June, 2022 Dark Fiction Short Story Markets

HWA L.A.: June, 2022
New or Reopening Market Listings/ Notes
At Minimum Pro-Paying (5 cents+ per word)

Shakespeare Unleashed (edited by James Aquilone)
https://www.jamesaquilone.com/submissions
Payment: 6 cents a word (or $35 flat for sonnet)
Story Length: 1,500–6,000 words
Deadline: July 22, 2022–August 31, 2022
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Horror stories based on Shakespeare's plays and characters, as well as horror sonnets: Dark and scary stories — no parodies or humor pieces. Stories can be set in time periods other than the Elizabethan era, and can be updated or reimagined or merely “based on.”


Dangerous Waters: Deadly Women of the Sea (Brigids Gate Press)
https://brigidsgatepress.com/submissions
Payment: 8 cents a word (or $50 flat for poem; $50 flat for drabble)
Story Length: 500–3,500 words (poetry to 350 words; drabbles of 100 words)
Deadline: June 30, 2022
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Horror or dark fantasy stories, poems, and drabbles about malevolent mermaids, sinister sirens, scary selkies, spirits, and other deadly and dangerous women of the sea. Stories including the ocean or sea are the focus of the anthology, but we will consider stories involving rivers as well.


Vastarien: A Literary Journal (Grimscribe Press)
https://vastarien-journal.com/submission-guidelines
Payment: 5 cents a word
Story Length: Nonfiction 2,000–7,500 words; Fiction 750–6,000 words
Deadline: June 1, 2022–June 30, 2022
Reprints?: No
Response: Two months
Description: Scholarly and/or critical articles pertaining to Ligotti or associated authors (see below) or the kind of thematic and topical issues in which we’re interested; OR: Original fiction or poetry or art inspired by Ligottian and/or related themes.


Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
https://www.themysteryplace.com/eqmm/guidelines/
Payment: 5-8 cents a word
Story Length: 2,500–8,000 words soft range (additionally, ‘Minute Mysteries’ of as little as 250 words)
Deadline: Ongoing
Reprints?: No
Response: Three months
Description: (No Horror, but Mystery and Crime) Every kind of mystery short story: the psychological suspense tale, the deductive puzzle, the private eye case—the gamut of crime and detection from the realistic (including the policeman's lot and stories of police procedure) to the more imaginative (including "locked rooms" and "impossible crimes"). We need hard-boiled stories as well as "cozies."


Baffling Magazine (published by Neon Hemlock)
https://www.bafflingmag.com/submissions
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: under 1,200 words (preference under 500 words)
Deadline: Opens June 1, 2022–to close unknown (presume June 15, 2022, per the previous year)
Reprints?: No
Response: up to 5 months
Description: Speculative stories that explore science fiction, fantasy, and horror with a queer bent. We welcome weird, slipstream, and interstitial writing.


The Deadlands (ed. E. Catherine Tobler)
https://thedeadlands.com/guidelines/#fiction
Payment: 10 cents a word (1 cent for reprints)
Story Length: up to 5,000 words (preferably 3,000–4,000 words)
Deadline: ongoing or intermittent (currently open)
Reprints?: Yes
Response: unknown
Description: Speculative fiction stories about death, or what death may involve. EX: A ghost in a shadowed wood. An afterlife discovered through a rusted door. An abandoned house in the middle of a haunted field. A skeletal figure moving with intent toward something unseen. Death personified; stories from a worldwide perspective, different cultures, different approaches to death.



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

Night Frights, a YA horror magazine (annual) (Published by Perpetual Motion Machine/ Dark Moon Digest)
https://perpetualpublishing.com/2022/05/21/now-open-for-submissions-night-frights-a-ya-horror-magazine/
Payment: 3 cents a word
Story Length: up to 3,500 words
Deadline: August 1, 2022
Reprints?: No
Response: After September 1, 2022
Description: Stories with complex characters and new ideas. Scare us. But also, inspire young readers into a lifelong obsession with the genre.


Mythic Magazine
https://www.mythicmag.com/p/submissions.html
Payment: 1 cent a word ($25 flat for reprint)
Story Length: 2,000–5,000 words
Deadline: June 1, 2022–June 30, 2022
Reprints?: Yes
Response: unknown (estimated 3 months)
Description: Diverse sci-fi and fantasy fiction. All types and sub-genres, particularly views of the future and realms of the fantastic that don't necessarily involve quasi-medieval settings.