Short Story Submissions!

Hi folks, I haven’t done one of these in a while, so I thought it was about time!

Here are some publishers and magazines open to writing submissions. I’ve ordered them in chronological order, so the ones with the closest deadlines come first. There are also some with very distant deadlines that will most likely return in a future post closer to when you need to submit them, but in the meantime, you can think about what you are going to write. Or you can show how professional you are and send things off early and not two days before the deadline.

Which isn’t what I do at all.

Ahem.

Anyway.

• First up are publishers, Third Flat Iron, who are looking for short stories in the Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Mythology, or Satire genres. Their website says “Stories could feature puzzle solving and ingenuity, inverted tv tropes, inventions (clockwork, practical, or Rube Goldberg), masterful creations (like JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations), and social commentary” which gives you a lot of options to play with.
  • They are offering 8 cents (US) per word
  • They want 1500 to 3000 words
  • The deadline is July 31st 2020
  • Here is a link to their website.
• Lackingtons are also looking for short stories, ones themed around the idea of “Archives” which can be meant both literally and metaphorically. They want stories from any and all SFFH genres, but they do have a distinct style that they look for so you should probably have a peek at what they have published before to get an idea.
  • They offer 1 cent (Canadian) per word.
  • They want 1500 to 5000 words
  • They are open to submissions until they get the number they need, so it is best to send things to them as soon as possible.
  • Here is the link to their website.
• Mysterion are looking for short stories in speculative fiction genres – so Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror – with Christian characters, themes, or cosmology. They give examples of what they are interested in and what they are not interested in, so it would be a good idea to check to see if your story fits with what they want.
  • They offer 8 cents (US) per word.
  • They take short stories up to 9000 words
  • The deadline is the 31st of July 2020
  • Here is a link to their website.
• Air and Nothingness Press are looking for submissions to their two short story opportunities. One is called “The Wild Hunt Anthology”, and in it, they are looking for SFFH short stories dealing with the theme of the Wild Hunt. The other opportunity is to write a short story that is a blend of two fairy tales in a genre of the writer’s choice, the open call is named “Upon a Once Time” and they are hoping for fairy tales from a variety of cultures to be chosen.
  • For both these calls, they are offering 8 cents (US) per word.
  • The word limit is between 1000 and 3000 words.
  • The deadline is February 28th 2021, which should give even the worst procrastinator time to get writing!
  • Here is the link to their website.

So I hope this will be useful to some of you and that you will enjoy having a go at one or more of these short story opportunities. They all sound like they will be fun to write for and I hope you think that too. If you do submit a short story to one of these, leave a comment saying so and please say if you get accepted! I love hearing about other people doing well, it helps push me on with my own writing and I find it very inspiring!

Stay safe,

K