March, 2023
New or Reopening Market Listings/ Notes
at Minimum Pro-Paying (5 cents+ per word)
https://gallerycurious.com/p/submissions-1599834174/
Payment: 5 cents a word
Story Length: up to 7,500 words
Deadline: April 15, 2023
Reprints?: Yes (paid at 1 cent a word)
Response: One week for initial short list acceptance, then about 1 month thereafter
Description: Short stories relating to the curious and often dark corners of retropunk fiction. Stories that entertain. We want to be taken on an adventure in a time that never was, be it steampunk, gaslamp, weird tales, dark fantasy, dreadpunk, vintage horror, new weird, mad science, fantastic cities (please!), monsters, impossible machines, odd, clockworks, alt-history adventures, surprises, weird westerns, and things that shouldn’t work.
https://adamant.moksha.io/publication/fantasy/guidelines
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: Up to 7,500 words (preferred less than 5,000)
Deadline: Open from March 1–March 7, 2022 (open to BIPOC authors year-round)
Reprints?: No
Response: within 3 months
Description: Exceptional original fantasy and dark fantasy stories (including horror).
Apex Magazine
http://www.apex-magazine.com/submission-guidelines
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: up to 7,500 words
Deadline: Ongoing
Reprints?: No
Response: One month
Description: Exceptionally well-written Science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all its sub-genres.
NOTE: ALSO Open to Flash Fiction contest, March 7–March 31, 2023. Stories up to 1,000 words based on a theme to be announced on March 7.
The Deadlands
https://thedeadlands.com/guidelines/
Payment: 10 cents a word (1 cent for reprints)
Story Length: up to 5,000 words (preferably 3,000–4,000 words)
Deadline: Intermittent (currently open; unknown when they will close)
Reprints?: Yes
Response: Two weeks
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.
Orion’s Belt (online magazine)
https://www.orions-belt.net/submissions
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: up to 1,200 words
Deadline: Intermittent. Opens March 1, 2023, and unknown when they will close.
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.
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/submissions/
Payment: 8 cents a word
Story Length: Up to 15,000 words
Deadline: None at present. Closes intermittently
Reprints?: No
Response: Two to seven weeks
Description: “Literary adventure fantasy”: stories with a secondary-world setting and some traditional or classic fantasy feel, but written with a literary approach. We want stories set in what Tolkien called a “secondary world”: some other world that is different from our own primary world in some way. It could be different in terms of zoology (non-human creatures), ecology (climate), or physical laws (the presence of magic). It could be set on Earth but an Earth different from our primary world in terms of time (the historical past) or history (alternate history). It could have a “pre-tech” level of technology, or steampunk technology, or magic as technology, or anything else that’s not advanced or modern technology. However, the setting should contain some element that is in some way fantastical.
***Non-PRO-Paying Market, but Eric J. Guignard’s “Pick of the Month”
https://www.cohesionpress.com/snafu-submissions
Payment: Australian 5 cents a word (abt. 3-1/2 cents a word US)
Story Length: 2,000–7,500 words
Deadline: March 31, 2023
Reprints?: No
Response: estimate 3–4 months
Description: Action-based horror/specific within conflict in a past, present, or future filled with the aspects that make your story a ‘punk’ sub-genre tale (i.e. subculture is about anti-authoritarianism, anti-big corporate, and personal freedom.)
https://undertowpublications.com/weird-horror-magazine
Payment: 1.5 cents a word
Story Length: 500–6,000 words
Deadline: March 1, 2023–March 31, 2023
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Original (non-themed) horror and weird fiction short stories.
