April, 2026 Dark Fiction Short Story Markets

Were-2 (Zombies Need Brains, LLC)
https://zombiesneedbrains.moksha.io/publication/were-2/guidelines
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: up to 7,500 words
Deadline: May 31, 2026
Reprints?: No
Response: by July 31
Description: Shapeshifting creatures beyond the traditional werewolf. Open to all speculative genres, but mostly for urban fantasy.

Goblins & Galaxies Magazine
https://goblinsandgalaxies.com/submissions/
Payment: 6 cents a word
Story Length: up to 6,000 words
Deadline: Open between April 7–April 14, 2026
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Sword & sorcery, dark fantasy, and science fiction stories. A sense of adventure in the story is important. Action should take center stage.

Tales from the Cryptids: Fiction (Scryptid Games)
https://scryptidgames.moksha.io/publication/tales-from-the-cryptids/guidelines
Payment: 10 cents a word (5 cents/ reprints)
Story Length: up to 1,000 words
Deadline: April 30, 2026 (OR UNTIL FULL)
Reprints?: Yes
Response: June 15, 2026
Description: Tales of cryptids as beings with vivid lives, goals, and stories of their own to share. Open to “common” cryptids as well as new, invented ones.

Ogerog Annual
https://horrortree.com/taking-submissions-ogerog-annual-march-april-2026-window-literary-horror/#more-661298
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: 3,000–4,000 words
Deadline: April 7, 2026
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Stories of literary horror, with no qualms about elements of speculative and fantasy fiction filtering in, as long as it defers to the weird and terrifying and avoids hard science fiction.

Rotting Leaf Magazine

Payment: 6 cents a word
Story Length: up to 1,500 words
Deadline: Open between April 1 and April 6, 2026
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Dark ecology-themed short stories: i.e. Eco-Fiction (broadly defined), including: Eco-Horror; Eco-Gothic/Anti-gothic; Haunted/Unhaunted Landscapes; Transcorporeality; Eco-Surrealism/Existentialism/Absurdism; etc.)

Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness
https://www.tangledwilderness.org/submissions
Payment: $200 flat rate
Story Length: 2,000–5,000 words
Deadline: Ongoing (possibly intermittent)
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, literature, horror, romance, anything written from a radical perspective (but that isn’t necessarily directly about politics).

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***Non-PRO-Paying Market, but Eric J. Guignard’s “Pick of the Month”

Wyldblood Magazine
https://wyldblood.com/submissions-2/
Payment: £0.01 a word
Story Length: 500–5,000 words
Deadline: opens ONLY for the first day of each month
Reprints?: No
Response: One month
Description: Science fiction and fantasy (speculative fiction). The editors are less interested in horror, humor, or high fantasy.

Phobos Magazine: “The Uncanny States of America”
https://phobos-magazine.ghost.io/submission-guidelines/
Payment: up to $25 flat rate (or 8 cents/ word; whichever is greater)
Story Length: up to 2,000 words
Deadline: July 31, 2026
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Stories of the fantastic that are both set in America and could only be set in America. Any era (including the future) is fair game. You are at liberty to draw upon real events and figures or to completely invent people and places, your setting can be as iconic or obscure.