August, 2022 Dark Fiction Short Story Markets

HWA L.A.: August, 2022

New or Reopening Market Listings/ Notes

At Minimum Pro-Paying (5 cents+ per word)

Apparition Lit
https://apparitionlit.com/submissions/
Payment: 5 cents a word
Story Length: 1,000–5,000 words
Deadline: August 15-31, 2022
Reprints?: No
Response: by the 15th day of the following month after submissions close
Description: Speculative fiction that meet our quarterly theme. Speculative fiction is weird, almost unclassifiable. It’s fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and literary. Send us stories with enough emotional heft to break a heart, with prose that’s as clear and delicious as broth. We’re looking for proactive characters and beautiful language, all wrapped up in a complete story. Month of August Theme = NOSTALGIA.


Assemble Artifacts Magazine (Assemble Media)
https://www.assemblemedia.com/artifacts
Payment: 8–10 cents a word
Story Length: “at least” 5,000 words (soft range)
Deadline: ongoing
Reprints?: No
Response: Responses only for acceptance. Assume rejection if no response after 90 days.
Description: Stories of wonder and suspense that also reflect contemporary issues and incite meaningful conversation. (*NOTE: Submitters, double-check the rights that are being sold with work).


Diabolical Plots ezine
https://www.diabolicalplots.com/guidelines/
Payment: 10 cents a word
Story Length: 3,500 or less
Deadline: Open between July 24–August 1, 2022
Reprints?: No
Response Time: One month after end of submission window
Description: telepathy stories of every shape and style. Stories might be as intimate as mind-readers in love, forever seeing themselves through their lover’s eyes; or as harrowing as a telepath on the battlefield, drowned in every iota of pain, fear and grief felt for miles. They might be as bizarre as telepathy tourism from alien planets, all cognitive connoisseurs who find humans to have a particularly piquant mindset; or as familiar as a job interview, which has simply gained a new mental level to spar upon.


Dracula Beyond Stoker: Issue 2: Renfield
https://www.dbspress.com/submissions
Payment: 5 cents a word
Story Length: 1,500–5,000 words
Deadline: January 15, 2023
Reprints?: No
Response: Unknown, but reported as generally between 30 and 60 days.
Description: The best new fiction based on Stoker’s characters, locations, and themes. This issue: Give us your best Renfield story. Everybody’s favorite flyman is such a rich character, yet we know so little about him. Who do you think he is?


Dark Recesses Magazine
http://darkrecessespress.com/submissions/
Payment: 5 cents a word
Story Length: 500–5,000 words
Deadline: Revolving submission periods. Current widow is through August 15.
Reprints?: No
Response: Up to 12 weeks
Description: Non-themed horror/dark fiction pieces.


Borderlands, Volume 8 anthology
WEBSITE (No mention of Submissions): https://www.borderlandspress.com/
Social Media Submissions Post): https://www.facebook.com/tom.monteleone.1/posts/pfbid02UJCkwFcxiubiDxpnbGqT5hoUFchLJR4biSQ4zV3s3zgDUBw7aRhvCCarZwEnyo8el
Payment: 5–7 cents a word
Story Length: No limit. (Suggested 2,000–5,000 words)
Deadline: No deadline. “Until Filled”
Reprints?: No
Response: Up to 3 months
Description: Original, weird/ horror fiction. NOTE: Submissions are to be postal mailed in only; no email.



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

Dead & Bloated: Extreme Horror Anthology (edited by K. Trap Jones)
https://theevilcookie.com/pages/submissions
Payment: 3 cents a word
Story Length: up to 3,000 words
Deadline: August 1–October 1, 2022
Reprints?: No
Response: generally within 30 days
Description: Short stories filled with gore, splatter, and extreme horror: Water, Extreme Horror, Splatterpunk, Dark Humor.


Bourbon Penn (magazine)
https://www.bourbonpenn.com/submissions
Payment: 3 cents a word
Story Length: 2,000–7,500 words
Deadline: ongoing
Reprints?: No
Response: up to 3 months
Description: Highly imaginative stories with a healthy dose of the odd. Odd characters, odd experiences, odd realities. We’re looking for genre / speculative stories and are quite partial to slipstream, cross-genre, magic realism, absurdist, and the surreal.