommunicate Publishing

[NOTE: Submissions open to LGBTQ+ writers only.]

Queer Pop Lit & Art

Geek Out! – Queer Pop Lit & Art will be published in print & ebook (compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.)

Submission Guidelines:

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Geek Out. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.

Theme:

= Where queer meets geek. Whatever you geek out about, we want to read it!

Genres:

= Genre Fiction (e.g. scifi, fantasy, western, noir, horror)
= Poetry: slam poems and non-traditional formats
= Creative Nonfiction (non-memoir based): opinion essays, topical articles, reviews, comedy
= Comics / Graphic short stories (black & white only)
= Scripts: short stage plays, teleplays, screenplays, video scripts, etc.

Not Looking For:

We are not looking for work in the following genres for this particular publication. (See our other Submission Guidelines homepage for other publications with upcoming deadlines seeking work in these genres.)

= Literary Fiction
= Memoir-based Nonfiction
= Traditional Poetry

Additionally, we rarely accept work in the following genres:

= Erotica*
= Work written for children

( * Look for an upcoming call for submissions for our new adult series “Pan’s Ex: Queer Sex Poetry” – coming soon!)

Length:

= Prose: up to 5,000 words
= Flash Non-fiction: 1 page or less
= Poetry: up to 3 pages (per poem)
= Comics & Scripts: up to 10 pages
= Submissions of longer than 10 pages must be numbered.

Formats:

= All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
= If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions

= Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

= Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
= Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for Geek Out!

Reprints:

= Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

= We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
= NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
= We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

= Contributors will receive $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

= Your submission
= A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
= At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
= IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com or mailed to us at:

Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

= We will respond to all submissions by June 1, 2019.

***

30 April 19 — Nox Pareidolia — Nightscape Press

Nox Pareidolia will open to previously unpublished submissions on April 1st and will close to submission at the close of that month.

Payment

Payment will be 6 cents per word. I prefer shorter pieces but I will accept exceptional tales that are longer, however the payment will be capped 6,000 words.

Theme

The theme is heavily inspired by Robert Aickman’s fiction. Initially, I envisioned a book of stories where it is ambiguous as to whether the nature of the horror/weird element is supernatural or not. But I’ve recently decided to make that a more openly interpreted theme of ambiguous horror/weird fiction. Whether it be ambiguously supernatural or whether what exactly has or is happening is ambiguous, or any creative idea playing off of ambiguity could be interesting to see explored. But the element that is ambiguous must be intrinsic to the story.

Formatting

Standard Shunn formatting is just fine, but we’re finding more and more that we prefer single spaced manuscripts as we read submissions on our devices. And italics should preferably be italicized and not underlined. Single spaces between sentences is also a huge help when final formatting comes around. That said, we will not reject stories if the formatting isn’t perfect. First and foremost make it readable. And where stories require odd formatting for effect, certainly don’t change that on our account.

***

30 April 19 — Hatchet Job — ed. Jerry L. Wheeler; Lethe Press

This horror anthology, to be edited by Jerry L. Wheeler, seeks stories under 10,000 words that involve one of the traditional tropes of campfire tales and slasher films: the axe murderer. Stories need not focus solely on this antagonist, but all stories must somehow involve this threat or concept. Think Angela Carter’s “The Fall River Axe Murders.” Surprise us by breathing new life into this theme. That said, we anticipate most of the book will be reprints – for which we are offering 2 cents a word. Original work pays 4 cents a word but first query the editor with a synopsis.

Specs? Please submit Word docs only, standard formatting, 12 pt Times Roman to me at pfloydian806@gmail.com, using the title of the anthology as the subject line.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $100. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $100 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 1666 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

***

28 February 19 — Triangulation: Dark Skies — Parsec Ink

Triangulation is open for submissions. We are Parsec Ink’s speculative fiction annual, now in our 15th year. We’re looking for outstanding fantasy, science fiction, weird fiction, and speculative horror–from new and established writers. Take the theme and run with it. Tell us a story we won’t forget.

Theme: Triangulation: Dark Skies will be a celebration of the dark. This year, we are joining forces with the International Dark-Sky Association to raise awareness of the dangers of light pollution—to human health, to animals and plants in the nighttime ecosystem, and to the future of astronomical research on our planet. We’d like to see proactive characters experiencing firsthand the dangers and consequences of a world without darkness, but even more than that, we want stories celebrating our place in the universe, and our ability, as sentient beings, to see into the depths of space. Give us past, present, and future accounts. Cautionary tales. Secondary worlds and altered timelines. The effects of light pollution are many and varied—feel free to explore any aspects, from neurobiological studies, to life in an alien star system, to legends out of time.

How To Submit: Electronic submissions make our lives easier. Please upload your story via Submittable. If this is your first time using Submittable, you will need to create an account with them. Don’t worry: it’s free.

SUBMIT YOUR STORY HERE!

Word Count: We consider fiction up to 5,000 words, but the sweet spot is 3,000. There is no minimum word count.

Genre: We accept science fiction, fantasy, and horror–and enjoy intelligent blends of the three. Stories without a speculative element will not be considered.

Compensation: Pay is semi-pro: 4 cents a word. Authors will receive an e-book and one print copy of the anthology, plus wholesale pricing for additional print copies (typically 50% off the cover price).

Rights: We purchase North American serial rights, audio and electronic rights for the downloadable version(s). All subsidiary rights released upon publication.

Submissions: We are a meritocracy. New authors are as welcome as those with a laundry list of accomplishments. But it’s going to be the story that wins us over. Grab us by the lapels, drag us onto that plane, take us for the ride of our lives… but get us back on the ground safely and home in time for dinner.

We do not accept reprints, multiple submissions, or simultaneous submissions. If we reject a story before the end of the reading period, feel free to send another.

We love creative interpretations of our themes, but we do require the stories to be a solid fit.

We run mature content only if we like the story and find the mature content to be integral to it.

We do not accept fanfic, even if it’s based in a fictional universe that has passed into the public domain.

Manuscript Format: Please use industry standard manuscript format. We’re not testing you or trying to make you jump through hoops, but we do want a manuscript that is easy for us to read.

We accept manuscripts in the following formats:

== .doc or .docx (MS Word)
== .rtf (Rich Text Format — generic document format that most word processors can create)

Editorial Process: We aim to read submissions as they are received. If a story doesn’t work for us, we reject it. If we think the story has great potential but isn’t quite there yet, we request a rewrite. The ones we love the most, we hold on to for further consideration, but we won’t keep you guessing: you’ll get an email. Next, the stories fight it out amongst themselves until we have our final lineup. At which time, final acceptances are sent out. It’s sort of like Enter the Dragon, but without the nunchucks. When a story is accepted, the changes we suggest will typically be minor and/or cosmetic.

Response: Final decisions are made by March 31st.

Eligibility: All writers, including those who are known or related to the editorial staff, can submit to Triangulation. That doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily get in, but we are happy to consider their work.

***

28 February 19 — Today, Tomorrow, Always — Margery de Brus, LLC

What?

Ten short stories will be selected for publication. Stories must be 7,500 words or less. We’re looking for works that tell a compelling story and elicit a strong emotional response from readers. While literary basics like imagery and symbolism are important, we’re more concerned with the content of the story. Can you entertain us AND tell us something profound? Do the characters speak to us? Do we recognize them? Seeking stories that address contemporary issues. Diverse voices encouraged.

When?

Slated for publication in June 2019. Today, Tomorrow, Always will be released in a Limited Edition Print format, eBook, and Audio Book. Deadline for submission is February 28, 2019.

Where?

To submit a story for consideration, please email completed works to mdb@margerydebrusllc.com. Works should be attached in Word or PDF format and contain the author’s contact information on the first page only. Please include a brief bio in the body of the email. Selected authors will be notified by April 30, 2019.

How Much?

Each author will receive $100 and a copy of the print edition. Monetary award will be paid upon acceptance. There is no submission fee.

Rights

MdB assumes first North American publishing rights including print, eBook, and audio formats. Works may be published on our website up to six months after anthology release.

[NOTE: Okay, I thought about whether to list this, and decided to give you the info and leave it up to you. Consider this a huge caveat — the first time I’ve written a NOTE longer than the listing it’s attached to — and warning to use your judgement.

This organization is ultimately looking to bring back the patronage system of the Renaissance, to employ artists for a regular wage. Their FAQ page says, “MdB owns all copyrights, and shares royalties with artists. Royalties are for life and slightly beyond, so if an artist leaves MdB, they still get paid their royalty share.” (I assume this only applies to work done for the publisher once one is under contract with them as an employee, and not to work subbed for the anthology.)

(Also, if you decide to dive into this pool, check what they mean by “slightly beyond.” Term of copyright in the US is currently lifetime of the author plus 75 years, which is more than “slightly” beyond. Will they keep paying your estate for the full 75 years after you’re dead? Check your contract before signing up.)

This might look like a great deal to an artist with no current audience, but if your work turns into the next Game of Thrones, it’s possible you’ll still get the same royalty and the organization employing you will get stupid-rich. I don’t know, I haven’t seen any contracts (check and see whether they mention escalators for higher sales, or how money is split from movies, TV shows, games, merchandise, etc.) but it’s the first thing that occurred to me. I’m willing to buy that the organization (Ms. de Brus, I’m assuming) means well. But this can go wrong in so many ways…. [sigh]

However, this particular anthology is paying a flat $100 per story. That doesn’t completely suck, and if your story is on the short end of the wordcount range, it’s pretty good. And they’re only taking First North American Serial rights (should be Anthology rights, but whatever) (also implies they’re only publishing in the US and Canada, and maybe Mexico, so the book won’t be showing up in, say, most of Kobo’s range, or Amazon UK or Amazon Germany or Amazon India…) which leaves you able to resell reprint rights or indie-pub your story later. My point, though, is READ YOUR CONTRACT and make sure you understand it BEFORE YOU SIGN ANYTHING. (Always good advice, but particularly here.) This could be a perfectly legitimate pro/semi-pro anthology, or there might be something squirrely in the contract, whether or not the publisher intends any malice. Plenty of newbies in this business end up offering truly heinous contracts out of sheer inexperience, with no harm intended. That doesn’t make the contract any less heinous.]

***

28 February 19 — Disabled People Destroy Fantasy — Ed. Katharine Duckett

[NOTE: submissions open only to disabled writers. See below for definition of “disabled” in this context.]

Emails containing submissions will be deleted. (Uncanny Magazine uses the Moksha submission system.)

We are OPEN to all submissions!

Who can submit:

We welcome submission from writers who identify themselves as disabled. Identity is what matters for this issue. What kinds of disabilities? All of them. Invisible and visible. Physical disabilities, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, mental health disabilities, and neurodiversity.

Yes, even if your disability is a recently acquired one.

Yes, even if your disability is static, or if it isn’t.

Yes, even if you’ve had your disability since birth.

Yes, even if you use adaptive devices only SOME of the time.

Yes, you.

Please read Elsa Sjunneson-Henry’s essay “Disabled Enough” if you have any doubts.

So, if you identify as disabled across any of these definitions or others, we want to hear from you!

A Note on Manuscript Guidelines For Fiction and Nonfiction:

14pt font, please. Serifed (ex: Time New Roman, Courier, Garamond). Double spaced.

Please let the editors know if you need accommodations as well.

Fiction


Fiction Editor: Katharine Duckett

We do not require stories to explore issues relating to disability, though we welcome them. We’re seeking fantasy stories that invite readers to enter worlds they’ve never seen before. We’re looking for immediate and visceral tales of danger, fun and inventive adventures, and fateful journeys to distant lands or to the dragon’s lair in your own backyard. We’re looking for intricate, challenging tales with gorgeous prose, verve, and imagination that elicit strong emotions and challenge beliefs.

We want the stories you’ve been yearning to encounter in the world. We want to engage with the characters you want to meet in fiction.

Length: Between 750-6000 words

Payment: $.08 per word

Fiction Submission Procedures:

1- Please submit your story via Uncanny’s Moksha submission system.

2- All stories should be in 14pt font, serifed (ex: Time New Roman, Courier, Garamond). double spaced, and attached in .RTF, .DOC, or .DOCX formats.

3- Your cover letter should contain the length of your story, your significant publishing history and awards, and information that might be relevant to that specific submission.

4- Please do not send multiple submissions at once, or submissions simultaneously submitted at another market or anthology.

5- We will try to respond to all submissions in 60 days. Please feel free to query uncannymagazine [at] gmail [dot] com if we’ve had your submission for over 75 days.

[NOTE: Click through for guidelines for nonfiction and poetry.]

***

15 March 19 — Sorghum and Spear — ed. Sheree Renée Thomas; Greene County Creative

Greene County Creative, a content agency, accepting submissions for its first anthology, Sorghum & Spear: The Way of Silk And Stone. We are looking for original works that fit the inclusive fantasy world of our comic book series, featuring young girls and women of all walks of life as they are influenced by their roles in the Forever War.

The tenet, “Pray for Peace but Prepare for War” is weaved deep into the culture of the An’Fre women. Sorghum & Spear speaks to the global diaspora, African, Latin, Asian and Indigenous. Stories that highlight or reveal a new perspective of fantasy in this rich, inclusive world are ideal. We seek works that explore love in all its forms, diversity, fate vs choice, self-discovery, and supernatural talents, and original works that portray the strength, sisterhood, and diversity of women—hallmarks of our world-building efforts. Given the unique guidelines of our world, we ask that you review Sorghum & Spear and its world-building rules carefully prior to submission.

Special consideration will be given to women and writers of color whose personal stories may additionally lend to their storytelling.

To guide in the world building within SORGHUM & SPEAR, a complimentary digital copy of the Sorghum & Spear: Simadan comic and The Sorghum & Spear Worldbuilders Guide are available via email request at greenecountycreative@gmail.com with the subject “ATTN: S&S Reference Request”.

ORIGINAL FICTION length: 2000 to 7,500 words

Payment: 0.06 cents per word + contributor copy

Genres: Fantasy written with a shared world

Email submissions to: greenecountycreative@gmail.com

No simultaneous submissions. No multi-submissions for short fiction.

Please use standard manuscript formatting when submitting your work:

https://shunn.net/format/story.html

Rights and Compensation: Payment: 0.06 per word for original fiction and a paperback copy of the anthology from Greene County Creative.

We are looking for previously unpublished works in English.

Seeking first world rights in English and non-exclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology.

Submission method: Upload story as .doc or .rtf to niteblade.submittable.com/submit.

***

31 March 19 — Letters from the Grave: A Collection of Epistolary Horror — Orbannin Books

The epistolary form has a long, proud tradition in the horror genre. From the classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula, through modern classics like World War Z. We want to see your fresh takes on the idea. Remember that the epistolary genre doesn’t just include letters. It can be stories created from nearly any kinds or combinations of documents, i.e. crime scene reports, diary entries, interview transcripts, etc. This can include modern electronic and digital “documents” such as texts, voicemails, Tweets, blog posts, and more. Original stories only, no reprints.

Preferred word count: Up to 10,000 words

Payment and rights: $.05/word on acceptance, and one paperback contributor’s copy. First Print and First Electronic Rights, exclusive for 1 year. The anthology will be published as an ebook and in paperback, and we reserve the right to produce a hardcover edition.

Stories should be submitted to editor@orbanninbooks.com, with the subject line “Letters from the Grave.”

Please don’t send us:

== Fan-fiction or stories using other authors’ characters, settings, etc, unless they are in the public domain.
== Gratuitous bestiality, incest, child sex, sexual assault, racism, etc. This is a horror anthology, of course, so “adult content” and horrific, disturbing incidents are certainly going to be there. Make sure, however, that any of these elements are necessary to the story and that their depiction makes sense in the context of the letter or other documents.
== Random horror stories that you’ve stuck a “Hey, you’ll never believe what happened to me!” email frame around.

***

15 April 19 — Alternative Apocalypses — ed. Deborah Godfrey and Bob Brown; B Cubed Press

Stories of endings, beginnings, and change. As always, a political bent doesn’t hurt but not required. The apocalypse can be big or small, personal or world shattering. Humor is always good. Satire is excellent.

We will include some good poetry and thoughtful essays if you have them. For stories we’re looking for 500 to 5000 words.

We anticipate releasing at World Con in Dublin.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be in Word or RTF attachments, using SFWA manuscript format. Include your name AND email on the document. We’re pretty organized, but sometimes emails and stories get separated, and that is NEVER GOOD.

Email your submission to kionadad@aol.com. The subject should be: “SUBMISSION Alternative Apocolypse”. Really. Just copy it – we’ve made it simple.

Pay is 2 cents a word and royalties for stories. For very short fiction, poems, and nursery rhymes, we offer an option of a flat $25 to the writer. Payment is made on publication.

Multiple and simultaneous submissions okay, reprints as well, but they are held to a higher standard.

***

15 April 19 — Alternative Bedtime Reading for Progressive Parents — ed. Diana Payton and Bob Brown; B Cubed Press

We’re looking for nursery rhymes, poetry, and stories that can be read and enjoyed by children of all ages. There is no lower word limit on poems or nursery rhymes.

The work can be completely original or derived from fairy tales, bible stories, folklore, myths, or similar so long as acknowledgement is made, but absolutely no fan fiction of work that is not in the public domain.

For stories we’re looking for 500 to 3000 words. We anticipate publishing in fall of 2019.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be in Word or RTF attachments, using SFWA manuscript format. Include your name AND email on the document. We’re pretty organized, but sometimes emails and stories get separated, and that is NEVER GOOD.

Email your submission to kionadad@aol.com. The subject should be: “SUBMISSION Alternative Bedtime Reading for Progressive Parents”. Really. Just copy it – we’ve made it simple.

Pay is 2 cents a word and royalties for stories. For very short fiction, poems, and nursery rhymes, we offer an option of a flat $25 to the writer. Payment is made on publication.

Multiple and simultaneous submissions okay, reprints as well, but they are held to a higher standard.

***

15 April 19 — Tales from the Space Force — B Cubed Press

Okay, how could we not. Now that America has an official Space Force, we need to incorporate it into literature.

What to do we want? Camp? Satire? Bug Eyed Monsters? All good. We’ll do serious stories, too. Mostly we want good stories. And if I am to confess, we want campy stories. We want the golden age of pulp to live again.

Political bends are allowed.

Poetry and essays are allowed.

Ask yourself, what would an American Space Force do? Will there be a space wall around the International Space Station? Will NASA and the Space Force get along? I have no idea, but I’m leaving it up to you to tell us. Here at B Cubed, we leave the writing to you.

We’re looking for 500 to 5000 words.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be in Word or RTF attachments, using SFWA manuscript format. Include your name AND email on the document. We’re pretty organized, but sometimes emails and stories get separated, and that is NEVER GOOD.

Email your submission to kionadad@aol.com. The subject should be: “SUBMISSION Space Force”. Really. Just copy it – we’ve made it simple.

Pay is 2 cents a word and royalties for stories. For very short fiction, poems, and nursery rhymes, we offer an option of a flat $25 to the writer. Payment is made on publication.

Multiple and Simultaneous submissions okay, reprints as well, but they are held to a higher standard.

***

30 April 19 — Geek Out II! — Qommunicate Publishing

[NOTE: Submissions open to LGBTQ+ writers only.]

Queer Pop Lit & Art

Geek Out! – Queer Pop Lit & Art will be published in print & ebook (compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.)

Submission Guidelines:

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Geek Out. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.

Theme:

= Where queer meets geek. Whatever you geek out about, we want to read it!

Genres:

= Genre Fiction (e.g. scifi, fantasy, western, noir, horror)
= Poetry: slam poems and non-traditional formats
= Creative Nonfiction (non-memoir based): opinion essays, topical articles, reviews, comedy
= Comics / Graphic short stories (black & white only)
= Scripts: short stage plays, teleplays, screenplays, video scripts, etc.

Not Looking For:

We are not looking for work in the following genres for this particular publication. (See our other Submission Guidelines homepage for other publications with upcoming deadlines seeking work in these genres.)

= Literary Fiction
= Memoir-based Nonfiction
= Traditional Poetry

Additionally, we rarely accept work in the following genres:

= Erotica*
= Work written for children

( * Look for an upcoming call for submissions for our new adult series “Pan’s Ex: Queer Sex Poetry” – coming soon!)

Length:

= Prose: up to 5,000 words
= Flash Non-fiction: 1 page or less
= Poetry: up to 3 pages (per poem)
= Comics & Scripts: up to 10 pages
= Submissions of longer than 10 pages must be numbered.

Formats:

= All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
= If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions

= Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

= Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
= Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for Geek Out!

Reprints:

= Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

= We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
= NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
= We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

= Contributors will receive $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

= Your submission
= A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
= At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
= IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com or mailed to us at:

Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

= We will respond to all submissions by June 1, 2019.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $150. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $150 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 2500 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

[Sorry! I was sure I posted this already! :/ ]

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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 January 19 — To Seoul, from the World — ed. Sollee Bae; Fiction Writers in Seoul

Fiction Writers in Seoul is a creative writing community based in Seoul, South Korea. Since 2013, we have critiqued over 250 submissions by writers from all around the world. Though varying in themes and genres, together they represent a diverse voice of travelers and expats who have called Seoul their passion, their home. And now, our aim is to weave these stories into an anthology that promotes the unique perspective and creativity of the expat community in Seoul.

HOW TO SUBMIT

We are seeking unpublished short stories under 6000 words that are set in and/or about the city of Seoul. Writers are encouraged to interpret this broadly and freely; submissions of all genres are welcome. We are looking for stories that 1) provide a fresh and relatable insight into the city and its culture, and 2) are intensely engaging, with all the appeals of a traditional story. As a token of our dedication to quality, we will pay $.05 per word for accepted submissions.

Please send your submission to submission.ficwriseoul@gmail.com as an attachment. Multiple and simultaneous submissions are accepted, and there is no reading fee. Estimated response time is up to twelve weeks.

Please note that the anthology will also be translated into Korean and pitched to traditional Korean publishers.

WHO WILL BE JUDGING THE SUBMISSIONS?

The submissions will be considered by a team of readers on a voluntary basis. The readers consist of the members of Fiction Writers in Seoul. Each submission will be guaranteed two reads: one by a volunteer, and another by the editor. The final decisions will be made and announced after a monthly editorial meeting.

Sollee Bae (Editor) is the organizer and founder of Fiction Writers in Seoul. She has translated many books from English to Korean, including Zorba the Greek and Mara, Daughter of the Nile. “Arpan,” a South Korean short story by Park Hyoung-su that she co-translated from Korean to English, has appeared in Acta Koreana, Vol.17, No.2.

HOW WILL THE ANTHOLOGY BE PUBLISHED AND MADE AVAILABLE?

It will be independently published by Fiction Writers in Seoul in both print and e-book forms. The print books will be distributed across English bookstores in major cities of South Korea, and marketed by a hired specialist. In addition, the anthology will be translated into Korean (please see the item below for specific rights we are acquiring) and pitched to traditional Korean publishers.

WHAT RIGHTS DOES THE PUBLISHER ACQUIRE FROM THE WRITERS?

For the publication of this anthology, we are buying the following rights from the authors of accepted submissions:

1) First world rights, which guarantee that we will publish the story for the first time across the world;

2) Korean translation rights, which allow us to translate the story (as part of the entire anthology, not for the publication of the individual stories) into Korean.

The rights to the individual story remain with the author; the rights to the entire anthology belong to the publisher. We do, however, include the exclusivity clause in the contract, which gives us the exclusive rights to publish the story for 12 months after the publication date of the anthology.

To see the sample publishing contract, please click here.

***

31 January 19 — Hidden Histories — Third Flatiron

A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. Your tale can be based in the real world, past, present, or future, as long as it has a speculative fiction element. We’re not exactly looking for alternate history, but there can be a fork in the road timewise.

Reading period: January 1-31, 2019 DO NOT SUBMIT before 1 January.
Publication date: April 1, 2019

Stories should be submitted in either Microsoft Word (using double spacing), RTF, or plain text. They should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Flash humor pieces (Grins and Gurgles) should be short, around 600 words.

Please don’t send simultaneous or multiple submissions. If a story has been rejected, you can then send another (limit 2 per reading period).

Submit by email to:

flatsubmit@thirdflatiron.com

either as an attachment (Word, RTF) or in the body of the mail (text).

In the Subject: line of the email, please put:

flatsubmit:Title_of_Your_Work

to avoid being deemed a canned meat product based on ham.

If the work is for the humor section, please note that in the body of your email. A brief bio and a one- or two-sentence synopsis in the body of your email would also be helpful to us.

Use the following template (basically, follow William Shunn’s Standard Manuscript Format):

Your Name

Address (mailing)

Email address

Word count

[10 blank lines]

Title

Byline

Body of story

——–

Our response time is expected to be about 8 weeks (or less if the writer deadline is coming up soon).

REMUNERATION

As of: November 1, 2016

Your story must be original work, with the digital rights unencumbered. Accepted stories will be paid at the flat rate of 6 cents per word (U.S./SFWA professional rate), in return for the first publication rights to the story for six months after publication. All other rights will remain with the author. We no longer offer royalties. If your story is selected as the lead story, we request permission to podcast the story as a free sample portion of the anthology. We welcome new writers.

Third Flatiron will price and market your story to various e-publishing venues. We will format the story for the most popular electronic readers and platforms. You agree that we may distribute a sample (portion of the story) to potential customers.

For non-U.S. submissions, we prefer to pay via PayPal, if you have such an account.

Most books (except “year’s best” collections) will be available for sale in trade paperback.

Authors selected for publication will also be entitled to one free online copy of the anthology.

***

1 February 19 — Hashtag Queer, Volume 3 — Qommunicate Publishing

[NOTE: Submissions open to LGBTQ+ writers only.]

Like its successful predecessors Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Volume 3 will be released in June of 2019 to once again celebrate LGBTQ Pride season.

Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology is the annual collection of creative literary work by and about LGBTQ+. It includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and scripts up to 7,500 words.

Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Volume 3 will be published in print & ebook (compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.)

Submission Guidelines:

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Vol 3. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.

Theme:

= By and/or about LGBTQ+.

Genres:

= Fiction (including flash non-fiction of 1 page or less).
= Creative non-fiction & memoir.
= Poetry.
= Scripts (including plays and screenplays).

For this book, we are NOT considering:

= Erotica.
= Work written for children.

Length:

= Prose: up to 7,500 words
= Poetry: Up to 5 pages
= Scripts: Up to 10 pages
= Submissions of longer than 10 pages must be numbered.

Formats:

= All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
= If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions:

= Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

= Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
= Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Vol 3.

Reprints:

= Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

= We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
= NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
= We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

= Contributors will receive $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

= Your submission
= A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
= At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
= IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

= Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@hashtagqueer.com

or mailed to us at:

Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

= We will respond to all submissions by March 1, 2019.

Check out Hashtag Queer, Volume 1 & Hashtag Queer, Volume 2 to see what kinds of work we’ve published already, plus we’re always looking for new voices and perspectives!

***

8 February 19 — [Unnamed Indigenous Speculative Anthology] — ed. Darlene Naponse; Latitude 46 Publishing

[NOTE: this anthology is only open to self-identifying Indigenous writers.]

Latitude 46 Publishing is looking for Indigenous creative nonfiction and fiction short stories, prose, poetry, song, photo and visual artwork for its next anthology.

Darlene Naponse will be working as editor with Latitude 46 Publishing to publish an open anthology sharing words and imagery that explores the theme of community in relation to Indigenous time that has passed, time that is now and time that comes.

The call for submissions is open to self-identifying Indigenous writers. Anthology will be published in fall 2019.

Fiction genres accepted include: speculative fiction, science fiction, dark fiction, futurism, superhero fiction, science fantasy, horror, utopian and dystopian fiction and fantasy.

We are seeking original work up to 6,000 words, up to four poems/songs or two photos/drawings per submission. Please include a short bio (100 words) with your submission.

If you are an oral storyteller or if you require special assistance in transforming/translating your story, please contact Darlene Naponse at darlenenaponse@gmail.com– subject Latitude 46, Transforming/Translating.

Publication is scheduled for Fall 2019. There is no fee to submit your story. Payment for publication is $150.

Submit through the online portal at www.latitude46publishing.com. Include contact information, (full, name, mailing address, and email address) on the first page of all submissions. Fiction and creative nonfiction submissions must be double-spaced and numbered. For fiction and creative nonfiction, please include the word count on the first page of your submission. For questions, contact info@latitude46pubishing.com.

***

28 February 19 — Triangulation: Dark Skies — Parsec Ink

Triangulation is open for submissions. We are Parsec Ink’s speculative fiction annual, now in our 15th year. We’re looking for outstanding fantasy, science fiction, weird fiction, and speculative horror–from new and established writers. Take the theme and run with it. Tell us a story we won’t forget.

Theme: Triangulation: Dark Skies will be a celebration of the dark. This year, we are joining forces with the International Dark-Sky Association to raise awareness of the dangers of light pollution—to human health, to animals and plants in the nighttime ecosystem, and to the future of astronomical research on our planet. We’d like to see proactive characters experiencing firsthand the dangers and consequences of a world without darkness, but even more than that, we want stories celebrating our place in the universe, and our ability, as sentient beings, to see into the depths of space. Give us past, present, and future accounts. Cautionary tales. Secondary worlds and altered timelines. The effects of light pollution are many and varied—feel free to explore any aspects, from neurobiological studies, to life in an alien star system, to legends out of time.

How To Submit: Electronic submissions make our lives easier. Please upload your story via Submittable. If this is your first time using Submittable, you will need to create an account with them. Don’t worry: it’s free.

SUBMIT YOUR STORY HERE!

Word Count: We consider fiction up to 5,000 words, but the sweet spot is 3,000. There is no minimum word count.

Genre: We accept science fiction, fantasy, and horror–and enjoy intelligent blends of the three. Stories without a speculative element will not be considered.

Compensation: Pay is semi-pro: 4 cents a word. Authors will receive an e-book and one print copy of the anthology, plus wholesale pricing for additional print copies (typically 50% off the cover price).

Rights: We purchase North American serial rights, audio and electronic rights for the downloadable version(s). All subsidiary rights released upon publication.

Submissions: We are a meritocracy. New authors are as welcome as those with a laundry list of accomplishments. But it’s going to be the story that wins us over. Grab us by the lapels, drag us onto that plane, take us for the ride of our lives… but get us back on the ground safely and home in time for dinner.

We do not accept reprints, multiple submissions, or simultaneous submissions. If we reject a story before the end of the reading period, feel free to send another.

We love creative interpretations of our themes, but we do require the stories to be a solid fit.

We run mature content only if we like the story and find the mature content to be integral to it.

We do not accept fanfic, even if it’s based in a fictional universe that has passed into the public domain.

Manuscript Format: Please use industry standard manuscript format. We’re not testing you or trying to make you jump through hoops, but we do want a manuscript that is easy for us to read.

We accept manuscripts in the following formats:

== .doc or .docx (MS Word)
== .rtf (Rich Text Format — generic document format that most word processors can create)

Editorial Process: We aim to read submissions as they are received. If a story doesn’t work for us, we reject it. If we think the story has great potential but isn’t quite there yet, we request a rewrite. The ones we love the most, we hold on to for further consideration, but we won’t keep you guessing: you’ll get an email. Next, the stories fight it out amongst themselves until we have our final lineup. At which time, final acceptances are sent out. It’s sort of like Enter the Dragon, but without the nunchucks. When a story is accepted, the changes we suggest will typically be minor and/or cosmetic.

Response: Final decisions are made by March 31st.

Eligibility: All writers, including those who are known or related to the editorial staff, can submit to Triangulation. That doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily get in, but we are happy to consider their work.

***

15 March 19 — Sorghum and Spear — ed. Sheree Renée Thomas; Greene County Creative

Greene County Creative, a content agency, accepting submissions for its first anthology, Sorghum & Spear: The Way of Silk And Stone. We are looking for original works that fit the inclusive fantasy world of our comic book series, featuring young girls and women of all walks of life as they are influenced by their roles in the Forever War.

The tenet, “Pray for Peace but Prepare for War” is weaved deep into the culture of the An’Fre women. Sorghum & Spear speaks to the global diaspora, African, Latin, Asian and Indigenous. Stories that highlight or reveal a new perspective of fantasy in this rich, inclusive world are ideal. We seek works that explore love in all its forms, diversity, fate vs choice, self-discovery, and supernatural talents, and original works that portray the strength, sisterhood, and diversity of women—hallmarks of our world-building efforts. Given the unique guidelines of our world, we ask that you review Sorghum & Spear and its world-building rules carefully prior to submission.

Special consideration will be given to women and writers of color whose personal stories may additionally lend to their storytelling.

To guide in the world building within SORGHUM & SPEAR, a complimentary digital copy of the Sorghum & Spear: Simadan comic and The Sorghum & Spear Worldbuilders Guide are available via email request at greenecountycreative@gmail.com with the subject “ATTN: S&S Reference Request”.

ORIGINAL FICTION length: 2000 to 7,500 words

Payment: 0.06 cents per word + contributor copy

Genres: Fantasy written with a shared world

Email submissions to: greenecountycreative@gmail.com

No simultaneous submissions. No multi-submissions for short fiction.

Please use standard manuscript formatting when submitting your work:

https://shunn.net/format/story.html

Rights and Compensation: Payment: 0.06 per word for original fiction and a paperback copy of the anthology from Greene County Creative.

We are looking for previously unpublished works in English.

Seeking first world rights in English and non-exclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology.

Submission method: Upload story as .doc or .rtf to niteblade.submittable.com/submit.

***

31 March 19 — Letters from the Grave: A Collection of Epistolary Horror — Orbannin Books

The epistolary form has a long, proud tradition in the horror genre. From the classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula, through modern classics like World War Z. We want to see your fresh takes on the idea. Remember that the epistolary genre doesn’t just include letters. It can be stories created from nearly any kinds or combinations of documents, i.e. crime scene reports, diary entries, interview transcripts, etc. This can include modern electronic and digital “documents” such as texts, voicemails, Tweets, blog posts, and more. Original stories only, no reprints.

Preferred word count: Up to 10,000 words

Payment and rights: $.05/word on acceptance, and one paperback contributor’s copy. First Print and First Electronic Rights, exclusive for 1 year. The anthology will be published as an ebook and in paperback, and we reserve the right to produce a hardcover edition.

Stories should be submitted to editor@orbanninbooks.com, with the subject line “Letters from the Grave.”

Please don’t send us:

== Fan-fiction or stories using other authors’ characters, settings, etc, unless they are in the public domain.
== Gratuitous bestiality, incest, child sex, sexual assault, racism, etc. This is a horror anthology, of course, so “adult content” and horrific, disturbing incidents are certainly going to be there. Make sure, however, that any of these elements are necessary to the story and that their depiction makes sense in the context of the letter or other documents.
== Random horror stories that you’ve stuck a “Hey, you’ll never believe what happened to me!” email frame around.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $150. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $150 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 2500 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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 December 2018 — Apotheosis 2 — ed. Jason Andrew; Simian Publishing

Apotheosis 2 – More stories of human survival and defiance in a world subjugated by the return of the Elder Gods. Humanity struggled to grow and evolve as a species for thousands of years forever caught in the shadow of a dread threat known only to a devoted few. When the stars are right, the Old Ones will return to claim utter dominion of the world. Lovecraft Mythos stories often climax at the moment of the fateful return of the Elder Gods and the audience is left to ponder what might happen next. This anthology features stories about humanity under the reign of the Elder Gods and ancient terrors.

What do we mean by Lovecraft Mythos stories in relation to Apotheosis? We’re looking for stories inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and associated writers such as August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, and Frank Belknap Long. We’re also interested in writers that inspired Lovecraft such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany. We’re interested in classic mythos gods and monsters and originals that have inspired by the mythos.

Good Fiction Examples:

== Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of The Elder Gods
== “Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
== “A Colder War” by Charlie Stross
== In the Hall of the Yellow King by Peter Rawlik

What type of stories are we looking for? We’re looking for character-driven stories set during a time in the future where the ancient terrors that once ruled the Earth have claimed complete and utter dominion of the Earth. We’re less concerned about the strict interpretation of the Elder Gods than good stories that deal with real human concerns. How do people survive? How does life change? Will people accept their new gods or will they rebel? What will it mean to be human in such a world of gods and monsters? Surprise us. Don’t give us stories that we’ve read before. We want worlds that feel real populated by characters from different cultures, genders, and ethnicities. Avoid cultural appropriation. Do your homework. We recommend that you read our last anthology to see the types of stories we enjoy.

What types of submissions should I avoid? We’re not as interested in the moment the ancient horrors return and conquer the world, but how humanity survives after the war is lost. Flashbacks are OK, but the story should not be about that time. We enjoy historical mythos fiction, but this is not the anthology for it. Stories must be set in the future. We are not looking for poetry for this anthology.

Submission Details:

== Word-count: 2,000 to 7,000
== Worldwide print and e-book rights (exclusive for 6 months, non-exclusive for an additional 30 months).Exceptions will be made for stories accepted for “Best Of” anthologies.
== Apotheosis will be available in both Print on Demand and e-book formats.
== Submissions open December 1, 2018, and will close at 11:59 PST on December 31, 2018. You may submit at: apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com via an attachment. (Do not submit before December 1st 2018 or your submission will be deleted)
== Queries and questions may be sent to : apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com. (You may send queries and questions anytime.) All responses will be accepted or rejected by August 15th, 2018. Please do not query about submitted stories before then. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. Our word count limits are hard for open submissions. Reprints may be submitted, but we’re only accepting three or four at the most. (It should be clearly stated that the submission is a reprint in your cover later or this will be an automatic rejection later.)
== Please use standard format guidelines. If it is difficult to read, we will reject your story. Your story must include your name, address, telephone number, email address, and approximate word count on the first page. Your cover letter should include your complete contact information, story title, approximate word count, and a short bio.
== We’re only accepting a limited number of reprints. If you are submitting a reprint, please tag the subject with #Reprint. If we find out later your submission is a reprint and it wasn’t tagged, it will be dropped from the anthology.
== Payment: 3 cents per word (or 1 cent per word for reprints), paid within 90 days after publication. Plus contributor copy of print and e-book.

***

31 December 2018 — Pink Triangle Rhapsody: Volume 1 Mixed Genre — Lycan Valley Press

NOTE: Submissions open to gay male writers only.

Pink Triangle Rhapsody is our newest anthology series in celebration of and dedicated entirely to gay men and their cultural history.

Although we realize this may create some controversy, this anthology series is open to gay male writers only. While we appreciate that women and straight men are able to accurately portray gay characters, our intent with this series is to highlight and explore the gay male cultural experiences on a more personal level.

The Pink Triangle Rhapsody series is a non-themed anthology series, with the exception of the required genre and inclusion of one or more of Lycan Valley’s required elements. The series is intended to be a collection of stories written with “effusively rapturous or emotional expression.”

Volume 1 is a mixed genre volume and will feature 5 stories in each of 5 genres for a total of 25 stories — Horror, Sci Fi, Dark Fantasy, Thriller, Pulp Mystery. See definitions here.

Each story must include a supernatural, paranormal or occult element (horror may include psychological horror with or without one of the other elements). See definitions here.

Regardless of genre and element, we’re looking for unrestrained and emotional writing, interpreted as you see fit for the story.

Word Count: 2500 to 8000 words. Stories less than 2250 or more than 8250 will be declined unread.

Payment: $0.04 per word based on final published word count.

Submission: Please read our general submission guidelines before submitting, including basic Shunn formatting with blind submission requirements.

Submissions that do not follow proper formatting guidelines or meet the minimum required elements will be declined unread.

No simultaneous submissions. If you submit to us, please wait until you receive a response before submitting elsewhere. Declined story notifications are sent out immediately upon making that decision. If your story is still in-progress, it means it is still under consideration pending the final TOC.

No multiple submissions. Submit only one story per open submission call unless invited to resubmit.

No unsolicited reprints or poetry submissions.

Please do not send email inquires asking us to consider a reprint, adjust the word count, alter the genre or element requirements or make other exceptions to the guidelines.

All status updates are made via submittable. If you have not received a notification that your story has been declined, it is still under consideration. Short-listed stories will be held until the final deadline as we make the final TOC decisions.

***

31 December 2018 — Portals; Temporally Deactivated; Alternate Peace — ed. Joshua Palmatier, Patricia Bray, S.C. Butler, David B. Coe, Steven H. Silver; Zombies Need Brains, LLC

Zombies Need Brains LLC is accepting submissions to its three science fiction and fantasy anthologies PORTALS, TEMPORALLY DEACTIVATED, and ALTERNATE PEACE. Stories must be submitted in electronic form as an attachment with the title of the story as the file name in .doc or .docx format. The header of the email should include the name of the anthology the submission is for along with the title of the submission (for example: WERE-: WereJellyfish Gone Wild!). The content of the email should also include which anthology the manuscript is intended for. Please send multiple manuscripts in separate emails; you may submit to any or all of the anthologies as many times as you wish. Manuscripts should be in manuscript format, meaning double-spaced, 12pt font, standard margins on top, bottom and sides, and pages numbered. Please use Times New Roman font. The first page should include the Title of the story, Author’s name, address, and email, and Pseudonym if different from the author’s real name. Italics and bold should be in italics and bold.

Stories for this anthology must be original (no reprints or previously published material), no more than 7,500 words in length, and must satisfy the theme of the anthology.

PORTALS is to feature science fiction or fantasy stories that contain a portal opening up between two different worlds and the consequences that come from that portal. We are attempting to fill half of the anthology with science fiction stories and half with fantasy stories. Stories featuring more interesting settings and twists on the typical portals will receive more attention than those that use standard tropes. In other words, we don’t want to see 100 stories dealing with a door in the back of the wardrobe leading to a fantasy world of gnomes, dwarves, and elves. If we do, it’s likely that only one, at most, would be selected for the anthology. We do NOT want to see time portals, connecting one time to another; however, it can be a portal from our reality to an alternate reality. We are interested in all kinds of portals: doors at the back of wardrobes, stone archways in the middle of the forest, wormholes, cracks in reality, etc. Be creative, choose something different, and use it in an unusual and unexpected way. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

TEMPORALLY DEACTIVATED is to feature stories where the author explores what the phrase “temporally deactivated” could mean with regards to a person, place, or thing. Stories featuring more interesting takes on the twisting of time and how it is integrated into the story will receive more attention than those with more typical twisted time stories. We do NOT want to see stories where “temporal deactivation” means simply death. So be creative and use time in an unusual and unexpected way. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

ALTERNATE PEACE is to feature alternate history stories where the divergence from our timeline comes from some kind of peaceful change to our past. It must explore the consequences of this divergence, not simply introduce the divergence. Stories featuring more interesting historical settings and twists on the consequences of the peaceful divergence from our timeline will receive more attention than those with more standard changes to the course of history. So be creative and come up with an unusual and unexpected break from the timeline. Please note that while the divergence in the timeline must be from some peaceful change, that change CAN lead to violence; in other words, you are allowed to have violence in the story, it just can’t be what’s initiating the alternate history. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

Here are some example stories for ALTERNATE PEACE — stories where the divergence from the timeline comes from a peaceful change:

Stephen Baxter: The Twelfth Album (Interzone 13, Hartwell’s Best Science Fiction of the Year 4)
Michael F. Flynn: Quaetiones Super Caelo et Mundo (Analog, 7/07)
Janet Kagan: Love Our Lockwood (Alternate Presidents)
John Kessel: The Franchise (Pure Product, Fields of Fantasies)
Mary Robinette Kowal: The Lady Astronaut series (Tor Books)
Ian R. MacLeod: Snodgrass (Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 10, Past Magic)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Recovering Apollo 8 (Asimov’s, 2/7, Recovering Apollo 8)
Howard Waldrop: Heart of Whitenesse (Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 15, Heart of Whitenesse)

DEADLINE and TIMELINE:

The deadline for submissions is December 31st, 2018. Decisions on stories should be completed by the end of February 2019. Please send submissions to contact@zombiesneedbrains.com. You will receive a receipt email within a few days of receiving the submission and having it filed for consideration. Notices about decisions on the stories will be sent out no later than the end of March 2019.

If your story is selected for use in the anthology, you should expect a revision letter by the end of April 2019. Revisions and the final draft of the story will be expected no later than the end of May 2019. These dates may change due to the editors’ work schedules. Zombies Need Brains LLC is seeking exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages for the duration of one year after publication/release of the anthology, non-exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages after that. Your story cannot appear elsewhere during that first year. Pay rate will be an advance of a minimum of 6 cents per word. The anthology will be published as an ebook and an exclusive mass market paperback edition, distributed to the Kickstarter backers. The book would be available after that to the general public in ebook and trade paperback formats. Advances would be immediately earned out by the success of the Kickstarter. Royalties on additional sales beyond the Kickstarter will be 25% of ebook cover price and 10% of trade paperback cover price, both split evenly (not by word count) between the authors in and editors of the anthology.

Questions regarding these submission guidelines should be sent to contact@zombiesneedbrains.com. Thank you.

[NOTE: I had a story published in one of the ZNB anthologies a few years back. I found the ZNB people good to work with, they paid promptly, and I’ve received several royalty checks since then. Highly recommended for anyone who writes short SFF.]

***

31 December 2018 — Curse the Darkness — Unlit Press

For our inaugural anthology, Curse the Darkness*, we’re throwing our doors wide open and inviting submissions on the theme of darkness. That could be the absence of light, the presence of evil, or the sinister thoughts of the afflicted. However you choose to interpret the theme, just make sure you leave us afraid to turn out the lights.

We’re looking for stories with compelling characters, sparkling dialogue, and strong, original voices. Send us stories that step off the well-trod paths into the unlit wilderness of the unusual, the interesting, and the provocative.

Please review our submission guidelines below before submitting your story via the submission form.

*Curse the Darkness is a working title. Unlit Press reserves the right to change the title as necessary.

Submission Guidelines

Word Count: 3,000 to 10,000 words.

Payment: Accepted authors will receive a one-off payment of £75 (approximately $100) or the equivalent in their local currency.

Format: We accept .doc, .docx, .rtf or .odt.

Multiple Submissions: No, send us one great story.

Simultaneous Submissions: Yes, but please let us know as soon as possible if your submission is accepted elsewhere.

Previously Published: No, we want original unpublished stories only.

Formatting: Double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12pt, with a single space after periods.

Rights: Unlit Press will have first world rights for an exclusive period of 12 months from the date of publication. At the end of the exclusive term, rights will revert back to the original author with Unlit Press retaining world distribution rights for the format(s) originally contracted.

Contributor Copies: Contributors will receive one free print copy of the anthology.

***

31 December 2018 — Unnamed Horor/Humor Anthology — ed. Brett Reistroffer; Bad Dream Entertainment

For our first new anthology of short fiction after a two year hiatus, Bad Dream is now accepting submissions of humorous dark fiction. Editor Brett Reistroffer is looking for original horror fiction with a strong sense of comedy, and most themes, subjects, and settings are welcome but standard genre tropes are definitely discouraged (vampires, zombies, werewolves, anything Cthulhu, etc.) The comedic aspect can be goofy and slapstick or black and morbid, just as long as there are equal amounts of darkness and humor. Horror has always been fertile ground for that unique juxtaposition and it’s exactly what we are looking for, so check out the specifics in the guidelines below and send in your best original horror humor.

**UPDATE: Please make sure to read the guidelines before submitting; this is a horror/humor anthology, meaning that stories should have elements of both. Straightforward horror stories will NOT be considered, you’re just wasting your time (and ours) by submitting ones without humor or comedic elements.**

-Stories should be between 1,500 and 8000 words in length, a few hundred on either side is fine, but if you have something significantly longer then you should inquire first through our regular contact email.

-We’re not afraid of blood, sex, and bad words but we’re also not interested in purely exploitative work. If you’re using graphic material make sure it has a point and serves the story.

-Multiple submissions are allowed, but limited to a maximum of two. You can submit additional stories after receiving responses for current submissions.

-Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please, please let us know as soon as possible if a submission is accepted elsewhere while still in our queue.

-We are looking for original fiction only, no reprints. First-time English translations are acceptable, however.

-Submissions should be in standard manuscript format, with contact info and word counts on the first page. File types should be in .doc, .txt, .odt, or .rtf only. We don’t accept submissions in PDF format.

-Payment for accepted stories will be $0.06/word, and Bad Dream Entertainment claims First Rights for electronic and print mediums (in English only). All authors included in the anthology will also receive royalties, split evenly from fifty percent of the book’s gross sales profit.

-Response times will be between two and four weeks unless the volume gets out of hand, and we will update everyone as necessary here and on social media if that is the case.

Send submissions to: submissions [at] baddreamentertainment [dot] com, and keep it creepy!

***

31 December 2018 — Vex Me No More — ed. Christina Escamilla; Horror Queen Media

“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest… because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”

– Terry Pratchett

What We Want:

We want your witch stories! Though they do not necessarily have to be female-centric, they do need to be tales of powerful, unique beings. Remember, this is a horror anthology, so while you can have elements of other genres, we want to be scared.

The Details:

Payment: 0.02/word & contributor copy

Reprints: Yes, but it will be $25 token payment.

Length: short stories up to 5,000 words

Rights: 1st edition publication rights to digital, print, and audio.

To submit please send your story and a short bio to info@thehorrorqueen.com. Simultaneous submissions are allowed and you may send in as many submissions as you would like. Please allow 2 – 3 weeks to hear back.

***

31 December 2018 — Space Opera Libretti — ed. Jennifer Lee Rossman and Brian McNett

“I just hate it,” says Brian’s friend Andrea, whom he’s known since he was five, “when some insensitive clod gets his hands on a good Modern Spacetime Opera with Lesbian Cyborg Time Nazis and Dominatrix AI Mayan Gods versus Intersexed Space Pirate Dinosaurs and their Ambisexual Steampunk Alchemical Gnome allies libretto and then screws it up.”

Folks, we want his snarky friend to be happy. Science-Fiction has done a very poor job over the years at giving us good Opera. Space Opera is too often seen as an extension of “Horse Opera” which is not opera at all. Where are the arias? Who is that singing coloratura diva soprano during the overture?



And thus, we the editors owe a debt of gratitude to Charlie Stross for showing us the way.
 Soooo…

With the prelims out of the way, we’re looking for:

Dramatic, large-scale stories of the distant future, focused on optimism and inclusion and blowing things up. Weird mashups. Actual arias. Fat ladies singing on funeral pyres. Watery tarts distributing swords optional. Play fast and loose. No holds barred as long as it’s a tasteful treatment written with respect.

Stories between 2,500 and 7,000 words. Exceptions will be made for really great stories, but try to keep it within these limits.

Original stories preferred but we will accept a few outstanding reprints.

Diversity. Straight white dudes are fine. We all know a straight white dude we love. But space opera is for everyone, so we want stories about everyone. Give us women, nonbinary people, disabled folks, people of all races and beliefs (or lack thereof — atheists and agnostics are more than welcome!), LGBTQIAP (I prefer “QUILTBAG” but that leaves of the “P” —Brian) people!

Intersectionality, too. Is your character a nonbinary autistic mixed race wheelchair user? We want their story. Definitely want that one!

Same goes for authors. We want to hear from people who haven’t had a voice in publishing. This doesn’t mean we won’t take established authors if their stories meet our criteria. Just don’t self-reject if you’ve unpublished or under-published. We’ve all been there.

What we’re not looking for:

Space Nazis are out, as are Lovecraftian gods. Both are overdone. But there’s nothing barring Time Nazis, and Aztec gods would give old H.P. the serious willies.

More seriously, we’re not interested in:

Poems.

Erotica.

Violence against children or animals.

Stories that perpetuate misogyny, queermisia, ableism, racism, or any other hateful ideology. (Individual characters can be hateful, of course, but we’d like the stories themselves to be positive and inclusive.)

Don’t self-reject. If the story is really good but contains something on this list, we’ll try to work together in edits to make it as good as it can be.

Formatting:

Don’t stress about this. We’re not going to fault you if you use single spacing instead of double, or Calibri instead of Courier. As long as it’s legible, you’re good.

That said, it’d be awesome if you could put your name and the word count somewhere at the top of the manuscript, and send it as an rtf, doc, or docx. Or, if you prefer, just copy and paste that bad boy in the body of an email.

If you’d really LIKE to submit a “proper” manuscript we won’t stop you. In fact, here’s a helpful article from SFWA: https://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/the-obligatory-manuscript-format-article/

Cover letter:

In your email, please tell us the following things:

Your name and/or pen name.

Your pronouns, if you’re comfortable doing so. Most people are happy being referred to as she or he, but if you use they/them or ze/zir or another set, just let us know and we’ll make sure to use them.

The story title. (We hate titles, too, but nothing needs to be set in stone right now. If we accept your story and you’re not in love with the title, we’ll help you come up with something.)

The approximate wordcount. No need to tell us it’s approximate. We know they’re all approximations. (I did not actually know this when I started writing, and I definitely updated the exact word count every time I edited a story. –Jen)

If your story is #ownvoices (ie, you’re a gay author writing about gay characters or an Asian author writing about Asian characters) and you’re comfortable sharing, your marginalized identities.

Has this story been published before? Your bio, including any recent publications.

Payment and rights:

For original stories, we’re asking for non-exclusive first world digital and print rights. That means you keep the rights to your story, but we’re paying you for the privilege of printing it in this anthology. As soon as it’s published, you can publish it elsewhere. (Just be sure to credit us as the original publisher.)

For reprints, we’re asking for non-exclusive world digital and print rights, which also revert to you upon publication.

Payment depends on how much we earn with the Kickstarter, but we’re aiming for a minimum of 6 cents a word.

If the Kickstarter fails, we will still pay the accepted authors but it will be royalties — ie, you get paid a percentage of what the book earns.

How to submit:

Send your story as an .rtf, .doc, or .docx or in the body of an email, along with your cover letter, to

jenniferleerossman@gmail.com

Simultaneous submissions are okay, but please let us know if you get accepted elsewhere.

Multiple subs are not encouraged, but if you have two stories you really love, feel free to send both. We will not accept more than one story per author.

Everyone will hear back within a week after the end of the submission period with a rejection or to let you know we’re holding it for consideration, though most will hear back much sooner. Final decisions may take a few weeks depending on the volume of submissions.

[NOTE: okay, this sounds like a way-fun project, but if their Kickstarter doesn’t fund, all you get is a royalty split. If you wouldn’t be satisfied with a royalty split — and if you read my listings, you probably wouldn’t — I suggest waiting until their Kickstarter deadline (14 Dec 19) to see how it went before subbing.]

***

31 December 2018 — Rosalind’s Siblings — ed. Bogi Takács; Galli Books

[NOTE: Deadline extended.]

Rosalind’s Siblings is an anthology of speculative stories about people of marginalized genders/sexes who are scientists: scientists doing good, changing the world, or just getting on with their work of expanding human knowledge in a speculative context, presented in a positive light. This anthology is named for Rosalind Franklin, the so-called Dark Lady of DNA, one of the most famously erased female scientists in history, and a direct relation of the founder of Galli Books. The anthology is being edited by Bogi Takács.

The stories do not need to problematize gender/sex, though this is also welcome, and we would like to publish a mix of approaches. We are generally interested in positive portrayals of science and the protagonists doing research, but this can include a critical reappraisal. (E.g., we would very much like to see stories in which science is decolonized and/or Indigenized, or in some other ways incorporates approaches beyond Western neo-positivism.) We are not interested in “mad scientist” tropes or “evil science.” We are also not interested in disability cure narratives and related tropes, unless they are actively subverted / deconstructed.

Stories must contain a speculative element. We are happy to read works from any speculative subgenre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, magical realism, fabulism, mythic work, Weird fiction and so on. Any amount of science detail is welcome with thoughtful engagement.

Protagonists can be trans and/or nonbinary people, women, intersex people, genderqueer or gender-nonconforming people, people of culturally specific genders/sexes, and any combinations thereof. They do not need to identify as women, feminine or femme specifically, but those stories are particularly welcome; as are stories with trans, nonbinary and/or intersex men or masculine protagonists. Protagonists can have any sexual orientation.

You do not need to belong to any marginalized group to submit, but we are very happy to consider submissions from people who belong to underrepresented / marginalized groups in speculative fiction, including Black, Indigenous people and/or people of color, non-Western and/or non-Anglophonic people, migrants, QUILTBAG+ people, disabled, chronically ill and/or neuroatypical people. We welcome people from all letters of the QUILTBAG+, including trans, intersex, asexual, aromantic and bisexual people, who are more commonly ignored. Please don’t self-reject!

You do not need to disclose your marginalizations in your cover letter, but you are welcome to do so. Please send submissions to galli-books@galli-books.co.uk with “ROSALIND” in the subject line and the story title. Format submissions reasonably close to Standard Manuscript Format, and send them in .doc, .odt, .rtf formats, or .pdf if the story has unusual formatting that needs to be preserved. Please do NOT send .docx files.

Submissions open on 1st November and close on 31st December. Please do not submit outside that window.

We pay £0.08/word upon signed contract and are interested in previously unpublished short stories between 500 and 7500 words, and nonfiction essays on our theme.

***

1 January 19 — Tales from the Lake, Vol. 6 — ed. Mercedes M. Yardley and Eugene Johnson; Crystal Lake Publishing

We will accept submissions for the non-themed anthology Tales from the Lake Vol. 6 from November 1st, 2018 through January 1st, 2019. Compiled and edited by Mercedes M. Yardley and Eugene Johnson. Pays 3c a word (USD) upon publication.

Don’t miss out! In previous volumes we’ve published Jack Ketchum, Joe R. Lansdale, Graham Masterton, Ramsey Campbell, Elizabeth Massie, Tim Curran, Edward Lee, Gene O’Neill, Tim Waggoner, Bev Vincent, Kealan Patrick Burke, and many more.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

= Create believable, three-dimensional characters just as real as your friends and neighbors. The world these characters inhabit should be equally authentic, hitting all the senses.
= We want stories that’ll haunt the readers for months to come.
= Stories should be between 500 and 5,000 words max, with 3k to 4k being the sweet spot.
= Originality is important—we don’t want your version of someone else’s story from yesteryear.
= Although our arms are wide open, we’re more interested in fiction that reflects the modern. Kelly Link, Karen Russell, Joe Hill, and Damien Angelica Walters are prime examples of current dark fiction writers encapsulating the above in their work.
= Quality of the work must be top notch! The authors mentioned above represent the high-water mark we’re looking for.

WHAT WE’RE NOT LOOKING FOR:

= Stories sent before or after the submission window. These will not be read.
= Rape stories or sexual abuse or any explicit abuse toward children or animals is expressly forbidden. This can however be mentioned or remembered by your character, but be subtle.
= Stories that are not short horror stories.
= Novels or novellas.
= Stories with flat worlds.
= To avoid too many writers writing about lakes, please keep in mind this is a non-themed anthology.

PAYMENT:

For this anthology we are paying 3 cents (USD) per word up to 5000 words via PayPal.

REPRINTS:

We DO NOT accept reprints, unless we approach an author for a specific reprint deemed suitable.

SIMULTANEOUS/MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS:

We prefer you do not submit your story elsewhere while it’s being considered by us, especially if it’s been shortlisted. No multiple submissions, either. You get one shot. Make it count.

RESPONSE TIME:

For the most part, acceptances will not go out until some time after the deadline. Rejections and shortlisting notices will go out sooner. Feel free to query by April 1, 2019.

RIGHTS:

We are seeking FIRST world rights, both in print, electronic, and audio forms as well as translation rights for an exclusive period of 1 year and then non-exclusive after that.

FORMATTING:

Submit your manuscript in Shunn Format (http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html) as a .doc or .docx attachment. Keep your cover letter brief, but relay any pertinent information. You should also include a short bio. Subject of your email should start with SUBMISSION and then the title of your story.

Please email your submission to: Lake6subs@gmail.com.

***

15 January 19 — Would But Time Await — ed. Scott T. Goudsward and K. H. Vaughan; Ulthar Press

[NOTE: the only “official” guidelines I can find for this one is this Facebook page, which seems to belong to one of the editors. If your only publicity is Facebook or similar, that comes across as kind of fly-by-night. There’s no mention of this book on the Ulthar Press web site, and some poking around shows that both Duotrope and Grinder have delisted this market. Sub at your own risk.]

Would But Time Await:
An Anthology of New England

Ulthar Press is seeking original, unpublished short stories for an anthology of folk horror with New England ties, scheduled for release at Necronomicon-Providence in 2019. For the purposes of this project, we are defining folk horror as horror literature in which the present (in the story, not necessarily current day) collides with the history, folklore, traditions, and psychogeography of a region. The term “folk horror” came to prominence in describing a subgenre of film represented best by the “unholy trinity” of Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and The Wicker Man (1973). In general, themes include:

== Psychological and physical Isolation
== The effects of geography on emotion and behavior
== Old and strange traditions that persist despite the encroachment of the modern world
== Contrast between folklore and formal, academic, or “official” knowledge
== Conflict between the urban outsider and the rural insider
== Supernatural strangeness hidden beneath the surface of civilization

Some excellent discussion of what does and does not constitute “folk horror” can be found online (see links below), but there is no source that we consider authoritative. If your story can convince us that it is folk horror, then it is. We want to see fresh takes on old tropes.

We are looking for work that uses the physical, historical, and social landscapes of New England as a focal point (rather than a story that could be set anywhere else but just happens to be set in New England.) There is a long and rich history of horrific and strange folklore in New England but that doesn’t mean a writer needs to restrict themselves to it and writers are perfectly welcome to invent their own folklore, traditions, and fictional New England locations. Although Lovecraft certainly wrote stories that could be considered folk horror, we do NOT want Lovecraft pastiche.

A few examples of what we consider Folk Horror in literature:

[Click through for an extensive list of examples.]

PAYMENT

We will be paying a flat rate of $75USD within 30 days of publication for first rights in print and digital, plus a physical and digital contributor’s copy.

STORY CRITERIA.

Length:4,000 – 6000 words.
No reprints.
No simultaneous or multiple submissions.
Standard MS format

Send all submissions with a brief cover letter to wouldbuttimeawait@gmail.com by January 15, 2019.

SOME THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE SUBMITTING:

New England is an ethnically diverse region of the United States with a long (and often sordid) history so please keep the contemporary effects of that history in mind when submitting and avoid work that portrays the indigenous people and tribes of New England in a racist, bigoted, or stereotypical sense and please avoid stereotypes of the poor, and economically disenfranchised, all races, genders, sexes, sexualities, (dis)abilities, faiths, and anything that targets marginalized people.

In general, we are looking to avoid depictions of sexual violence (unless written with extreme care, an actual point beyond the simple violence of it, and, above all, empathy toward victims of sexual violence.)

***

31 January 19 — To Seoul, from the World — ed. Sollee Bae; Fiction Writers in Seoul

Fiction Writers in Seoul is a creative writing community based in Seoul, South Korea. Since 2013, we have critiqued over 250 submissions by writers from all around the world. Though varying in themes and genres, together they represent a diverse voice of travelers and expats who have called Seoul their passion, their home. And now, our aim is to weave these stories into an anthology that promotes the unique perspective and creativity of the expat community in Seoul.

HOW TO SUBMIT

We are seeking unpublished short stories under 6000 words that are set in and/or about the city of Seoul. Writers are encouraged to interpret this broadly and freely; submissions of all genres are welcome. We are looking for stories that 1) provide a fresh and relatable insight into the city and its culture, and 2) are intensely engaging, with all the appeals of a traditional story. As a token of our dedication to quality, we will pay $.05 per word for accepted submissions.

Please send your submission to submission.ficwriseoul@gmail.com as an attachment. Multiple and simultaneous submissions are accepted, and there is no reading fee. Estimated response time is up to twelve weeks.

Please note that the anthology will also be translated into Korean and pitched to traditional Korean publishers.

WHO WILL BE JUDGING THE SUBMISSIONS?

The submissions will be considered by a team of readers on a voluntary basis. The readers consist of the members of Fiction Writers in Seoul. Each submission will be guaranteed two reads: one by a volunteer, and another by the editor. The final decisions will be made and announced after a monthly editorial meeting.

Sollee Bae (Editor) is the organizer and founder of Fiction Writers in Seoul. She has translated many books from English to Korean, including Zorba the Greek and Mara, Daughter of the Nile. “Arpan,” a South Korean short story by Park Hyoung-su that she co-translated from Korean to English, has appeared in Acta Koreana, Vol.17, No.2.

HOW WILL THE ANTHOLOGY BE PUBLISHED AND MADE AVAILABLE?

It will be independently published by Fiction Writers in Seoul in both print and e-book forms. The print books will be distributed across English bookstores in major cities of South Korea, and marketed by a hired specialist. In addition, the anthology will be translated into Korean (please see the item below for specific rights we are acquiring) and pitched to traditional Korean publishers.

WHAT RIGHTS DOES THE PUBLISHER ACQUIRE FROM THE WRITERS?

For the publication of this anthology, we are buying the following rights from the authors of accepted submissions:

1) First world rights, which guarantee that we will publish the story for the first time across the world;

2) Korean translation rights, which allow us to translate the story (as part of the entire anthology, not for the publication of the individual stories) into Korean.

The rights to the individual story remain with the author; the rights to the entire anthology belong to the publisher. We do, however, include the exclusivity clause in the contract, which gives us the exclusive rights to publish the story for 12 months after the publication date of the anthology.

To see the sample publishing contract, please click here.

***

31 January 19 — Hidden Histories — Third Flatiron

A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. Your tale can be based in the real world, past, present, or future, as long as it has a speculative fiction element. We’re not exactly looking for alternate history, but there can be a fork in the road timewise.

Reading period: January 1-31, 2019 DO NOT SUBMIT before 1 January.
Publication date: April 1, 2019

Stories should be submitted in either Microsoft Word (using double spacing), RTF, or plain text. They should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Flash humor pieces (Grins and Gurgles) should be short, around 600 words.

Please don’t send simultaneous or multiple submissions. If a story has been rejected, you can then send another (limit 2 per reading period).

Submit by email to:

flatsubmit@thirdflatiron.com

either as an attachment (Word, RTF) or in the body of the mail (text).

In the Subject: line of the email, please put:

flatsubmit:Title_of_Your_Work

to avoid being deemed a canned meat product based on ham.

If the work is for the humor section, please note that in the body of your email. A brief bio and a one- or two-sentence synopsis in the body of your email would also be helpful to us.

Use the following template (basically, follow William Shunn’s Standard Manuscript Format):

Your Name

Address (mailing)

Email address

Word count

[10 blank lines]

Title

Byline

Body of story

——–

Our response time is expected to be about 8 weeks (or less if the writer deadline is coming up soon).

REMUNERATION

As of: November 1, 2016

Your story must be original work, with the digital rights unencumbered. Accepted stories will be paid at the flat rate of 6 cents per word (U.S./SFWA professional rate), in return for the first publication rights to the story for six months after publication. All other rights will remain with the author. We no longer offer royalties. If your story is selected as the lead story, we request permission to podcast the story as a free sample portion of the anthology. We welcome new writers.

Third Flatiron will price and market your story to various e-publishing venues. We will format the story for the most popular electronic readers and platforms. You agree that we may distribute a sample (portion of the story) to potential customers.

For non-U.S. submissions, we prefer to pay via PayPal, if you have such an account.

Most books (except “year’s best” collections) will be available for sale in trade paperback.

Authors selected for publication will also be entitled to one free online copy of the anthology.

***

1 February 19 — Hashtag Queer, Volume 3 — Qommunicate Publishing

[NOTE: Submissions open to LGBTQ+ writers only.]

Like its successful predecessors Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Volume 3 will be released in June of 2019 to once again celebrate LGBTQ Pride season.

Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology is the annual collection of creative literary work by and about LGBTQ+. It includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and scripts up to 7,500 words.

Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Volume 3 will be published in print & ebook (compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.)

Submission Guidelines:

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Vol 3. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.

Theme:

= By and/or about LGBTQ+.

Genres:

= Fiction (including flash non-fiction of 1 page or less).
= Creative non-fiction & memoir.
= Poetry.
= Scripts (including plays and screenplays).

For this book, we are NOT considering:

= Erotica.
= Work written for children.

Length:

= Prose: up to 7,500 words
= Poetry: Up to 5 pages
= Scripts: Up to 10 pages
= Submissions of longer than 10 pages must be numbered.

Formats:

= All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
= If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions:

= Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

= Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
= Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Vol 3.

Reprints:

= Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

= We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
= NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
= We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

= Contributors will receive $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

= Your submission
= A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
= At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
= IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

= Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@hashtagqueer.com

or mailed to us at:

Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

= We will respond to all submissions by March 1, 2019.

Check out Hashtag Queer, Volume 1 & Hashtag Queer, Volume 2 to see what kinds of work we’ve published already, plus we’re always looking for new voices and perspectives!

***

28 February 19 — Triangulation: Dark Skies — Parsec Ink

Triangulation is open for submissions. We are Parsec Ink’s speculative fiction annual, now in our 15th year. We’re looking for outstanding fantasy, science fiction, weird fiction, and speculative horror–from new and established writers. Take the theme and run with it. Tell us a story we won’t forget.

Theme: Triangulation: Dark Skies will be a celebration of the dark. This year, we are joining forces with the International Dark-Sky Association to raise awareness of the dangers of light pollution—to human health, to animals and plants in the nighttime ecosystem, and to the future of astronomical research on our planet. We’d like to see proactive characters experiencing firsthand the dangers and consequences of a world without darkness, but even more than that, we want stories celebrating our place in the universe, and our ability, as sentient beings, to see into the depths of space. Give us past, present, and future accounts. Cautionary tales. Secondary worlds and altered timelines. The effects of light pollution are many and varied—feel free to explore any aspects, from neurobiological studies, to life in an alien star system, to legends out of time.

How To Submit: Electronic submissions make our lives easier. Please upload your story via Submittable. If this is your first time using Submittable, you will need to create an account with them. Don’t worry: it’s free.

SUBMIT YOUR STORY HERE!

Word Count: We consider fiction up to 5,000 words, but the sweet spot is 3,000. There is no minimum word count.

Genre: We accept science fiction, fantasy, and horror–and enjoy intelligent blends of the three. Stories without a speculative element will not be considered.

Compensation: Pay is semi-pro: 4 cents a word. Authors will receive an e-book and one print copy of the anthology, plus wholesale pricing for additional print copies (typically 50% off the cover price).

Rights: We purchase North American serial rights, audio and electronic rights for the downloadable version(s). All subsidiary rights released upon publication.

Submissions: We are a meritocracy. New authors are as welcome as those with a laundry list of accomplishments. But it’s going to be the story that wins us over. Grab us by the lapels, drag us onto that plane, take us for the ride of our lives… but get us back on the ground safely and home in time for dinner.

We do not accept reprints, multiple submissions, or simultaneous submissions. If we reject a story before the end of the reading period, feel free to send another.

We love creative interpretations of our themes, but we do require the stories to be a solid fit.

We run mature content only if we like the story and find the mature content to be integral to it.

We do not accept fanfic, even if it’s based in a fictional universe that has passed into the public domain.

Manuscript Format: Please use industry standard manuscript format. We’re not testing you or trying to make you jump through hoops, but we do want a manuscript that is easy for us to read.

We accept manuscripts in the following formats:

== .doc or .docx (MS Word)
== .rtf (Rich Text Format — generic document format that most word processors can create)

Editorial Process: We aim to read submissions as they are received. If a story doesn’t work for us, we reject it. If we think the story has great potential but isn’t quite there yet, we request a rewrite. The ones we love the most, we hold on to for further consideration, but we won’t keep you guessing: you’ll get an email. Next, the stories fight it out amongst themselves until we have our final lineup. At which time, final acceptances are sent out. It’s sort of like Enter the Dragon, but without the nunchucks. When a story is accepted, the changes we suggest will typically be minor and/or cosmetic.

Response: Final decisions are made by March 31st.

Eligibility: All writers, including those who are known or related to the editorial staff, can submit to Triangulation. That doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily get in, but we are happy to consider their work.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $150. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $150 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 2500 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

UNTIL FILLED — Black Superheroes Do It Too! — Black Books Publishing — First Listed January 2018

[NOTE: I’ve listed this until-filled market for a year now. This is the last month I’ll include it in the listing. If you’re still interested in submitting, copy/paste the guidelines or bookmark the page for yourself; it’s going away next month.]

We are currently accepting submissions for our Black Erotica/Superhero Anthology (Working Title: Black Superheroes Do It Too!). Submissions should be full stories, not just sex scenes and between 3500 and 10,000 words. Writers, feel free to query to ensure your story idea hasn’t already been submitted.

This anthology pays $100US. The submission period will remain open until our goal of a 225+ page anthology has been reached.

Thoroughly edited material has the best chance of acceptance. You don’t need to pay someone to edit your material, but if you’re serious about your writing, we do recommend it. At a minimum, we suggest you have others read over your work for typos and grammatical errors.

All manuscripts should be in Microsoft Word and should be double spaced with an extra space between each paragraph. THIS EXTRA SPACE SHOULD BE DONE IN MICROSOFT WORD, THROUGH YOUR PARAGRAPH SETTINGS, NOT BY YOU ACTUALLY HITTING “ENTER” TWICE. There should be no indention at the start of each paragraph.

Send to: submissions@blackbookspublishing.com with “Superhero Erotica” in the subject heading.

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

***

30 November 2018 — Monstrous Outlines — Martian Migraine Press

[NOTE: The guidelines page lists the due date as 31 November. November has only 30 days, so I adjusted the date. If you want to take a chance and sub on 1 December, which is sort of the equivalent of 31 November, that’s up to you. 🙂 ]

Monstrous Outlines will be an anthology of horror and weird fiction with a focus on the theme of camouflage: people, entities, monsters, gods, even concepts, that masquerade as things other than themselves. Predators in plain sight, deities on their down time, sublime extra-dimensional terrors slumming in 4D. We want to see stories of exceptionally well done camouflage, all the more baffling and frightening for its seamless nature. We want to see stories of seeming where the hidden thing is poorly hidden for a number of reasons: perhaps there are layers to its camouflage, or perhaps it doesn’t care how well it hides. Imagine the moment when the perfectly hidden thing reveals itself. When the poorly hidden thing reveals itself. We’re also interested in duplicates, doppelgangers, and shapeshifters. Think John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? and its cinematic offspring, The Thing, for the latter. The seed story for this anthology will be Algernon Blackwood’s classic tale, The Willows, a story of two worlds touching, of men meeting the unnameable through the medium of the nearest natural analogue, the titular willow trees.

Submission period closes 30 NOVEMBER 2018. The anthology will be released in trade paperback and electronic book formats in early March 2019.

SUBMITTING

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 Monstrous Outlines, send an e-mail (with the story file attached, not in the body of the email) to: submissions@martianmigrainepress.com, with subject line: OUTLINES, title of your story, and your name.

LENGTH

For short fiction, we’d like to see anything from 1,500 to 7,000 words. If your story goes over 7k, please inquire first.

FLASH FICTION: got something under 1500 words? Send it in. However, the following still applies…

NO POETRY.

PAYMENT

All accepted submissions will be paid .03CAD per word, via Paypal, as well as a contributor copy (paperback) of the anthology, and copies in all electronic formats (mobi, EPUB, and PDF). Authors are also entitled to complete access to all titles in the MMP ebook catalogue.

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 30 NOVEMBER 2018 and we should be responding to all submissions, yay or nay, by early January 2019. If you haven’t heard from us by 15 January 2019, please query.

***

1 December 2018 — Rosalind’s Siblings — ed. Bogi Takács; Galli Books

[NOTE: DO NOT SUBMIT BEFORE 1 NOVEMBER.]

Rosalind’s Siblings is an anthology of speculative stories about people of marginalized genders/sexes who are scientists: scientists doing good, changing the world, or just getting on with their work of expanding human knowledge in a speculative context, presented in a positive light. This anthology is named for Rosalind Franklin, the so-called Dark Lady of DNA, one of the most famously erased female scientists in history, and a direct relation of the founder of Galli Books. The anthology is being edited by Bogi Takács.

The stories do not need to problematize gender/sex, though this is also welcome, and we would like to publish a mix of approaches. We are generally interested in positive portrayals of science and the protagonists doing research, but this can include a critical reappraisal. (E.g., we would very much like to see stories in which science is decolonized and/or Indigenized, or in some other ways incorporates approaches beyond Western neo-positivism.) We are not interested in “mad scientist” tropes or “evil science.” We are also not interested in disability cure narratives and related tropes, unless they are actively subverted / deconstructed.

Stories must contain a speculative element. We are happy to read works from any speculative subgenre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, magical realism, fabulism, mythic work, Weird fiction and so on. Any amount of science detail is welcome with thoughtful engagement.

Protagonists can be trans and/or nonbinary people, women, intersex people, genderqueer or gender-nonconforming people, people of culturally specific genders/sexes, and any combinations thereof. They do not need to identify as women, feminine or femme specifically, but those stories are particularly welcome; as are stories with trans, nonbinary and/or intersex men or masculine protagonists. Protagonists can have any sexual orientation.

You do not need to belong to any marginalized group to submit, but we are very happy to consider submissions from people who belong to underrepresented / marginalized groups in speculative fiction, including Black, Indigenous people and/or people of color, non-Western and/or non-Anglophonic people, migrants, QUILTBAG+ people, disabled, chronically ill and/or neuroatypical people. We welcome people from all letters of the QUILTBAG+, including trans, intersex, asexual, aromantic and bisexual people, who are more commonly ignored. Please don’t self-reject!

You do not need to disclose your marginalizations in your cover letter, but you are welcome to do so. Please send submissions to galli-books@galli-books.co.uk with “ROSALIND” in the subject line and the story title. Format submissions reasonably close to Standard Manuscript Format, and send them in .doc, .odt, .rtf formats, or .pdf if the story has unusual formatting that needs to be preserved. Please do NOT send .docx files.

Submissions open on 1st November and close on 1st December. Please do not submit outside that window.

We pay £0.08/word upon signed contract and are interested in previously unpublished short stories between 500 and 7500 words, and nonfiction essays on our theme.

***

15 December 2018 — Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, Vol. 6 — ed. Corie and Sean Weaver; Dreaming Robot Press

We’re looking for stories that:

== Have a main character that a middle grade reader (ages 8-12) can identify with;
== Show a diverse set of real characters;
== Are well written, fun to read, and encourage a love of reading science fiction;
== Tell of adventure, space, science. Give us rockets, robots and alien encounters, and we’re pretty happy; Steampunk, time travel, weird west and alternate history are all fine;
== Are between 3,000 and 6,000 words.

To be super clear – we’re looking science fiction, in all its variants. While we love fantasy as well, please don’t submit fantasy stories for this anthology.
We’re especially looking for stories:

== Of adventure! We love a good dystopia as much as the next robot, but remember – this is the Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide;
== Where the main character is of a population that has traditionally been under-represented in science fiction, e.g. girls, people of color, differently abled people;
== Where the main character has agency, exercises it, and isn’t just along for the ride.

We are strong supporters of both the #weneeddiversebooks and #ownvoices movements.

We’re not interested in:

== Stories where the female characters primarily exist to be rescued or as a prize for the males;
== Stories where the primary plot or subplot is romantic in nature;
== Stories with graphic violence or any form of sexual activity;
== Stories with any violence towards animals;
== Stories about the first girl to do X, surprising everyone;
== Stories that depict any ethnicity or gender as universally bad or stupid.

Please note: although we’re aware kids have a wide and varied vocabulary, we’d prefer not to have swearing in the stories. If your story has swearing, please rephrase before submitting.

Submission deadline, mechanics and planned schedule:

== Anthology will be open for submissions from July 15, 2018 – December 15, 2018, with a reading period of January and February 2019.
== We read blind. Please do not put identifying information on your manuscript. We’ll track it by the form information.
== While we prefer original stories, if you have something perfect that had a limited run elsewhere, query us and we’ll talk;
== Acceptance notices will be sent by March 30, 2019;
== In the summer we will launch a crowd-funding campaign to help with pre-publication costs. Regardless of results of crowd-funding campaign, we are committed to publishing the anthology. We’ve successfully funded the previous three anthologies this way, chances are favorable.

Rights and Payments:

== Authors will be provided with a complete Anthology Contract for review and consideration with the notice of accepted submissions.
== In keeping with SWFA’s guidelines, we pay $0.06/word on final edited word count for one-year exclusive worldwide English rights and nonexclusive right to republish, print, or reprint the complete anthology in any language or format after the first year, print and electronic, and two contributor copies. Payment upon final edit.
== If the crowd-funding fails, please note that we are still committed to this anthology, and will find other ways to fund the project. However, there may be delays. If authors feel the need to withdraw their submission due to delays, we understand.
== We will provide professional editing, primarily for issues of grammar and spelling.
== If authors have other questions about rights or payments, please contact us before submission. We want to make sure all concerns are addressed.

More questions? Check the full description page for last year’s anthology here. Still have more questions? Contact us!

***

24 December 2018 — Machinations and Mesmerism: A Tribute to E.T.A. Hoffman — ed. Farah Rose Smith; Ulthar Press

[NOTE: the only “official” guidelines I can find for this one is this Facebook page. If your only publicity is Facebook or similar, that comes across as kind of fly-by-night. There’s no mention of this book on the Ulthar Press web site, and Duotrope doesn’t list it. Sub at your own risk.]

“Machinations and Mesmerism” is an anthology of fantastic, strange fiction written in the vein of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, the oft’-unsung artistic polymath and writer of Dark Romanticism, Gothic Horror, and Fantastic literature.

E. T. A. Hoffmann was a Prussian lawyer, artist, composer, and writer. His stories are ripe with strange atmospheres and peculiar characters (including automata, madmen, and spectres), which would go on to influence the Gothic and macabre writers of the following generations including Poe, Gogol, Kafka, and Baudelaire. Though his writing lingered primarily within the parameters of German Romanticism, Hoffmann’s literature would also impact the fantasy and science fiction genres as well, as many of his works illuminate the struggle between science and magic. This carefully curated anthology honors the literary dance between mesmerism, mechanics, and magic through which Hoffmann explored issues of Romantic idealism and the self.

ULTHAR PRESS is looking for strange, gothic, and fantastic fiction in the manner of E.T.A. Hoffmann between 2,000 – 5,000 words in length. Stories that merely graft his characters into a new story will not be accepted.

Fiction submissions: Email submissions to farahrose9@gmail.com with the subject line as follows: HOFFMANN ANTHOLOGY: [YOUR TITLE]. Please send in .doc, .docx, or .pdf file types, only.

We are not accepting reprints, multiple submissions, or simultaneous submissions.

We respond within 60 days or sooner, and ask that queries regarding submissions not be sent out until after this period has passed.

Payment: 2 cents USD per word and a contributor copy.

***

31 December 2018 — Apotheosis 2 — ed. Jason Andrew; Simian Publishing

[DO NOT SUBMIT UNTIL 1 DECEMBER]

Apotheosis 2 – More stories of human survival and defiance in a world subjugated by the return of the Elder Gods. Humanity struggled to grow and evolve as a species for thousands of years forever caught in the shadow of a dread threat known only to a devoted few. When the stars are right, the Old Ones will return to claim utter dominion of the world. Lovecraft Mythos stories often climax at the moment of the fateful return of the Elder Gods and the audience is left to ponder what might happen next. This anthology features stories about humanity under the reign of the Elder Gods and ancient terrors.

What do we mean by Lovecraft Mythos stories in relation to Apotheosis? We’re looking for stories inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and associated writers such as August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, and Frank Belknap Long. We’re also interested in writers that inspired Lovecraft such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany. We’re interested in classic mythos gods and monsters and originals that have inspired by the mythos.

Good Fiction Examples:

== Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of The Elder Gods
== “Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
== “A Colder War” by Charlie Stross
== In the Hall of the Yellow King by Peter Rawlik

What type of stories are we looking for? We’re looking for character-driven stories set during a time in the future where the ancient terrors that once ruled the Earth have claimed complete and utter dominion of the Earth. We’re less concerned about the strict interpretation of the Elder Gods than good stories that deal with real human concerns. How do people survive? How does life change? Will people accept their new gods or will they rebel? What will it mean to be human in such a world of gods and monsters? Surprise us. Don’t give us stories that we’ve read before. We want worlds that feel real populated by characters from different cultures, genders, and ethnicities. Avoid cultural appropriation. Do your homework. We recommend that you read our last anthology to see the types of stories we enjoy.

What types of submissions should I avoid? We’re not as interested in the moment the ancient horrors return and conquer the world, but how humanity survives after the war is lost. Flashbacks are OK, but the story should not be about that time. We enjoy historical mythos fiction, but this is not the anthology for it. Stories must be set in the future. We are not looking for poetry for this anthology.

Submission Details:

== Word-count: 2,000 to 7,000
== Worldwide print and e-book rights (exclusive for 6 months, non-exclusive for an additional 30 months).Exceptions will be made for stories accepted for “Best Of” anthologies.
== Apotheosis will be available in both Print on Demand and e-book formats.
== Submissions open December 1, 2018, and will close at 11:59 PST on December 31, 2018. You may submit at: apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com via an attachment. (Do not submit before December 1st 2018 or your submission will be deleted)
== Queries and questions may be sent to : apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com. (You may send queries and questions anytime.) All responses will be accepted or rejected by August 15th, 2018. Please do not query about submitted stories before then. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. Our word count limits are hard for open submissions. Reprints may be submitted, but we’re only accepting three or four at the most. (It should be clearly stated that the submission is a reprint in your cover later or this will be an automatic rejection later.)
== Please use standard format guidelines. If it is difficult to read, we will reject your story. Your story must include your name, address, telephone number, email address, and approximate word count on the first page. Your cover letter should include your complete contact information, story title, approximate word count, and a short bio.
== We’re only accepting a limited number of reprints. If you are submitting a reprint, please tag the subject with #Reprint. If we find out later your submission is a reprint and it wasn’t tagged, it will be dropped from the anthology.
== Payment: 3 cents per word (or 1 cent per word for reprints), paid within 90 days after publication. Plus contributor copy of print and e-book.

***

31 December 2018 — Pink Triangle Rhapsody: Volume 1 Mixed Genre — Lycan Valley Press

NOTE: Submissions open to gay male writers only.

Pink Triangle Rhapsody is our newest anthology series in celebration of and dedicated entirely to gay men and their cultural history.

Although we realize this may create some controversy, this anthology series is open to gay male writers only. While we appreciate that women and straight men are able to accurately portray gay characters, our intent with this series is to highlight and explore the gay male cultural experiences on a more personal level.

The Pink Triangle Rhapsody series is a non-themed anthology series, with the exception of the required genre and inclusion of one or more of Lycan Valley’s required elements. The series is intended to be a collection of stories written with “effusively rapturous or emotional expression.”

Volume 1 is a mixed genre volume and will feature 5 stories in each of 5 genres for a total of 25 stories — Horror, Sci Fi, Dark Fantasy, Thriller, Pulp Mystery. See definitions here.

Each story must include a supernatural, paranormal or occult element (horror may include psychological horror with or without one of the other elements). See definitions here.

Regardless of genre and element, we’re looking for unrestrained and emotional writing, interpreted as you see fit for the story.

Word Count: 2500 to 8000 words. Stories less than 2250 or more than 8250 will be declined unread.

Payment: $0.04 per word based on final published word count.

Submission: Please read our general submission guidelines before submitting, including basic Shunn formatting with blind submission requirements.

Submissions that do not follow proper formatting guidelines or meet the minimum required elements will be declined unread.

No simultaneous submissions. If you submit to us, please wait until you receive a response before submitting elsewhere. Declined story notifications are sent out immediately upon making that decision. If your story is still in-progress, it means it is still under consideration pending the final TOC.

No multiple submissions. Submit only one story per open submission call unless invited to resubmit.

No unsolicited reprints or poetry submissions.

Please do not send email inquires asking us to consider a reprint, adjust the word count, alter the genre or element requirements or make other exceptions to the guidelines.

All status updates are made via submittable. If you have not received a notification that your story has been declined, it is still under consideration. Short-listed stories will be held until the final deadline as we make the final TOC decisions.

***

31 December 2018 — Portals; Temporally Deactivated; Alternate Peace — ed. Joshua Palmatier, Patricia Bray, S.C. Butler, David B. Coe, Steven H. Silver; Zombies Need Brains, LLC

Zombies Need Brains LLC is accepting submissions to its three science fiction and fantasy anthologies PORTALS, TEMPORALLY DEACTIVATED, and ALTERNATE PEACE. Stories must be submitted in electronic form as an attachment with the title of the story as the file name in .doc or .docx format. The header of the email should include the name of the anthology the submission is for along with the title of the submission (for example: WERE-: WereJellyfish Gone Wild!). The content of the email should also include which anthology the manuscript is intended for. Please send multiple manuscripts in separate emails; you may submit to any or all of the anthologies as many times as you wish. Manuscripts should be in manuscript format, meaning double-spaced, 12pt font, standard margins on top, bottom and sides, and pages numbered. Please use Times New Roman font. The first page should include the Title of the story, Author’s name, address, and email, and Pseudonym if different from the author’s real name. Italics and bold should be in italics and bold.

Stories for this anthology must be original (no reprints or previously published material), no more than 7,500 words in length, and must satisfy the theme of the anthology.

PORTALS is to feature science fiction or fantasy stories that contain a portal opening up between two different worlds and the consequences that come from that portal. We are attempting to fill half of the anthology with science fiction stories and half with fantasy stories. Stories featuring more interesting settings and twists on the typical portals will receive more attention than those that use standard tropes. In other words, we don’t want to see 100 stories dealing with a door in the back of the wardrobe leading to a fantasy world of gnomes, dwarves, and elves. If we do, it’s likely that only one, at most, would be selected for the anthology. We do NOT want to see time portals, connecting one time to another; however, it can be a portal from our reality to an alternate reality. We are interested in all kinds of portals: doors at the back of wardrobes, stone archways in the middle of the forest, wormholes, cracks in reality, etc. Be creative, choose something different, and use it in an unusual and unexpected way. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

TEMPORALLY DEACTIVATED is to feature stories where the author explores what the phrase “temporally deactivated” could mean with regards to a person, place, or thing. Stories featuring more interesting takes on the twisting of time and how it is integrated into the story will receive more attention than those with more typical twisted time stories. We do NOT want to see stories where “temporal deactivation” means simply death. So be creative and use time in an unusual and unexpected way. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

ALTERNATE PEACE is to feature alternate history stories where the divergence from our timeline comes from some kind of peaceful change to our past. It must explore the consequences of this divergence, not simply introduce the divergence. Stories featuring more interesting historical settings and twists on the consequences of the peaceful divergence from our timeline will receive more attention than those with more standard changes to the course of history. So be creative and come up with an unusual and unexpected break from the timeline. Please note that while the divergence in the timeline must be from some peaceful change, that change CAN lead to violence; in other words, you are allowed to have violence in the story, it just can’t be what’s initiating the alternate history. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

Here are some example stories for ALTERNATE PEACE — stories where the divergence from the timeline comes from a peaceful change:

Stephen Baxter: The Twelfth Album (Interzone 13, Hartwell’s Best Science Fiction of the Year 4)
Michael F. Flynn: Quaetiones Super Caelo et Mundo (Analog, 7/07)
Janet Kagan: Love Our Lockwood (Alternate Presidents)
John Kessel: The Franchise (Pure Product, Fields of Fantasies)
Mary Robinette Kowal: The Lady Astronaut series (Tor Books)
Ian R. MacLeod: Snodgrass (Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 10, Past Magic)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Recovering Apollo 8 (Asimov’s, 2/7, Recovering Apollo 8)
Howard Waldrop: Heart of Whitenesse (Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 15, Heart of Whitenesse)

DEADLINE and TIMELINE:

The deadline for submissions is December 31st, 2018. Decisions on stories should be completed by the end of February 2019. Please send submissions to contact@zombiesneedbrains.com. You will receive a receipt email within a few days of receiving the submission and having it filed for consideration. Notices about decisions on the stories will be sent out no later than the end of March 2019.

If your story is selected for use in the anthology, you should expect a revision letter by the end of April 2019. Revisions and the final draft of the story will be expected no later than the end of May 2019. These dates may change due to the editors’ work schedules. Zombies Need Brains LLC is seeking exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages for the duration of one year after publication/release of the anthology, non-exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages after that. Your story cannot appear elsewhere during that first year. Pay rate will be an advance of a minimum of 6 cents per word. The anthology will be published as an ebook and an exclusive mass market paperback edition, distributed to the Kickstarter backers. The book would be available after that to the general public in ebook and trade paperback formats. Advances would be immediately earned out by the success of the Kickstarter. Royalties on additional sales beyond the Kickstarter will be 25% of ebook cover price and 10% of trade paperback cover price, both split evenly (not by word count) between the authors in and editors of the anthology.

Questions regarding these submission guidelines should be sent to contact@zombiesneedbrains.com. Thank you.

[NOTE: I had a story published in one of the ZNB anthologies a few years back. I found the ZNB people good to work with, they paid promptly, and I’ve received several royalty checks since then. Highly recommended for anyone who writes short SFF.]

***

31 December 2018 — Curse the Darkness — Unlit Press

For our inaugural anthology, Curse the Darkness*, we’re throwing our doors wide open and inviting submissions on the theme of darkness. That could be the absence of light, the presence of evil, or the sinister thoughts of the afflicted. However you choose to interpret the theme, just make sure you leave us afraid to turn out the lights.

We’re looking for stories with compelling characters, sparkling dialogue, and strong, original voices. Send us stories that step off the well-trod paths into the unlit wilderness of the unusual, the interesting, and the provocative.

Please review our submission guidelines below before submitting your story via the submission form.

*Curse the Darkness is a working title. Unlit Press reserves the right to change the title as necessary.

Submission Guidelines

Word Count: 3,000 to 10,000 words.

Payment: Accepted authors will receive a one-off payment of £75 (approximately $100) or the equivalent in their local currency.

Format: We accept .doc, .docx, .rtf or .odt.

Multiple Submissions: No, send us one great story.

Simultaneous Submissions: Yes, but please let us know as soon as possible if your submission is accepted elsewhere.

Previously Published: No, we want original unpublished stories only.

Formatting: Double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12pt, with a single space after periods.

Rights: Unlit Press will have first world rights for an exclusive period of 12 months from the date of publication. At the end of the exclusive term, rights will revert back to the original author with Unlit Press retaining world distribution rights for the format(s) originally contracted.

Contributor Copies: Contributors will receive one free print copy of the anthology.

***

31 December 2018 — Unnamed Horor/Humor Anthology — ed. Brett Reistroffer; Bad Dream Entertainment

For our first new anthology of short fiction after a two year hiatus, Bad Dream is now accepting submissions of humorous dark fiction. Editor Brett Reistroffer is looking for original horror fiction with a strong sense of comedy, and most themes, subjects, and settings are welcome but standard genre tropes are definitely discouraged (vampires, zombies, werewolves, anything Cthulhu, etc.) The comedic aspect can be goofy and slapstick or black and morbid, just as long as there are equal amounts of darkness and humor. Horror has always been fertile ground for that unique juxtaposition and it’s exactly what we are looking for, so check out the specifics in the guidelines below and send in your best original horror humor.

**UPDATE: Please make sure to read the guidelines before submitting; this is a horror/humor anthology, meaning that stories should have elements of both. Straightforward horror stories will NOT be considered, you’re just wasting your time (and ours) by submitting ones without humor or comedic elements.**

-Stories should be between 1,500 and 8000 words in length, a few hundred on either side is fine, but if you have something significantly longer then you should inquire first through our regular contact email.

-We’re not afraid of blood, sex, and bad words but we’re also not interested in purely exploitative work. If you’re using graphic material make sure it has a point and serves the story.

-Multiple submissions are allowed, but limited to a maximum of two. You can submit additional stories after receiving responses for current submissions.

-Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please, please let us know as soon as possible if a submission is accepted elsewhere while still in our queue.

-We are looking for original fiction only, no reprints. First-time English translations are acceptable, however.

-Submissions should be in standard manuscript format, with contact info and word counts on the first page. File types should be in .doc, .txt, .odt, or .rtf only. We don’t accept submissions in PDF format.

-Payment for accepted stories will be $0.06/word, and Bad Dream Entertainment claims First Rights for electronic and print mediums (in English only). All authors included in the anthology will also receive royalties, split evenly from fifty percent of the book’s gross sales profit.

-Response times will be between two and four weeks unless the volume gets out of hand, and we will update everyone as necessary here and on social media if that is the case.

Send submissions to: submissions [at] baddreamentertainment [dot] com, and keep it creepy!

***

31 December 2018 — Vex Me No More — ed. Christina Escamilla; Horror Queen Media

“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest… because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”

– Terry Pratchett

What We Want:

We want your witch stories! Though they do not necessarily have to be female-centric, they do need to be tales of powerful, unique beings. Remember, this is a horror anthology, so while you can have elements of other genres, we want to be scared.

The Details:

Payment: 0.02/word & contributor copy

Reprints: Yes, but it will be $25 token payment.

Length: short stories up to 5,000 words

Rights: 1st edition publication rights to digital, print, and audio.

To submit please send your story and a short bio to info@thehorrorqueen.com. Simultaneous submissions are allowed and you may send in as many submissions as you would like. Please allow 2 – 3 weeks to hear back.

***

31 December 2018 — Space Opera Libretti — ed. Jennifer Lee Rossman and Brian McNett

“I just hate it,” says Brian’s friend Andrea, whom he’s known since he was five, “when some insensitive clod gets his hands on a good Modern Spacetime Opera with Lesbian Cyborg Time Nazis and Dominatrix AI Mayan Gods versus Intersexed Space Pirate Dinosaurs and their Ambisexual Steampunk Alchemical Gnome allies libretto and then screws it up.”

Folks, we want his snarky friend to be happy. Science-Fiction has done a very poor job over the years at giving us good Opera. Space Opera is too often seen as an extension of “Horse Opera” which is not opera at all. Where are the arias? Who is that singing coloratura diva soprano during the overture?



And thus, we the editors owe a debt of gratitude to Charlie Stross for showing us the way.
 Soooo…

With the prelims out of the way, we’re looking for:

Dramatic, large-scale stories of the distant future, focused on optimism and inclusion and blowing things up. Weird mashups. Actual arias. Fat ladies singing on funeral pyres. Watery tarts distributing swords optional. Play fast and loose. No holds barred as long as it’s a tasteful treatment written with respect.

Stories between 2,500 and 7,000 words. Exceptions will be made for really great stories, but try to keep it within these limits.

Original stories preferred but we will accept a few outstanding reprints.

Diversity. Straight white dudes are fine. We all know a straight white dude we love. But space opera is for everyone, so we want stories about everyone. Give us women, nonbinary people, disabled folks, people of all races and beliefs (or lack thereof — atheists and agnostics are more than welcome!), LGBTQIAP (I prefer “QUILTBAG” but that leaves of the “P” —Brian) people!

Intersectionality, too. Is your character a nonbinary autistic mixed race wheelchair user? We want their story. Definitely want that one!

Same goes for authors. We want to hear from people who haven’t had a voice in publishing. This doesn’t mean we won’t take established authors if their stories meet our criteria. Just don’t self-reject if you’ve unpublished or under-published. We’ve all been there.

What we’re not looking for:

Space Nazis are out, as are Lovecraftian gods. Both are overdone. But there’s nothing barring Time Nazis, and Aztec gods would give old H.P. the serious willies.

More seriously, we’re not interested in:

Poems.

Erotica.

Violence against children or animals.

Stories that perpetuate misogyny, queermisia, ableism, racism, or any other hateful ideology. (Individual characters can be hateful, of course, but we’d like the stories themselves to be positive and inclusive.)

Don’t self-reject. If the story is really good but contains something on this list, we’ll try to work together in edits to make it as good as it can be.

Formatting:

Don’t stress about this. We’re not going to fault you if you use single spacing instead of double, or Calibri instead of Courier. As long as it’s legible, you’re good.

That said, it’d be awesome if you could put your name and the word count somewhere at the top of the manuscript, and send it as an rtf, doc, or docx. Or, if you prefer, just copy and paste that bad boy in the body of an email.

If you’d really LIKE to submit a “proper” manuscript we won’t stop you. In fact, here’s a helpful article from SFWA: https://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/the-obligatory-manuscript-format-article/

Cover letter:

In your email, please tell us the following things:

Your name and/or pen name.

Your pronouns, if you’re comfortable doing so. Most people are happy being referred to as she or he, but if you use they/them or ze/zir or another set, just let us know and we’ll make sure to use them.

The story title. (We hate titles, too, but nothing needs to be set in stone right now. If we accept your story and you’re not in love with the title, we’ll help you come up with something.)

The approximate wordcount. No need to tell us it’s approximate. We know they’re all approximations. (I did not actually know this when I started writing, and I definitely updated the exact word count every time I edited a story. –Jen)

If your story is #ownvoices (ie, you’re a gay author writing about gay characters or an Asian author writing about Asian characters) and you’re comfortable sharing, your marginalized identities.

Has this story been published before? Your bio, including any recent publications.

Payment and rights:

For original stories, we’re asking for non-exclusive first world digital and print rights. That means you keep the rights to your story, but we’re paying you for the privilege of printing it in this anthology. As soon as it’s published, you can publish it elsewhere. (Just be sure to credit us as the original publisher.)

For reprints, we’re asking for non-exclusive world digital and print rights, which also revert to you upon publication.

Payment depends on how much we earn with the Kickstarter, but we’re aiming for a minimum of 6 cents a word.

If the Kickstarter fails, we will still pay the accepted authors but it will be royalties — ie, you get paid a percentage of what the book earns.

How to submit:

Send your story as an .rtf, .doc, or .docx or in the body of an email, along with your cover letter, to

jenniferleerossman@gmail.com

Simultaneous submissions are okay, but please let us know if you get accepted elsewhere.

Multiple subs are not encouraged, but if you have two stories you really love, feel free to send both. We will not accept more than one story per author.

Everyone will hear back within a week after the end of the submission period with a rejection or to let you know we’re holding it for consideration, though most will hear back much sooner. Final decisions may take a few weeks depending on the volume of submissions.

[NOTE: okay, this sounds like a way-fun project, but if their Kickstarter doesn’t fund, all you get is a royalty split. If you wouldn’t be satisfied with a royalty split — and if you read my listings, you probably wouldn’t — I suggest waiting until their Kickstarter deadline (14 Dec 19) to see how it went before subbing.]

***

1 January 19 — Tales from the Lake, Vol. 6 — ed. Mercedes M. Yardley and Eugene Johnson; Crystal Lake Publishing

We will accept submissions for the non-themed anthology Tales from the Lake Vol. 6 from November 1st, 2018 through January 1st, 2019. Compiled and edited by Mercedes M. Yardley and Eugene Johnson. Pays 3c a word (USD) upon publication.

Don’t miss out! In previous volumes we’ve published Jack Ketchum, Joe R. Lansdale, Graham Masterton, Ramsey Campbell, Elizabeth Massie, Tim Curran, Edward Lee, Gene O’Neill, Tim Waggoner, Bev Vincent, Kealan Patrick Burke, and many more.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

= Create believable, three-dimensional characters just as real as your friends and neighbors. The world these characters inhabit should be equally authentic, hitting all the senses.
= We want stories that’ll haunt the readers for months to come.
= Stories should be between 500 and 5,000 words max, with 3k to 4k being the sweet spot.
= Originality is important—we don’t want your version of someone else’s story from yesteryear.
= Although our arms are wide open, we’re more interested in fiction that reflects the modern. Kelly Link, Karen Russell, Joe Hill, and Damien Angelica Walters are prime examples of current dark fiction writers encapsulating the above in their work.
= Quality of the work must be top notch! The authors mentioned above represent the high-water mark we’re looking for.

WHAT WE’RE NOT LOOKING FOR:

= Stories sent before or after the submission window. These will not be read.
= Rape stories or sexual abuse or any explicit abuse toward children or animals is expressly forbidden. This can however be mentioned or remembered by your character, but be subtle.
= Stories that are not short horror stories.
= Novels or novellas.
= Stories with flat worlds.
= To avoid too many writers writing about lakes, please keep in mind this is a non-themed anthology.

PAYMENT:

For this anthology we are paying 3 cents (USD) per word up to 5000 words via PayPal.

REPRINTS:

We DO NOT accept reprints, unless we approach an author for a specific reprint deemed suitable.

SIMULTANEOUS/MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS:

We prefer you do not submit your story elsewhere while it’s being considered by us, especially if it’s been shortlisted. No multiple submissions, either. You get one shot. Make it count.

RESPONSE TIME:

For the most part, acceptances will not go out until some time after the deadline. Rejections and shortlisting notices will go out sooner. Feel free to query by April 1, 2019.

RIGHTS:

We are seeking FIRST world rights, both in print, electronic, and audio forms as well as translation rights for an exclusive period of 1 year and then non-exclusive after that.

FORMATTING:

Submit your manuscript in Shunn Format (http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html) as a .doc or .docx attachment. Keep your cover letter brief, but relay any pertinent information. You should also include a short bio. Subject of your email should start with SUBMISSION and then the title of your story.

Please email your submission to: Lake6subs@gmail.com.

***

15 January 19 — Would But Time Await — ed. Scott T. Goudsward and K. H. Vaughan; Ulthar Press

[NOTE: the only “official” guidelines I can find for this one is this Facebook page, which seems to belong to one of the editors. If your only publicity is Facebook or similar, that comes across as kind of fly-by-night. There’s no mention of this book on the Ulthar Press web site, and some poking around shows that both Duotrope and Grinder have delisted this market. Sub at your own risk.]

Would But Time Await:
An Anthology of New England

Ulthar Press is seeking original, unpublished short stories for an anthology of folk horror with New England ties, scheduled for release at Necronomicon-Providence in 2019. For the purposes of this project, we are defining folk horror as horror literature in which the present (in the story, not necessarily current day) collides with the history, folklore, traditions, and psychogeography of a region. The term “folk horror” came to prominence in describing a subgenre of film represented best by the “unholy trinity” of Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and The Wicker Man (1973). In general, themes include:

== Psychological and physical Isolation
== The effects of geography on emotion and behavior
== Old and strange traditions that persist despite the encroachment of the modern world
== Contrast between folklore and formal, academic, or “official” knowledge
== Conflict between the urban outsider and the rural insider
== Supernatural strangeness hidden beneath the surface of civilization

Some excellent discussion of what does and does not constitute “folk horror” can be found online (see links below), but there is no source that we consider authoritative. If your story can convince us that it is folk horror, then it is. We want to see fresh takes on old tropes.

We are looking for work that uses the physical, historical, and social landscapes of New England as a focal point (rather than a story that could be set anywhere else but just happens to be set in New England.) There is a long and rich history of horrific and strange folklore in New England but that doesn’t mean a writer needs to restrict themselves to it and writers are perfectly welcome to invent their own folklore, traditions, and fictional New England locations. Although Lovecraft certainly wrote stories that could be considered folk horror, we do NOT want Lovecraft pastiche.

A few examples of what we consider Folk Horror in literature:

[Click through for an extensive list of examples.]

PAYMENT

We will be paying a flat rate of $75USD within 30 days of publication for first rights in print and digital, plus a physical and digital contributor’s copy.

STORY CRITERIA.

Length:4,000 – 6000 words.
No reprints.
No simultaneous or multiple submissions.
Standard MS format

Send all submissions with a brief cover letter to wouldbuttimeawait@gmail.com by January 15, 2019.

SOME THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE SUBMITTING:

New England is an ethnically diverse region of the United States with a long (and often sordid) history so please keep the contemporary effects of that history in mind when submitting and avoid work that portrays the indigenous people and tribes of New England in a racist, bigoted, or stereotypical sense and please avoid stereotypes of the poor, and economically disenfranchised, all races, genders, sexes, sexualities, (dis)abilities, faiths, and anything that targets marginalized people.

In general, we are looking to avoid depictions of sexual violence (unless written with extreme care, an actual point beyond the simple violence of it, and, above all, empathy toward victims of sexual violence.)

***

31 January 19 — To Seoul, from the World — ed. Sollee Bae; Fiction Writers in Seoul

Fiction Writers in Seoul is a creative writing community based in Seoul, South Korea. Since 2013, we have critiqued over 250 submissions by writers from all around the world. Though varying in themes and genres, together they represent a diverse voice of travelers and expats who have called Seoul their passion, their home. And now, our aim is to weave these stories into an anthology that promotes the unique perspective and creativity of the expat community in Seoul.

HOW TO SUBMIT

We are seeking unpublished short stories under 6000 words that are set in and/or about the city of Seoul. Writers are encouraged to interpret this broadly and freely; submissions of all genres are welcome. We are looking for stories that 1) provide a fresh and relatable insight into the city and its culture, and 2) are intensely engaging, with all the appeals of a traditional story. As a token of our dedication to quality, we will pay $.05 per word for accepted submissions.

Please send your submission to submission.ficwriseoul@gmail.com as an attachment. Multiple and simultaneous submissions are accepted, and there is no reading fee. Estimated response time is up to twelve weeks.

Please note that the anthology will also be translated into Korean and pitched to traditional Korean publishers.

WHO WILL BE JUDGING THE SUBMISSIONS?

The submissions will be considered by a team of readers on a voluntary basis. The readers consist of the members of Fiction Writers in Seoul. Each submission will be guaranteed two reads: one by a volunteer, and another by the editor. The final decisions will be made and announced after a monthly editorial meeting.

Sollee Bae (Editor) is the organizer and founder of Fiction Writers in Seoul. She has translated many books from English to Korean, including Zorba the Greek and Mara, Daughter of the Nile. “Arpan,” a South Korean short story by Park Hyoung-su that she co-translated from Korean to English, has appeared in Acta Koreana, Vol.17, No.2.

HOW WILL THE ANTHOLOGY BE PUBLISHED AND MADE AVAILABLE?

It will be independently published by Fiction Writers in Seoul in both print and e-book forms. The print books will be distributed across English bookstores in major cities of South Korea, and marketed by a hired specialist. In addition, the anthology will be translated into Korean (please see the item below for specific rights we are acquiring) and pitched to traditional Korean publishers.

WHAT RIGHTS DOES THE PUBLISHER ACQUIRE FROM THE WRITERS?

For the publication of this anthology, we are buying the following rights from the authors of accepted submissions:

1) First world rights, which guarantee that we will publish the story for the first time across the world;

2) Korean translation rights, which allow us to translate the story (as part of the entire anthology, not for the publication of the individual stories) into Korean.

The rights to the individual story remain with the author; the rights to the entire anthology belong to the publisher. We do, however, include the exclusivity clause in the contract, which gives us the exclusive rights to publish the story for 12 months after the publication date of the anthology.

To see the sample publishing contract, please click here.

***

31 January 19 — Hidden Histories — Third Flatiron

A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. Your tale can be based in the real world, past, present, or future, as long as it has a speculative fiction element. We’re not exactly looking for alternate history, but there can be a fork in the road timewise.

Reading period: January 1-31, 2019 DO NOT SUBMIT before 1 January.
Publication date: April 1, 2019

Stories should be submitted in either Microsoft Word (using double spacing), RTF, or plain text. They should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Flash humor pieces (Grins and Gurgles) should be short, around 600 words.

Please don’t send simultaneous or multiple submissions. If a story has been rejected, you can then send another (limit 2 per reading period).

Submit by email to:

flatsubmit@thirdflatiron.com

either as an attachment (Word, RTF) or in the body of the mail (text).

In the Subject: line of the email, please put:

flatsubmit:Title_of_Your_Work

to avoid being deemed a canned meat product based on ham.

If the work is for the humor section, please note that in the body of your email. A brief bio and a one- or two-sentence synopsis in the body of your email would also be helpful to us.

Use the following template (basically, follow William Shunn’s Standard Manuscript Format):

Your Name

Address (mailing)

Email address

Word count

[10 blank lines]

Title

Byline

Body of story

——–

Our response time is expected to be about 8 weeks (or less if the writer deadline is coming up soon).

REMUNERATION

As of: November 1, 2016

Your story must be original work, with the digital rights unencumbered. Accepted stories will be paid at the flat rate of 6 cents per word (U.S./SFWA professional rate), in return for the first publication rights to the story for six months after publication. All other rights will remain with the author. We no longer offer royalties. If your story is selected as the lead story, we request permission to podcast the story as a free sample portion of the anthology. We welcome new writers.

Third Flatiron will price and market your story to various e-publishing venues. We will format the story for the most popular electronic readers and platforms. You agree that we may distribute a sample (portion of the story) to potential customers.

For non-U.S. submissions, we prefer to pay via PayPal, if you have such an account.

Most books (except “year’s best” collections) will be available for sale in trade paperback.

Authors selected for publication will also be entitled to one free online copy of the anthology.

***

1 February 19 — Hashtag Queer, Volume 3 — Qommunicate Publishing

[NOTE: Submissions open to LGBTQ+ writers only.]

Like its successful predecessors Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Volume 3 will be released in June of 2019 to once again celebrate LGBTQ Pride season.

Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology is the annual collection of creative literary work by and about LGBTQ+. It includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and scripts up to 7,500 words.

Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Volume 3 will be published in print & ebook (compatible with the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows devices in addition to PDF and other downloadable formats and web-viewable formats.)

Submission Guidelines:

Please read the following submission guidelines carefully before submitting your work to Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Vol 3. If you have any questions not answered below, please write us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com and we will be happy to answer.

Theme:

= By and/or about LGBTQ+.

Genres:

= Fiction (including flash non-fiction of 1 page or less).
= Creative non-fiction & memoir.
= Poetry.
= Scripts (including plays and screenplays).

For this book, we are NOT considering:

= Erotica.
= Work written for children.

Length:

= Prose: up to 7,500 words
= Poetry: Up to 5 pages
= Scripts: Up to 10 pages
= Submissions of longer than 10 pages must be numbered.

Formats:

= All submissions must be typed. No handwritten submissions will be accepted.
= If you send your submission in, please do NOT mail us your only copy of your work. We can not be responsible for returning submissions.

Multiple Submissions:

= Multiple submissions (submissions of more than one work) are fine. Send us what you’ve got!

Simultaneous Submissions:

= Simultaneous submissions (submitting work you’ve already submitted–or are planning on submitting–elsewhere) are fine too.
= Please just be sure that if your submission gets accepted elsewhere, you contact us at submissions@qommunicatepublishing.com to withdraw it from consideration for Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, Vol 3.

Reprints:

= Reprints will NOT be considered.

Rights:

= We are seeking First English Anthology Rights and First World Anthology Rights in print and ebook formats.
= NOTE: These rights only allow the material to be used in the anthology and its reprints, and the writer retains all rights to their work not specified here (i.e. in the contract), including copyright to their work.
= We are also seeking, for all material, Non-exclusive Excerpt Rights (for the purposes of promoting the Anthology on the website).

Compensation:

= Contributors will receive $5 per printed page.

[NOTE: There’s no way to tell exactly how many cents/word they’ll be paying; it depends on the size of the pages, the size of the typeface, and the density of the writing on any given page. (A page with many short lines of dialogue will have a lot fewer words than a page full of long paragraphs of description or narration.) A standard manuscript page is counted as approximately 250 words, which works out to about 2 cents per word. I’m assuming a “printed” page will be less than twice that, which means this market squeaks in just past my guidelines, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep this in mind, though, when you decide whether to sub here.]

What to Submit:

= Your submission
= A brief bio telling us something about you and (if applicable) any publishing experience
= At least one form of contact information (phone number, email, or mailing address. Please do not give a social media account handle as your only form of contact information.
= IMPORTANT: Pen names are acceptable. However, for contractual purposes, all submissions must also include the author’s legal name.

Where to Submit:

= Submissions may be emailed to us at: submissions@hashtagqueer.com

or mailed to us at:

Qommunity
201 Lancelot Lane
Becket, MA 01223

AGAIN, MAILED SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE RETURNED

Response Time:

= We will respond to all submissions by March 1, 2019.

Check out Hashtag Queer, Volume 1 & Hashtag Queer, Volume 2 to see what kinds of work we’ve published already, plus we’re always looking for new voices and perspectives!

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $150. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $150 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 2500 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

UNTIL FILLED — Black Superheroes Do It Too! — Black Books Publishing — First Listed January 2018

[Note: the site is back up, so apparently they got their domain issue straightened out.]

We are currently accepting submissions for our Black Erotica/Superhero Anthology (Working Title: Black Superheroes Do It Too!). Submissions should be full stories, not just sex scenes and between 3500 and 10,000 words. Writers, feel free to query to ensure your story idea hasn’t already been submitted.

This anthology pays $100US. The submission period will remain open until our goal of a 225+ page anthology has been reached.

Thoroughly edited material has the best chance of acceptance. You don’t need to pay someone to edit your material, but if you’re serious about your writing, we do recommend it. At a minimum, we suggest you have others read over your work for typos and grammatical errors.

All manuscripts should be in Microsoft Word and should be double spaced with an extra space between each paragraph. THIS EXTRA SPACE SHOULD BE DONE IN MICROSOFT WORD, THROUGH YOUR PARAGRAPH SETTINGS, NOT BY YOU ACTUALLY HITTING “ENTER” TWICE. There should be no indention at the start of each paragraph.

Send to: submissions@blackbookspublishing.com with “Superhero Erotica” in the subject heading.

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

***

1 November 2018 — Unlocking the Magic — ed. Vivian Caethe

Word limit: 3000-6000 words.

Pay rate: $300/story + royalties

Genre: Fantasy only (no Science Fiction or Horror, although horror elements may be present in the story). Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Steampunk, and other genres of fantasy are all encouraged.

Language: English (translations are welcome).

Submissions close: November 1, 2018

Rights: We claim first world English rights (no reprints). For an excellent break down of what this means, please see Neil Clarke’s post here.

In fantasy, we read about how people with mental illness are more susceptible to magic, closer to breaks in reality, more likely to be able to see the unseen. These stereotypes are harmful and contribute to keeping people from seeing the good in getting help, taking their meds, or talking to someone.

This anthology is about changing the narrative and telling stories of strength and perseverance, of getting help despite the darkness. Not the myth that getting help will kill creativity and magic. Not the story our society tells about mentally ill people: that art and magic must come from suffering.

I want stories that show what can be accomplished when we take care of ourselves and seek help. I want stories that show the reality of being mentally ill within a fantasy setting. I want to see how mental illness and its treatment affects the magic that lies within all of us. I want to read realistic portrayals of mental illness in magical worlds.

Send your stories formatted in Standard Manuscript format attached as a .doc to cuppateaanthologies at gmail dot com. Include your name, byline, email address, mailing address, and approximate word count. In your cover letter, also include the mental illness diagnosis your story addresses (e.g. depression, PTSD, bipolar, etc).

When writing your story, consider that you’re writing about real experiences that real people have, not just something fictional characters have to deal with. Do your research and write with compassion. I am looking for noblebright, not grimdark.

Submissions from diverse individuals and those with mental illnesses are encouraged.

***

30 November 2018 — Monstrous Outlines — Martian Migraine Press

[NOTE: The guidelines page lists the due date as 31 November. November has only 30 days, so I adjusted the date. If you want to take a chance and sub on 1 December, which is sort of the equivalent of 31 November, that’s up to you. 🙂 ]

Monstrous Outlines will be an anthology of horror and weird fiction with a focus on the theme of camouflage: people, entities, monsters, gods, even concepts, that masquerade as things other than themselves. Predators in plain sight, deities on their down time, sublime extra-dimensional terrors slumming in 4D. We want to see stories of exceptionally well done camouflage, all the more baffling and frightening for its seamless nature. We want to see stories of seeming where the hidden thing is poorly hidden for a number of reasons: perhaps there are layers to its camouflage, or perhaps it doesn’t care how well it hides. Imagine the moment when the perfectly hidden thing reveals itself. When the poorly hidden thing reveals itself. We’re also interested in duplicates, doppelgangers, and shapeshifters. Think John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? and its cinematic offspring, The Thing, for the latter. The seed story for this anthology will be Algernon Blackwood’s classic tale, The Willows, a story of two worlds touching, of men meeting the unnameable through the medium of the nearest natural analogue, the titular willow trees.

Submission period closes 30 NOVEMBER 2018. The anthology will be released in trade paperback and electronic book formats in early March 2019.

SUBMITTING

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 Monstrous Outlines, send an e-mail (with the story file attached, not in the body of the email) to: submissions@martianmigrainepress.com, with subject line: OUTLINES, title of your story, and your name.

LENGTH

For short fiction, we’d like to see anything from 1,500 to 7,000 words. If your story goes over 7k, please inquire first.

FLASH FICTION: got something under 1500 words? Send it in. However, the following still applies…

NO POETRY.

PAYMENT

All accepted submissions will be paid .03CAD per word, via Paypal, as well as a contributor copy (paperback) of the anthology, and copies in all electronic formats (mobi, EPUB, and PDF). Authors are also entitled to complete access to all titles in the MMP ebook catalogue.

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 30 NOVEMBER 2018 and we should be responding to all submissions, yay or nay, by early January 2019. If you haven’t heard from us by 15 January 2019, please query.

***

1 December 2018 — Rosalind’s Siblings — ed. Bogi Takács; Galli Books

[NOTE: DO NOT SUBMIT BEFORE 1 NOVEMBER.]

Rosalind’s Siblings is an anthology of speculative stories about people of marginalized genders/sexes who are scientists: scientists doing good, changing the world, or just getting on with their work of expanding human knowledge in a speculative context, presented in a positive light. This anthology is named for Rosalind Franklin, the so-called Dark Lady of DNA, one of the most famously erased female scientists in history, and a direct relation of the founder of Galli Books. The anthology is being edited by Bogi Takács.

The stories do not need to problematize gender/sex, though this is also welcome, and we would like to publish a mix of approaches. We are generally interested in positive portrayals of science and the protagonists doing research, but this can include a critical reappraisal. (E.g., we would very much like to see stories in which science is decolonized and/or Indigenized, or in some other ways incorporates approaches beyond Western neo-positivism.) We are not interested in “mad scientist” tropes or “evil science.” We are also not interested in disability cure narratives and related tropes, unless they are actively subverted / deconstructed.

Stories must contain a speculative element. We are happy to read works from any speculative subgenre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, magical realism, fabulism, mythic work, Weird fiction and so on. Any amount of science detail is welcome with thoughtful engagement.

Protagonists can be trans and/or nonbinary people, women, intersex people, genderqueer or gender-nonconforming people, people of culturally specific genders/sexes, and any combinations thereof. They do not need to identify as women, feminine or femme specifically, but those stories are particularly welcome; as are stories with trans, nonbinary and/or intersex men or masculine protagonists. Protagonists can have any sexual orientation.

You do not need to belong to any marginalized group to submit, but we are very happy to consider submissions from people who belong to underrepresented / marginalized groups in speculative fiction, including Black, Indigenous people and/or people of color, non-Western and/or non-Anglophonic people, migrants, QUILTBAG+ people, disabled, chronically ill and/or neuroatypical people. We welcome people from all letters of the QUILTBAG+, including trans, intersex, asexual, aromantic and bisexual people, who are more commonly ignored. Please don’t self-reject!

You do not need to disclose your marginalizations in your cover letter, but you are welcome to do so. Please send submissions to galli-books@galli-books.co.uk with “ROSALIND” in the subject line and the story title. Format submissions reasonably close to Standard Manuscript Format, and send them in .doc, .odt, .rtf formats, or .pdf if the story has unusual formatting that needs to be preserved. Please do NOT send .docx files.

Submissions open on 1st November and close on 1st December. Please do not submit outside that window.

We pay £0.08/word upon signed contract and are interested in previously unpublished short stories between 500 and 7500 words, and nonfiction essays on our theme.

***

15 December 2018 — Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, Vol. 6 — ed. Corie and Sean Weaver; Dreaming Robot Press

We’re looking for stories that:

== Have a main character that a middle grade reader (ages 8-12) can identify with;
== Show a diverse set of real characters;
== Are well written, fun to read, and encourage a love of reading science fiction;
== Tell of adventure, space, science. Give us rockets, robots and alien encounters, and we’re pretty happy; Steampunk, time travel, weird west and alternate history are all fine;
== Are between 3,000 and 6,000 words.

To be super clear – we’re looking science fiction, in all its variants. While we love fantasy as well, please don’t submit fantasy stories for this anthology.
We’re especially looking for stories:

== Of adventure! We love a good dystopia as much as the next robot, but remember – this is the Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide;
== Where the main character is of a population that has traditionally been under-represented in science fiction, e.g. girls, people of color, differently abled people;
== Where the main character has agency, exercises it, and isn’t just along for the ride.

We are strong supporters of both the #weneeddiversebooks and #ownvoices movements.

We’re not interested in:

== Stories where the female characters primarily exist to be rescued or as a prize for the males;
== Stories where the primary plot or subplot is romantic in nature;
== Stories with graphic violence or any form of sexual activity;
== Stories with any violence towards animals;
== Stories about the first girl to do X, surprising everyone;
== Stories that depict any ethnicity or gender as universally bad or stupid.

Please note: although we’re aware kids have a wide and varied vocabulary, we’d prefer not to have swearing in the stories. If your story has swearing, please rephrase before submitting.

Submission deadline, mechanics and planned schedule:

== Anthology will be open for submissions from July 15, 2018 – December 15, 2018, with a reading period of January and February 2019.
== We read blind. Please do not put identifying information on your manuscript. We’ll track it by the form information.
== While we prefer original stories, if you have something perfect that had a limited run elsewhere, query us and we’ll talk;
== Acceptance notices will be sent by March 30, 2019;
== In the summer we will launch a crowd-funding campaign to help with pre-publication costs. Regardless of results of crowd-funding campaign, we are committed to publishing the anthology. We’ve successfully funded the previous three anthologies this way, chances are favorable.

Rights and Payments:

== Authors will be provided with a complete Anthology Contract for review and consideration with the notice of accepted submissions.
== In keeping with SWFA’s guidelines, we pay $0.06/word on final edited word count for one-year exclusive worldwide English rights and nonexclusive right to republish, print, or reprint the complete anthology in any language or format after the first year, print and electronic, and two contributor copies. Payment upon final edit.
== If the crowd-funding fails, please note that we are still committed to this anthology, and will find other ways to fund the project. However, there may be delays. If authors feel the need to withdraw their submission due to delays, we understand.
== We will provide professional editing, primarily for issues of grammar and spelling.
== If authors have other questions about rights or payments, please contact us before submission. We want to make sure all concerns are addressed.

More questions? Check the full description page for last year’s anthology here. Still have more questions? Contact us!

***

24 December 2018 — Machinations and Mesmerism: A Tribute to E.T.A. Hoffman — ed. Farah Rose Smith; Ulthar Press

“Machinations and Mesmerism” is an anthology of fantastic, strange fiction written in the vein of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, the oft’-unsung artistic polymath and writer of Dark Romanticism, Gothic Horror, and Fantastic literature.

E. T. A. Hoffmann was a Prussian lawyer, artist, composer, and writer. His stories are ripe with strange atmospheres and peculiar characters (including automata, madmen, and spectres), which would go on to influence the Gothic and macabre writers of the following generations including Poe, Gogol, Kafka, and Baudelaire. Though his writing lingered primarily within the parameters of German Romanticism, Hoffmann’s literature would also impact the fantasy and science fiction genres as well, as many of his works illuminate the struggle between science and magic. This carefully curated anthology honors the literary dance between mesmerism, mechanics, and magic through which Hoffmann explored issues of Romantic idealism and the self.

ULTHAR PRESS is looking for strange, gothic, and fantastic fiction in the manner of E.T.A. Hoffmann between 2,000 – 5,000 words in length. Stories that merely graft his characters into a new story will not be accepted.

Fiction submissions: Email submissions to farahrose9@gmail.com with the subject line as follows: HOFFMANN ANTHOLOGY: [YOUR TITLE]. Please send in .doc, .docx, or .pdf file types, only.

We are not accepting reprints, multiple submissions, or simultaneous submissions.

We respond within 60 days or sooner, and ask that queries regarding submissions not be sent out until after this period has passed.

Payment: 2 cents USD per word and a contributor copy.

***

31 December 2018 — Apotheosis 2 — ed. Jason Andrew; Simian Publishing

[DO NOT SUBMIT UNTIL 1 DECEMBER]

Apotheosis 2 – More stories of human survival and defiance in a world subjugated by the return of the Elder Gods. Humanity struggled to grow and evolve as a species for thousands of years forever caught in the shadow of a dread threat known only to a devoted few. When the stars are right, the Old Ones will return to claim utter dominion of the world. Lovecraft Mythos stories often climax at the moment of the fateful return of the Elder Gods and the audience is left to ponder what might happen next. This anthology features stories about humanity under the reign of the Elder Gods and ancient terrors.

What do we mean by Lovecraft Mythos stories in relation to Apotheosis? We’re looking for stories inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and associated writers such as August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, and Frank Belknap Long. We’re also interested in writers that inspired Lovecraft such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany. We’re interested in classic mythos gods and monsters and originals that have inspired by the mythos.

Good Fiction Examples:

== Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of The Elder Gods
== “Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
== “A Colder War” by Charlie Stross
== In the Hall of the Yellow King by Peter Rawlik

What type of stories are we looking for? We’re looking for character-driven stories set during a time in the future where the ancient terrors that once ruled the Earth have claimed complete and utter dominion of the Earth. We’re less concerned about the strict interpretation of the Elder Gods than good stories that deal with real human concerns. How do people survive? How does life change? Will people accept their new gods or will they rebel? What will it mean to be human in such a world of gods and monsters? Surprise us. Don’t give us stories that we’ve read before. We want worlds that feel real populated by characters from different cultures, genders, and ethnicities. Avoid cultural appropriation. Do your homework. We recommend that you read our last anthology to see the types of stories we enjoy.

What types of submissions should I avoid? We’re not as interested in the moment the ancient horrors return and conquer the world, but how humanity survives after the war is lost. Flashbacks are OK, but the story should not be about that time. We enjoy historical mythos fiction, but this is not the anthology for it. Stories must be set in the future. We are not looking for poetry for this anthology.

Submission Details:

== Word-count: 2,000 to 7,000
== Worldwide print and e-book rights (exclusive for 6 months, non-exclusive for an additional 30 months).Exceptions will be made for stories accepted for “Best Of” anthologies.
== Apotheosis will be available in both Print on Demand and e-book formats.
== Submissions open December 1, 2018, and will close at 11:59 PST on December 31, 2018. You may submit at: apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com via an attachment. (Do not submit before December 1st 2018 or your submission will be deleted)
== Queries and questions may be sent to : apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com. (You may send queries and questions anytime.) All responses will be accepted or rejected by August 15th, 2018. Please do not query about submitted stories before then. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. Our word count limits are hard for open submissions. Reprints may be submitted, but we’re only accepting three or four at the most. (It should be clearly stated that the submission is a reprint in your cover later or this will be an automatic rejection later.)
== Please use standard format guidelines. If it is difficult to read, we will reject your story. Your story must include your name, address, telephone number, email address, and approximate word count on the first page. Your cover letter should include your complete contact information, story title, approximate word count, and a short bio.
== We’re only accepting a limited number of reprints. If you are submitting a reprint, please tag the subject with #Reprint. If we find out later your submission is a reprint and it wasn’t tagged, it will be dropped from the anthology.
== Payment: 3 cents per word (or 1 cent per word for reprints), paid within 90 days after publication. Plus contributor copy of print and e-book.

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31 December 2018 — Pink Triangle Rhapsody: Volume 1 Mixed Genre — Lycan Valley Press

NOTE: Submissions open to gay male writers only.

Pink Triangle Rhapsody is our newest anthology series in celebration of and dedicated entirely to gay men and their cultural history.

Although we realize this may create some controversy, this anthology series is open to gay male writers only. While we appreciate that women and straight men are able to accurately portray gay characters, our intent with this series is to highlight and explore the gay male cultural experiences on a more personal level.

The Pink Triangle Rhapsody series is a non-themed anthology series, with the exception of the required genre and inclusion of one or more of Lycan Valley’s required elements. The series is intended to be a collection of stories written with “effusively rapturous or emotional expression.”

Volume 1 is a mixed genre volume and will feature 5 stories in each of 5 genres for a total of 25 stories — Horror, Sci Fi, Dark Fantasy, Thriller, Pulp Mystery. See definitions here.

Each story must include a supernatural, paranormal or occult element (horror may include psychological horror with or without one of the other elements). See definitions here.

Regardless of genre and element, we’re looking for unrestrained and emotional writing, interpreted as you see fit for the story.

Word Count: 2500 to 8000 words. Stories less than 2250 or more than 8250 will be declined unread.

Payment: $0.04 per word based on final published word count.

Submission: Please read our general submission guidelines before submitting, including basic Shunn formatting with blind submission requirements.

Submissions that do not follow proper formatting guidelines or meet the minimum required elements will be declined unread.

No simultaneous submissions. If you submit to us, please wait until you receive a response before submitting elsewhere. Declined story notifications are sent out immediately upon making that decision. If your story is still in-progress, it means it is still under consideration pending the final TOC.

No multiple submissions. Submit only one story per open submission call unless invited to resubmit.

No unsolicited reprints or poetry submissions.

Please do not send email inquires asking us to consider a reprint, adjust the word count, alter the genre or element requirements or make other exceptions to the guidelines.

All status updates are made via submittable. If you have not received a notification that your story has been declined, it is still under consideration. Short-listed stories will be held until the final deadline as we make the final TOC decisions.

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31 December 2018 — Portals; Temporally Deactivated; Alternate Peace — ed. Joshua Palmatier, Patricia Bray, S.C. Butler, David B. Coe, Steven H. Silver; Zombies Need Brains, LLC

Zombies Need Brains LLC is accepting submissions to its three science fiction and fantasy anthologies PORTALS, TEMPORALLY DEACTIVATED, and ALTERNATE PEACE. Stories must be submitted in electronic form as an attachment with the title of the story as the file name in .doc or .docx format. The header of the email should include the name of the anthology the submission is for along with the title of the submission (for example: WERE-: WereJellyfish Gone Wild!). The content of the email should also include which anthology the manuscript is intended for. Please send multiple manuscripts in separate emails; you may submit to any or all of the anthologies as many times as you wish. Manuscripts should be in manuscript format, meaning double-spaced, 12pt font, standard margins on top, bottom and sides, and pages numbered. Please use Times New Roman font. The first page should include the Title of the story, Author’s name, address, and email, and Pseudonym if different from the author’s real name. Italics and bold should be in italics and bold.

Stories for this anthology must be original (no reprints or previously published material), no more than 7,500 words in length, and must satisfy the theme of the anthology.

PORTALS is to feature science fiction or fantasy stories that contain a portal opening up between two different worlds and the consequences that come from that portal. We are attempting to fill half of the anthology with science fiction stories and half with fantasy stories. Stories featuring more interesting settings and twists on the typical portals will receive more attention than those that use standard tropes. In other words, we don’t want to see 100 stories dealing with a door in the back of the wardrobe leading to a fantasy world of gnomes, dwarves, and elves. If we do, it’s likely that only one, at most, would be selected for the anthology. We do NOT want to see time portals, connecting one time to another; however, it can be a portal from our reality to an alternate reality. We are interested in all kinds of portals: doors at the back of wardrobes, stone archways in the middle of the forest, wormholes, cracks in reality, etc. Be creative, choose something different, and use it in an unusual and unexpected way. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

TEMPORALLY DEACTIVATED is to feature stories where the author explores what the phrase “temporally deactivated” could mean with regards to a person, place, or thing. Stories featuring more interesting takes on the twisting of time and how it is integrated into the story will receive more attention than those with more typical twisted time stories. We do NOT want to see stories where “temporal deactivation” means simply death. So be creative and use time in an unusual and unexpected way. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

ALTERNATE PEACE is to feature alternate history stories where the divergence from our timeline comes from some kind of peaceful change to our past. It must explore the consequences of this divergence, not simply introduce the divergence. Stories featuring more interesting historical settings and twists on the consequences of the peaceful divergence from our timeline will receive more attention than those with more standard changes to the course of history. So be creative and come up with an unusual and unexpected break from the timeline. Please note that while the divergence in the timeline must be from some peaceful change, that change CAN lead to violence; in other words, you are allowed to have violence in the story, it just can’t be what’s initiating the alternate history. We are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark.

Here are some example stories for ALTERNATE PEACE — stories where the divergence from the timeline comes from a peaceful change:

Stephen Baxter: The Twelfth Album (Interzone 13, Hartwell’s Best Science Fiction of the Year 4)
Michael F. Flynn: Quaetiones Super Caelo et Mundo (Analog, 7/07)
Janet Kagan: Love Our Lockwood (Alternate Presidents)
John Kessel: The Franchise (Pure Product, Fields of Fantasies)
Mary Robinette Kowal: The Lady Astronaut series (Tor Books)
Ian R. MacLeod: Snodgrass (Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 10, Past Magic)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Recovering Apollo 8 (Asimov’s, 2/7, Recovering Apollo 8)
Howard Waldrop: Heart of Whitenesse (Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 15, Heart of Whitenesse)

DEADLINE and TIMELINE:

The deadline for submissions is December 31st, 2018. Decisions on stories should be completed by the end of February 2019. Please send submissions to contact@zombiesneedbrains.com. You will receive a receipt email within a few days of receiving the submission and having it filed for consideration. Notices about decisions on the stories will be sent out no later than the end of March 2019.

If your story is selected for use in the anthology, you should expect a revision letter by the end of April 2019. Revisions and the final draft of the story will be expected no later than the end of May 2019. These dates may change due to the editors’ work schedules. Zombies Need Brains LLC is seeking exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages for the duration of one year after publication/release of the anthology, non-exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages after that. Your story cannot appear elsewhere during that first year. Pay rate will be an advance of a minimum of 6 cents per word. The anthology will be published as an ebook and an exclusive mass market paperback edition, distributed to the Kickstarter backers. The book would be available after that to the general public in ebook and trade paperback formats. Advances would be immediately earned out by the success of the Kickstarter. Royalties on additional sales beyond the Kickstarter will be 25% of ebook cover price and 10% of trade paperback cover price, both split evenly (not by word count) between the authors in and editors of the anthology.

Questions regarding these submission guidelines should be sent to contact@zombiesneedbrains.com. Thank you.

[NOTE: I had a story published in one of the ZNB anthologies a few years back. I found the ZNB people good to work with, they paid promptly, and I’ve received several royalty checks since then. Highly recommended for anyone who writes short SFF.]

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31 December 2018 — Curse the Darkness — Unlit Press

For our inaugural anthology, Curse the Darkness*, we’re throwing our doors wide open and inviting submissions on the theme of darkness. That could be the absence of light, the presence of evil, or the sinister thoughts of the afflicted. However you choose to interpret the theme, just make sure you leave us afraid to turn out the lights.

We’re looking for stories with compelling characters, sparkling dialogue, and strong, original voices. Send us stories that step off the well-trod paths into the unlit wilderness of the unusual, the interesting, and the provocative.

Please review our submission guidelines below before submitting your story via the submission form.

*Curse the Darkness is a working title. Unlit Press reserves the right to change the title as necessary.

Submission Guidelines

Word Count: 3,000 to 10,000 words.

Payment: Accepted authors will receive a one-off payment of £75 (approximately $100) or the equivalent in their local currency.

Format: We accept .doc, .docx, .rtf or .odt.

Multiple Submissions: No, send us one great story.

Simultaneous Submissions: Yes, but please let us know as soon as possible if your submission is accepted elsewhere.

Previously Published: No, we want original unpublished stories only.

Formatting: Double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12pt, with a single space after periods.

Rights: Unlit Press will have first world rights for an exclusive period of 12 months from the date of publication. At the end of the exclusive term, rights will revert back to the original author with Unlit Press retaining world distribution rights for the format(s) originally contracted.

Contributor Copies: Contributors will receive one free print copy of the anthology.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $150. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $150 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 2500 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

UNTIL FILLED — Black Superheroes Do It Too! — Black Books Publishing — First Listed January 2018

[Note: the domain name for this publisher has expired. If it hasn’t been reinstated by next month, I’ll pull this listing. In the mean time, use your own judgement about submitting.]

We are currently accepting submissions for our Black Erotica/Superhero Anthology (Working Title: Black Superheroes Do It Too!). Submissions should be full stories, not just sex scenes and between 3500 and 10,000 words. Writers, feel free to query to ensure your story idea hasn’t already been submitted.

This anthology pays $100US. The submission period will remain open until our goal of a 225+ page anthology has been reached.

Thoroughly edited material has the best chance of acceptance. You don’t need to pay someone to edit your material, but if you’re serious about your writing, we do recommend it. At a minimum, we suggest you have others read over your work for typos and grammatical errors.

All manuscripts should be in Microsoft Word and should be double spaced with an extra space between each paragraph. THIS EXTRA SPACE SHOULD BE DONE IN MICROSOFT WORD, THROUGH YOUR PARAGRAPH SETTINGS, NOT BY YOU ACTUALLY HITTING “ENTER” TWICE. There should be no indention at the start of each paragraph.

Send to: submissions@blackbookspublishing.com with “Superhero Erotica” in the subject heading.

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

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30 September 2018 — Bubble Off Plumb — ed. Kathy Finfrock; Feral Cat Publishers

Theme: “Bubble Off Plumb” (BOP) is a colloquial expression for things being not quite right. We’re looking for original fiction short stories of such a nature; odd, unsettling, full of twists, etc. All genres are welcome, if you have a story which doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere else, we might be the home for it! If you’re not sure a story is odd enough: submit it. We know BOP when we see it. If you submit a love story about a dreamy vampire meeting up with a young person, it had better be damn good!

Rules: Story can range from 1,000 to 5,000 words. Multiple submittals will be accepted for consideration, but please do not overwhelm us with unpolished drafts. First world rights are preferred. Reprint rights will be accepted if the story is good enough. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as well, provided prompt notice is given should the story be picked up elsewhere. Stories may exceed the 5K word count limit, if the story merits, however the advances are limited to a maximum of $150. Downstream royalty shares will be calculated on the actual word count.

Editor: Our Lead Editor is author Kathy Finfrock who, along with Sarah Fields from Dreamlined LLC, will shepherd the work to a polished end product.

Submission Process: All submissions should follow proper manuscript format. Email to submissions @ feralcatpublishers.com. Subject line to read: “BOP-[Author Name],[Story Title], [Reprint or First]”. Please attach all submissions in .doc, .docx, or rtf formatted electronic files—No submissions embedded within the body of an email will be considered. Include personal bio and relevant copyright information for story in your cover letter.

Compensation: Selected authors will receive an advance of $0.03/word of final, edited version of their story, plus a pro rata share of downstream royalties less up-front expenses, plus one paperback proof copy, and wholesale unit rates when purchasing extra paperbacks. The authors of the three highest-ranked stories will be listed on the front cover; the remaining authors will be listed on the back cover.

Terms and Conditions: Standard contract terms example available here.

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30 September 2018 — Ashes and Entropy — ed. Robert S. Wilson; Nightscape Press

[NOTE: Submissions open only to underrepresented demographics, such as women, people of color, LGBTQ persons, disabled persons, etc.]

Thanks to our amazing Kickstarter backers, the upcoming anthology Ashes and Entropy including stories by Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, Nadia Bulkin, Matthew M. Bartlett, Lucy A. Snyder, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, and more will be open for two short story submission slots to writers from underrepresented demographics (women, people of color, LGBTQ persons, disabled persons, etc.) starting on September 1st through September 30th.

GUIDELINES: We’re looking for phenomenal, original and gritty cosmic horror and noir (or neo-noir) stories with a strong emotional core. Stories should be 6,000 words or less. Anything longer than that will be a hard sell at this point. The content guidelines for this book are open for interpretation however, so don’t be afraid to color outside of the lines. Great writing, originality and pushing these genres to new heights will get you to the top of the slush pile faster than anything else. No reprints or multiple submissions, please.

PAYMENT: This anthology will pay 6 cents a word up to 6,000 words. Any longer stories accepted, payment will be capped at 6,000 words. If the Kickstarter campaign reaches its Audiobook stretch goal, an audiobook narrated by Jon Padgett will be produced and payment will be doubled.

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT THROUGH
OUR ONLINE SUBMISSION PORTAL

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30 September 2018 — John Silence — ed. Lev Mirov; Ginger Goat Press

The John Silence RPG & Anthology is a collective projective reinvisioning Algernon Blackwood’s “John Silence” short stories to focus on non-white/POC/ethnically and racially marginalized psychic detectives in an alternate American noir setting spanning the 1920s to the 1990s. The core rules by Josh Jordan for the collaborative, non-violent gameplay will make up part of the anthology. The other half is stories and poems in settings focusing on the adventures and lives of these psychic detectives and their dealings with the Unseen World. Being gifted (cursed?) with the ability to see and interact with the Unseen World compels you to try and protect others from the destruction being wrought by creatures that come through — but why are they so destructive? What is it they want? What does protection mean? The wide range of time invites many possibilities– themes I’m especially interested in is how communities (spiritual, physical, linguistic, ancestral, cross-cultural, adoptive) might deal with unseen threats and living in a world where spiritual gifts, so demonized by hegemonic culture, are now valuable assets. Explorations of historical and cross-cultural queer, trans, gender non-conforming, and unclassifiable experiences of gender and sexuality are welcome as protagonists and themes. So is home/away, diaspora/immigration, belonging and loss, family (found, made, and born) and of course, a good old-fashioned glimpse at the scary and the beautiful in our strange and monstrous otherworldly beings. We also love a classic Detective Romp where underrepresented heroes and their communities get to take center stage and shine as the geniuses who save the day through cunning, compassion, or culturally specific values, practices, or beliefs. Religious stories, particularly from religious minorities (including but not limited to Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, folk/marginalized Christianities, African and Afro-diasporic and indigenous religions) are especially welcome. Please don’t send me a story about a religion that you don’t practice that you don’t have some other deep tie to. The setting isn’t just weird noir into the 50s. Show me your Cold War immigrant kid pieces and your indigenous resistance songs, an alternate 1970s– wander far afield in time, as well as locale. Psychic Monsters visit Mobile and Fresno as well as New York and New Orleans.
POETRY

$30 flat fee. Any length. I will work with you to make it fit the physical book copy. I like rhymed verse, so if you like rhymed verse, go wild. I also like “unclassifiables” and oddities– fake scholarship around your poem, or footnotes, or an unusual form, is also welcome. Multilingual poetry is extremely welcome. All protagonists must be racially marginalized. Borderline prose-poetry also welcome. Submit to gingergoatpress@gmail.com by September 30th using the format described below.
FICTION

$0.06/word, up to 6,000 but with a preference for flash fiction to 4,000 words. (Shorter is better. The shorter your piece can resolve or explore the problems of unseen creatures disrupting life in a satisfying way, the more likely I am to say yes.) There is no budget for works over 6,000 words, sorry. Even if you are famous. If you are a Very Famous Person I will ask you to cut it down to size. Please play with with form! Diary entries, letters, fake newspaper entries, police reports, something weirder — all are welcome. Surprise me with your form play. All stories must center on a ethnically marginalized person grappling with their psychic abilities (or lack thereof in a world where they’re needed?) and the fact that violence cannot fix the problems created by the creatures on the other side of the veil or drive them away. Submit to gingergoatpress@gmail.com by September 30th using the format described below.

At least one space is reserved for an unpublished self-identified author of color or ethnically marginalized author. See FAQs below on what that means.

Please do not send me the following things: horror. Creepy-crawly tension is fine; I don’t want to read A Quiet Place or Carrie retold with black girls. I’m not the right editor for that. gore, of any kind, in any genre. dead/tragic gay and trans people (I am aware historically this was a time of huge violence; this is an Alternate Universe, we don’t have to go there, and we’re not going to) murder or rape in your plot. It’s 2018. Come on. We can investigate something else. graphic/R rated material, either in violence or sex level stories where the resolution is violence gratuitous slinging of slur words. no. I don’t want to read it and it’s not right for John Silence. work about non-racially marginalized people (this should be obvious but hey!) work that doesn’t focus on psychic detectives and/or the setting

Things that will excite me: your genuine authentic heart and soul work really inventive use of form, wordplay, etc SHORT stories. I don’t mind character studies without the standard Western “three act” tension as long as they explore the universe in a creative way. any poem or story that really embraces the ethos of collaboration and non-violence in the John Silence RPG pieces with heroic disabled protagonists queer and trans protagonists queer trans disabled protagonists!

I’m not going to say you’re unrealistic. work you’re convinced nobody else would ever buy, it’s too weird your secret voice you were told to make sound more commercial. Whisper to me in your real voice. I cannot promise I will accept your real work, but I promise I will honor the privilege of reading it.

[NOTE: There are a lot of FAQs on the linked page if you click through, plus more info if you poke around the Kickstarter project pages. If you want to write for this book, I suggest you read everything there before you start writing.]

***

1 October 2018 — American Psychos — ed. Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax; Red Room Press

Note: Anthology updates will be posted in the right hand column [of the web page] (accepted authors, tentative contributors, etc.)

Red Room Press is seeking stories for a new dark crime/thriller/horror anthology, American Psychos: A Serial Killer Anthology. Inspired by the most disturbingly violent and graphic crime thriller novels of our time, including Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, Shane Steven’s By Reason of Insanity, Michael Slade’s Headhunter, our goal is to make American Psychos a brutal, suspenseful, nightmare-inducing hard ride into hell.

Stories must be about a serial killer, obviously. The story can either be based on a real serial killer or a fictional serial killer. Stories should primarily be set in the USA, but the character may travel abroad. We want stories that are brutal, graphic, disturbing and violent. The above referenced books will give you a good idea of what we are looking for. Serial killers must be human; no supernatural elements, monsters, or vampires. They can have supernatural beliefs, however, and they can be any gender or race.

Publication Date: Early 2019

Length: 3500-5500 words.

Response Time: 4-8 weeks

Payment for original stories: $100 ($150 if we meet our crowdfunding campaign goal, See sidebar for details and other anthology updates)

No unsolicited reprints or multiple submissions.

What to Send

In the body of an email:
== Author name
== Story title
== Word Count
== A brief bio
== A short description of the story.
== Attachment of entire manuscript in rtf, doc, or docx format only. Standard formatting.

We’ll send a notification within 48 hours that we received your submission. If you don’t get this, please inquire. We may not have received it.

EMAIL TO: americanpsychos@redroompress.com

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1 October 2018 — Crash Code — ed. Kevin Holton; Blood Bound Books

The future is now. At least, that’s what we’re told, but the more advanced technology gets, the more ways people find to hurt each other. Many say that technology changes the way we define ‘human.’ In this anthology, we’ll erase the definition entirely.

That’s what you’ll answer. In Crash Code, we want to see the pinnacle of our technology meeting the depths of our depravity. Let’s talk voluntary amputations so we can wear cybernetic limbs as fashion statements. Tell us how commercial interplanetary flight changes human tracking. Show the world what the criminal underworld can do in an age of quantum computers. This anthology is going to focus on just how far human kind is willing to fall in pursuit of the next innovation, whether it’s paying for bionic sex in bitcoins, five-year-olds browsing the Dark Web, bar code tattoos, mainstream holographic snuff films, or corrupted neural implants driving their users mad.

Think Neuromancer with even more drugs and crime. Imagine Blade Runner meets Saw. Picture Wrath James White’s version of Brave New World. Imagine a test-tube baby made from George Orwell and Jack Ketchum. If your story makes people think American Mary merged with Altered Carbon, we want it.

These are just some ideas. Pick one if you like, or come up with your own sick, twisted future. Just make sure it answers one question:

In a world where everything demands a dollar sign and subscription fees, is humanity something we can afford to lose?

Stories must be previously unpublished in any form

Email: bbbcrashcode@gmail.com

Length: 1,500 words up to 7K

Deadline: October 1st 2018

Multiple Submissions: No

Simultaneous Submissions: No

Payment: 3 cents/word

***

1 November 2018 — Unlocking the Magic — ed. Vivian Caethe

Word limit: 3000-6000 words.

Pay rate: $300/story + royalties

Genre: Fantasy only (no Science Fiction or Horror, although horror elements may be present in the story). Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Steampunk, and other genres of fantasy are all encouraged.

Language: English (translations are welcome).

Submissions close: November 1, 2018

Rights: We claim first world English rights (no reprints). For an excellent break down of what this means, please see Neil Clarke’s post here.

In fantasy, we read about how people with mental illness are more susceptible to magic, closer to breaks in reality, more likely to be able to see the unseen. These stereotypes are harmful and contribute to keeping people from seeing the good in getting help, taking their meds, or talking to someone.

This anthology is about changing the narrative and telling stories of strength and perseverance, of getting help despite the darkness. Not the myth that getting help will kill creativity and magic. Not the story our society tells about mentally ill people: that art and magic must come from suffering.

I want stories that show what can be accomplished when we take care of ourselves and seek help. I want stories that show the reality of being mentally ill within a fantasy setting. I want to see how mental illness and its treatment affects the magic that lies within all of us. I want to read realistic portrayals of mental illness in magical worlds.

Send your stories formatted in Standard Manuscript format attached as a .doc to cuppateaanthologies at gmail dot com. Include your name, byline, email address, mailing address, and approximate word count. In your cover letter, also include the mental illness diagnosis your story addresses (e.g. depression, PTSD, bipolar, etc).

When writing your story, consider that you’re writing about real experiences that real people have, not just something fictional characters have to deal with. Do your research and write with compassion. I am looking for noblebright, not grimdark.

Submissions from diverse individuals and those with mental illnesses are encouraged.

***

30 November 2018 — Monstrous Outlines — Martian Migraine Press

[NOTE: The guidelines page lists the due date as 31 November. November has only 30 days, so I adjusted the date. If you want to take a chance and sub on 1 December, which is sort of the equivalent of 31 November, that’s up to you. 🙂 ]

Monstrous Outlines will be an anthology of horror and weird fiction with a focus on the theme of camouflage: people, entities, monsters, gods, even concepts, that masquerade as things other than themselves. Predators in plain sight, deities on their down time, sublime extra-dimensional terrors slumming in 4D. We want to see stories of exceptionally well done camouflage, all the more baffling and frightening for its seamless nature. We want to see stories of seeming where the hidden thing is poorly hidden for a number of reasons: perhaps there are layers to its camouflage, or perhaps it doesn’t care how well it hides. Imagine the moment when the perfectly hidden thing reveals itself. When the poorly hidden thing reveals itself. We’re also interested in duplicates, doppelgangers, and shapeshifters. Think John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? and its cinematic offspring, The Thing, for the latter. The seed story for this anthology will be Algernon Blackwood’s classic tale, The Willows, a story of two worlds touching, of men meeting the unnameable through the medium of the nearest natural analogue, the titular willow trees.

Submission period closes 30 NOVEMBER 2018. The anthology will be released in trade paperback and electronic book formats in early March 2019.

SUBMITTING

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 Monstrous Outlines, send an e-mail (with the story file attached, not in the body of the email) to: submissions@martianmigrainepress.com, with subject line: OUTLINES, title of your story, and your name.

LENGTH

For short fiction, we’d like to see anything from 1,500 to 7,000 words. If your story goes over 7k, please inquire first.

FLASH FICTION: got something under 1500 words? Send it in. However, the following still applies…

NO POETRY.

PAYMENT

All accepted submissions will be paid .03CAD per word, via Paypal, as well as a contributor copy (paperback) of the anthology, and copies in all electronic formats (mobi, EPUB, and PDF). Authors are also entitled to complete access to all titles in the MMP ebook catalogue.

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 30 NOVEMBER 2018 and we should be responding to all submissions, yay or nay, by early January 2019. If you haven’t heard from us by 15 January 2019, please query.

***

1 December 2018 — Rosalind’s Siblings — ed. Bogi Takács; Galli Books

[NOTE: DO NOT SUBMIT BEFORE 1 NOVEMBER.]

Rosalind’s Siblings is an anthology of speculative stories about people of marginalized genders/sexes who are scientists: scientists doing good, changing the world, or just getting on with their work of expanding human knowledge in a speculative context, presented in a positive light. This anthology is named for Rosalind Franklin, the so-called Dark Lady of DNA, one of the most famously erased female scientists in history, and a direct relation of the founder of Galli Books. The anthology is being edited by Bogi Takács.

The stories do not need to problematize gender/sex, though this is also welcome, and we would like to publish a mix of approaches. We are generally interested in positive portrayals of science and the protagonists doing research, but this can include a critical reappraisal. (E.g., we would very much like to see stories in which science is decolonized and/or Indigenized, or in some other ways incorporates approaches beyond Western neo-positivism.) We are not interested in “mad scientist” tropes or “evil science.” We are also not interested in disability cure narratives and related tropes, unless they are actively subverted / deconstructed.

Stories must contain a speculative element. We are happy to read works from any speculative subgenre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, magical realism, fabulism, mythic work, Weird fiction and so on. Any amount of science detail is welcome with thoughtful engagement.

Protagonists can be trans and/or nonbinary people, women, intersex people, genderqueer or gender-nonconforming people, people of culturally specific genders/sexes, and any combinations thereof. They do not need to identify as women, feminine or femme specifically, but those stories are particularly welcome; as are stories with trans, nonbinary and/or intersex men or masculine protagonists. Protagonists can have any sexual orientation.

You do not need to belong to any marginalized group to submit, but we are very happy to consider submissions from people who belong to underrepresented / marginalized groups in speculative fiction, including Black, Indigenous people and/or people of color, non-Western and/or non-Anglophonic people, migrants, QUILTBAG+ people, disabled, chronically ill and/or neuroatypical people. We welcome people from all letters of the QUILTBAG+, including trans, intersex, asexual, aromantic and bisexual people, who are more commonly ignored. Please don’t self-reject!

You do not need to disclose your marginalizations in your cover letter, but you are welcome to do so. Please send submissions to galli-books@galli-books.co.uk with “ROSALIND” in the subject line and the story title. Format submissions reasonably close to Standard Manuscript Format, and send them in .doc, .odt, .rtf formats, or .pdf if the story has unusual formatting that needs to be preserved. Please do NOT send .docx files.

Submissions open on 1st November and close on 1st December. Please do not submit outside that window.

We pay £0.08/word upon signed contract and are interested in previously unpublished short stories between 500 and 7500 words, and nonfiction essays on our theme.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $150. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $150 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 2500 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

***

UNTIL FILLED — Black Superheroes Do It Too! — Black Books Publishing — First Listed January 2018

We are currently accepting submissions for our Black Erotica/Superhero Anthology (Working Title: Black Superheroes Do It Too!). Submissions should be full stories, not just sex scenes and between 3500 and 10,000 words. Writers, feel free to query to ensure your story idea hasn’t already been submitted.

This anthology pays $100US. The submission period will remain open until our goal of a 225+ page anthology has been reached.

Thoroughly edited material has the best chance of acceptance. You don’t need to pay someone to edit your material, but if you’re serious about your writing, we do recommend it. At a minimum, we suggest you have others read over your work for typos and grammatical errors.

All manuscripts should be in Microsoft Word and should be double spaced with an extra space between each paragraph. THIS EXTRA SPACE SHOULD BE DONE IN MICROSOFT WORD, THROUGH YOUR PARAGRAPH SETTINGS, NOT BY YOU ACTUALLY HITTING “ENTER” TWICE. There should be no indention at the start of each paragraph.

Send to: submissions@blackbookspublishing.com with “Superhero Erotica” in the subject heading.

***

If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

If you’d like to support these listings in a more concrete way, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Become a Patron!

Anthology Markets

If you’ve just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. 🙂 I do these posts every month, so if this post isn’t dated in the same month you’re in, click here to make sure you’re seeing the most recent one. If you want to get an e-mail notification when the listing is posted, get the list a week early, or get a full listing of everything I’ve found (as opposed to the two months’ worth I post here) a week early, you can support my Patreon.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, with “Always Open” and “Until Filled” markets (if any) at the bottom.

Markets open only to writers in a limited demographic are marked with a [NOTE:] from me, in italics, right after the main header.

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.

***

1 September 2018 — Burnt Fur — ed. Ken Macgregor; Blood Bound Books

Furry: ‘noun informal 1. an enthusiast for animal characters with human characteristics, in particular a person who dresses up in costume as such a character or uses one as an avatar online.’

Furry can also mean actual anthropomorphic animal characters. Real animals acting like people (ie. Watership Down) or half-human/half-animal hybrids (ie. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

We’re looking for stories from the dark underbelly of Furry life. The Pooka who is not only invisible to everyone but Elwood Dowd (“Harvey”), but who is also slaughtering the neighborhood pets. The talking porcupine who uses an ancient form of acupuncture to mind-control the humans into a sex/blood cult. The couple who dress up as wolves, go to Furry cons, and actually eat people dressed as prey animals. You get the idea.

Show us the corruption of innocence. Give us fur matted with blood and semen. Make us squirm as we read. But, please, make sure you have a story to go with your gory. Please include a plot with your cum shot. If it’s all shock and no substance, we’ll likely pass.

What we’re looking for:

Genres: All sub-genres of horror accepted—extreme, bizzaro, erotic, new weird, splatterpunk—if it’s dark and it’s furry, we want it!

Stories must be previously unpublished in any form

Email: burntfursubmissions@gmail.com

Length: 1,500 words up to 7K

Multiple Submissions: No

Simultaneous Submissions: No

Payment: 3 cents/word

***

1 September 2018 — Release the Virgins — ed. Michael A. Ventrella

Through a kickstarter campaign, we were able to raise enough to go ahead with this project, and we have confirmations from authors David Gerrold, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Jody Lynn Nye, Allen Steele, Steve Miller, Sharon Lee, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Gail Z. Martin, Cecilia Tan, Patrick Thomas, Shariann Lewitt, Alex Shvartsman, Hildy Silverman, and Daniel M. Kimmel.

We should have room for a few extra stories as well. But only a few.

Submissions are open for short stories that include, somewhere in the story, the phrase “Release the Virgins.”

The story should be no more than 5,000 words. This should be sufficient for what should most likely be a somewhat humorous tale. The payment is 5 cents a word. Do not take this as an invitation to pad your story in order to earn a few more bucks. If your story is complete at 3,000 words, then end it. A good but padded story may get rejected over a concise, fast-moving one, because we want to fit in as many stories as possible.

Unpublished authors are encouraged to submit, but will still face the same standards for submissions as the published authors. (Hint: Don’t send me a submission full of spelling and grammatical errors.)

An email proposal is required to make sure you are not duplicating an idea already reserved by one of the accepted authors. Send to michael.ventrella@gmail.com.

Once that is approved, your story should be double-spaced in rtf format with 12 point Times Roman font. There should be no spacing after the paragraphs. The first page must contain the name of the story, the word count, and your name, address, email, and phone number. Your cover letter should list any previous publications.

EDIT (ADDED A WEEK LATER):

I’m getting a lot of proposed story ideas for the anthology and if they all submit stories, I’ll have to reject a lot (or hold them in case we do a second book).

But here’s some advice:

1. Avoid unicorns. I’ve already had a bunch of proposals about unicorns and even if the submitted stories are all good, I’m not going to want to have more than one or two unicorn stories in the anthology. We want variety.

2. Be creative. If it looks like you just took a story you already had and found a way to work the phrase into the story in such a way that I could remove the phrase completely and it wouldn’t hurt the story, then I will probably not accept it. The phrase should be relevant and necessary to the story.

3. Don’t send me a proposal with spelling and grammatical errors. I mean, duh.

Thanks!

***

15 September 2018 — Non-Themed Horror Anthologies — Corpus Press

Corpus Press is now accepting submissions for non-themed horror anthologies with a publication target of 2019. Submissions will be accepted according to our publishing needs, regardless of author publication history, status, race, creed, gender, sexual preferences or any other identity factor. Submissions should be story-driven and appeal to a wide adult audience.

What we ARE looking for:

== Not previously published short stories of 2,500-4,500 words. We are seeking stories that can be characterized as being within the broad category of “horror” fiction.
== Successful submissions will be highly original, well written and cleanly edited.
== Stories may be frightening, thought-provoking, atmospheric, humorous and/or satirical (or any combination thereof), but MUST contain a complete tale.

What we ARE NOT looking for:

== We are not seeking “extreme horror” or “Splatterpunk” material. We discourage submissions that have a singular purpose of shocking the audience with explicit language, sexuality and/or violence. Explicit language, sexuality and violence are acceptable, however, if handled in a tasteful manner and in service to a well-plotted, engaging story.
== Abstract mood pieces, vignettes, and highly experimental approaches to literature are discouraged. We are not accepting poems.
== Stories featuring exaggerated dialects, colloquialisms or excessive references to pop culture or current fads are discouraged.
== Not seeking stories featuring vampires, werewolves or zombies.
== Epistolary fiction will not be accepted.

Document Requirements: Submissions must be in an editable format sent via the publisher’s submission portal. No PDFs or scanned documents sent as image files will be accepted. Preference is for author name, email address and word count information to be placed only at the end of the document to assist with blinded review process.

Submission window: June 1, 2018 until midnight EST September 15, 2018.

Please no multiple or simultaneous submissions. Notifications of acceptance / rejection will be sent no later than October 30, 2018, with publication target of 2019.

PLEASE NOTE THAT SUBMISSION DOES NOT GUARANTEE ACCEPTANCE.

Pay Rate: $.03 per word.
Payment will be capped at $150 USD for accepted submissions (2,500-4,500 words). Two (2) free contributor copies (paperback) will be provided upon publication, with contributors having the option to buy additional quantities at cost post-publication. Payment on publication.

Anthology target length: Approximately 250-300 pages. Title TBD.

Please note: Final contract required to be signed upon acceptance which may contain additional terms and conditions.

***

15 September 2018 — The Cockroach Conservatory Vol. 2: Glory of Man: The Rise and Fall of the Reality Soldier — ed. Trey Hudson and Andrew Hilbert; The Cockroach Conservatory

Pitiful humans!

It is time again to open submissions in celebration of our Lord Commander Patagonia! His second volume of holy texts will be titled: Glory of Man: The Rise and Fall of the Reality Soldier.

As always, the naming conventions of our infallible Lord Commander Patagonia enlightens as much as it obfuscates. Allow me, his perfect instrument of perfect judgement, to give some clarifying points.

As you may know, Lord Commander Patagonia was attracted to your puny planet by way of its music. One such song that struck him so was The Minutemen’s Glory of Man.

[Click through for a video of the song.]

Themes we are looking for to further entwine the fate of our two planets, Earthagonia and Black Hole Duffel, are:

Time
Militarism
Reality
Singularity
Interdimensionality
Fake News
Propaganda
Technology

In anticipation of silly questions and to lessen the chances that my Slap of Judgement be administered unto your face, allow me to be clear.

Fake News should make no mention of whatever current political climate your country is facing now. Absorb the themes of your time into fiction but we are not looking for your long winded diatribes about what you believe this way or that way. We are followers of Lord Commander Patagonia and we have no leader before him. Therefore, we care not for the gripes of your world.

You must not have a character named “Reality Soldier.” The Reality Soldier is aboard our very expensive ship and does not take kindly to misrepresentation of his character.

We appreciate weird. We appreciate humorous. We appreciate absurdity. To get an idea of what we publish, take a look at our first volume available on Amazon here. We realize we are a new market and you may not want to shell out the bucks for the first volume. Fine, heathen. Think Joe Lansdale, Kelly Luce, or Etgar Keret. Think R. Crumb or Junji Ito. Or think none of that. We are going to accept what we like. We do not adhere to a strict set of regulations in terms of genre or literature. To get a feel of how we approach things, listen to the Spacecast here.

Guidelines:

NO REPRINTS

FICTION

1. Stories must be in doc or docx format.
2. Include a short bio in the body of the email.
3. No reprints
4. Maximum word count is 3000.
5. We pay 6 cents a word. Payable upon publication.
6. NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS. We respond quickly in comparison to other markets.
7. Limit multiple submissions to three.
8. Your email subject line should be SUBMISSION: [YOUR NAME] [TITLE]
9. Submissions open on August 1st, 2018. They close on September 15, 2018.

POETRY

1. We pay a flat rate of $10 per poem
2. Include a short bio in the body of the email
3. No reprints
4. No e.e. cummings formatting.
5. NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS.
6. Send up to five poems.
7. Your email subject line should be POETRY: [YOUR NAME]
8. Submissions open on August 1st, 2018. They close on September 15, 2018.

Email all submissions to racefortheroaches@gmail.com

***

1 October 2018 — American Psychos — ed. Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax; Red Room Press

Note: Anthology updates will be posted in the right hand column [of the web page] (accepted authors, tentative contributors, etc.)

Red Room Press is seeking stories for a new dark crime/thriller/horror anthology, American Psychos: A Serial Killer Anthology. Inspired by the most disturbingly violent and graphic crime thriller novels of our time, including Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, Shane Steven’s By Reason of Insanity, Michael Slade’s Headhunter, our goal is to make American Psychos a brutal, suspenseful, nightmare-inducing hard ride into hell.

Stories must be about a serial killer, obviously. The story can either be based on a real serial killer or a fictional serial killer. Stories should primarily be set in the USA, but the character may travel abroad. We want stories that are brutal, graphic, disturbing and violent. The above referenced books will give you a good idea of what we are looking for. Serial killers must be human; no supernatural elements, monsters, or vampires. They can have supernatural beliefs, however, and they can be any gender or race.

Publication Date: Early 2019

Length: 3500-5500 words.

Response Time: 4-8 weeks

Payment for original stories: $100 ($150 if we meet our crowdfunding campaign goal, See sidebar for details and other anthology updates)

No unsolicited reprints or multiple submissions.

What to Send

In the body of an email:
== Author name
== Story title
== Word Count
== A brief bio
== A short description of the story.
== Attachment of entire manuscript in rtf, doc, or docx format only. Standard formatting.

We’ll send a notification within 48 hours that we received your submission. If you don’t get this, please inquire. We may not have received it.

EMAIL TO: americanpsychos@redroompress.com

***

1 October 2018 — Crash Code — ed. Kevin Holton; Blood Bound Books

The future is now. At least, that’s what we’re told, but the more advanced technology gets, the more ways people find to hurt each other. Many say that technology changes the way we define ‘human.’ In this anthology, we’ll erase the definition entirely.

That’s what you’ll answer. In Crash Code, we want to see the pinnacle of our technology meeting the depths of our depravity. Let’s talk voluntary amputations so we can wear cybernetic limbs as fashion statements. Tell us how commercial interplanetary flight changes human tracking. Show the world what the criminal underworld can do in an age of quantum computers. This anthology is going to focus on just how far human kind is willing to fall in pursuit of the next innovation, whether it’s paying for bionic sex in bitcoins, five-year-olds browsing the Dark Web, bar code tattoos, mainstream holographic snuff films, or corrupted neural implants driving their users mad.

Think Neuromancer with even more drugs and crime. Imagine Blade Runner meets Saw. Picture Wrath James White’s version of Brave New World. Imagine a test-tube baby made from George Orwell and Jack Ketchum. If your story makes people think American Mary merged with Altered Carbon, we want it.

These are just some ideas. Pick one if you like, or come up with your own sick, twisted future. Just make sure it answers one question:

In a world where everything demands a dollar sign and subscription fees, is humanity something we can afford to lose?

Stories must be previously unpublished in any form

Email: bbbcrashcode@gmail.com

Length: 1,500 words up to 7K

Deadline: October 1st 2018

Multiple Submissions: No

Simultaneous Submissions: No

Payment: 3 cents/word

***

1 November 2018 — Unlocking the Magic — ed. Vivian Caethe

Word limit: 3000-6000 words.

Pay rate: $300/story + royalties

Genre: Fantasy only (no Science Fiction or Horror, although horror elements may be present in the story). Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Steampunk, and other genres of fantasy are all encouraged.

Language: English (translations are welcome).

Submissions close: November 1, 2018

Rights: We claim first world English rights (no reprints). For an excellent break down of what this means, please see Neil Clarke’s post here.

In fantasy, we read about how people with mental illness are more susceptible to magic, closer to breaks in reality, more likely to be able to see the unseen. These stereotypes are harmful and contribute to keeping people from seeing the good in getting help, taking their meds, or talking to someone.

This anthology is about changing the narrative and telling stories of strength and perseverance, of getting help despite the darkness. Not the myth that getting help will kill creativity and magic. Not the story our society tells about mentally ill people: that art and magic must come from suffering.

I want stories that show what can be accomplished when we take care of ourselves and seek help. I want stories that show the reality of being mentally ill within a fantasy setting. I want to see how mental illness and its treatment affects the magic that lies within all of us. I want to read realistic portrayals of mental illness in magical worlds.

Send your stories formatted in Standard Manuscript format attached as a .doc to cuppateaanthologies at gmail dot com. Include your name, byline, email address, mailing address, and approximate word count. In your cover letter, also include the mental illness diagnosis your story addresses (e.g. depression, PTSD, bipolar, etc).

When writing your story, consider that you’re writing about real experiences that real people have, not just something fictional characters have to deal with. Do your research and write with compassion. I am looking for noblebright, not grimdark.

Submissions from diverse individuals and those with mental illnesses are encouraged.

***

ALWAYS OPEN — Future Visions Anthology Series — ed. Brian J Walton; Camton House Publishing

The Future Visions Anthologies is a science fiction anthology series, aiming to deliver excellent and diverse short story collections on a quarterly basis. In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.

Themes:

What do you hope the future will bring? What are you afraid we may become? How do our visions of the future inform and give shape to the hopes and fears that we have today?

These questions are what defines anthology series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Rather than mandating a theme for each publication, (one publication for cyborgs, one for time travelers, etc…) I want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias, the list goes on…

Diversity:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to bring diversity to all aspects of their publications, from the stories and authors we publish, to the themes and genres we explore. All authors may apply regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation.

Terms:

The Future Visions Anthologies seeks to engage authors with fair and equitable terms through participation in the anthologies. The anthologies will be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited for an initial six-month term, during which stories will be exclusive to the anthology. After this, anthologies will continue be available as an ebook (not in KU) for an additional six-month term. During this term, partial publication rights will return to the author to publish as an ebook, except for in KU. After one year, the ebook will be unpublished, returning all rights to the author.

Payment will be based on a profit-share model with a guaranteed minimum payment of $150. Authors will receive royalties during the first six months of membership. At the end of the royalty period, if the author’s royalties do not meet the minimum payment of $150 then the remaining amount will be paid. There is no cap to the amount of royalties that may be earned. Earning reports for the anthology will be provided to all participating authors to ensure complete transparency. Specific terms will be available after initial acceptance of the author’s story.

Submission Guidelines:

== Authors must read and be in agreement with the above before submitting.
== There is no fee to submit.
== Submissions must be original, never before published works.
== Submissions may be set in a larger universe, but should be a complete story; do not send excerpts, parts, or volumes.
== Word Count is 2k-7k words (exceptions for up to one story per anthology can be made).
== Submissions should be written to the best of the author’s ability. Professional editing is not required but may help in the consideration of your piece. Camton House Publishing will provide professional editing and proofreading, approved by the author, and a final, edited version will be submitted to the author upon publication.
== Adult language and sexual situations are permitted, but no hate speech, erotica or “X-rated” material.
== Formatting: 12pt Times New Roman font with 1.5-line spacing; 1-inch margins on all sides; no extra spaces between paragraphs; leading indentations, but no tabs.
== Include “Future Visions Short Story Submission” in the header and the following information in the body of the email:
o Author Name
o Story Title
o Word Count
o Brief Bio, written in the third person. 100-300 words.
== Submissions should be submitted in docx format as an attachment.
== Submissions should be emailed to futurevisionssubmissions@gmail.com

Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered.

Deadlines:

Submissions are always open. Authors who have submitted will be notified within 4-6 weeks of submission regarding whether their story has been selected.

[Okay, this is different. I’ll be treating this one like an “Until Filled” market, in that I’ll be checking every month to make sure they’re still alive. Unlike a UF, I’ll keep posting this so long as it’s still alive. (Unless it turns morbid or skeevy, the usual.) Note that this is a royalty split with a guaranteed minimum, which works out to pro rates up to 2500 words, and semi-pro after that. Best practice IMO is to assume that the minimum is all you’ll ever get from this market; that way, so long as you do get paid, all your surprises will happy ones.

Interesting business model; it’s basically a magazine that’s being treated like an antho series, more or less. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and may revisit the listing in the future.]

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UNTIL FILLED — Black Superheroes Do It Too! — Black Books Publishing — First Listed January 2018

We are currently accepting submissions for our Black Erotica/Superhero Anthology (Working Title: Black Superheroes Do It Too!). Submissions should be full stories, not just sex scenes and between 3500 and 10,000 words. Writers, feel free to query to ensure your story idea hasn’t already been submitted.

This anthology pays $100US. The submission period will remain open until our goal of a 225+ page anthology has been reached.

Thoroughly edited material has the best chance of acceptance. You don’t need to pay someone to edit your material, but if you’re serious about your writing, we do recommend it. At a minimum, we suggest you have others read over your work for typos and grammatical errors.

All manuscripts should be in Microsoft Word and should be double spaced with an extra space between each paragraph. THIS EXTRA SPACE SHOULD BE DONE IN MICROSOFT WORD, THROUGH YOUR PARAGRAPH SETTINGS, NOT BY YOU ACTUALLY HITTING “ENTER” TWICE. There should be no indention at the start of each paragraph.

Send to: submissions@blackbookspublishing.com with “Superhero Erotica” in the subject heading.

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If you’ve found this listing useful, and especially if you’ve sold a story to a market you found here (score!) I’d love to hear about it. You can e-mail me at angiepen at gmail dot com.

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