Here are 18 upcoming deadlines for submitting fiction, article pitches, and entering contests. All of these are paid opportunities. The deadlines are through November 30th.
Most of these were previously listed in Freedom With Writing, or Authors Publish Magazine.
For more opportunities, see this list of 10 Fiction Markets Paying $50 to $500 for November and December 2021.
Thanks to S. Kalekar for most of the listings in this article.
Prarie Fire, a Canadian literary journal publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They’re reading on the ‘Uncharted Territory’ theme. Their guidelines say, “Each person is essentially, a vast uncharted territory just waiting to be explored. Sometimes the changes we create, or are plunged into, are monumental, adventurous and exciting, at other times, they are grueling, painful, and require us to endure until we reach the other side.
Tell us about a time you (or a fictional character) either deliberately threw away the roadmap and set out on a new, uncharted course into the unfamiliar and unexpected, or a time when an external catalyst such as loss, illness, poverty, a social movement, a work of art, or a pandemic changed the way you think, or sent you in a new direction and changed the course of your life.”
Length: Up to 5,000 words for fiction and nonfiction; up to 3 poems
Pay: $0.10/word for prose; $40/poem; varies for other formats
Details here and here.
Deadline: November 24th, 2021
Cut Fruit Collective is a SF Bay Area-based grassroots organization creating art for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community care. They are looking for writers to help them “create impactful content to uplift and build coalitions across AAPI communities.” The content writers will create 1-3 posts a month about AAPI culture, heritage, etc. They will pay $50 per post (150 -300 words). They will pay $0.25/word for longer works. To learn more, refer to their Twitter thread and this form.
Deadline: November 24th, 2021
Mythulu Magazine wants fiction and nonfiction for their next issue, as well as graphic stories/cartoon strips. Their guidelines say, “Come debate two sides of the world’s hottest-selling genre. How spicy can relationships get without taking clothes off? On the other hand, what gives erotica purpose?
Pick a side. Prove explicit moments can be both ethical and important… or demonstrate why platonic gestures demonstrate superior love.
On the business/non-fiction side, discuss how codependency impacts authors, especially the tug-of-war between personal expression and the need for acceptance. Consider the romance business, the genre’s relationship with censorship, or another related topic you’re passionate about.” This will be extremely competitive, as they are looking for three stories across the spectrum – one PG-level romance, one mass-appeal romance, and one erotic story (see guidelines).
Length: 500 – 2,800 words for fiction; 200 – 1,200 words for nonfiction
Pay: $0.04/word for creative works, capped at $75; $0.08/word for nonfiction
Details here.
Deadline: November 28th, 2021
The Night Shift Radio podcast has The Storyteller Series and they choose two stories to publish each month. One story will be chosen for the Full Cast Audiobook treatment; that author will receive $50 for audio rights and non-exclusive print rights. A second piece will be chosen for their mid-month print only piece. The author of that piece will be offered $25. They publish fiction, nonfiction, memoir – anything that reads with tension and excitement. They read work from 21st-28th during certain months.
Length: 7,000-10,000 words
Pay: $25, $50 (see guidelines)
Details here (episodes) and here (guidelines).
Deadline: November 28th, 2021
Crannóg publishes fiction and poetry from Ireland and around the world. It is published twice yearly. They read in November for the March issue, and in May for the September issue. They nominate work for the Pushcart and Forward prizes.
Deadline: 30 November 2021
Length: Up to 2,000 words for fiction, up to 50 lines for poetry
Pay: €100/story, €60/poem
Details here and here.
(Berkeley Fiction Review is another magazine that is open for submissions now, and accepts fiction, comics, art, and visuals. Pay is $25.)
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
PodCastle publishes fantasy short fiction on their website, and in an audio format. They are open to all sub-genres of fantasy, from magical realism to urban fantasy to slipstream to high fantasy. Fantastical or non-real content should be meaningful to the story. They also accept reprints.
Deadline: 30 November 2021
Length: Up to 6,000 words
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
DreamForge, a speculative fiction magazine, is open for a short period for poetry (up to 900 words) and fiction (200-4,500 words) submissions – they accept fantasy and science fiction, and horror is not a good fit for this magazine. “Positive stories demonstrating the triumph of the human spirit and the power of hope and humane values in overcoming the most daunting challenges.” Pay is $25-100 for poems, and $0.06/word for fiction. Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Strange Horizons publishes speculative fiction, nonfiction (columns, essays, interviews, and round-tables), poetry, and art – and they are open during the month of November for fiction.
Deadline: 30 November 2021 for fiction
Length: Up to 10,000 words (under 5,000 words preferred) for fiction
Pay: $0.10/word for fiction, $50 for poetry, varies for others
Details here and here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Dark Void is a new science fiction horror magazine. All stories take place off planet Earth, according to their website. Their first issue will be launched in Spring 2022.
Length: 3,000-4,000 words
Pay: $0.05/word
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Apparition Lit accepts speculative fiction (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, literary) and poetry and they are open for submissions on the ‘Charm’ theme. They have an extended reading period for BIPOC writers. (They also have a monthly themed flash fiction challenge, usually on various historical figures, which runs from the 1st to the 15th of every month, and pays $30.)
Deadline: 30 November 2021 for general submissions; 1-7 December 2021 for BIPOC-only submissions
Length: 1,000-5,000 words for fiction, up to five poems
Pay: $0.03/word for prose, $30/poem
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Pirating Pups is an anthology about pirating dogs. The editor says, “I am looking for adventure-loving dogs, puns, water and fun. I’m looking for sailors, submariners, explorers, Vikings and more. Fun stories filled with excitement, drama, treasure-seeking, sword fights, discovering new worlds and dogs, dogs, dogs! … I’m a sucker for a great setting, three-dimensional characters and high stakes, and if your story elicits real emotion from me—laughter, tears or anything in between—you will have increased your chances of acceptance significantly.” Stories should have a strong plot and detailed characters.
Length: Up to 7,500 words
Pay: CAD50
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
This is a call for Smoking Pen Press’s Read on the Run anthology, and the theme is Another Dimension. “We’re looking for stories about time travel, multiverse/parallel universes, or both.” Contributors can opt for cash payment or a copy/copies of the anthology.
Length: 1,200-7,000 words
Pay: $20
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Submissions are open for Black Coffee & Vinyl’s visual art and multimedia project that incorporates literature – fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, on ‘The City’ theme. “We are seeking art, words, and sounds that explore, critique, celebrate and interrogate the urban landscape, culture and environment. The city, a place, should play a central role in the work and should be a central character or focus. We are seeking a diverse range of city representation from large cities to small, from real to imagined.”
Length: Up to 2,000 words for prose; up to 3 poems
Pay: $50
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Ask Magazine is a science and nonfiction magazine from Cricket Media, and they run other children’s magazines as well. They welcome queries for articles, for ASK Magazine. They publish feature articles (400–1200 words, with sidebars); photo essays (400–800 words); humor pieces (200–400 words); profiles/interviews of scientists, inventors, engineers, artists (200–1000 words); theme-appropriate experiments; science panel cartoons (2–6 pages). They have some upcoming pitch deadlines, including for:
— Wild in the City: Their guidelines say, “Can wild plants and animals survive in a city?
Wild animals adapting to urban places; what makes a survivor; problem neighbors.”
Details here (click on ASK).
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Stories of the Eye is a fiction anthology from Weirdpunk Books. They want “horror stories that explore the complex relationships between artists and models. Go beyond the male gaze. Show us the queer gaze, the disabled gaze, the un-colonialized gaze, the intergalactic gaze. Turn the model’s gaze on the artist or audience. Explore the power of images, why we bring them to life or destroy them through duplication and representation, and how the act of creating changes them and changes us. Invent a future art form or resurrect a forgotten handicraft. Define “model” as widely and surprisingly as you like”.
Length: 2,500-5,000 words
Pay: $0.02/word
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
ServiceScape Short Story Award: For this award, any genre or theme of short story is accepted. All applicants should submit a work of short fiction or non-fiction, 5,000 words or fewer. Read the guidelines carefully – they reserve the right to modify or terminate the contest at any time without prior notice. Also see their scholarship for students.
Value: $1,000
Open for: All writers
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
Dappled Things is a space for emerging writers to engage the literary world from a Catholic perspective. For this contest, they want stories of up to 8,000 words “with vivid characters who encounter grace in everyday settings—we want to see who, in the age we live in, might have one foot in this world and one in the next.”
Value: $500, $250
Open for: All writers
Details here.
Deadline: November 30th, 2021
The Abbey Review will begin publication in January 2022, and they are reading submissions for their first issue. They want short stories (300 words to 30 pages), screenplays, and poetry. “The genre doesn’t matter, only the quality of the piece.” They pay $30, and the best piece of writing gets paid an additional $70. Details here.
Deadline: December 1st, 2021
