By S. Kalekar
These magazines and anthologies pay up to approximately $500 for fiction. Some of them also accept other genres, like non-fiction and poetry. They’re open now, or will open soon for short submission periods.
Splinter Journal
This Australian journal, from Writers SA, accepts works from around the world. They have detailed guidelines, including, “We are always looking for writing that picks apart all the ways reality has been shattered, illuminates the shining threads of it that remain unbroken, and hints at the ways we’ll start putting it all back together.” They accept submissions of fiction, memoir, and poetry. They only accept pitches (not completed submissions) of essays, writing about writing, criticism, and profiles. This is a new magazine, they’re reading for Issue 2.
Deadline: 25 January 2025 (11:59pm Australian Central Daylight Time)
Length: Up to 4 poems; no limits for fiction (see guidelines)
Pay: AUD900 for fiction, essays, and profiles, AUD700 for criticism, AUD600 for memoir, AUD500 for writing about writing, AUD250/poem or AUD450/collection of up to 4 poems
Details here and here.
Fantasy Magazine
Fantasy Magazine is being relaunched; it has been acquired by Psychopomp, which also publishes The Deadlands. You can see the announcement here. They have a brief submission window soon; from January 22nd to 25th, they’re accepting submissions from BIPOC writers only and from January 26th to 29th 2025, they’ll open for general submissions (from all writers). They have detailed guidelines, including, “In genre as well as our pages, Fantasy can be dark, or contemporary, it can be urban, surrealism, magical realism, science fantasy, high fantasy, folktales… as well as anything and everything in between. Fantasy is entertainment for the intelligent genre reader—we publish stories of the Fantastic that make us think, and that describe what it is to be human.
We welcome a range of original “speculative works” that can be described as “Fantasy.” All types of Fantasy and dark Fantasy are welcome.” They have detailed guidelines, including the kind of works they do not want, please read them carefully. They also accept poetry. Their submission portal will open during the reading period.
Reading period: See above
Length: Up to 1,500 words for flash fiction, up to 5,000 words for short stories
Pay: $0.10/word for fiction, $50 for poetry
Details here.
Mythaxis Magazine (UK)
“Mythaxis seeks speculative fiction (sf/f/h) of all stripes for our first three issues each year. We are also interested in submissions of crime fiction for our end-of-year “all crime” issue. All these genres are equally welcome in each submission window.” They will be opening a short reading period soon. Their submission form will be active during the reading period.
Reading period: 23rd-30th January 2025
Length: 1,000-5,000 words
Pay: €0.01 per word, with a €20 minimum
Details here.
Space & Time Magazine
Fiction and poetry submissions are accepted in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French or Italian. “We seek: Broken boundaries, blown minds and new horizons. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, steampunk, magical realism—we look for work with a speculative element. Creative hybrids welcome. If you can combine horror, science fiction and fantasy into one compelling plot, you’ve caught our attention. If your story has the power to shake some perspectives, we are interested.” They also accept art. They reopened for submissions on 15th January, and will remain open until end-January.
Deadline: 31 January 2025
Length: Up to 5,000 words for fiction, up to 3 poems
Pay: $0.01/word for fiction, $5/poem
Details here and here.
Event Magazine
For this submission window, they will only accept fiction and poetry submissions from any Canadian citizen or resident. For fiction, they want “compelling characters, plots that surprise us, narratives that move us, stories that have something new to say.”
Deadline: 31 January 2025
Length: Up to 5,000 words for fiction, up to 8 poems
Pay: CAD40/page for poetry, CAD35/page for prose, up to CAD500
Details here and here.
Write or Die Magazine
They publish fiction, essays, and author interviews. They open for fee-free submissions of fiction and essays on the 1st to 7th of every month. For submissions at other times, they charge a submission fee. They have detailed guidelines about the kind of work their editors are interested in, please read them carefully. They have a monthly $600 pool which is divided among contributors, which works out to approximately $50 per contributor.
Reading period: 1st to 7th February 2025
Length: Up to 4,000 words for fiction, up to 3,000 words for essays
Pay: Approximately $50 (see guidelines)
Details here and here.
Flash Fiction Online
They will open for fiction on 1st February 2025, and will close by genre when a cap is reached. “We publish across many genres, including speculative (science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and horror) and literary fiction.” They have more details on what they’re looking and their hard sells here.
Reading period: 1st to 28th February (or until filled) 2025
Length: 500-1,000 words
Pay: $100
Details here and here.
(And, Shenandoah opened for fiction submissions of up to 8,000 words, as well as novel excerpts, on the 15th of January. They’ll stay open until a cap is reached. They pay what their budget allows. Details here and here.)
Zooscape
They reopened for submissions on 1st January. They publish anthropomorphic fiction; “All stories must be furry. That means an anthropomorphic animal figure should be significantly featured in your story — it could be anthropomorphic in body or only intelligence. We’ll consider any type of furry fiction from secret life of animals to fox in Starbucks. We love science-fiction with animal-like aliens and fantasy with talking dragons, unicorns, or witch familiars.” They also accept reprints.
Deadline: Open now
Length: Up to 10,000 words
Pay: $0.08/word for original stories up to 1,000 words, and $80 for longer
Details here.
Merganser Magazine
This is a new magazine; “Debuting in winter 2024, we aim to publish many writers and artists whose work transcends disciplines and genres.” They want fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. And, “No word limits or hard editorial guidelines; we’re eager to find strong pieces across a wide range of material. That said, our budget and business model prioritize shorter works. Anything longer than 2,000 words is likely a hard sell.” Please read the work they’ve published to get a sense of the kind of what they like.
Deadline: Open now
Length: Up to 2,000 words (see guidelines)
Pay: $0.08/word for prose, $1/line for poetry
Details here.
Cupids Arrow Publishing: Dalliances Anthologies
They publish themed anthologies of romance fiction. “Dalliances is our short fiction program for when a novel just won’t do. A Dalliance can be a standalone short story or a collection of short romantic tales around a general theme. … We are also currently open for submissions to these Dalliances anthologies:
Second Chances (second-chance romances)
Good Sports (sports-related romances)
For the Uniform (military romances)”.
Submission is via a form on their website. They recently posted that they were still open for submissions, see here.
Deadline: Open now
Length: 5,000 – 12,000 words
Pay: $0.02/word
Details here and here.
Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.