Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 3, 2013 - 3:55pm
^^good one, matt. sending them something NOW
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 3, 2013 - 3:58pm
(open until they get 200 submissions. so SEND NOW!) opened up 10/28. they take a long time, 12-18 months. but ARE simultaneous submissions.
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 3, 2013 - 6:19pm
Yeah, thanks Matt, I jumped on that earlier today too, appreciate the heads up.
simon.dewar83
from Canberra, Australia is reading The Twelve by Justin CroninNovember 3, 2013 - 6:51pm
Hi LR Peeps,
So I mentioned once or twice during my Talking Scars class that I was working on a horror anthology. Thought I'd mention this to the wider LR community and provide you all the chance to submit if you're interested. A couple of my Talking Scars class members have submitted stories so far but I'd love to see a story from all of you. Even if you dont get accepted, you still get that extra push to churn out another story. That is something we all need!
Basically I'm compiling an anthology which is to be published by Dark Continents publishing (http://darkcontinents.com) , titled Suspending in Dusk. I'm wrangling the new stories and reprints and choosing the lineup of tales and Nerine Dorman, one of the senior editors at Dark Continents, will be editing them.
Nerine Dorman has been the editor for the Bloody Parchment anthology which comes out yearly as part of the South African Horrorfest. She's also edited the forthcoming anthology titled The Sea, to be released early 2014 by Dark Continents. Weird, horror, dark fantasy stories about The Sea. She's also a talented writer in her own right and I encourage you to follow her on twitter (@nerinedorman) and check out her work on amazon.com etc.
The anthology is not pro-pay. Payment details are as follows: flat $20 payment + 1.5% royalties on E and Print + authors copies + 'exposure'. Basically Dark Continents is a very small press that is slowly gearing up to bigger and greater things and this anthology is part of that. They have published works by award winning horror authors such as Daniel I Russell.
Normally I wouldnt really pay much attention to "exposure" claim but i've done a fair bit of schmoozing and networking with established authors and have had submissions by several well known and highly awarded writers at this stage in the process though I shouldnt be making big announcements about who they are yet. You'll have to trust me for now.
Submission Guidelines:
This is not an open submission. I've read a REAL slushpile before and I don't have the will or time to go through that again. I'm opening invitations to all interested LR writers as a gesture of community spirit and because you're in a writing community because you want to improve and get publuished and therefore you're not likely to send me off topic tales about pink unicorns typed in bold 64 point comic sans print. If you want to submit, in your cover letter provide me information about who you are, what your username is on Litreactor and if you'd like to mention your publishing credits, that would be great.
Stuff I just dont want to see: Killer clowns, sexy sparkly vampires/werewolves, mundane or boring story lines, bad lovecraftian style works or mythos, fan fiction, stuff about fairy tea parties .... This is a horror anthology.
Theme: There isnt a theme perse, in the sense that we only want stories about one topic or only one sub-genre of horror (supernatural/vampire etc), however I am encouraging authors who write new stories to take some inspiration from the title Suspended in Dusk and the time of dusk/last light. If you dont have time to write something new or have a story ready that you feel doesnt gel with the title then still submit anyway. I'm looking for a range of different stories that represent the range of unique voices we have out there writing in the horror genre. So far I've had scifi-horror cross over stories, splatterpunk, surrealist horror .. you name it, it's all landed in my indbox.
I'll accept any horror story between 1000-10000 words. I'll accept multiple submissions. You can double your chances by submitting more than one story. Max 2 stories. Send your best.
If you can have the stories submitted by end of Nov that would be great. Apologies, I realise this isn't much time.
Please name the file in the following format: NAME - Story Title.doc (I wont reject your story if you don't use this format but please.. it makes life easy for me!)
DOC, RTF, DOCX acceptable.
Not too fussed about font.
Simon Dewar
@heordfel
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 3, 2013 - 9:05pm
Nice writeup, I may have to jump on board and send something your way. This will be both digital and print?
simon.dewar83
from Canberra, Australia is reading The Twelve by Justin CroninNovember 3, 2013 - 9:15pm
Definitely digital, with a definite view to a print edition. I'll have more information about that I think around the time that letters of agreement/contracts go out to the individual authors. I am pretty sure Dark Continents will do a print run or do print-on-demand, as I believe The Sea anthology they're releasing soon will also be E and Print. At the end of the day though, thats entirely a business decision for the publisher but I'll pass on all info as soon as it comes to hand.
MattF
from Tokyo is reading Borges' Collected FictionsNovember 3, 2013 - 10:46pm
Richard and Michael, very cool! Now we just have to beat out the other 197 DeLillos, Aimee Benders, Lethems and Vollmans and Moodys that frequently appear in the magazine...
Since we seem to have submitted within a day of each other, might be interesting to return and compare rejection data, dates, methods as well (on the outside chance that any of us happen to be rejected, of course!) Best of luck gentlemen.
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 4, 2013 - 6:29am
Comparing notes is always fun. I submitted my story "As Simple as Teacups", which Richard is familiar with already. Still haven't had any luck placing the bastard, and have had it both reamed as a pile of garbage and praised as a well-written philosophical work (a good number of complimentary rejections). I'm about ready to print a copy just to burn in effigy to relieve frustration.
And that's cool, Simon, I'll keep an eye out for your posts.
Bill Tucker
from Austin, Texas is reading Grimm's Fairy Tales (1st Edition)November 4, 2013 - 8:20am
Simon, I'm definately going to submit a couple of pieces for this anthoology. Hopefully one of them makes the cut! And please tell me you've never recieved a story written in 64 point Comic Sans font. That sounds absolutely brutal.
Dino Parenti
from Los Angeles is reading Everything He Gets His Hands OnNovember 4, 2013 - 12:02pm
Good stuff here, Simon. Definately want to submit.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 4, 2013 - 12:18pm
simon, i'll see what i have. since you're open to reprints, for that pay rate, i may have a few things sitting around. i'll shoot them over. thanks for posting up!
simon.dewar83
from Canberra, Australia is reading The Twelve by Justin CroninNovember 4, 2013 - 6:34pm
Bill,
On my part it was an exaggeration, but you'd be suprised at some of the stuff that writers send out:
Marc Gascoigne from Angry Robots books was at Conflux 9 and told us a story about a very old man who lived in some retirement villiage in florida who sent through a paper manuscript to Angry Robots. It was this gigantic tome of around a thousand pages that was apparently this terribly written epic fantasy story. Each page of the MS was stapled to the next page in an attempt to bind it into an actual book of some sort. Apparently in the cover letter the writer was like "I hope you love this, this is my life's work,I've been working on it for 20 years blahblahblah".
Usually, publishers dont return manuscripts and just send you a rejection or acceptance letter but Marc didnt have the heart to throw out the MS , so they paid some ridiculous postage price to mail it back to him in the US with a very kind rejection letter.
I'm sure the guys and gals at LR would know better though :-p
Simon
closure
from Australia is reading The Ghormenghast Trilogy, by Mervyn PeakeNovember 4, 2013 - 9:03pm
Regarding Black Clock: How does one know the themes of upcoming issues? I can't see anything on their site giving any kind of 'forecast'. Do you just submit stories with any old theme and once they have enough submissions centred on a particular theme / genre they just publish an issue? Their back issues all seem pretty darn focussed on particular things. Is there some way for authors to know ahead of time what to expect (the way Spark does it?)
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 4, 2013 - 10:14pm
i've never heard of them telling a theme ahead of time. i do vaguely remember then asking for "noir" stories for that issue. just send your best work, as far as i can tell. right now they're only taking the first 200 stories, then they're shutting it down. i like those odds. i mean, Cemetery Dance had 800 submissions for their last call.
MattF
from Tokyo is reading Borges' Collected FictionsNovember 5, 2013 - 2:29am
The theme is Kittens! Sent my kittens story, hope y'all did too...
Michael, was your story reamed in a workshop or from an editor? Either is bs, but I'm curious. Keep sending it--have a feeling it's way too early to be troubled yet.
I honestly don't know how Black Clock works. I'd always assumed Mr. Erickson contacted particular writers for stories. As Richard said, 200 is a very small number to cull from unless they're looking to fill a final few slots. It doesn't take 18 months to read 200 stories, so maybe they get a feel and theme, then get some names involved? Somehow I don't picture DeLillo scouring Duotrope for places to submit, but who the hell knows?
I got screwed by the wordcount--3,500 is pretty low, and the two I'm sending around are considerably longer, so I had to submit something I think is too short. But I believe in the piece, and have never seen Black Clock open before, so fuck it.
And Closure, I made the kittens thing up.
And Simon, say thanks again to Marc for sending my manuscript back! The whole thing's been re-stapled, and you should be receiving it any day now...
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 5, 2013 - 6:21am
Haha.
And I was actually reamed by readers from the Spark antho. They were nice enough to send the comments left on the piece by those who read it, and I think only 1 out of 4 really liked it. And they were very kind to it, but the others seemed to think it was total shit. I was glad for the feedback, though ... you don't usually get 4 commentaries from a rejection. Most of my other rejections were very favorable and praised the piece despite not accepting it, so I didn't let it get to me (though it was tempting ... couple of those comments were pretty negative).
simon.dewar83
from Canberra, Australia is reading The Twelve by Justin CroninNovember 5, 2013 - 9:10pm
I just recieved someones manuscript with track changes on it and lots of comments by some lady called Shauna. LOL oops.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 6, 2013 - 8:07am
i hate when people don't notice those comments. duh. as for BC, yeah, i imagine they solicit a percentage, and then open up to submissions for a smaller amount of stories. crap, i didn't see that 3,500 words maximum, my story is about 4,200. well, we'll see if the are open to it, not holding my breath anyway, they are really hard to break into. well, MJR, see if those four readers have any valid points, if not, screw them.
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 6, 2013 - 6:45pm
Haha, well, I guess I'll be withdrawing my BC submission anyway, as the piece was just accepted (literally like right after I read this last post, after 227 days out) at Sheepshead Review. Which I think was one of the markets you suggested, Richard. So I guess my first shot at BC is over before it begins!
MattF
from Tokyo is reading Borges' Collected FictionsNovember 7, 2013 - 12:31am
Congratulations Michael!
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 7, 2013 - 5:14am
Thanks! Little bummed, though, was looking forward to getting a BC rejection a year from now. (lol)
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 7, 2013 - 10:36am
Nice, I like Sheepshead. They are one of the few places that took a story of mine the same day as somebody else. I hadn't witdrawn it yet. So, we're once again nearly family, MJR. :-)
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 7, 2013 - 11:13am
It's good to have family!
Dino Parenti
from Los Angeles is reading Everything He Gets His Hands OnNovember 7, 2013 - 11:32am
Do BC rejections take that long? Great. I sent in a piece last week.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 7, 2013 - 2:18pm
BC is ridiculous. and i love them. here's my personal history with them:
Rudy Jenkins Buries His Fears, rejected after 182 days
Flowers for Jessica, withdrawn after 47 days
Chasing Ghosts, withdrawn after 358 days
Sugar and Spice, pending for 4 days
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 7, 2013 - 5:09pm
Median 307 on Duotrope, max of 522. Scary stuff. Though that still doesn't beat my record 754 (and counting) at Hyperpulp.
Dino Parenti
from Los Angeles is reading Everything He Gets His Hands OnNovember 7, 2013 - 11:14pm
My story, Beyond the Eye, in Pantheon's Artemis edition was out over 600 days with The Berkeley Review before it got accepted and I told the publication to shove it (well, not those words actually, but a withdrawal nonetheless). I bet it would still be there.
closure
from Australia is reading The Ghormenghast Trilogy, by Mervyn PeakeNovember 8, 2013 - 1:27am
Yeah I don't get the idea behind the publications that take that long to accept. They pretty much have to accept simultaneous submissions (or it would just be totally unreasonable instead of just inconvenient), and then surely they'd just have withdrawal after withdrawal as other publications accept stories out from under them. So they'd be left with...slush?
SConley
from Texas is reading Coin Locker BabiesNovember 8, 2013 - 6:21am
I have a story sent to Hyperpulp too, it's been there forever. I'm guessing it's a dead market.
MattF
from Tokyo is reading Borges' Collected FictionsNovember 8, 2013 - 7:06am
You guys are following your stories up, right?
With a market like BC that advertises a year +, you send your story and forget about it, send it everywhere else. But a market like Berkeley Review you should send a follow up after 3 or 4 months, make someone account for the receipt of your story. 600 days isn't a wait time, it's a lost story (I've been rejected by Berkeley Review, and it came in under 2 months). If they claim a big backlog, follow up every couple of months until someone can give a real answer. If there's no response to several follow ups send a withdrawal and assume they're dead (applying some common sense to assume which markets are more likely to be dead).
Sound
from Azusa, CA is reading Greener Pastures by Michael WehuntNovember 8, 2013 - 10:13am
My longest wait time has been to Uncanny Valley. Going on a year now.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 8, 2013 - 10:44am
what matt said. follow up, stories get lost all the time. also, check submittable and the individual submission managers if it's way overdue, i've had emails get lost to me rejecting a story, or no notice at all.
the longest rejection i've had was 657 days from ChiZine for my 2nd novel, Disintegration, but we kept talking every 3 months, they were just slow and backlogged.
longest withdrawals were about 549 days. longest pending are 487 and 432 for Labletter and Folio, they may be in trouble (dead).
longest acceptances were for "Condemned" at Cherry Bleeds (287), "Victimized" in Murky Depths (263) and "Chasing Ghosts" in Cemetery Dance (242). that last one i didn't mind, but it WAS out to other places, got rejected by 44 PLACES before they took it. just goes to show you, WTF? never know, right?
Dino Parenti
from Los Angeles is reading Everything He Gets His Hands OnNovember 8, 2013 - 11:12am
Matt: No doubt. I always send an email around the three month mark. I actually did send an email to the Berkeley Review a little over three months in, and they responded and said it was in their slush pile and hadn't been read, so they did receive it. In any case, I'm also with closure above in terms of not understanding markets that take forever, yet not take the time to send a courtesy form email after three months to at least let you know they have it and it's being considered. How do they amass any amount of quality if they take that long? I'm giving Black Clock their three months. Sorry--plenty of time to at least acknowledge 200 submissions.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeNovember 8, 2013 - 11:18am
Anybody know of a market for conceptually serious yet facetiously written criticism/theory?
JEFFREY GRANT BARR
from Central OR is reading Nothing but fucking Shakespeare, for the rest of my lifeNovember 8, 2013 - 2:24pm
JYH:
cracked.com
Michael J. Riser
from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino IglesiasNovember 8, 2013 - 6:55pm
SConley: Yeah, it's pretty much dead. I've talked to the editor several times. I just let those stories keep going because the ginormous number amuses me. I'd never even let anyone publish them. They're fucking awful and I've rewritten both since I sent them in.
I do check with places when something's been out forever, but usually around 4 or 5 months for places that really seem to have long response times. Most of the places that have accepted me have taken a while to get back to me.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeNovember 8, 2013 - 9:07pm
JGB --- I've thought about Cracked. I couldn't think of any lists they haven't done. And lists are the only articles they say they publish. I could probably swing one though. Come to think of it, the piece I just wrote involves a list, but there is more to it than that. I guess the worst they can do is not publish it.
I'll consider smarming it up a little more.
*Smarmsweep*
Smarm levels not up to par for this course.
JEFFREY GRANT BARR
from Central OR is reading Nothing but fucking Shakespeare, for the rest of my lifeNovember 8, 2013 - 10:35pm
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeNovember 8, 2013 - 10:43pm
Busted.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeNovember 8, 2013 - 10:44pm
Writing is hard.
Lady Hazmat
is reading Various Titles November 12, 2013 - 3:26pm
A River & Sound Review literary journal is still accepting short story and poetry submissions for their annual contest. First prize is $500, publication, and a feature on a live podcast.
Sound
from Azusa, CA is reading Greener Pastures by Michael WehuntNovember 15, 2013 - 9:07pm
(Illustration Credit: Luke Spooner)
Couldn't keep this under my hat for a second longer...So, as I normally do, I wanted to give LitReactor folks some heads up on this call for submissions. It'll be Pantheon Magazine's first of two annual charity/fundraising anthologies. The first, a fantasy, dark fantasy, and magical realism (and anything in between) anthology, "Gaia: Shadow & Breath". Dark fantsy with horror elements OK.
It's a working title currently, and can change later on. I'll open up submissions on Saturday night. Payment will be a contributor's print copy. A portion of the profit will be donated to The Nature Concervancy. Click HERE to read a little about them and what they do.
Submssions do not have to be deal directly with nature or Gaia, but somehow tying it into your story, or including a lush natural setting, will earn you brownie points. Deadline, TBD (Est. February 28th, '14) for a May '14 publication date. Taking about 20 - 30 stories for this. Flash - 7500 words. If longer, query.
We're all very excited to start reading submissions for this, so get them ready!
Dino Parenti
from Los Angeles is reading Everything He Gets His Hands OnNovember 16, 2013 - 11:47am
Ooh, let me get the grey cells turning on this...
voodoo_em
from England is reading All the books by Ira LevinNovember 16, 2013 - 1:47pm
That's very cool, Sound :)
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesNovember 16, 2013 - 6:08pm
This is a pretty cool series they're doing. You may recognize a few of the authors who have already done something with them: our own Bill Johnson, as well as Jacob Haddon, Jessica McHugh, Tim Waggoner, Mark C. Scioneaux, etc.
Richard
from St. Louis is reading various anthologiesJanuary 28, 2014 - 2:34pm
DARK REGIONS PRESS
I think I'm going to take a run at this one. Pro pay (.05/word) plus other benefits. 10k word minimum. You have until October. Head over to the website to get the full guidelines.
We are happy to announce that Dark Regions Press is open to public fiction submissions for the first time in a very long time for our new upcoming anthology I AM THE ABYSS. This very special project will consist of ten original adventure stories of horror and/or dark fantasy each illustrated with an original two-page color spread by award-winning artist Les Edwards. The book is planned to be published in Q4 of 2015.
Find the submission guidelines below, and please read them from start to finish before sending us your manuscript.
Thank you and we look forward to reading your fiction!
voodoo_em
from England is reading All the books by Ira LevinJanuary 29, 2014 - 2:38am
That looks very cool, Richard.
MattF
from Tokyo is reading Borges' Collected FictionsSeptember 1, 2014 - 10:11pm
Not a specific call, but September 1st is the date most lit mags seem to open for submissions. If y'all have stories to submit, it's a good time to start sending them out there.
L.W. Flouisa
from Tennessee is reading More MurakamiSeptember 2, 2014 - 5:49am
I gotta admit, I wasn't sure what caused the rebirth.
^^good one, matt. sending them something NOW
(open until they get 200 submissions. so SEND NOW!) opened up 10/28. they take a long time, 12-18 months. but ARE simultaneous submissions.
Yeah, thanks Matt, I jumped on that earlier today too, appreciate the heads up.
Hi LR Peeps,
So I mentioned once or twice during my Talking Scars class that I was working on a horror anthology. Thought I'd mention this to the wider LR community and provide you all the chance to submit if you're interested. A couple of my Talking Scars class members have submitted stories so far but I'd love to see a story from all of you. Even if you dont get accepted, you still get that extra push to churn out another story. That is something we all need!
Basically I'm compiling an anthology which is to be published by Dark Continents publishing (http://darkcontinents.com) , titled Suspending in Dusk. I'm wrangling the new stories and reprints and choosing the lineup of tales and Nerine Dorman, one of the senior editors at Dark Continents, will be editing them.
Nerine Dorman has been the editor for the Bloody Parchment anthology which comes out yearly as part of the South African Horrorfest. She's also edited the forthcoming anthology titled The Sea, to be released early 2014 by Dark Continents. Weird, horror, dark fantasy stories about The Sea. She's also a talented writer in her own right and I encourage you to follow her on twitter (@nerinedorman) and check out her work on amazon.com etc.
The anthology is not pro-pay. Payment details are as follows: flat $20 payment + 1.5% royalties on E and Print + authors copies + 'exposure'. Basically Dark Continents is a very small press that is slowly gearing up to bigger and greater things and this anthology is part of that. They have published works by award winning horror authors such as Daniel I Russell.
Normally I wouldnt really pay much attention to "exposure" claim but i've done a fair bit of schmoozing and networking with established authors and have had submissions by several well known and highly awarded writers at this stage in the process though I shouldnt be making big announcements about who they are yet. You'll have to trust me for now.
Submission Guidelines:
This is not an open submission. I've read a REAL slushpile before and I don't have the will or time to go through that again. I'm opening invitations to all interested LR writers as a gesture of community spirit and because you're in a writing community because you want to improve and get publuished and therefore you're not likely to send me off topic tales about pink unicorns typed in bold 64 point comic sans print. If you want to submit, in your cover letter provide me information about who you are, what your username is on Litreactor and if you'd like to mention your publishing credits, that would be great.
Stuff I just dont want to see: Killer clowns, sexy sparkly vampires/werewolves, mundane or boring story lines, bad lovecraftian style works or mythos, fan fiction, stuff about fairy tea parties .... This is a horror anthology.
Theme: There isnt a theme perse, in the sense that we only want stories about one topic or only one sub-genre of horror (supernatural/vampire etc), however I am encouraging authors who write new stories to take some inspiration from the title Suspended in Dusk and the time of dusk/last light. If you dont have time to write something new or have a story ready that you feel doesnt gel with the title then still submit anyway. I'm looking for a range of different stories that represent the range of unique voices we have out there writing in the horror genre. So far I've had scifi-horror cross over stories, splatterpunk, surrealist horror .. you name it, it's all landed in my indbox.
I'll accept any horror story between 1000-10000 words. I'll accept multiple submissions. You can double your chances by submitting more than one story. Max 2 stories. Send your best.
If you can have the stories submitted by end of Nov that would be great. Apologies, I realise this isn't much time.
Please send submissions in standard format to simon.dewar83@gmail.com
Please name the file in the following format: NAME - Story Title.doc (I wont reject your story if you don't use this format but please.. it makes life easy for me!)
DOC, RTF, DOCX acceptable.
Not too fussed about font.
Simon Dewar
@heordfel
Nice writeup, I may have to jump on board and send something your way. This will be both digital and print?
Definitely digital, with a definite view to a print edition. I'll have more information about that I think around the time that letters of agreement/contracts go out to the individual authors. I am pretty sure Dark Continents will do a print run or do print-on-demand, as I believe The Sea anthology they're releasing soon will also be E and Print. At the end of the day though, thats entirely a business decision for the publisher but I'll pass on all info as soon as it comes to hand.
Richard and Michael, very cool! Now we just have to beat out the other 197 DeLillos, Aimee Benders, Lethems and Vollmans and Moodys that frequently appear in the magazine...
Since we seem to have submitted within a day of each other, might be interesting to return and compare rejection data, dates, methods as well (on the outside chance that any of us happen to be rejected, of course!) Best of luck gentlemen.
Comparing notes is always fun. I submitted my story "As Simple as Teacups", which Richard is familiar with already. Still haven't had any luck placing the bastard, and have had it both reamed as a pile of garbage and praised as a well-written philosophical work (a good number of complimentary rejections). I'm about ready to print a copy just to burn in effigy to relieve frustration.
And that's cool, Simon, I'll keep an eye out for your posts.
Simon, I'm definately going to submit a couple of pieces for this anthoology. Hopefully one of them makes the cut! And please tell me you've never recieved a story written in 64 point Comic Sans font. That sounds absolutely brutal.
Good stuff here, Simon. Definately want to submit.
simon, i'll see what i have. since you're open to reprints, for that pay rate, i may have a few things sitting around. i'll shoot them over. thanks for posting up!
Bill,
On my part it was an exaggeration, but you'd be suprised at some of the stuff that writers send out:
Marc Gascoigne from Angry Robots books was at Conflux 9 and told us a story about a very old man who lived in some retirement villiage in florida who sent through a paper manuscript to Angry Robots. It was this gigantic tome of around a thousand pages that was apparently this terribly written epic fantasy story. Each page of the MS was stapled to the next page in an attempt to bind it into an actual book of some sort. Apparently in the cover letter the writer was like "I hope you love this, this is my life's work,I've been working on it for 20 years blahblahblah".
Usually, publishers dont return manuscripts and just send you a rejection or acceptance letter but Marc didnt have the heart to throw out the MS , so they paid some ridiculous postage price to mail it back to him in the US with a very kind rejection letter.
I'm sure the guys and gals at LR would know better though :-p
Simon
Regarding Black Clock: How does one know the themes of upcoming issues? I can't see anything on their site giving any kind of 'forecast'. Do you just submit stories with any old theme and once they have enough submissions centred on a particular theme / genre they just publish an issue? Their back issues all seem pretty darn focussed on particular things. Is there some way for authors to know ahead of time what to expect (the way Spark does it?)
i've never heard of them telling a theme ahead of time. i do vaguely remember then asking for "noir" stories for that issue. just send your best work, as far as i can tell. right now they're only taking the first 200 stories, then they're shutting it down. i like those odds. i mean, Cemetery Dance had 800 submissions for their last call.
The theme is Kittens! Sent my kittens story, hope y'all did too...
Michael, was your story reamed in a workshop or from an editor? Either is bs, but I'm curious. Keep sending it--have a feeling it's way too early to be troubled yet.
I honestly don't know how Black Clock works. I'd always assumed Mr. Erickson contacted particular writers for stories. As Richard said, 200 is a very small number to cull from unless they're looking to fill a final few slots. It doesn't take 18 months to read 200 stories, so maybe they get a feel and theme, then get some names involved? Somehow I don't picture DeLillo scouring Duotrope for places to submit, but who the hell knows?
I got screwed by the wordcount--3,500 is pretty low, and the two I'm sending around are considerably longer, so I had to submit something I think is too short. But I believe in the piece, and have never seen Black Clock open before, so fuck it.
And Closure, I made the kittens thing up.
And Simon, say thanks again to Marc for sending my manuscript back! The whole thing's been re-stapled, and you should be receiving it any day now...
Haha.
And I was actually reamed by readers from the Spark antho. They were nice enough to send the comments left on the piece by those who read it, and I think only 1 out of 4 really liked it. And they were very kind to it, but the others seemed to think it was total shit. I was glad for the feedback, though ... you don't usually get 4 commentaries from a rejection. Most of my other rejections were very favorable and praised the piece despite not accepting it, so I didn't let it get to me (though it was tempting ... couple of those comments were pretty negative).
I just recieved someones manuscript with track changes on it and lots of comments by some lady called Shauna. LOL oops.
i hate when people don't notice those comments. duh. as for BC, yeah, i imagine they solicit a percentage, and then open up to submissions for a smaller amount of stories. crap, i didn't see that 3,500 words maximum, my story is about 4,200. well, we'll see if the are open to it, not holding my breath anyway, they are really hard to break into. well, MJR, see if those four readers have any valid points, if not, screw them.
Haha, well, I guess I'll be withdrawing my BC submission anyway, as the piece was just accepted (literally like right after I read this last post, after 227 days out) at Sheepshead Review. Which I think was one of the markets you suggested, Richard. So I guess my first shot at BC is over before it begins!
Congratulations Michael!
Thanks! Little bummed, though, was looking forward to getting a BC rejection a year from now. (lol)
Nice, I like Sheepshead. They are one of the few places that took a story of mine the same day as somebody else. I hadn't witdrawn it yet. So, we're once again nearly family, MJR. :-)
It's good to have family!
Do BC rejections take that long? Great. I sent in a piece last week.
BC is ridiculous. and i love them. here's my personal history with them:
Rudy Jenkins Buries His Fears, rejected after 182 days
Flowers for Jessica, withdrawn after 47 days
Chasing Ghosts, withdrawn after 358 days
Sugar and Spice, pending for 4 days
Median 307 on Duotrope, max of 522. Scary stuff. Though that still doesn't beat my record 754 (and counting) at Hyperpulp.
My story, Beyond the Eye, in Pantheon's Artemis edition was out over 600 days with The Berkeley Review before it got accepted and I told the publication to shove it (well, not those words actually, but a withdrawal nonetheless). I bet it would still be there.
Yeah I don't get the idea behind the publications that take that long to accept. They pretty much have to accept simultaneous submissions (or it would just be totally unreasonable instead of just inconvenient), and then surely they'd just have withdrawal after withdrawal as other publications accept stories out from under them. So they'd be left with...slush?
I have a story sent to Hyperpulp too, it's been there forever. I'm guessing it's a dead market.
You guys are following your stories up, right?
With a market like BC that advertises a year +, you send your story and forget about it, send it everywhere else. But a market like Berkeley Review you should send a follow up after 3 or 4 months, make someone account for the receipt of your story. 600 days isn't a wait time, it's a lost story (I've been rejected by Berkeley Review, and it came in under 2 months). If they claim a big backlog, follow up every couple of months until someone can give a real answer. If there's no response to several follow ups send a withdrawal and assume they're dead (applying some common sense to assume which markets are more likely to be dead).
My longest wait time has been to Uncanny Valley. Going on a year now.
what matt said. follow up, stories get lost all the time. also, check submittable and the individual submission managers if it's way overdue, i've had emails get lost to me rejecting a story, or no notice at all.
the longest rejection i've had was 657 days from ChiZine for my 2nd novel, Disintegration, but we kept talking every 3 months, they were just slow and backlogged.
longest withdrawals were about 549 days. longest pending are 487 and 432 for Labletter and Folio, they may be in trouble (dead).
longest acceptances were for "Condemned" at Cherry Bleeds (287), "Victimized" in Murky Depths (263) and "Chasing Ghosts" in Cemetery Dance (242). that last one i didn't mind, but it WAS out to other places, got rejected by 44 PLACES before they took it. just goes to show you, WTF? never know, right?
Matt: No doubt. I always send an email around the three month mark. I actually did send an email to the Berkeley Review a little over three months in, and they responded and said it was in their slush pile and hadn't been read, so they did receive it. In any case, I'm also with closure above in terms of not understanding markets that take forever, yet not take the time to send a courtesy form email after three months to at least let you know they have it and it's being considered. How do they amass any amount of quality if they take that long? I'm giving Black Clock their three months. Sorry--plenty of time to at least acknowledge 200 submissions.
Anybody know of a market for conceptually serious yet facetiously written criticism/theory?
JYH:
cracked.com
SConley: Yeah, it's pretty much dead. I've talked to the editor several times. I just let those stories keep going because the ginormous number amuses me. I'd never even let anyone publish them. They're fucking awful and I've rewritten both since I sent them in.
I do check with places when something's been out forever, but usually around 4 or 5 months for places that really seem to have long response times. Most of the places that have accepted me have taken a while to get back to me.
JGB --- I've thought about Cracked. I couldn't think of any lists they haven't done. And lists are the only articles they say they publish. I could probably swing one though. Come to think of it, the piece I just wrote involves a list, but there is more to it than that. I guess the worst they can do is not publish it.
I'll consider smarming it up a little more.
*Smarmsweep*
Smarm levels not up to par for this course.
Busted.
Writing is hard.
A River & Sound Review literary journal is still accepting short story and poetry submissions for their annual contest. First prize is $500, publication, and a feature on a live podcast.
http://www.riverandsoundreview.org/contests/contests.htm
(Illustration Credit: Luke Spooner)
Couldn't keep this under my hat for a second longer...So, as I normally do, I wanted to give LitReactor folks some heads up on this call for submissions. It'll be Pantheon Magazine's first of two annual charity/fundraising anthologies. The first, a fantasy, dark fantasy, and magical realism (and anything in between) anthology, "Gaia: Shadow & Breath". Dark fantsy with horror elements OK.
It's a working title currently, and can change later on. I'll open up submissions on Saturday night. Payment will be a contributor's print copy. A portion of the profit will be donated to The Nature Concervancy. Click HERE to read a little about them and what they do.
Submssions do not have to be deal directly with nature or Gaia, but somehow tying it into your story, or including a lush natural setting, will earn you brownie points. Deadline, TBD (Est. February 28th, '14) for a May '14 publication date. Taking about 20 - 30 stories for this. Flash - 7500 words. If longer, query.
We're all very excited to start reading submissions for this, so get them ready!
Ooh, let me get the grey cells turning on this...
That's very cool, Sound :)
DEADLINE: December 1st 2014
WHERE: Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing
WHAT: Single stories, 1,000-15,000 words in length, for their "One-Night Stand" series
PAY: $25 + 35% royalties
SUBMIT: https://pmmpublishing.submittable.com/submit
This is a pretty cool series they're doing. You may recognize a few of the authors who have already done something with them: our own Bill Johnson, as well as Jacob Haddon, Jessica McHugh, Tim Waggoner, Mark C. Scioneaux, etc.
http://bizarropulppress.com/blog/2014/1/5/new-anthology-on-the-horizon
Just ran across this - thought I'd share
Now go write.
DARK REGIONS PRESS
I think I'm going to take a run at this one. Pro pay (.05/word) plus other benefits. 10k word minimum. You have until October. Head over to the website to get the full guidelines.
http://www.darkregions.com/pages/Submit.html
That looks very cool, Richard.
Not a specific call, but September 1st is the date most lit mags seem to open for submissions. If y'all have stories to submit, it's a good time to start sending them out there.
I gotta admit, I wasn't sure what caused the rebirth.
I'd try the fantasy, but it is middle grade.