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Speculative Fiction
dark matter
Details
THE OFFSEASON: AN ANTHOLOGY OF COASTAL NEW WEIRD
Editor: Marissa van Uden
OPEN Aug 6- Aug 28th
Pay: 5 cents per word
Word range: 2000-4000 word limit
Simultaneous submissions? yes
Reprints? No
Description
Think ocean-loving cults, crumbling seaside mansions, empty resort towns, strange fisherwomen, beachside arcades, eerie lighthouses, literal tourist traps...
Submission Hints
The Off-Season is an anthology of disquieting and disturbing New Weird horror set in landscapes and communities on the edge of the sea. These coastal stories defamiliarize the ordinary, evoke dread even in the daylight, and haunt like half-remembered nightmares.
Think ...jellyfish swarms, red tides, oil spills, intertidal zones, salt marshes, gaudy luxury hotels reclaimed by sea, the cosmic indifference of capitalism, creeping urchins, thousand-yard stares, wrecked cruise ships, weird biotech, evening dock workers, and slippery marine metamorphosis.
I’m especially looking for uncanny ecology, uneasy atmosphere, and strange characters who are either transcending their environment or subsiding into it. I’d love to see unusual coastal settings from around the world, or traditionally romanticized settings transformed into places of unfamiliarity and subtle wrongness. Most of all, I’m looking for fiction that makes the reader feel uncomfortable dread mixed with intense curiosity.
What is New Weird?
New Weird is a subgenre of horror-fantasy that slides along the margins of other speculative fiction genres, subverts old tropes and conventions, and/or plays with form, style, and ideas. Its roots are in the subtle ambiguity and mystery of Weird horror and the subversive playfulness of New Wave science-fiction, but it is constantly innovating itself. For me, the best of New Weird blends the mundane with the sublime, the grimy with the divine, and the grotesque with the beautiful. It seduces and horrifies at the same time, filling the reader with a quiet kind of dread-fascination. While the genre dwells more in the realm of strange tales than overt splatter horror, by nature it is always breaking boundaries and doing new things. You too should make it your own.
Horror
Psuedopod
Details
Editors: Shawn Garrett & Alex Hofelich
OPEN Aug 11 -22
Pay: 8 cents per word
Word range: 1,500 - 6,000
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Reprints: Yes
Description
Psuedopod is looking for quality horror stories and is part of the Escape Artists family. They have been around since 2006 and warn they are for mature audiences only.
Submission Hints
We’re looking for horror: dark, weird fiction. We run the spectrum from grim realism or crime drama, to magic-realism, to blatantly supernatural dark fantasy. We publish highly literary stories reminiscent of Poe or Lovecraft as well as vulgar shock-value pulp fiction. We don’t split hairs about genre definitions, and we do not observe any taboos about what kind of content can appear in our stories. Originality demands that you’re better off avoiding vampires, zombies, and other recognizable horror tropes unless you have put a very unique spin on them.” “What matters most is that the stories are dark and compelling. Since we’re an audio magazine, our audience can’t skim past the boring parts, so stories with beautiful language at the expense of plot don’t translate well.” We’re looking for fiction with strong pacing, well-defined characters, engaging dialogue, and clear action.” It can be beautiful too, if you’ve got all those other bases covered. Dark humor is just fine, and we run it on occasion; but we are more interested in tragedy than comedy, and comedy is better received the more sick and morbid it is. Above all, we want stories that make us think, that stick with us, that make us catch ourselves checking the locks a second time before bed.”
My Insights
I've sent them five stories, and they sometimes send back very helpful notes. Here is one: “Thank you for submitting “The Writing Retreat” to us. It’s an interesting story, but it didn’t quite come together for us and we’ve decided to pass on it. The piece contained a nice amount of humor, and the writing is clear and easy to visualize. However, the zombie story is a familiar one. We don’t mind seeing familiar tropes, but you need to put a unique spin on them—and we don’t think you quite managed to achieve that here.”
Speculative Fiction
apparition lit
Details
Managing Editor: Tacoma Tomilson
OPEN Aug 15-31
Pay: 5 cents per word
THEME - RECLAMATION
Word range: 1,000-5,000
Simultaneous submissions? No
Reprints? No
Description
Speculative fiction is weird, almost unclassifiable. It’s fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and literary. We want it all. Send us your strange, misshapen stories.
Submission Hints
Speculative fiction is weird, almost unclassifiable. It’s fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and literary. Send us your strange, misshapen stories with enough emotional heft to break a heart, with prose that’s as clear and delicious as broth. We love proactive characters and settings that feel lived in and real enough to touch. Stories with style, stories with emotion, stories with character.
Insights
I love this venue. I've gotten many personal rejections from them, and you can tell they read all the stories sent to them. (As opposed to the first paragraph, or whatever some of the other slashers do.). Still no luck selling to them.
Horror
ghoulish tales
Details
Editors: Max Booth
bi-annual horror mag
Deadline - Aug 31st
Pay: 10 cents per word
Word range: 5000 max
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Reprints: No
Description
Ghoulish Tales releases every April and October. The magazine features both short stories and essays celebrating all things spooky.
Submission Hints
What we are after: short stories that fit our personal definition of the word GHOULISH, which is “fun horror that aims to celebrate all things spooky.”
Note that we said fun, not funny. Comedic stories are definitely allowed, but it’s not all we’re looking to receive. We want stories that remind us why we love the horror genre. We want to have a perverted little smile across our face while reading. Make us slobber like idiots. Turn us into the Sickos.jpeg meme.
My Insights
Apparently they had an insane response to their last open call for the first issue of Ghoulish Tales. One of my "sources" tells me they got over 1200 stories for only 8 spots.
Speculative Fiction
the reckoning 8
Details
Editor: Knar Gavin & Waverly SM
Deadline: Sept 22
Pay: 10 cents per word
Word Range
: 0 - 20,000
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Reprints? Query first
Description
Reckoning Magazine is a nonprofit annual journal that focuses on environmental justice. They define environmental justice as: The notion that the people (and other living things) saddled with the consequences of humanity’s poor environmental choices and the imperative to remedy those choices are not the ones responsible for them.
Submission Hints
For Reckoning 8 we want thinking, writing and art about … this.
All of this, right now. We want to hear about active resistance to the patriarchofascist, corporate-captured extractive state. Show us what it means that in order to build Cop City
a massive facility intended to train a new generation of lethal enforcers into an institution directly descended from slave patrols, the state of Georgia and its actors must first level a forest and label protestors “domestic terrorists” as a precursor to murdering them. Help us understand how strategies of repression and control all over the world concentrate agency in the hands of the few at the expense of all other life.
We are looking for work in opposition to a broad, insidious fascism that treats water, trees, and bodies as exploitable, expendable resources rather than sacred, essential components of our global, infinitely interconnected and interdependent web of life.
Insights
They take a while to get back to you, but often give personals. Some biting, some encouraging.
Horror in Malls
ESCALATORS TO HELL
Details
From Beyond Press
SHOPPING MALL HORRORS
Open for submissions: July 30-Aug 31
Editor: Michael W. Phillips Jr.
Pay:5 cents per word
Word range: 1000-5000 max
Simultaneous submissions? No
Reprints? No
Description
There’s something amiss at the mall. Elderly mallwalkers are being devoured by an unseen creature. A mad scientist is building a doomsday device out of Radio Shack parts. Post apocalypse, survivors attempt to recreate their 90s memories in a ruined mall. Each day when a boy checks Google Maps, the fancy new mall looks bigger—and closer to his village. Escalators to Hell: Shopping Mall Horrors is a new collection of horror and dark sci-fi stories about shopping malls past, present, and future.
Emerging in the United States as a paragon of post-World War II prosperity, the shopping mall was imagined as a cheery, futuristic, well-designed alternative to the messy and hazardous downtowns of old, providing housewives and children with a safe space to shop and entertain themselves. Malls served middle-class suburbanites dependent on cars and eager to spend their disposable income on mass produced goods.
The mall has often been a subject of derision as a harbinger of cultural zombification and whitewashing. As the decades have passed, the mall has declined in prestige but also become more accessible to broader groups of people in the US. Shopping malls, too, have spread to most countries around the world. Pop-culture has viewed malls through many lenses: optimist and innovative, symbolic of racist city planning and policing, a source of nostalgia for freer spending and youthful naivety, a place for community, and a signifier of a nation’s wealth and connections to a global consumer network.
But in this collection, one thing is universal: something ominous is happening at the local mall. Escalators to Hell: Shopping Mall Horrors is a document of one-stop shopping gone wrong.
Submission Hints
Submitted stories should have some horror elements, though the tone could be horrific, serious, campy, awe-inspiring, cozy, tragic, or humorous, etc. However, the story has to be set in a mall, or the concept of a mall has to be important to the plot. Stories could take place in the recent past (1950s onward), in a futuristic mall, or in the present, such as a neo-gothic tale set in abandoned or declining malls.
The stories can be located anywhere in the world. For Americans, the traditional middle-class, suburban shopping mall might be in decline, but that may not be the case in every country, and people around the world might have various perspectives on the shopping mall. Furthermore, Americans of different classes, races, and ability might view the mall differently than white middle-America. We are eager to read diverse takes on the “shopping mall.”
The shopping mall should not be incidental to your story; stories that make thoughtful, innovative use of the elements unique to malls as either a physical place or an abstract concept are more likely to be accepted.”
My Insights
I sent a story in for this editor's last anthology and here is my rejection:
Dear author,
Thank you for sharing your story with us. We received more than 500 submissions for only 9-10 slots, and we are sorry but we are passing on your story. We wish you luck finding a home for it. Because of the volume of submissions, we're unable to offer individual feedback.
Horror
spectrum
Details
Queer Neurodivergent Horror
Open for submissions: till Aug 25
Editor: Aquino Loayza, Lor Gislason, and Roxie Voorhees
Pay: 10 cents per word
Word range: 4000 max
Simultaneous submissions? No
Reprints? No
Description
Deep in the recesses of our minds are twisted realities that closely mirror our own. In these pages our nightmares are laid bare, made to manifest. There is no waking up, there is no going back once you fall into the tapestry of terrors that await.
Submission Hints
Horror prose related to neurodivergency of any sub-genre, genre chimera, or trope.
They would like content warnings
My Insights
I got one of my favorite rejection letters from Roxie Voorhees.
"Dear Angelique,
Thank you for submitting "xxx" to The Pleasure In Pain: A Queer Horrotica Anthology. We found the story fun to read and disturbing, but ultimately didn't fit the vision of the theme as much as we'd like. The absolute best of luck placing it elsewhere and I look forward to reading more of your work in the future."
A story that they found "fun and disturbing." Exactly what I was going for!
Horror
why didn't you just leave?
Details
Editor: Nadia Bulkin & Julia Rios
Cursed Morsels Press
Open: Aug 1- Aug 31
Pay: 8 cents per word
Word range: 500-5000
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Reprints? No
Multiple - sure send up to 3
Description
It’s the question asked of any story about a haunting: why didn’t you just leave? If accounts of people who have stayed in haunted houses are any indication, it’s never that simple. There are a lot of reasons why people don’t just leave scary situations, and we’d like to see smart, spooky stories that reflect the complexity behind that question.
Submission Hints
What we’re looking for: Stories that focus on all the possible reasons why people don’t just leave haunted places – including finances, family, legal restrictions, health, etc. Stories about “ordinary” people and places (including apartments, workplaces, schools, military bases, hospitals, churches, etc.) as well as extraordinary situations.
Insight
Julia Rios is also the editor for Worlds of Possibilities - this mag is also taking poetry for their anthology right now. https://www.juliarios.com/worlds-of-possibility/
Horror & Sci-Fi
hidden villains: betrayed
Details
Inkd Pub
Open for submissions: June 1-Aug 31
Editor: Robyn Huss
Pay:2 cents per word plus royalty share
Word range: 2000-8000 max
Simultaneous submissions? No
Reprints? No
Description
Theme: Hidden Villains: Betrayed– Bold, imaginative fantasy, horror, and sci-fi sculpted to thrill and entertain readers with the bizarre or delve into the shadows. Finish it off with a twist of betrayal!
Betrayed- double-cross, fail, deceive, cheat, sell-out, let down, stitch up, rat out, turn traitor, rat on, expose, reveal, lay bare, stab in the back.
There is no restriction as to how you incorporate the theme into your story as long as the genre falls within Sci-Fi, Horror, or Fantasy. We encourage you to weave the theme into an engaging story with well-developed characters and deep emotion.
Stories that contain infanticide, rape, or gratuitous gore will not be accepted.
Submission Hints
This is a new press and Hidden Villains is their first anthology. They have a good headliner. "New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jody Lynn Nye has allowed us to include a wonderful short story in the upcoming anthology. The Fiber of Being will be our lead story and we can’t wait for you to read it."
My Insights
I didn't make it into last year's anthology. I've tried again...
Speculative Fiction
apparition lit
Details
Managing Editor: Tacoma Tomilson
Flash Fiction Prompt
OPEN Aug 1 -14
Pay: 5 cents per word
Word range: under 1,000
Simultaneous submissions? No
Reprints? No
Description
Every month Apparition Lit holds a flash fiction contest and buys a story based on their prompt.
The overall theme for the year is REALITY SHOW MADNESS.
This month they are looking for stories in the vein of Alone/Survivor/Naked and Afraid/The Nature of Things
Submission Hints
Send us stories with enough emotional heft to break a heart, with prose that’s as clear and delicious as broth. We love proactive characters and settings that feel lived in and real enough to touch. Stories with style, stories with emotion, stories with character.
Insight
I keep trying every month. No luck. I do promote cheesy reality shows for a living. Let's see if my background will help me finally break into this market.
I cut MANY promos for the show of Survivor.
Dark Fantastical Fiction
Apex Magazine
Details
Editor: Rebecca Treasure
FLASH FICTION
Theme: tba
Open:Aug 7- Aug 30
Pay: 8 cents per word
Word range: up to 1000
Simultaneous submissions? No
Reprints? No
Description
Apex Magazine focuses on dark and spectacular science fiction, fantasy and horror. Publishing bi-monthly, it used to be called Apex Digest and has been nominated for several awards. It went on hiatus for a while, but is back in business and accepting submissions.
Submission Hints
Apex Magazine is an online zine of fantastical fiction. We publish short stories filled with marrow and passion, works that are twisted, strange, and beautiful. Creations where secret places and dreams are put on display. We publish in two forms: an every-other-month eBook issue and a gradual release of an entire issue online over a two-month period. Along with the genre short fiction, there are interviews with authors and nonfiction essays about current issues. Additionally, we produce a monthly podcast of narrated original short fiction.”
Insight
I took a flash fiction class with Rebecca and it was outstanding. Learn more about the flash fiction editor at APEX.
I also roped the man who owns this fantastic dark magazine company into answering a few questions. Ps. I just took his class on tone in short fiction and learned about a whole new layer of story telling. https://www.apexbookcompany.com/collections/online-workshops
Speculative Fiction
caribbean edition
Details
Editor-in-chief: Vanessa Aguirre
Pay: 10 cents per word
Word range: up to 10,000
Simultaneous submissions? No
Reprints? No
Description
This issue focuses specifically on speculative fiction by writers who live in the Caribbean or are part of the Caribbean diaspora. Our definition is broad and inclusive. We recognize that the Caribbean is a vast region, encompassing a multitude of peoples, heritages, languages, histories, cultures and beliefs. All who live in or have roots in the region are welcome to submit. We especially encourage work from writers who are disabled, are of marginalized genders and sexualities or are from any underrepresented group. Please do not self reject, we want to read your stories!
Submission Hints
Genre: speculative fiction, broadly defined, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, surrealism, weird, interstitial, etc.
Marika is interested in reading work that is deeply invested in the inner workings of character and how that intersects with the Caribbean as a birthplace of modern history as well as revolution.
Suzan is interested in seeing work that explores cultural fusion, innovation, and that centers the lives of people who live in the Caribbean or are part of the diaspora. She is particularly keen on seeing stories that include or celebrate oral story telling.
Non-Fiction: Both editors invite writers to pitch non-fiction essays. Suggested topics include but are not limited to: Writing about place, authenticity, diaspora, and “State of Caribbean SFF Today” focused articles. We are open to any non-fiction pitches that focus on issues that affect Caribbean SFF.
Insights
None. Never cracked this market
Speculative
upbeat tales
Details
Editor: Nadia Bulkin & Julia Rios
Cursed Morsels Press
Open: Aug 1- Aug 31
Pay: 1 cent per word
Word range: 100-6000
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Reprints? No
Description
This is a speculative fiction podcast for upbeat and comedy stories.
Submission Hints
They want fun and upbeat stories good for audio, however they will accept stories if they are comedic but not downers. aka racism violence sex of negative outlooks on humanity.
Insight
none- just found this market.
Cosmic Romance Horror
necronomi-romcom
Details
TRANSFORMATIONS BY OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY
Open for submissions: till Aug 31
Editor: GEVERA BERT PIEDMONT
Pay: 1 cent per word
Word range: 1000-6000
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Reprints? No
Description
On the face of it, blending the Necronomicom and a Rom-Com seems obvious. Once the idea came into my mind in the summer of 2022, it wouldn’t leave until I decided to make it into a reality. The goal is to see how many engaging ways people can blend humor, love, and the mythos. Love can be funny and it can be scary, why can’t it be both? While also having big teeth, or tentacles, or even too many eyes? We hope this is just the first project that will link disparate concepts in unusual ways.
Submission Hints
Just because the cosmic flirts with disaster doesn’t mean it can’t flirt with other things! In this anthology, we’re looking for cosmic tales with a light romantic twist.
Think couples visiting Leng on blind dates and Carcosa on their honeymoons, Valentine's Day roses tinted with the Color Out of Space, and brains in jars finding everlasting love with Mi-go. Think the lost pages of the Necronomicon written in sonnet form, Shoggoths shape-changing to impress the objects of their affection, and Nyarlathotep crushing on someone while Azathoth is piping a love song. Send us your best blend of cosmic and romance… just no erotica. Satire is great, and a little bit of dark is always welcome—after all, just because depressed, angry Deep Ones meet cute too doesn’t mean it’s all a bed of roses.
That said? We look forward to reading your most imaginative comic romance fantasies!
My Insights
None, but this looks fun.
Horror
jolly horror press
Details
GRAVEYARD BOOTS
Open for submissions: till Aug 31
Editor: Jonathan Lambert
Pay: 1/2 a cent per word
Word range: 2500- 5,500
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Reprints? No
Description
The Old West. Lawless. Filthy. Challenges were numerous. Justice was haphazard. One could die from a gunshot, a snakebite, a disease, or any number of reasons. It was not a place for the weak of heart. And that was just the wild west all by itself. For “Graveyard Boots,” we seek stories that add creatures, gunslingers, ghouls, ill omens, bad luck, evil minds, monsters and more to the already desolate landscape and ghost towns. Yet there was still humor back in those days of yore, and with “Graveyard Boots,” stories with humor will give you a leg up.
Submission Hints
Here are a couple of tips to put your story in better position to be accepted. 1. Fit the theme. Old West. Horror. Of course, Jolly Horror Press loves humor. 2. Be within our word count guidelines (for “Graveyard Boots”, 2500 to 5500) or query us for shorter/longer. 3. No matter how good your story is, if it hasn't been edited, there is a big chance we won't accept it. In the past, we've accepted stories that needed a lot of editing work, but it took so much effort to make them presentable. We aren't doing that anymore. If within a page or two of reading the story we find a bunch of editing issues, it's going to be rejected. 4. Be unique. No matter what the theme of the anthology is, you should always be unique. If it's a stalker anthology for example, and your ex or some guy you work with is your stalker, it's trite. If your grandma is stalking your fiancée, well, that's unique. 5. At Jolly Horror Press, we prefer subtle horror. We generally don't like gruesome and overly bloody stuff. If someone is getting hacked to bits in your story, it's probably not for us.
My Insights
I've had two stories published by Jolly Horror Press, and IMO they are my favorite publishers in the horror genre. Jonathan Lambert rejected the first three stories I sent him, but he encouraged me to keep trying and gave me a few hints on how to make my stories work for his anthologies. He bought "Inked" for Accursed. Autumn Miller recently came onboard as a First Reader for Jolly Horror and she is fantastic to work with. Instead of rejecting my last story outright, she told me it was "almost" there and encourage me to rewrite the ending, which then led to another acceptance. You can hear "The Golden Falcon"performed by one of the best voiced in the business along with an EXCLUSIVE interview with Jonathan with some amazing hints to help you sell Jolly Horror your story.