Sword & Sorceress is an annual anthology of fantasy stories featuring a strong female lead. There have been 29 editions of the annual anthology; this year will mark the 30th edition. An impressive milestone.

They pay 6 cents per word for stories, up to 9,000 words.

The deadline is approaching very quickly: May 14th, 2017. They plan to respond within a week of getting your submission, which is an unusually fast response time.

According to their submission guidelines:

Stories should be the type generally referred to as “sword and sorcery” and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword & Sorceress 22, Sword & Sorceress 23, Sword & Sorceress 24, Sword & Sorceress 25, Sword & Sorceress 26, Sword & Sorceress 27, Sword & Sorceress 28, Sword & Sorceress 29, and Sword & Sorceress 30, (or S&S 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times (urban fantasy), but we don’t buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.

To learn more, read their submission guidelines.