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: Little Girl Lost by Mannison Press has closed. Their deadline was 31 August or until filled, and they filled.
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31 August 19 -- Miscreations -- ed. Doug Murano and Michael Bailey; Written Backwards
What happens when we make monsters? What happens when we confront the monsters inside ourselves? These are the grotesque things that should never have been. These are the beasts that stalk our twisted pasts. These are the ghosts of our own making that haunt our regrets. They’re the blood on our hands. They’re the obsessions in our heads. They’re the vengeance in our hearts. These are Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors.
Bram Stoker Award-winning editors Doug Murano and Michael Bailey welcome you to submit your best work for consideration in this anthology, which will launch in early 2020. We’ve already announced two of our contributors—Ramsey Campbell and Usman T. Malik—and will be making more announcements in the coming weeks!
Pay: 5c / word U.S.
Length: 2,000 – 5,000 words. FIRM.
Reprints? No thanks.
Anything you should avoid? Graphic, gratuitous depictions of child abuse, sexual abuse and animal abuse are generally unwelcome.
Where to send: miscreationsbook@gmail.com
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13 September 19 -- Latinx Screams -- ed. V. Castro and Brian Lindenmuth; Bronzeville Books
[NOTE: This market is only open to Latinx and AfroLatinx writers.]
People scream when they're afraid. They scream when they are in the heat of battle. They scream in the wake of victory.
This is a place to scream our pain, fears, worry, frustrations, nightmares and dreams. - Co-editor V. Castro.
Latinx Screams is looking for stories by Latinx and AfroLatinx writers with protagonists facing overwhelming fears and rising to fight horrifying foes. Some will thrive, some with survive, and some will die. Give us your vanquished, and your victors.
Horror is the parent genre; speculative fiction horror, sci-fi horror, or pure horror, including real-world horror, will all be considered. Whether your horror story takes place on a spaceship, in an alternate dimension, or in the real world, it qualifies.
Payment: $0.05 U.S. per word for previously unpublished stories
Story length: Stories up to 3,500 are preferred, but stories up to 5,000 words in length will be considered
Multiple submissions are accepted. Each writer may submit up to 3 stories for consideration. This applies to all stories by the same person, whether they use a pseudonym for some of them or not.
While we would prefer a short exclusive window of consideration, simultaneous submissions are allowed. Please indicate your submission is a simultaneous submission in the email.
Reprints may be considered; payment rate to be determined. Please indicate it is a reprint in your email.
Submissions:
Please include your story as an attached word doc and email to submissions.desk@bronzevillebooks.com (We do not review PDF documents or RTF documents. Please send .doc or .docx only.)
Your email should have the name of the project and story in the subject line. For example: Latinx Screams: My Story's Title
Your email should include your bio (up to 100 words written in third person) and an author photo.
Do not include a query letter for your story. We do ask that you note if the submission is a reprint, advise us of the total word count of the story, and let us know if this is a simultaneous submission.
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30 September 19 -- AfroMyth 2: A Fantasy Collection -- Afrocentric Books
AfroMyth 2: A Fantasy Collection is open for submissions.
We want adult stories. No erotica, though some erotic or romance elements are acceptable. Magic, gods, mysticism, mythical creatures. Bring us old fairy tales with an Afrocentric twist. We are interested in new gods or ancient ones, old religions, houngans, potions, and spells. Your story can be adapted from African folklore or modern tales. You aren’t restricted in your chosen setting, but priority will be given to stories featuring human characters who live in this world or some version of it.
We want diverse characters in diverse settings, with a main character of indigenous African descent. Please read our general submission guidelines prior to submitting. 1,000-7,500 words, although we’ll consider pieces that fall outside those parameters on a case-by-case basis. Multiple and simultaneous submissions ok. No reprints.
If accepted, pay is $0.015 (1.5 cents) per word PLUS one print copy of the novel (you must provide an address to which the US Postal Service can deliver).
AfroMyth short stories MUST be submitted via Submittable.
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11 October 19 -- Return to San Cicaro -- Thunderbird Studios
Earlier this year we did an open call and produced Welcome to San Cicaro, the first of Thunderbird Studios’ original anthologies. We got some great stories and exciting new writers, and had a blast doing it. In fact, we enjoyed it so much… we’re doing it again!
Once more, we’re taking another plunge into the mysterious, paranormal jewel of the Golden State—San Cicaro. Want to play in our city? Here’s another chance.
As before, we’re looking for yarns of dark urban fantasy, the weird, the macabre and the hopeful. Tell us of unassuming teenagers stumbling upon witch meetups, who weave spells for good or ill. Of hell-born creatures leaving scenes of carnage that confound the police. Of trolls trying to fit into the society of the homeless. We want them all.
The best way of course to understand the vibe and atmosphere of the stories we are looking for is to pick up a copy of Welcome to San Cicaro, and give it a read. You can also check our prior call for more details.
Details:
Submitted short stories should have a minimum of around 5,000 words up to a soft limit of 8,000 words. We can go as high as 10,000 but will be looking to whittle that down. Formatting should follow William-Shunn guidelines.
Aside from editing and proofreading your work, the editors will also make very minor changes to fit your tale into San Cicaro itself. We may recommend street names, slightly modify passages to mention landmarks, or other such continuity tweaks. Most importantly, we may connect your story not only to the prior anthology, but to stories published in this release. Our ultimate goal is to add tiny details that join your story into a greater, connected narrative.
Authors will be recompensed with a one-time payment of $135 for five-year publication rights, with exclusive rights for the first year, non-exclusive after that. Note that this is an improvement over last year, and that we’re also retroactively increasing the pay for the prior anthology’s authors. If we do a third anthology, we will likely increase payment again to match.
Please submit to the open call at admin@tbirdstudios.com with the subject line "San Cicaro." In the body please include a cover letter about yourself, including links to your bibliography and any details about your story. The story itself should be an attachment of file type RTF, DOC or DOCX. No multiple submissions (just one story per person) and no simultaneous submissions (don’t submit the same story to other publishers) please. We also want original stories only; nothing that has been published before. This includes stories hosted on your blog or published for your Patreon followers.
Thematic Rules:
== Please invent. If your story calls for a landmark, business or ethnoburb (like a Koreatown), just create it. Please create your own characters and avoid reusing existing ones.
== Don’t explain the mystery. Hypothesize all you like, but keep the supernatural stuff fairly underground. We’re really not wild about a POV character who shows up with all the answers.
== Play with next generation technologies. Despite the times, San Cicaro’s hospitals and research firms are still cutting edge. What if fairy livers had powerful medicinal properties? Or if troll muscle fibers were the key to human regeneration? Just keep it under serious NDA.
== No world-destroying monsters. A werewolf or vampire who stalks the night is great. Zombies are fine. But the zombie apocalypse is not.
== Get cultural. We love diving into the origins of supernatural creatures. The etymology, how superstitions have changed, how Hollywood got it wrong. Although our focus is to entertain, discovery of true-to-life folklore is a bonus.
== Don’t go too big. We’re not here for dragons, giants or anything too noticeable. We’ve done so once and we’d rather not repeat it. San Cicaro works best when the magic is at least a little ambiguous.
== Reference the first anthology. We encourage links to past stories, as it creates a sense of continuity and history. However, be conscious of what outsider POVs would actually know about. A good rule of thumb; if an event would be big enough to make it into the local newspaper, it’ll probably be referenced elsewhere. We don’t want characters who are omniscient about all San Cicaro’s mysteries.
== No aliens. No UFOs, no invasions.
== Use extreme subject matter with care. Vivid gore doesn’t wow us. Consensual gratuitous sex scenes are a tough sell. The non-consensual variety are a hard no. We want stories, not shock.
Closing Notes:
If you have further questions or want to ask about an idea or landmark (akin to the San Diego Zoo or the Golden Gate Bridge), feel free to inquire with us. Just send an email to admin@tbirdstudios.com with the subject line “San Cicaro Question.” Likewise if you want to make a dedication to someone, let us know with your submission and we’ll name a street after them. We’d like to give a huge thanks to Cerqueira over on Unsplash for the great picture we used for the banner. And be sure to check out the San Cicaro Pulse for more open call tips. Good luck to everyone submitting, we can’t wait to read your work and re-immerse ourselves in the strange and exotic world of San Cicaro!
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UNTIL FILLED -- Burly Tales -- ed. Steve Berman; Lethe Press
This anthology, to be edited by Steve Berman, seeks short stories and novellettes that adapt classic fairy tales. But we want them populated with Bears! Strapping heroes are fine as long as they are stout. All the stories should have a measure of whimsy and/or wonder.
Before submitting your story, please consult this page - we would rather not double-up on any original fairy tale idea (we fear we'd end up with a book that was mostly about a gang of male Goldilocks roaming the woods and asking one another "Too hot? Too cold? More please!") - so I will be listing any fairy tale that we no longer are interested in reading. Yes, rather than wait a year to hear from us, the entire open period will have "rolling acceptances."
.........please no stories based on Little Red Riding Hood
All stories should be romantic (HEA or HFN). Erotic content is not a necessity but our burly men should be sex-positive about their lives.
Specs: Please submit Word docs only, standard formatting, 12 pt Times Roman to me at lethepress@aol.com, using the title of the anthology as the subject line. No stories below 5k and none greater than 15. Reading period begins August 1st, 2019. Payment is 5 cents a word for original fiction, considerably less for reprints.
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