October, 2017 Dark Fiction Short Story Markets

October, 2017

New or Reopening Market Listings/ Notes
At Pro-Paying (5 cents+ per word)

Zoetrope: All-Story
http://www.all-story.com/submissions.cgi

Payment: Varies; at least minimum professional rates and upward
Story Length: up to 7,000 words
Deadline: Intermittent
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown (reports at about 3 months)
Description: Founded by Francis Ford Coppola: Quarterly magazine devoted to the best new short fiction and one-act plays; genre fiction welcome, but to mainstream tastes. Postal mail submissions only.


Holy C.O.W.! Spec Fic stories from the Center of the World (anthology)
http://holycowpublishing.com/guidelines.html

Payment: 7–10 cents a word
Story Length: 500–6,000 words
Deadline: Open between November 1–30
Reprints?: No
Response: 30 days
Description: stories rooted in the ancient Fertile Crescent, Levant and the Middle East, but stretch into the near and distant future. Holy C.O.W.! is seeking all styles and sub-genre, including humorous speculative fiction.


Fireside Fiction Company
http://firesidefiction.com/about/#submissions-guidelines

Payment: 12.5 cents a word
Story Length: up to 4,000 words (flash fiction preferred)
Deadline: Open only Nov. 5–Nov. 11, 2017
Reprints?: No
Response: Unknown
Description: To publish great speculative fiction storytelling, regardless of genre (ex. Neil Gaiman); unique voices.


Clarkesworld Magazine
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/submissions/

Payment: 10 cents per word for the first 5,000 words, 8 cents for each word over 5,000
Story Length: 1,000–16,000 words
Deadline: Intermittent.
Reprints?: No
Response: Unknown
Description: Science fiction and fantasy (include. All associated sub-genres); Science fiction need not be "hard" SF, but rigor is appreciated. Fantasy can be folkloric, contemporary, surreal, etc. Horror can be supernatural or psychological, so long as it is frightening.


Uncanny Magazine
http://uncannymagazine.com/submissions

Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: 750–6,000 words
Deadline: Open only Oct. 2–Oct. 16, 2017
Reprints?: No
Response: One month
Description: Passionate, diverse SF/F fiction and poetry... intricate, experimental stories and poems with gorgeous prose, verve, and imagination that elicit strong emotions and challenge beliefs.


Awakenings anthology (Book Smugglers Publishing)
http://thebooksmugglers.com/2017/10/book-smugglers-publishing-open-call-short-stories-submissions-2018-awakenings.html

Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: 1,500–17,500 words
Deadline: December 31, 2017
Reprints?: No
Response: One month
Description: Short stories following Fairytale Retellings, First Contact, Superheroes, and Gods & Monsters. When it comes to Awakenings, anything goes. You, the author, should feel free to take this general theme and interpret it in any way you see fit–from a story about an AI’s first hours of sentience, to magical alternate histories featuring characters discovering how to wield power for the first time, anything goes.



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

Best of Hardcore Horror, Volume 3 (Best Of/ Reprint antho) (edited by Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax; publ. by Comet Press)
http://cometpress.us/submission-guidelines/years-best-hardcore-horror

Payment: 1 cent a word (reprints only)
Story Length: to 8,000 words
Deadline: December 31, 2017
Reprints?: Reprints only (including stories from self-publishing, online, single-author collections, etc.)
Response: unknown
Description: Hardcore Horror stories that were published in 2017 (bloody, gory, outlandish, pushing boundaries, etc.)


Tales from the Lake, Vol. 5 (Crystal Lake Publishing)
http://www.crystallakepub.com/crystal-lake-submissions/

Payment: 3 cent a word
Story Length: to 6,000 words
Deadline: December 1, 2017
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Non-themed horror, with a preference for believable, quiet horror and dark fiction with a literary bent.