These magazines and anthologies publish fiction; a few outlets also accept other genres, like non-fiction and poetry. Please see the second section of this list for themed calls. – S. Kalekar
Profiles
This is a new Dublin-based journal, and they are reading submissions for their second issue. “Profiles welcomes character-driven fiction and non-fiction — both original works and works in translation … We’re interested in publishing character studies. We love writing that channels the author’s insatiable curiosity about other people (or their talent for self-reflection), is empathetic without bordering on apologia, and shows human nature as it is, not necessarily as it should be.” They also publish artwork. They will be able to pay contributors of their second issue because of a grant they have received.
Deadline: 26 May 2023
Length: Up to 5,000 words
Pay: €200 for work for this issue; potentially more for those participating in recordings, interviews, or launch (see here)
Details here and here.
The Stinging Fly
They publish Irish and international writing. They plan on being open for submissions for fiction, nonfiction – including graphic narratives in both genres – as well as poetry, during the second half of May.
Reading period: 16-31 May 2023
Length: No length restrictions for prose (see guidelines); up to 3 poems
Pay: For fiction and nonfiction, €45 per magazine page, with a minimum/maximum payment of €300/€1,200 (approx. $325-1,300); flash fiction/shorter essays (1 – 2 pages): €150; poetry: €40 per magazine page, with a minimum payment of €60 per poem; featured poet: €400
Details here.
Barrelhouse
They accept fiction, nonfiction and poetry. For fiction, “We tend to choose polished work with an engaging voice, conceived with humility and somewhat clear intention. … We do not hate on genre writing, although we do seek the traditional literary qualities we admire in such work. Which is to say, a good fantasy setting or interesting SciFi concept won’t be enough without good characters, solid storytelling and dramatic tension in which the readers feel something real and true is somehow at stake on the page.”
Deadline: 31 May 2023, or until filled
Length: Up to 5,000 words for fiction, up to 2,000-7,000 words for nonfiction (shorter for flash nonfiction), up to 5 poems
Pay: $50
Details here.
AGNI
They publish fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. “We do not publish genre romance, horror, mystery, or science fiction; however, we are open to writing that borrows elements from any of these.” They also accept translations. Online submissions are charged, but mailed submissions are free.
Deadline: 31 May 2023
Length: No length restrictions for prose (see guidelines); up to 5 poems
Pay: $20/page for prose, $40/page for poetry, up to $300
Details here.
Baltimore Review
They publish literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Deadline: 31 May 2023
Length: Up to 5,000 words for prose, up to 3 poems
Pay: $50 (Amazon gift certificate or via PayPal, if preferred)
Details here and here
Gettysburg Review
They publish literary fiction (including flash, short stories, novellas, and novel excerpts), nonfiction, poetry, essay reviews, and art. Online submissions are charged, but mailed submissions are free.
Deadline: 31 May 2023
Length: Up to 10,000 words for prose; up to 5 short poems (if sending longer poems, send fewer – see guidelines)
Pay: $3/per line for poetry up to $300 for an individual poem, $30/page for prose
Details here and here.
Short Fiction
They accept fiction from every country except the US. “We publish one story per month as our Featured piece. We will also periodically seek to publish one story in a new section – “Introducing” – which will be a showcase for excellent new writers; that is, writers for whom this is their first published piece. In both cases we are looking for the best, carefully crafted, deeply considered work.”
Deadline: 31 May 2023
Length: 500-5,000 words
Pay: £0.02/word, up to £100
Details here and here.
Matter Press: The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
They publish fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as fiction and creative nonfiction prose poetry, as long as it is compressed in some way.
Deadline: 15 June 2023
Length: Up to 600 words
Pay: $50
Details here and here.
The Ex-Puritan
This Canadian magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, experimental/hybrid work, interviews, reviews, and poetry. They accept a limited number of fee-free submissions every month.
Deadline: 25 June 2023, or until filled, for the Summer issue; reads year-round
Length: Up to 10,000 words for fiction, up to 4 poems; various for nonfiction (see guidelines)
Pay: CAD200 per essay; CAD150 for fiction; CAD100 per interview or review; CAD35 per poem (or page, capped at CAD120); CAD50+ per experimental or hybrid work, at an increasing scale depending on the nature of the piece
Details here and here.
(Also see their Submittable for a special Indigenous Storytelling issue call; the deadline for that is 10th July 2023.)
The Cosmic Background
This is a new magazine of primarily slipstream flash fiction. “We want the single best piece of flash fiction you have that comes from the places in-between. We are primarily a slipstream publication — that means we like your stories that don’t make a ton of sense. We want your giant talking frogs. We want your people with unexplained, never commented-upon eyes in their fingertips. We enjoy character-focused writing, with an emphasis on voice.” They also accept reprints.
Deadline: Open now
Length: Prefer up to 1,000 words, can accept longer (see guidelines)
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here and here
THEMED CALLS
The Drabblecast: Weird West
The Drabblecast is a speculative fiction magazine and podcast that publishes weird fiction. “We want WEIRD west stories … Westerns without a speculative element (scifi/fantasy/horror/weird) will not be considered. Come weird or not at all.” They also accept reprints.
Deadline: 26 May 2023
Length: 500-4,000 words
Pay: $.06/word
Details here.
Prairie Fire: Haunted – Things That Keep You Up At Night
This Canadian magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and they have a special call on the Haunted theme. Their website says, “This fall, Prairie Fire is taking a deep dive into what haunts us. What keeps you up at night? Is it thoughts of regret about what you did or didn’t do, said or didn’t say, the risks you didn’t take? Or, maybe the pain of the past comes to visit, specters of history we’ve inherited through family or societal trauma? What do these hauntings teach us, and how do we cope with them? Can we finally put the old ghosts to bed, or have we learned to live with them?
Not all hauntings are unwelcome. Sometimes an idea or dream, repeatedly whispered in our ears at night, can lead us to take personal action, give rise to radical change, create new movement in our lives, or inspire acts of great artistic expression. Sometimes, ghosts can be helpful.” Also, the magazine “encourages submissions from LGBTQI2S writers, BIPOC writers, differently-abled writers, and all who are otherwise affected by structural inequality.”
Deadline: 26 May 2023
Length: Up to 5,000 words for prose, up to 3 poems
Pay: CAD0.10/word for prose up to CAD250, CAD40/poem for print, varies for others
Details here and here.
Brigids Gate Press: Scissor Sisters – Sapphic Villains Anthology
They want erotic horror, gothic horror, quiet horror, and body horror for this anthology. “We’re reclaiming the predatory lesbian trope, think Mrs Danvers in Rebecca or Roxy in Basic Instinct, so we’re looking for stories of sapphic villains. Because we’re looking to reclaim this trope and not reinforce it, we don’t just want sapphic villains. Sapphic characters can also be heroes and anti-heroes. We’d like to see a diversity of queer identities in a multitude of roles. We’d especially love to see stories of feminine rage, erotic horror, genderbent retellings and reclamations of power by queer femmes.” Stories must have diverse LGBTQ+ representation, can be set anytime in the past or present; the location can be anywhere on Earth.
Deadline: 31 May 2023
Length: 1,500-4,000 words
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here and here.
Weird Little Worlds: Playlist of the Damned
This is a fiction (including flash) and poetry anthology. “A hiker finds a grungy cassette tape in an abandoned mine that reads, DO NOT PLAY. When he does, he unleashes 25 tales of horror from the place where music and the macabre meet. … Bring us your Faustian deals with the Devil, your debauched rock stars, and demonic incantations. Music that soothes the beast or strangles with an invisible hand. These stories should be so integrally connected with music that the narrative can’t function without it.” Also, “Specific songs can be used, but (unless you have rights to the lyrics or it is in public domain) only references and titles can be included. There is no restriction on genre, style, or time period. We are interested in short fiction, horror poetry, and flash fiction alike in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.”
Deadline: 31 May 2023
Length: 500-5,000 words
Pay: $0.05/word for prose, $1/line for poetry (will increase if Kickstarter hits stretch goals)
Details here.
The Other Side of Hope: Journeys in Refugee and Immigrant Literature
They publish fiction, poetry, and art from refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants only; these are unthemed. They also consider poems from refugee/asylum seeker writing groups. Nonfiction and book reviews are open to all, and the theme for those is migration. Also, “A.M. Heath Literary Agency will offer 1-2-1s to 6 of our vol.3 contributors.”
Deadline: 31 May 2023
Length: 1,000-8,000 words for fiction; up to 4 poems; 2,000-5,000 words for nonfiction
Pay: £100 for print, £50 for online contributions, and £300 for art; asylum seekers get gift cards
Details here.
Apparition Lit: Creature
Apparition Lit is a quarterly speculative fiction and poetry magazine. They’re reading submissions on the Creature theme for the last two weeks in May 2023; also see the note about their equity initiative in the guidelines here (scroll down) – “Our submission window will remain open for an additional week each quarter for writers who identify as BIPOC and self-identify in their cover letter.
We will also accept simultaneous submissions from writers who identify as BIPOC or LGBTQIA+. Please just note how you identify in your cover letter, that it is a simultaneous submission.”
Deadline: 31 May 2023 for submissions from all writers on the theme; and 7 June 2023 for writers who self-identify as BIPOC in their cover letter
Length: 1,000-5,000 words for fiction, up to 5 poems
Pay: $0.05/word for fiction, $50/poem
Details here and here.
(They also publish flash fiction online on monthly prompts, during the first fortnight of every month.)
Third Flatiron Anthologies: Rhapsody of the Spheres
For this speculative fiction and poetry anthology; they want SF, fantasy, space opera, hopepunk on ‘Rhapsody of the Spheres’ theme. “The dictionary defines a rhapsody as “an effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling.” In ancient Greece, a rhapsody was also part of an epic poem of a suitable length for reciting.
Edie Brickell waxed rhapsodic about a smile on a dog, and Queen and Liszt gave us their musical Bohemian and Hungarian rhapsodies, respectively. Please give us a speculative fiction story or poem about what would make us happy right now.” Please send your work only during the reading period.
Reading period: 19 May – 1 June 2023
Length: 1,500-3,000 words
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here (scroll down for the theme) and here.
Crystal Lake Publishing: Dead Letters – Episodes of Epistolary Horror
Their website says, “we’re looking for short horror stories … written in epistolary format—meaning, stories written as letters, journal entries, transcripts of radio broadcasts, newspaper clippings, text messages, etc.
Furthermore, each story should include some mention of how its manuscript was “discovered.” A letter found in a historian’s archive, for example. Or emails saved as part of a missing persons investigation. Or an audio file recovered from a dead podcaster’s PC. Push boundaries and play with the format—and above all, be scary!”
Deadline: 1 June 2023
Length: 2,500-7,000 words
Pay: $0.01/word
Details here (download guidelines).
sin cesar: Climate
They want fiction (including flash fiction), nonfiction (memoir essays, critical essays, book reviews, & interviews), and poetry on the Climate theme. “We look for subversive and bold voices; thought-provoking pieces that seek to illuminate a truth for the reader.” They prioritize work by Black and Brown artists.
Deadline: 1 June 2023
Length: Up to 3,000 words for prose, 3-5 poems
Pay: $25-75 for poetry, $100 for prose
Details here.
The Fairy Tale Magazine: Love
They publish fairy tales – new fairy tales or mashups of fairy tales, as well as poetry. They have detailed guidelines, including, “The theme for 2023 is “LOVE,” with romance preferred, but love between friends, family members, pets and their humans, etc., will be considered as well.
We are also very open to the stories and poems focusing on seasonal holidays, like solstice celebrations, Halloween, Hanukkah, etc. However, while holiday based stories and poems are very welcome, you still need to include the theme. …. Do bear in mind that all fairy tale related fiction and poetry needs an element of the supernatural—as well as transformation. Transformation is a huge deal for the 2023 publishing year.” General submissions to the magazine are free, and submissions to the contest have a fee attached.
Deadline: 2 June 2023
Length: 1,000-5,000 words (up to 3,500 preferred) for fiction, up to 500 words for poetry
Pay: $50
Details here.
Exile Editions: Through the Portal – Stories from a Hopeful Dystopia
They welcome international submission, but 90% of the work for this anthology will be from people who live in/have ties to Canada. They have extensive guidelines, including, “Send us your eco-fiction stories or prose poems––literary, magical, speculative, solarpunk, supernatural, slipstream, reimagined folk/fairy tales. We want eco-fiction that envisions imaginaries and relationships in a new or changing world. How do we walk through the portal to the other side? How will we address or overcome the legacy of the past: the negative actors and social constructs, environmental devastation, racism, exploitation, pathologies? … We want submissions from everyone, emerging through established, and from all communities––including but not limited to LGBTQ2S+, Black, Indigenous, marginalized, culturally diverse, the deaf and disabled. Stories can be literary or speculative, with the environment playing an essential role in the narrative. We welcome visual content in the form of illustrations accompanying a story or prose poem, or as graphic stories.”
Deadline: 31 July 2023 (extended)
Length: Up to 3,500 words
Pay: CAD0.05/word
Details here.
(Also see their fiction calls for ONWAACHIGEWIN – Prophecy and AKI – Mother Earth anthologies; they want submissions from Indigenous writers only: First Nation, Inuit, Métis, Status or Non-Status. “We’d also love to consider Indigenous writers who do not live in Canada, but a restriction is that at least 90% of the authors in the anthology must live in Canada, or continue to maintain ties to Canada”. They have detailed guidelines for each anthology. Pay is CAD0.05/word for stories up to 5,000 words for both anthologies, and the deadline is now 31 July 2023. Details here.)
Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.
