Theme: Zombie World - deadline Sunday Aug 9th - 6c a word - 2000-4000 words - yes reprints - Yes multiples - yes sim subs
Zombies: Possibly the most iconic and popular creatures in horror. Though you might think their characteristics and MO are pretty set in stone, think again: we want your stories to explore the folkloric roots, interpretations and definitions, historical manifestations, symbolism, origin tales, new scenarios, and the many iterations of undead who could all be defined as 'zombies'.
It's up to you to define 'zombie' – is it more about the cannibalistic tendencies, or is it, at its heart, the mindless lack of free will?
My Insights: Great Market. I’ve got a zillion stories sent here. And zero sales. I’mma sending 2 in for this one.
Theme: Cosmic Horror- deadline Sunday Aug 9th - 6c a word - 2000-4000 words - yes reprints - Yes multiples - yes sim subs
Unknowable, ancient, monstrous entities lurk in the vastness of the universe, closer than you think. They exist on other planes and in other dimensions, caring not for the lives and suffering of insignificant humans. Their paths may cross with yours, revealing horrors that your mind will barely comprehend...
My Insights: Now this is right up my alley.
Horror Podcast - Aug 1 - 11 - 500-6000 words -8c a word original, $100 flat rate for reprints, $20 flat rate for flash reprints -
This is Escape Artist’s highly-regarded horror fiction podcast. PseudoPod is a genre magazine in audio form. 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: 8 Rejections. They aren’t open that often. This is one of those places I very badly want on my CV. I ❤️❤️❤️ the content.
Theme- Bodies of Work - closes Aug 23 - 75c Aus a word - max 4000 words - non fiction and fiction
Modern life can be a curiously disembodied experience: we swipe and scroll, crop and click, zoom and control+z; our interactions are often mediated by screens or filters; we no longer look one another in the eye as we once did (or we’re forced to do it on Teams). Are our flesh-and-blood selves becoming attenuated and atomized by the increasingly digital texture of our days? What’s the fate of the human body in age of looksmaxxing and biohacking? How do our historic perceptions and misconceptions of bodily states and identities, including disability and gender, inform our present and shape our future?
My Insights: I’ve got four previous rejections from this market. Sending one in for this.
Spec- open now - 10c a word - 1000- 10,000 words - no reprints -
We are especially interested in pieces that are just a little odd—think The Twilight Zone. If a piece feels too speculative for a traditional literary magazine, but not speculative enough for an SFWA magazine, it might find a good home with More Distant Shores.
My Insights: new market for me. Liking the pay.
Slapshots in Space & Magical Marathons - closes Aug 31 - $50 pay - 1000-5000 words - no reprints
https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/slapshots-in-space-and-magical-marathons-HJx74
Cyborg curlers and centaur goal celebrations. Tennis teams traveling by stagecoach. Kayaking on Europa. Playoff magic that really is magic.
This anthology invites contributors to re-examine sports through space opera, near- or far-future science fiction, alternative worlds, time travel, magical realism, fantasy, or other lenses that fall under the umbrella of speculative fiction. Steampunk, hopepunk, science gone bad, social commentary, or just plain laugh-out-loud fun—all of these and more are fair game.
My Insights - A Canadian market! Fun idea
Spec - Aug 1 - 7th - 10,000 word max - 8c a word up to 1000 words, $80 for longer - no horror - no sim subs - no reprints
Our mission is to publish the finest in human-written (no AI!) speculative and imaginative fiction and poetry, with special attention to character-driven stories that examine the depths and heights of emotion and motivation from a broad variety of cultural and social perspectives.
A&A wants to publish powerful stories that resonate in our minds and hearts long after a first reading, stories that make us want to read them again and again. We look for the unique: stories that stand out in a genre that pushes the envelope of unusual. We take special delight in detailed world-building: we like slipstream, YA, hypertext fiction, dark fantasy, science fiction puzzle stories, magical realism, hard science fiction, soft science fiction, science fantasy, urban fantasy, military science fiction, ghost stories, space opera, cyberpunk, steampunk . . .
My Insights: This is an esteemed market, and I have no sales here. It’s not open that often, and I have 3 R’s.
Submit your work to: submissions@abyssapexzine.com
Theme: Shadows Mean Light - closes Aug 8 - flash fiction max word count 1,000, - pay 1c a word
The October 2026 issue seeks genre-blending horror, science fiction, fantasy, and boundary-pushing speculative work. Submissions in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian are welcome for translation into English.
My Insights: I’ve had one sale to this market and interviewed Angela.
Eco-Fiction - Open Aug 1-7 or until 50 subs received - 6c a word - 1500 words or less - sim subs yes - multiple subs no - reprints no -They are looking for:
Eco-fiction (broadly defined)
Eco-Horror
Eco-Gothic/Antigothic
Haunted/Unhaunted Landscapes
Transcorporeality
My Insights - Six rejections for me so far.
Dark Fantasy & Psychological Thriller call -opens Aug 16 - pay $100 - word count under 1000 - anon subs
The SmokeLong aesthetic remains an ever-changing set of principles, but it most likely has to do with these kinds of things:
* language that surprises and excites,
* narratives that strive toward something other than a final punch line or twist,
* pieces that are emotionally resonant,
* honest work that feels as if it has far more purpose than a writer wanting to write a clever story.
MY INSIGHTS - I have 11 rejections from this market. PS. Check out the crazy high pay for this call.
Lit - Open Aug 1 - April 1 - 10c a word up to $200 - yes sim subs - couldn’t see a word count
This is one of those intellectual, thoughtful type markets from what I can see on their website.
Spec- Open Sept 1st - Oct 15th - 8c a word - 5000 word max - no sim subs
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s... my alarm clock. Being super means dealing with super problems, as well as mundane ones. Superheroes, Super Problems is an original anthology exploring the balance between the extraordinary responsibility of being a superhero and the ordinary struggles of human existence…and the limitations of Spandex.
As you create your own superheroes, we not only want to know their powers, but how they juggle life. Show us that the only superpower that matters is humanity.
We’re looking for stories from a wide variety of genres, from science fiction to horror and from fantasy to romance, as long as there is a superhero integral to the story. The main character doesn’t have to possess powers, and could even be the super villain.
MY INSIGHTS: I’ve sent a story in every year to this anthology call and no luck yet. It’s run by the students of Kevin J. Anderson’s Master's students in the publishing program. Plus, I interviewed him.
Speaking of Kickstarters… (If you read my interview with Kevin, he talks about his career and recent Kickstarter.)
Wait till you meet Roxie Vega.
Angelique Fawns is running a Kickstarter for her serial sensation, Roxie Vega: Space Truckin’ Ain’t Easy.
Sign up to be notified when it launches...
In the dust-choked galaxy of 2050, ROXIE VEGA — a morally grey, blue-haired daughter of abiker — is hauling cargo across the Virgo Cluster in a duct-taped garbage hauler called the Oberon Outlaw. Space trucking pays well, and Roxie needs the money. Her father Buzz is wasting away from Moon Pox, and the meds keeping him alive aren’t cheap. Worse, she’s lonely. So when Roxie hears her favorite reality dating show, Rocket to Love, is filming live at the Big Rig Oil & Casino on Oberon, she decides to gamble her heart on it.
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