By S. Kalekar
These fiction magazines and anthologies pay up to €1,200 (approximately $1,380) for fiction. Some of them also accept other genres, like non-fiction and poetry. They’re open now, or will open soon for submissions.
The Stinging Fly
This Ireland-based magazine opens for fiction, non-fiction, including graphic fiction and non-fiction, and poetry. They also accept translations. They also have a submission FAQ page. Their Submittable will open during the reading period.
Reading period: 4th to 18th November 2025 (5pm Irish time)
Length: One prose piece; up to three poems
Pay: Fiction and non-fiction: €45 per magazine page, with a minimum/maximum payment of €325/€1,200; flash fiction/shorter essays (1 – 2 pages): €150; Poetry: €45 per magazine page, but with a minimum payment of €70 per poem; Featured poet: €425
Details here.
Flame Tree: Ghost Lights
They are reading submissions for a fiction anthology. “Next year’s entry in the acclaimed ‘ABC of Horror’ series will be called Ghost Lights, and as ever, I’m looking for stories that are as disturbing, strange, and original as you can make them. I’m not averse to humour, and neither am I averse to horror tropes like zombies, vampires, and serial killers. But if you are going to write stories with such familiar, tried-and-trusted elements, then you need to find a new and unique way of presenting them. I want to be surprised and scared by your stories, and I want them to be populated by characters who are both believable and identifiable (even the evil ones). Your stories can be anything from 2,000-8,000 words, though the sweet spot is around the 4,000-5,000 word mark.” They do not want reprints for this anthology.
Deadline: 14 November 2025
Length: See above
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here.
The Spectacle
“We welcome and embrace all styles, genres, and modes of writing, but we are particularly interested in vivid, striking imagery and language that lingers with us long after we’ve finished reading. We value relationships between the literary and visual arts, and aim for content that reminds us that our lenses matter—they focus, distort, clarify, and conceal.
Send us your slipstream and irrealism. Send us your eco-fabulism. Send us your villanelles about time travel and your reimagined fairy tales. Send us something new to believe in. Push and break boundaries. Stretch a genre to its extreme. Invent a new genre.” This magazine is affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis. They are “committed to publishing work from under-represented voices, including BIPOC, women, people from LGBTQIA+ communities, and people who have disabilities.”
Please note, they may close category-wise before the deadline if they hit submission caps.
Deadline: 15 November 2025, or until filled
Length: Up to 5,000 words for prose, up to 3 poems
Pay: $50
Details here and here.
Meetinghouse
Their guidelines say, “We welcome all forms of writing: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and work that falls between those categories. … We appreciate genre-bending and genre-blending. We believe trying and failing to work through difficult ideas and feelings is more worthwhile than staying comfortable in what you know. Asking questions is better than answering them. … All submissions will be considered for print and digital publication unless submitters request otherwise.” They also accept translations.
Deadline: 16 November 2025
Length: Up to 7,500 words for prose
Pay: $40-100
Details here.
Baltimore Review
They publish fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Some editor preferences are in the bios on their Staff page, and some guidelines are on their Submittable page. Please note, fiction submissions may be capped, so may close earlier than the deadline. There are other opportunities listed too on Submittable, please be sure to submit in the correct one.
Deadline: 30 November 2025, or until filled
Length: Up to 5,000 words for prose, up to 3 poems
Pay: $50 (via a gift certificate or PayPal, if preferred)
Details here and here.
Menagerie
“Menagerie publishes fictions, essays, and poems. We believe in sentences so sharp they draw blood, the strange and inexplicable, the wild and weird and uncanny, words in thickets, clusters, and flocks, pieces that move us beyond caring what others think about said pieces.” They like “fictions ala Borges, Link, Calvino, & Sparks; weird lyric essay; engagements with the environment and natural world; poems that explode form; bricolage, masala, & sagul; forays into the omnipresent information-saturated online architecture we live in.”
Deadline: 30 November 2025, or until filled
Length: Up to 5,000 words for prose (prefers 1,000-3,000 words), 3-5 poems
Pay: $50
Details here and here.
Strange Pilgrims
This is a new magazine, and they are now reading fiction and non-fiction. “We’re not married to any genre, structure, or subject. We love surreal, speculative, and fabulist stories; unhinged, lyric, and fragmented essays; voice-driven experimental narratives and slow-burn realism; cultural and literary criticism; hyper-intellectual riffs and children’s stories — so long as they move. If your work is honest, well-crafted, and offers something emotionally and intellectually vivid, we want to read it.” You can read more about them, and their likes and influences, here. They will publish one piece each week, alternating between flash and long-form.
Deadline: 30 November 2025
Length: Up to 1,000 words for flash, up to 5,000 words for short prose
Pay: $50 for flash prose, $200 for longer works
Details here and here.
Fantabulosa!
This is a new UK-based literary magazine, and they want submissions from Queer writers only. Send speculative fiction and poetry; they have detailed guidelines. They have an extended submission window for LGBTQ+ writers who are BIPOC.
Deadline: 30 November 2025; 15 December 2025 for BIPOC writers
Length: 500-6,000 words for fiction, 150 words for poetry (see guidelines)
Pay: $0.08/word for fiction, $50 for poetry
Details here and here
ellipsis
Though international submissions are accepted, they can only pay U.S. writers. They accept fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama during this reading period. All submitted poems are also eligible for a $100 prize. ellipsis is the annual literary print journal published by the students of Westminster College.
Deadline: 15 December 2025
Length: Up to 8,000 words for fiction, non-fiction, drama; up to 5 poems
Pay: $10 per poem and page of visual art, and $3 per page of prose
Details here.
Bam! Magazine
This is a new fiction magazine. “Bam! Wants your stories with PUNCH! Send us up to 3000 – 6000 words of your pulpy short fiction. Genre really doesn’t matter but we are more likely to pick up an adventurous space opera, or gritty crime story, or gun slinging western over something like a teen romance, but that doesn’t mean we’ll turn down a punchy, pulpy teen romance. … What we care about is stories with PUNCH! We want to be flipping the pages so fast because we can’t wait to see where the story is going that it eclipses everything else.”
Deadline: Open now
Length: 3,000-6,000 words (can take serialized stories up to 15,000 words)
Pay: $50
Details here.
The Rumpus
They want stories “that have layers, with elements of surprise and unexpected stakes and points of tension running beneath. Rumpus stories have an edge and feature unique, indelible voices. They tackle emotional depth while not being at all sentimental. We love it when a story’s language, plot, and characters feel palpable and dynamic on the page, and a strong sense of place goes a long way. Show us something new, bold, brash, alive.” They also publish essays, criticism, interviews, poetry book reviews, poetry, and comics.
Deadline: Open now
Length: Up to 5,000 words for fiction and essays, 4-8 poems, varies for others
Pay: $100 for prose submissions and comics, $50 for poetry
Details here.
Skipjack Review
“These waters are eclectic, baby, sometimes irreverent and odd, but mom loves us anyway—Mother Nature, that is. And we love her. That’s why everything we publish at Skipjack Review shares a reeling concern for the world around us.
Send us your truths. Send us your untruths. Send us your tales of victory. Send us your tales of whoa—like that time you flipped your canoe, lost all your gear, and spent a night roughing it and wondering if you could fight off a pack of coyotes with a rock. (Whoa!) We’re interested in writing and art that slays real-world red herrings in our day-to-day lives. If it pokes holes in preconceived notions, bursts bubbles, offers insight, or makes light where, otherwise, darkness might prevail, we want it to—and we want it, too!” They want fiction, nonfiction, hybrids, poetry, art, and graphic narratives. All accepted works will also be nominated for their Dead Herring Prize ($100).
Deadline: Ongoing
Length: 5 to 5,000 words for fiction and nonfiction, up to 5 poems
Pay: $0.01/word
Details here and here.
Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.