March, 2024 Dark Fiction Short Story Markets

 HWA L.A.: For March, 2024
New or Reopening Market Listings/ Notes
At Minimum Pro-Paying (5 cents+ per word)

Orion’s Belt (online magazine)
https://www.orions-belt.net/submissions
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: up to 1,200 words
Opens: March 1, 2024 and closes intermittently
Reprints?: No
Response: generally within one week
Description: Bold, experimental literary science fiction and fantasy stories that blur the line between “genre” fiction and literary fiction.

Ghoulish Tales Magazine, Issue#3 (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing)
https://ghoulish.rip/reopened-for-short-story-submissions-ghoulish-tales/
Payment: 10 cents a word
Story Length: up to 5,000 words
Deadline: March 29, 2024
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Short stories that fit our personal definition of the word GHOULISH, which is “fun horror that aims to celebrate all things spooky.” Also open to non-fiction articles (up to 3,000 words).


Songs from the Void (publ. by Max Blood’s Mausoleum)
https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/scifi-horror-anthology-songs-from-void-oc9bj
Payment: 5 cents a word
Story Length: 3,500–12,000 words
Deadline: January 1, 2025
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: short horror tales set in the bleakness of space; sci-fi terrors, your Lovecraftian leviathans, your monsters lurking through corridors, your isolation fears. Whatever it is, if it’s in space and scary, we want to see it.


Book Worms Horror Zine, Issue #5
https://rsaintclaire.com/2024/01/30/call-for-submissions-2/
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: up to 1,500 words
Deadline: April 30, 2024
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Short fiction for our Rock n’ Roll Issue! From hair-raising riffs to head-banging oblivion, horror and rock n’ roll are a match made in Hell! We generally enjoy “fun”, “80s style” horror reminiscent of the zine’s old-school vibe, but we’ve also been blown away by fresh voices that take the genre in a new direction.
Note: This publisher accepts submissions ONLY via postal mail


SpeKulative Stories (anthology series)
https://www.omicronworld.com/anthology-submissions
Payment: 10 cents a word
Story Length: up to 7,500 words
Deadline: November 30, 2024, or “whenever the anthology is filled.”
Reprints?: Yes
Response: T
Description: Quality short stories or poetry in any form of speculative fiction genre: fantasy, horror, science fiction, etc. that meet the current theme. Two current themes are: Train Stories, and Aliens Among Us.


Moving Across the Landscape in Search of an Idea (anthology, Air and Nothingness Press)
http://aanpress.com/submissions.html
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: up to 1,500 words
Deadline: March 31, 2024
Reprints?: No
Response: June 15, 2024
Description: Authors may explore any genre with their stories (yes poetry too!) and we encourage a wide variety of ideas and interpretation as to the anthology title. Stories with 1500 words should be divided as follows: long titles (minimum 250 words [though we know this might be difficult so, as long as it is an obnoxiously long title, we'll be ok]), concise narratives (minimum 250 words, maximum 800 words) and copious footnotes, endnotes, marginalia, indices and glossaries (minimum 250 words, maximum 800 words).



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

FOUND #2: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories
https://twitter.com/andrewcull/status/1725801214523085039
Payment: 3 cents a word
Story Length: 2,000–4,000 words
Deadline: March 31, 2024
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Original, found footage tales. Stories can be written in first person, third person, as a transcript, journal, radio play, poetry, as a script. Think stories that shouldn’t be read. Videos found in flooded basements. Broadcasts heard in your dreams.


Rock and a Hard Place Magazine
https://www.rockandahardplacemag.com/stones-throw-submissions
Payment: $25 flat
Story Length: 1,000–2,000 words
Opens: the first week of the month
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: A great story based on the contest theme.
APRIL SUBMISSIONS (opens March 1 - 7, 2024): stories that involve water. Lakes. Rivers. Oceans. Boats, commercial or personal.
MAY SUBMISSIONS (opens April 1 - 7, 2024): stories that feature workers and their bosses, the power imbalance between them, and the desperation or demands that can cause people on either side of that divide to make some very poor decisions.
etc., etc.