10 Calls for Short Stories: $50 to $360 Per Story

These fiction markets pay $50-360 for short stories, and a few of them accept other genres also, like non-fiction and poetry. Also see this list of fiction markets paying $100-500 – deadlines are coming up quickly. – S. Kalekar

Speculative City: Occult
The magazine publishes “provocative works that are centered within a cityscape.” They want fiction and poetry on the theme of ‘Occult’. They also want critical essays and opinion pieces that explore the theme in regards to speculative fiction. Deadline: 25 March 2019
Length: Up to 5,500 words
Pay: $20-75
Details here.

Pseudopod
This is an online magazine and podcast and they publish horror – dark, weird fiction. Their stories run the spectrum from grim realism or crime drama, to magic-realism, to blatantly supernatural dark fantasy. They publish highly literary stories reminiscent of Poe or Lovecraft as well as vulgar shock-value pulp fiction. What matters most is that the stories are dark and compelling.
Reading period: 15-31 March 2019
Length: Up to 1,500 words for flash, 1,500-6,000 words for short fiction
Pay: $0.06/word, $100 for short story reprints, $20 for flash fiction reprints
Details here and here.

Mad Scientist Journal: I Didn’t Break the Lamp: Historical Accounts of Imaginary Acquaintances
­­­­­This anthology will be a collection of fictional stories about imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, and imaginary entities that fall somewhere in between. Each story is written from the perspective of someone who has been or been near the imaginary acquaintance in question. Like their regular magazine, this narrator will also have a bio, and stories should be in first person. They have a higher pay rate than for their magazine for this anthology.
Deadline: 31 March 2019
Length: 500-8,000 words
Pay: $0.02/word
Details here.

Foreshadow: A Serial YA Anthology
­­­­­This is an online project showcasing young adult fiction, from new and emerging (see guidelines for who fits into the ‘New Voices’ slot) as well as established writers. They only accept fiction which is in the young adult genre. Their guidelines say, “To foreshadow in storytelling is to leave hints and drop clues, so each story in FORESHADOW will be introduced by a single-word title that offers a suggestion of what to expect. To find that title, you might ask yourself this question: If you could distill your story into one word, what would it be? This title will act as a clue to what may be discovered in your story—and the issue. Perhaps the clues in our first issue might be Magic, Invention, and Heartbreak. Or Thrillride, Starstruck, and Canary. It’s your choice—and we’re open to most anything!

When you submit your story, please include your one-word clue. Ideally this will be the title of the story, but if not please still include the clue.” The final deadline for this project is coming up.
Deadline: 1 April 2019
Length: 2,000-7,000 words
Pay: $170
Details here.

Canthius
­­­­­They welcome submissions of fiction, creative non-fiction, experimental works, and poetry. They welcome work by diverse authors and say they strongly encourage women of colour, including Indigenous and Black women, to submit, and accept submissions in Indigenous languages.
Deadline: 1 April 2019
Length: Up to 3,500 words, up to 5 poems
Pay: $50/work of prose, $15/poem
Details here.

The Massachusetts Review
­­­­­This literary magazine is currently open for submissions of fiction, poetry, translations, and essays – articles and essays of breadth and depth are considered, as well as discussions of leading writers; of art, music, and drama; analyses of trends in literature, science, philosophy, and public affairs. Translations are accepted year-round. There is no fee for mailed submissions.
Deadline: 30 April 2019
Length: Up to 8,000 words for fiction, up to 6 poems; no length guidelines for essay submissions
Pay: $50
Details here.

Quommnicate Media: Geek Out II!
This will be an online and print anthology, and the theme is, ‘Where queer meets geek’. They want genre fiction, poetry (slam poems and non-traditional format), and creative non-fiction (non-memoir based) – opinion essays, topical articles, reviews and comedy, comics/graphic stories and scripts. They do not want literary fiction, memoir-based non-fiction, traditional poetry. They rarely accept erotica or work intended for children.
Deadline: 30 April 2019
Length: Up to 5,000 words of prose, up to 3 pages per poem, comics and scripts up to 10 pages; work longer than 10 pages must be numbered
Pay: $5/page
Details here.

Gumshoe Review
This magazine publishes short fiction mysteries, and essays on topics of interest to readers, writers and students of the mystery genre. Their guidelines say, “We don’t want character studies or mood pieces. We’d like it to lean towards noir but being a mystery — telling a story is actually more important.” Also, “We’re looking for stories where the investigator is the protagonist, or at least a significant character, and the focus is on solving a solving a crime, or getting someone out of a jam, or seeking some sort of justice.”
Deadline: Open now
Length: Up to 1,000 words for both fiction and non-fiction
Pay: $0.05/word, up to $50
Details here.

Burbon Penn
They want highly imaginative stories with a healthy dose of the odd. They want “genre/speculative stories and are quite partial to slipstream, cross-genre, magic realism, absurdist and the surreal.” They want fully-drawn characters, mysterious stories, ideas and action.
Deadline: Unspecified
Length: 2,000-7,500 words
Pay: $0.01/word
Details here.

Future Visions
­­­­­They publish science fiction anthologies on a quarterly basis. Their guidelines say, “In the tradition of great television anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, the Future Visions Anthologies will broadly explore all genres and traditions of science fiction and speculative fiction, seeking in each story to explore deeply themes that are relevant to a modern audience.” They also “want authors to feel free to explore these larger questions using any and all of the popular science fiction tropes: new technology, exploration, nightmarish dystopians, alien species, baffling utopias…” They have a profit-share model of royalties, in which guaranteed minimum pay is $100 over 6 months.
Deadline: Rolling
Length: 2,000-6,000 words
Pay: Royalties; minimum $100
Details here.

 

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