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Open submission calls for writers: January 2026

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Bad Romance
This 23rd Triangulation anthology from Parsec Ink will feature stories themed around failed romances (or as they’re described on the website: ‘trashfire, toxic relationships’) that have a speculative element.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 3 cents per word
Deadline: 31 January 2026
Find out more

Screams and Wails
The Slab Press are putting together an anthology of rock horror stories. As in rock music, not geology or rock climbing. Editor Donna Scott provides examples: ‘Think cursed instruments; songs that drive the listener mad; zombie fans; haunted studios.’
Word count: 2000–9000 words
Payment: 1p per word
Deadline: 28 February 2026
Find out more

The Phantom Pulse
This new online publication will showcase SF, fantasy and weird fiction, and from the description it sounds as though its editors are drawn to darker themes.
Word count: Up to 3000 words
Payment: 3 cents per word
Deadline: 14 February 2026
Find out more

Otherside
This is another brand-new online zine, which describes itself as ‘a quarterly queer-led literary magazine of speculative fiction, poetry, and art by 2SLGBTQIA+ authors and artists’.
Word count: 500–4000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 14 January 2026
Find out more

Kitchen Work
A non-SFF venue, but certainly genre-specialist! What’s needed here are stories about ‘markets, cafes, remote picnics, tiny kitchens, and big dinner tables in your favorite location’.
Word count: Up to 3000 words
Payment: 20 cents per word
Deadline: Unspecified
Find out more

Bending the Arc
This excellent online SF venue publishes thrutopian writing, which imagines ways through to a world we would be glad to leave to future generations.
Word count: Up to 2030 words
Payment: None
Deadline: Open 12 January–1 February 2026
Find out more

Night Shades
This online zine publishes four speculative stories each month. Its editors are vague about when the current open submissions period will end, so act soon!
Word count: Up to 500 words
Payment: $65
Deadline: Unknown
Find out more

Black Horror, Then & Next
No open submissions roundup is complete without a listing from Flame Tree Publishing. Their new anthology within the Beyond & Within series will be edited by Maurice Broaddus and Dr. Chesya Burke, and will feature stories from Black authors.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 14 January 2026
Find out more

Tales to Terrify
This long-running horror podcast is hosting a submissions period linked to Women in Horror Month. Specifically, they want fiction from unpublished women and women-identifying horror writers.
Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: 31 January 2026
Find out more

Tales from the Moonlit Path
The editors of this online publication state: ‘We are interested in character-driven stories more so than plot-driven, and we prefer dark fiction that makes us think, makes us feel, wraps us in its well-spun dream.’
Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: 1 February 2026
Find out more

Your Body is a Fever Dream
This cosmic-horror-body-horror anthology from Tenebrous Press is open to trans and gender nonconforming writers.
Word count: Up to 4000 words
Payment: 3 cents per word
Deadline: 10 January 2026
Find out more

Slavic Supernatural
The editors at Croatian publisher Shtriga are in the process of compiling a second volume of Slavic fantasy and horror.
Word count: 1500–7500 words
Payment: $35
Deadline: 28 February 2026
Find out more

34 Orchard
This venue showcases ‘dark, intense pieces that speak to a deeper truth.’ Its editors also state: ‘we’re not genre-specific; we just like scary, disturbing, unsettling, and sad’.
Word count: 1000–6000 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: 10 January 2026
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

My writing year 2025

My Victorian murder mystery Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives was released in paperback in September, and its sequel, Jekyll & Hyde: Winter Retreat came out in hardback in October, both published by Titan Books. While the first book is a cat-and-mouse chase featuring Muriel Carew and body-sharing detectives Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde, the second novel is a full-on country house murder mystery with a locked-room murder and a large cast of suspects. There’s even a floorplan on the endpapers! It was a head-scratcher to plot out, I can tell you.

My second short story collection, Great Robots of History, was published by Black Shuck Books in March. It’s a collection of weird tales that are not quite about robots, for the most part, but instead about automatons and robot-like figures from history and myth. I’m really proud of it, and I’m delighted that it’s shown up in various end-of-year roundups, including being selected as one of Happy Goat Horror’s favourite collections of the year.

I had twelve new short stories published this year.

Six new stories were published in my collection Great Robots of History:

  • The Funnel
  • The Ichor Ran Out of Him Like Molten Lead
  • Icarus and His Wise Father Daedalus
  • Ask and Embla
  • A Box of Hope: A Can of Worms
  • Milk-White

Those were the publications under my own name… but this year I also started a side project, writing mystery fiction under the pseudonym TJ Hext.

Game of Liars is a bit like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None or Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party, with the murders committed on the set of a challenge gameshow that’s rather like The Traitors. It’s a pacy read, and a big, complex mystery with multiple narrators and plenty of twists.

The Amateur Corpse and The Corpse in the Shambles are the first two short novels in the York Murders series, which revolves around cheerful retired amateur sleuth Hazel Hausswolff. The first book features a murder during a murder mystery party at York Treasurer’s House in the shadow of the Minster; the second book concerns a murder on York’s most famous medieval street, in strange circumstances: a river of blood on the cobbles, and ants scurrying from the corpse.

2025 projects

This year I wrote:

  • An 81,000-word draft of a (sort of) mystery novel set in the art world
  • The final 20,000 words of the first TJ Hext York Murders novel, the full 40,000 words of the second novel, plus the first 20,000 words of the third book in the series
  • Four short stories

In total, I wrote 181,950 words and spent 284 hours writing or editing.

Looking ahead to 2026

The first item on the agenda next year is to finish the third York Murders novel, and my intention is to add more books to the series throughout the year, in between projects written under my own name. Then I’ll set my mind to rewriting substantial parts of the art-world novel. It’s more ambitious than any of my novel-length work to date, and it’ll be difficult to get right, but I’m excited to take on the challenge.

Favourite books of 2025

This year I got around to reading a number of books I’d always meant to read, and which, frankly, made me feel embarrassed about not having got around to reading. By far the best of these was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847), which had the capacity to surprise even though I knew the plot fairly well, and which I found totally absorbing throughout.

A more surprising favourite was The Beast Within (La Bête Humaine) by Emile Zola (1890). I’d already read and loved Zola’s Thérèse Raquin and assumed his other novels couldn’t possibly reach the bleak heights of that novel, but this one absolutely does, with grim setpieces that will stick in my mind. I’ll be searching out more Zola in 2026, I’m sure.

I approached the 1999 Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf with caution, as I tend to struggle with verse, but I read it in a single sitting and was astounded at the impact of the poem, and the outright horror imagery.

My final five-star novel I read this year was The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West (1939), a dour but funny tale of an artist lost in Hollywood.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851) was as excellent as I’d been told – I’ll confess I skim-read some of the whaling sequences, but I lingered over everything involving the characters themselves. Similarly, I found lots of dark humour in Hunger by Knut Hamsun (1890), though it certainly benefits from its short word count as the bleaker elements could overwhelm the reader. I adored Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (1967), which is as satisfyingly weird as the film adaptation, and performs some really interesting tricks with viewpoint.

Books I admired rather than loved included time-travelling slavery drama Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (1979), down-to-earth Coming Up For Air by George Orwell (1939), pleasingly melodramatic Adolphe by Benjamin Constant (1816), wholehearted family epic Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (1862), frequently gripping A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859), Nabokovian thriller The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester (1996), beautifully snide Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (1933), viewpoint-undermining The Last Film of Emile Vico by Thomas Gavin (1986) and meandering but witty Lost for Words by Edward St Aubyn (2014).

I didn’t read much recent fiction this year, but my favourite was The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe (2024), which has the expected well-drawn characters and social commentary, but also the addition of a metafictional mystery plot that involves an outright cheat and yet remains deeply satisfying, which is an achievement no author can reasonably expect to pull off.

My favourite non-fiction book this year was crime-meets-architecture analysis A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh (2016). I also enjoyed The Artist’s Voice, a series of interviews with artists edited by Katharine Kuh (1962) and writing guides Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin (2015) and Writing the Magic, edited by Dan Coxon (2025).

Favourite film, TV and videogames of 2025

Films

The films I most loved this year, I loved unconditionally. Though I saw it all the way back in January, Bird (Andrea Arnold, 2024) has stuck with me. The dreamy, fantastical imagery works perfectly against the background of Arnold’s usual gritty realism, it’s become my favourite of the director’s films (above the stellar Red Road, Fish Tank and American Honey) – and it’s fair to say I now think of it as one of my favourite films of this century.

As is The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt, 2025). I’d been looking forward to this art-heist-gone-wrong film for ages, and it didn’t disappoint. Josh O’Connor has never been better, and what strikes me most is Reichardt’s patience in watching him perform the most trivial of acts. Meticulous observation is an important aspect of heist films, but in this film we’re forced to watch the post-heist actions of O’Connor’s character, JB, with equal scrutiny. The excruciating scene in which he tries to lift the stolen paintings up a ladder into a hayloft is probably my favourite sequence in any film this year.

The Ballad of Wallis Island (James Griffiths, 2025) is also excruciating, but due to strained social interactions. It’s the most wonderful British comedy, and it elevates Tim Key to national-treasure status, and it deserves to be seen by far more people. I think it’s close to perfect, and I’m pretty sure it’s the film that made me well up the most this year.

Other recent films I thoroughly enjoyed were The Delinquents (Rodrigo Moreno, 2023), a heist drama that sits comfortably alongside The Mastermind in its consideration of the aftermath of a crime; One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025) – I loved this perhaps less than other people did, but some sequences such as the final car chase tickled me; A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, 2025), a modest and carefully-observed comedy about the strained relationship between two brothers, with a terrific performance by Kieran Culkin; similarly wry and ultimately warm The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, 2023); delightful and surprisingly motivational behind-the-scenes comedy Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater, 2026); two meticulous account of different sorts of grief in Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet, 2023) and Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019); the ambitious and equal parts annoying and startling 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle, 2025); the unexpectedly funny remake The Roses (Jay Roach, 2025); the ultimately life-affirming account of friendship during lockdown, Grand Theft Hamlet (Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls, 2024).

This year I finally watched the films of Jacques Tati (all of them), and was totally overwhelmed by Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967) and Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958) in particular. I’ve never seen comedy treated in such a meticulous manner; Playtime is one of the most beautifully staged films I’ve ever seen.

A totally unexpected favourite was Mademoiselle (Tony Richardson, 1966), a peculiar French–British production from Woodfall Productions, starring Jeanne Moreau. It’s wildly melodramatic, veering so far from realism that it becomes fantastical.

Other discoveries from cinema history included time-travel-relationship-murder-mystery Je t’aime, je t’aime (Alain Resnais, 1968), which I’ve been trying to hunt down for years; low-budget British thriller Eclipse (Simon Perry, 1977), with a wonderful central performance by Tom Conti; and Panic in Year Zero (Ray Milland, 1962), a post-apocalyptic B-movie that’s low on subtlety but is nonetheless arresting throughout.

TV

My household’s TV viewing has been dismal this year, mainly due to exhaustion once we relax each evening. We watched and enjoyed the obvious stuff – Adolescence was excellent, The Celebrity Traitors was as good as it needed to be, Last One Laughing was a brief delight, The Paper was a reasonable attempt to channel the successful formula of The Office.

One show that stood above the standard fare was the second series of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, which was even more bewildering (in a good way) than the first series, and perhaps more enjoyable to chew over afterwards than as a viewing experience. I loved Long Story Short, a carefully constructed animated family drama from Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. A final surprise was that How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) pushes the greatest modern British comedy character into new territory, the broadness of its remit a perfect fit for Partridge’s meandering mind.

Videogames

I can’t begin to describe how much I love Blue Prince (Dogubomb, 2025). I spent two months obsessed with uncovering every mystery of the Mt. Holly Estate. Unlike most cerebral puzzle games, the central mechanism of Blue Prince is as satisfying as the meta-mystery, so even on runs that resulted in no new clues, the simple act of opening doors and determining which room lay beyond absorbed me… again and again and again.

Almost as absorbing in a game-by-game sense is Balatro (LocalThunk, 2024), a poker roguelite in which you progressively stack the deck by adding cards and powers in the form of jokers. This year I effectively abandoned narrative games, preferring this sort of one-more-go arcade game.

Up there with the best in this vein was Kenny Sun’s Ball x Pit (2025), a mixture of bullet hell and Breakout, with insane powerups and constant accumulating progression. It’s the sort of game you get fiercely involved in, then complete, then put aside.

Wordless, gentle 3D puzzler Cocoon (Geometric Interactive, 2023) was an absolute delight, gradually training the brain to reach convoluted solutions to puzzles that initially appear impossible.

I did play some of this year’s huge successes such as Hollow Knight: Silksong and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but didn’t particularly chime with them. Instead, my final recommendation is Another Crab’s Treasure (Aggro Crab, 2024), a 3D action adventure with an ugly cartoonish style that disguises the fact that it’s actually a hard-as-nails Soulslike that will punish you endlessly. You know, for fun.

Favourite albums of 2025

2025 has been an outstanding year for new music. More than in any of the last five years, I’m confident that my favourite albums this year will still be on regular rotation in years to come.

Indie

I had high hopes after their first record, but caroline 2 by caroline is a staggering follow-up. It’s my favourite sort of indie music: experimental, reluctant to fall into anything resembling predictability, yet filled with hooks that seem almost to embarrass the band in their catchiness. The opening track, ‘Total euphoria’ is exactly as its title describes, and it’s my pick as an exemplifier of the best music on offer this year.

Close behind is Brooklyn band Geese, who weren’t on my radar before 2025, but Getting Killed has secured them as one of my new favourite acts. Like caroline, Geese are fidgety and strange, and while they sometimes veer between soundalikes (particularly Radiohead and Slint), the sheer breadth of their range convinces, as do Cameron Winter’s vocals, jerking constantly as though he’s sprinting throughout. This album contains a greater number of tracks I adore than any other album this year.

Richard Dawson can do no wrong, but on End of the Middle he’s even more right than usual. His ability to swing between fastidious description of middle England’s quirks and frailties, to reaching for and finding profundity in small moments, to punishing listeners with experimental Fahey-esque moments and Beefheartian insanity… It’s simply unimprovable, and it’s absurdly my sort of thing.

Odysseús by Herman Dune is a far more approachable record than Dawson’s, and my love for it is partly informed by my two-decades-long love for the band, but it’s wonderful to hear David Herman Düne on form and appearing to enjoy himself so much, with beautiful arrangements for beautiful songs.     

Post-rock / Modern composition

The Necks have for a long time been a band I’ve appreciated but not loved. That’s changed with Disquiet, a three-hour daydream shifting (slowly) from Ambarchi-esque single-tone drones to barely contained skittering kaleidoscopic carnival queasy nightmares. It’s absolutely wonderful.

With ICONOCLASTS, Anna von Hausswolff moves further away from her recent pipe-organ dirges to the grand singer-songwriter demonstrated on her 2022 release, Live at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Many of the tracks on ICONOCLASTS are monolithic, often thanks to saxophonist Mats Sandsjö (sounding very like Colin Stetson, and surely inspired by his work). While less convincing lyrically, Anna von Hausswolff’s delivery is so wild, ranging from Kate Bush to primal screech, that it’s totally convincing, and frequently overwhelming. I’d love to see her play live.

One album that crept up on my over many repeated listens is Ghost Note by Kim Hiorthøy, a quiet and reserved collection of unusual rhythms that, while largely digital, sounds like pots and pans in the rain. Similarly affecting and meditative is Cassotto by Suzan Peeters, a short collection of treated accordion drones that are near-impossible to believe could be delivered by that instrument.

Some familiar names provided my favourite post-rock albums this year. Horse Lords and minimalist composer Arnold Dreyblatt prove a potent and unsettling combination on FRKWYS Vol. 18: Extended Field. Mogwai reliably come up with the goods on The Bad Fire. David Grubbs and friends deliver with the self-titled Bitterviper. Finally, Tortoise have returned! From its opening moments, Touch makes you believe they’ve never been away, or indeed that they produced any albums since TNT, their all-time high back in 1998.

Hip hop / Rap

hexed! by aya has been topping many end-of-year polls, and rightly so. It critiques a very different side of Britain than Richard Dawson’s End of the Middle – and a side of society I know far less well – but together these two albums represent a pretty damning state of the nation. ‘off to the ESSO’ is up there with my very favourite tracks of the year.   

One album I’ve had on constant rotation since the early in the year is 80’z by Spanish artist Bb trickz. Despite understanding little of the lyrics, I’m in love with the scratchy DIY vibe.

The ungoogleable act NEW YORK aresigned to Inga Copeland’s Relaxin’ Records, and on Push they sound very like her. As in, they’re wonderful.

Compilations / Reissues

Like the return of Tortoise, it’s emotional hearing The Notwist once again. Magnificent Fall may be only a rarities compilation, but there’s enough previous unheard material here to make me swoon all over again. A new album soon, please.

My two favourite multi-artist compilations this year are Pattern Gardening, a collection of hypnotic micro-house tracks from Wisdom Teeth, and Going Back to Sleep…, a compilation of dreamy indie tracks put out by A Colourful Storm.

Of my favourite reissues this year, the only one that was new to me is baby, it’s cold inside by the fun years, from 2008. What an album! And great writing music, too. Old favourites spruced up and reissued were cLOUDDEAD by cLOUDDEAD (2000), The Amateur View (Expanded) by To Rococo Rot (1999), the unsurpassed A Fragile Geography (10th Anniversary Edition) by Rafael Anton Irisarri (2015) and the raw, parallel-reality versions of 2004 album tracks included on Madvillainy Demos by MF Doom & Madlib.

Open submission calls for writers: December 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Rotting Leaf
I think this will appeal to lots of you out there: this new magazine from Brief Ecology will feature ‘literary and experimental explorations of the eco-gothic, the eco-horrific, the eco-surrealist, and the eco-weird.’
Word count: Up to 1500 words
Payment: 6 cents per word
Deadline: 1–7 December 2025
Find out more

Adventitious
The title of this new zine means either ‘Born elsewhere, arriving uninvited’ or ‘Rooted in the wrong place, thriving anyway’. Its list of influences includes Carmen Maria Machado, which is a good sign, as the cute logo.
Word count: Up to 17,000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1–5 December 2025
Find out more

Obsidian
The Slab Press are putting together an anthology of dark SF tales about the harsh conditions of space (think Sunshine and Event Horizon). Note that these will be novelettes or even novellas, rather than short stories.
Word count: 9000–25,000 words
Payment: 1p per word (up to £100)
Deadline: Open 15 December 2025 – 15 February 2026
Find out more

Summer in the City
This anthology from Ruadán Books will contain SF and dark thriller stories set in real-world cities. Note that your chances of acceptance are higher if you pick a city that’s been written about by fewer people.
Word count: 3000–7500 words
Payment: 10 cents per word
Deadline: 31 January 2026
Find out more

State of Matter
This publication’s 20th issue will contain imagined folk tales that inform South Asian experiences.
Word count: 1000–15,000 words
Payment: $150 CAD
Deadline: 15 December 2025
Find out more

Tales of Steel and Sorcery
Oddity Prodigy Productions is currently putting together a volume of fantasy and pulp stories.
Word count: 2000–5000 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: 31 December 2025
Find out more

More Alternative Liberties
The editorial team at B Cubed are searching for political stories set in the next few years: ‘Not just in the White House, but in the day-to-day world.’ Styles suggested are ‘satire, humor, redemption, and new looks at the world’.
Word count: 1500–3000 words
Payment: 10 cents per word
Deadline: 20 December 2025
Find out more

Gavagai
The editors of this new fiction-based social platform are on the lookout for horror short stories, no theme specified.
Word count: Around 2000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Plasma Pulp: Lost Worlds
Do you write pulp SF in the vein of Flash Gordon or John Carter of Mars? Sendit here, but do it fast! The deadline is very soon.
Word count: 5000–8000 words
Payment: Royalty share
Deadline: 5 December 2025
Find out more

Uncertain Stories
This magazine was founded as a home for The Fiction Desk’s ‘New Ghost Stories’ series of anthologies, which gives you an idea of the required tone. Note that there’s a £5 submission fee for this one.
Word count: 1000–15,000 words
Payment: £25 per 1000 words
Deadline: 30 January 2026
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: October 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Strange Pilgrims
The submissions page of this new magazine includes an enticing list of writers as influences (Gabriel García Márquez, Susanna Clarke, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Chiang), and it will publish ‘surreal, speculative, and fabulist stories’.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: $200
Deadline: 30 November 2025
Find out more

Gilgamesh / Helen of Troy
Two more anthology calls featuring mythological characters, from the excellent Flame Tree Press…
Word count: 3000–4000 words
Payment: 6 cents per word
Deadline: 9 November 2025
Find out more here and here

Of Blood & Petals / The Tarot of Love
…and two more! These anthologies are part of Flame Tree’s new Romantic Fantasy series – the first themed around gardens, the second around Tarot and divination.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 6 cents per word
Deadline: 10 November 2025
Find out more

Humans From Earth!!
This is a great pitch: the editors of this anthology are seeking stories in which humans are a source of terror to extraterrestrials.
Word count: 3000–7000 words
Payment: $100 AUD
Deadline: 31 October 2025
Find out more

Cozy in the Apocalypse
Personally, I’ve always found apocalyptic scenarios quite comforting (fewer deadlines! no social media!) so the idea of cozy/cosy SFF and horror stories set during an apocalypse works for me.
Word count: 500–8000 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: Open until filled
Find out more

Drek Death and Doom
Here’s a fun mix: this publisher is putting together an anthology of folk horror stories linked to Thanksgiving.
Word count: 2000–6000 words
Payment: 1 cent–4 cent per word
Deadline: 31 October 2025
Find out more

Walpurgis Witcheries
Following on from an anthology titled Samhain Sorceries, DMR Books are now working on another volume featuring stories themed around Walpurgisnacht.
Word count: 4000–8000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 31 October 2025
Find out more

Aspec Paranormal Anthology
Another very specific theme for this one: stories that centre asexual and aromantic characters in a paranormal context.
Word count: 2000–7500 words
Payment: $20 AUD
Deadline: 30 November 2025
Find out more

BAM!
The editors of this new zine are looking out for pulp fiction – think space opera, gritty crime and gunslinging westerns.
Word count: 3000–7500 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Fantabulosa!
There are plenty of exclamation marks in the publication titles this month! This new queer literary magazine will launch in February 2026, ‘showcasing tales of the uncanny, the dangerous and the fantastical’.
Word count: 500–6000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

The Lantern Keepers
Stories submitted to this anthology from Eldritch Cat Press must include characters who serve as guides, guardians, or messengers between the threshold of the living and the dead.
Word count: 1500–4500 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: 1 December 2025
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: September 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Quest
In the words of its editors, ‘Quest is a new online magazine publishing literary, visual, and critical work that uses sci-fi and fantasy to reflect the world around us’ and emphasises experimentation. The first issue is themed around ‘Thresholds’.
Word count: Minimum 2000 words
Payment: $25–$100 depending on word count
Deadline: 15 September 2025
Find out more

Write Before Midnight
Previous writers for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists include Arthur C. Clarke and Albert Einstein, but don’t let that put you off. It’s now running a contest for stories featuring, for example, ‘nuclear weapons, climate change, biological and chemical weapons, artificial intelligence, killer robots, doomsday drone submarines, bioengineered zombies, the gray goo of nanotechnology gone wild…’
Word count: Up to 7000 words
Payment: $3,000 for first place, $500 for runners-up
Deadline: 30 September 2025
Find out more

Creepy
This horror podcast has produced an impressive 2000 stories already! Maybe yours would be a good fit. Single-narrator stories are preferred.
Word count: 1000–5000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Thalia Press
This publisher of crime and contemporary stories is putting together an anthology themed around cats, featuring both cosy (or cozy) and dark tales.
Word count: Not specified
Payment: $25
Deadline: 30 September 2025
Find out more

Trans/Port
This anthology from Lonely Cryptid Media has the subtitle Trans Speculative Fiction for a Queer, and will feature SF stories about ‘bodies changing and being changed, bodies that are permeable, bodies that resist, bodies resisted, bodies transcended, bodies that become and are becoming’.
Word count: 3000–7000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 15 September 2025
Find out more

Africanfuturism
This roundup isn’t complete without a call from the prolific Flame Tree Press. This time the editors are seeking Africanfuturism short stories. Note the subtle distinction from Afrofuturism, as these stories must be set in and about Africa.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 6 cents per word
Deadline: 2 November 2025
Find out more

Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night
The editors at Death by TBR Books are on the lookout for Christmas horror stories of pretty much all subgenres.
Word count: 500–2000 words
Payment: Royalties
Deadline: 31 October 2025
Find out more

Claudine
This online microfiction zine is identified as literary, but the editors preferences include ‘myths, fairy tales, fabulism, slipstream, and haunting vibes’.
Word count: Up to 400 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

It Came From The Pulp
There isn’t much time to write one before the deadline, but have you already written a story about monsters, with retro B-movie vibes? Then send it here.
Word count: 5000–8000 words
Payment: Royalties
Deadline: 7 September 2025
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: August 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Bog Matter
This new SF magazine will be published in print and digital twice a year. As well as SF it welcomes all sorts: ‘horror, fantasy, magical realism, slipstream, New Weird, utopian, dystopian, satirical, cross-genre, experimental, or exuding a general air of oddness.’
Word count: Up to 3500 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: 1 September 2025 (for current issue)
Find out more

Tales of Horror
The tastes of the editors of this new horror zine lean towards classic writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Shirley Jackson and HP Lovecraft.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 6 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Cosmic Chronicles Literary Prize
Here’s a big opportunity for SF writers! This prize is run by the SETI Instituteand welcomes fiction themed around ‘Intelligence and Consciousness’. There’s no entry fee, but only writers who haven’t yet published a novel are applicable.Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: First prize $1000
Deadline: 1 September 2025
Find out more

Merganser Magazine
This well-designed SF online zine appears to be accepting submissions on an ongoing basis, and pays pro rates.
Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

No Gods No Masters
Before submitting to this anthology from Sans Press, I’d advise reading the criteria carefully. While all genres appear to be welcome, the editors want stories that are ‘fresh and weird’ which are ‘motivated by the authentic pursuit of change’.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: $200
Deadline: 31 August 2025
Find out more

Uncharted
This online zine accepts SF, fantasy and horror, but also thriller and mystery stories, which is more of a rarity.
Word count: 1000–5000 words
Payment: $200
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Fascination
Editor Rhonda Parrish is seeking stories featuring ‘nature-fueled magic, witches and dark fae. Creepy cottages, haunted homesteads and bespelled woods.’
Word count: Up to 7500 words
Payment: $50 CDN
Deadline: 3 September 2025
Find out more

Cliffhanger!
Another new journal inspired by classic fiction, this time pulp fiction writers such as H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Word count: 5000–6500 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Synthesized Sunsets
The upcoming issue of this online speculative fiction zine will have a solar theme. Its editor has included a list of influences, a classy collection of hard-SF and weird-fiction authors.
Word count: Up to 12,500 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: Open until full
Find out more

Humber SFF
Humber Speculative Fiction is a popular meetup in northeast UK, and now the group is putting together its first anthology. Stories should relate to the very zeitgeisty genre of solarpunk, should also be set in East Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and its coastal areas, and is open to writers from those areas.
Word count: Up to 8000 words
Payment: Nominal fee
Deadline: 1 September 2025
Find out more

Deadly Duos
This imprint from Dreadstone Books is currently accepting horror stories that feature funfairs, carnivals and circuses.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 30 September 2025
Find out more

Stolen
This anthology from Easton Tales will feature stories that involve theft in a literal or figurative sense – for example, kidnapping, identities, possession, lifeforce…
Word count: 2000–6000 words
Payment: $10 CDN
Deadline: Open until full
Find out more

Mande
If you’re a writer and bipolar, consider sending work this ‘journal of bipolar talent’
Word count: No limit
Payment: $50 per 1000 words (up to $250)
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

BloodClot!Zine
The editors of this new horror and speculative fiction online zine describe it as ‘powered by the work and voices of BIPOC horror writers, artists, and creators.’
Word count: Unspecified
Payment: None
Deadline: 20 August 2025
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: July 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Mmeory
I love this sound of this new anthology from air and nothingness press, with its theme of memory manipulation, which allows for my favourite trope: unreliable narrators.
Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 7 July – 15 August 2025
Find out more

Romantic Fantasy
Flame Tree Publishing are delving into this popular subgenre with two new anthologies titled A Breath of Time and Of Love & Dragons.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 20 July 2025
Find out more

Unseen Agreements
This anthology from Beaches and Trails will contain SF stories about ‘hidden bargains, mysterious contracts, and eerie agreements’.
Word count: 3000–5000 words
Payment: $50 (Canadian)
Deadline: 15 August 2025
Find out more

Common Bonds
This second volume in the series will feature aromantic SF stories – that is, stories focused on platonic relationships.
Word count: Up to 7500 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 15 August 2025
Find out more

Posthuman Press
This publisher’s upcoming anthology on the theme of ‘Neurodiversity and the More-Than-Human’ will feature some speculative fiction alongside academic works.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: $50 (Australian)
Deadline: 31 August 2025
Find out more

Diabolical Plots
This long-running submissions listing site also publishes science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction, and pays very well!
Word count: Up to 3500 words
Payment: 10 cents per word
Deadline: Open 7–21 July 2025
Find out more

EnDROIDS
This short story contest is run by Engineering Data Structure Organoids, and stories should relate to the theme of DNA data storage. Thankfully, there are explanatory videos on the submissions page.
Word count: 2000–3000 words
Payment: Prizes of £750/£500/£250
Deadline: 15 July 2025
Find out more

Slugger
This new webzine specialises in body horror, and seeks ‘stories that hit you in the mouth’.
Word count: 1000–4000 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: 15 July 2025
Find out more

Quills & Tales
The publishers of this new fantasy zine are seeking ‘high fantasy, cozy fables, dark folklore, or wild sub genre mashups’.
Word count: 500–1000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Carnyx Press
The first anthology from this new publisher dedicated to the work of authors from the north of England will be on the theme of folklore.
Word count: 2000–10,000 words
Payment: £20
Deadline: 30 September 2025
Find out more

Myths, Gods and Immortals
Two more submission calls from the excellent Flame Tree series, this time seeking stories featuring either Odysseus or the Valkyries.
Word count: 3000–4000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 24 August 2025
Find out more here and here

Horrific Scribes
This magazine from Horrific Scribblings features dark fiction of all descriptions.
Word count: 1500–5000 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Penumbric
The editors of this well-established PDF zine are on the lookout for edgy SF.
Word count: Up to 10,000 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: Open 15 July 2025, closes after 200 submissions
Find out more

Cemetery Songs
Here’s a fun prompt: horror stories submitted to this anthology must feature a cat, a cemetery and a song.
Word count: 1500–4500 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: 1 September 2025
Find out more

Weird West
The Editors at Shacklebound Books are looking for stories mashing up the western genre with speculative or horror elements.
Word count: Up to 1000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: 31 July 2025
Find out more

Keyed
This very specialised anthology from Iron Faerie will be a tribute to Buffy actress Michelle Trachtenberg.
Word count: 2500–7000 words
Payment: Royalties
Deadline: 3 August 2025
Find out more

The Daily Tomorrow
Stories accepted by this publication are sent out to its subscribers in 500-word serialised segments.
Word count: 2100–3500 words
Payment: None
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Bullet Points
A witty title for a magazine of dark military SF!
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: $30
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Favourite albums of the first half of 2025

How is it possible that we’ve reached the halfway point of the year? But as that’s the case, here are my favourite albums released in 2025 so far.

Indie / Rock / Post-rock

A new Richard Dawson album is always cause for celebration, and End of the Middle is as wonderfully as anything he’s delivered, and a great deal more accessible than his early work, palatable even to my family when played in the car. I’m particularly spoiled with a wonderful new album by Herman Dune, too – Odysseús is the best work the band has released in years, and contains some spot-on observations on ageing. Moin continues its rattling, Sonic-Youth-esque good work with EP Belly Up. Displaying his best songwriting since the death of his wife and Low bandmate Mimi Parker, Alan Sparhawk teams up with Trampled by Turtles in a heartfelt self-titled album. On The Bad Fire, Mogwai pull their usual trick of their new tracks sounding straightforward, then worming into the mind over time. Perhaps inspired by last year’s Gastr Del Sol retrospective, David Grubbs’ new release Whistle from Above sounds more like that band than most of his solo work. The self-titled OSMIUM is pounding, industrial and intense, as you might expect when Emptyset pairs with Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Weird / Beats

Am I remembering this wrong, or did Darren Cunningham announce the retirement of his Actress alter ego years ago? Regardless, he’s been producing more than ever recently. Grey Interiors is an Eraserhead-esque 20-minute EP, whereas Tranzkript1 contains more familiar clacks and bubbles. Dawuna also teases with a short EP, Love Jaunt, which contains one of his least tampered-with vocal lines, sounding uncannily like Sly Stone. Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us ropes in the always amazing Ergo Phizmiz for vocals on Copia to create a more coherent mash of 1950s samples and found sounds than in her past work, and while it’s often headache-inducing, it’s genuinely incredible stuff.

Drone / Modern composition

After a detour into swoony vocal performances, Ellen Arkbro returns to her roots with the hypnotic organ drones of Nightclouds. The ever-dependable Oren Ambarchi, this time with Eric Thielemans, produces two more slabs of antsy skittering on Kind Regards. Abul Mogard reappears with his first full-length album in years, Quiet Pieces, featuring soundscapes that burrow under the skin.

Hip hop / Rap

aya seems to have been a poster child for UK hip hop recently, and deservedly so – hexed! is utterly brilliant, and gloriously abrasive; ‘off to the ESSO’ is one of my favourite tracks this year so far. Similarly scrappy and catchy is 80’z by Bb trickz, though I’ve no idea what the Spanish raps are actually about. The same applies to much of the French Violence Gratuite on Baleine à Boss, which sounds ace all the same. John Glacier continues to impress with the downbeat Like a Ribbon, and Doseone and Steel Tipped Dove have raucous fun on All Portrait, No Chorus, and clipping. channels righteous anger on Dead Channel Sky.

Compilations / Reissues

My favourite multi-artist compilation so far this year is micro-house collection Pattern Gardening from Wisdom Teeth, featuring artists all unfamiliar to me. The Arthur Russell archives have been opened again, and this time Open Vocal Phrases, Where Songs Come In and Out provides insight into Russell’s development of his key album World of Echo. Another compelling glimpse into the creation of classic album is provided in Madvillainy Demos by Madvillain aka MF Doom & Madlib, which in some cases have become my preferred versions of their tracks. In terms of more straightforward rereleases, I’ve been hooked on The Amateur View (Expanded) by To Rococo Rot and the still bonkers cLOUDDEAD by cLOUDDEAD. I also love three rereleases that are entirely new to me: baby, it’s cold inside by the fun years, SYR5 by Kim Gordon, Ikue Mori and DJ Olive, and the 2001 Peel Sessions by The Locust.

Open submission calls for writers: June 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Dracula Beyond Stoker
I’ve featured this well-established magazine in previous round-ups, but it’s worth flagging again, as the current issue will feature stories about one of the most interesting characters in Dracula: Mina Harker.
Word count: 1500–5000 words
Payment: 5 cents per word
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Bending the Arc
This excellent new Substack zine is dedicated to ‘thrutopian’ fiction, which the editors describe as imagining ‘ways through to a world we would be glad to leave to future generations. It tells stories about tangible change and walks us along the challenging path from now to a more hopeful, liveable tomorrow.’
Word count: Up to 2030 words
Payment: None
Deadline: Open 7–31 July 2025
Find out more

Tractor Beam
Following on from thrutopias, this online magazine specialises in ‘soilpunk’ – speculative fiction focusing on farming, food and earth science, with an emphasis on positive outcomes.
Word count: Up to 6000 words
Payment: $1200
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Enter Here
This anthology is subtitled ‘An Anthology of Portals’, and will feature speculation-fiction stories of physical or magical doorways of all descriptions, by writers who identify as marginalized.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 15 June 2025
Find out more

Anomaly
This venue publishes very short SF stories on its Patreon.
Word count: Up to 300 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1–7 June 2025
Find out more

Encounters with Cryptids
Have you written a horror story involving some sort of creature not scientifically proven to exist, but which is believed to exist? Then send it here.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 3 cents per word
Deadline: 9 June 2025
Find out more

America’s Slide Toward Authoritarianism
The title makes the theme clear, but the editors of this anthology to be published by the International Human Rights Art Movement would also like submitted stories to suggest what can be done about it, which is a tricky brief.
Word count: Up to 2500 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: 1 July 2025
Find out more

Deep
This anthology from Death’s Head Press will feature tales of ‘the unexplored depths of our planet and the universe’.
Word count: 2500–10,000 words
Payment: 5 cents per word
Deadline: 31 July 2025
Find out more

Dirty Magick
Urban fantasy was a hot buzzword a few years back, but I don’t see so many submission calls focused on the sub-genre now. But here’s one!
Word count: 2000–12,500 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Allegory
This well-established online magazine of SF, fantasy and horror is open for submissions for its next volume.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: $15
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

The Pink Hydra
The new minizine ‘Something Old, Something New’ will appear on this venue’s Ko-fi site, and will feature stories that revolve around some aspect of ‘unreality’.
Word count: Up to 10,000 words
Payment: $10 per 5000 words
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Cooking Up Death
A fun challenge for mystery writers! This anthology will feature cosy (or rather, ‘cozy’ with a ‘z’) mysteries in which food is used as the method of murder.
Word count: 6000–9000 words
Payment: Share of royalties
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Kozy Krampus
It’s tough to get in a festive mindset right now, but if you can manage it, the editors at Underland Press are on the search for Christmas-themed gothic horror stories.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: Open 15–30 June 2025
Find out more

Writing contests

In addition to the usual short story open submissions, here are four writing contests which all seem worth your time:

Sustainable Story Award
This new award organised by online book reseller World of Books will celebrate the opening chapters of novels that tackle urgent environmental and social themes.
Word count: First three chapters
Payment: £15,000 first prize, £5000 runner-up prizes
Deadline: 6 July 2025
Find out more

Big Finish
Have you ever wanted to write for Doctor Who? (Of course you have. Who wouldn’t?) This year, audio publisher Big Finish’s annual Short Trip contest requires writers to conjure a story for the Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker.
Word count: Synopsis and first 500 words
Payment: None, but the winning story becomes an official audio release
Deadline: 12 June 2025
Find out more

The British Fantasy Society
The annual BFS short story contest is open now! It’ll be judged by Steven Poore and Pete Sutton, the editor of BFS Horizons, which will publish the winning stories.
Word count: 500–5000 words
Payment: £100 first prize, £50 runner-up prize
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Art of the Near Future World
This new contest rewards the best flash fiction, which, in the words of its judges, relate to ‘our near future world, the world a few months to a few years away.’
Word count: Up to 1000 words
Payment: $250 first prize
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: May 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Book Worms
Issue 8 of this online horror zine will feature cryptid horror based on monsters from folklore or your own imagination.
Word count: Up to 1500 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 31 May 2025
Find out more

Memento Mori Ink
The editors of this new anthology are seeking stories about ‘ancient objects or seemingly mundane items that have the power to whisper to those who possess them.’ You’ll find the submission guidelines if you scroll through the onscreen PDF.
Word count: 3000–5000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: 1 June 2025
Find out more

Saturday Mourning Television
This excellent anthology title speaks for itself: the editors are seeking horror stories about Saturday-morning TV. (Of any decade.)
Word count: 1000–4000 words
Payment: $35
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Other
This mysteriously-titled anthology from Bannister Press will feature fantasy short stories.
Word count: 2500–3500 words
Payment: 8 Canadian cents per word
Deadline: 13 August 2025
Find out more

Small Wonders
Here’s a handy evergreen market for SF and horror writers, as long as you tend to produce concise stories. They even accept reprints!
Word count: Up to 1000 words
Payment: 10 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Body Shots
The mantra of this publication is “Genre is a construct; genre does not exist.” So as long as you don’t admit you’re a writer of SFF or horror, you’re good to go.
Word count: 5000–7500 words
Payment: $150
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Skull X Bones
Is it just me, or have we seen a lot of pirate-themed horror calls in recent months? This one seems fairly high profile, published by Zombies Need Brains and with some familiar names already attached.
Word count: Up to 7500 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Tableware
Not a magazine name that suggests it’d take SFF, horror or mystery stories, but the open submissions call is specified as ‘open-genre’, so it ought to be fine.
Word count: ‘Up to 15 pages’
Payment: $50
Deadline: 15 May 2025
Find out more

Protocolized
This magazine publishes SF ‘protocol fiction’, which is a new concept to me. The editors describe it as ‘fiction focused on both real and speculative protocols that explore regimes of strange new rules, and the dynamics of the worlds that grow on those protocols.’ Prospective contributors are asked to pitch their ideas before submitting.
Word count: 1500–2500 words
Payment: $750
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

The Lorelei Signal
This SF magazine specialises in stories featuring strong and complex female characters.
Word count: Up to 10,000 words
Payment: $15
Deadline: 15 May 2025
Find out more

British Czech & Slovak Association
I’ve no idea how I came across this, but the British Czech & Slovak Association are running a writing contest with the theme of ‘Liberation’. Submissions from any nationality are permitted, but stories must relate to the links between Britain and the Czech and/or Slovak Republics.
Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: First prize £400, second prize £150
Deadline: 31 July 2025
Find out more

Hope in A Grimdark World
The editors of this new anthology seek stories that chime with today’s world: ‘gritty sci-fi in which the personal message is hopeful while the external world is dark.’
Word count: 2000–7000 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Hellbound Books
There are several upcoming anthologies listed on the Hellbound Books website, all accepting submissions. The ones that catch my eye are Pandemic and Outbreak Horror, Campfire Stories and Hellbound Highway (road trip horror).
Word count: Varying
Payment: $5–$15
Deadline: Various dates between June–August 2025
Find out more

Haiku Shack
This is certainly the month for writers of very short fiction! Despite the name, this new magazine also accepts microfiction alongside poetry.
Word count: Up to 100 words
Payment: None
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out more

Raconteur Press
There are lots of upcoming anthologies with open submissions listed on this publisher’s website, including Goblin Souk, Vice Noir and Artifact Origins.
Word count: 5000–8000 words
Payment: Royalties
Deadline: Various
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY reviews

I’m delighted to find my collection GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY reviewed in the Financial Times today! Thanks so much to James Lovegrove for his very generous assessment.

Other very positive reviews of the collection have appeared in recent days, too.

Ginger Nuts of Horror concluded: “Whether fairytale, sci-fi, or Dennis Potter-shaded drama, there’s a lot of innovation here and the one overriding quality to Major’s prose is surely that it’s far from… robotic (ha!).”

Runalong the Shelves said: “This is an excellent collection playing with the concept of the robot and his long history in myth and science fiction with a lot to think about as to how they reflect us. Inventive, funny, scary and always intelligent this is a fascinating book to dive into. Highly recommended!”

I’ll keep adding new reviews to my Great Robots of History page, where you can also find purchase details.

Open submission calls for writers: April 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

The Morning After
This is a great theme! The editors of this anthology want stories about what happens after a sudden transformation. ‘This could be an individual person transforming into something new or a mass change that effects humanity as a whole. How does this person or society react to no longer being human?’
Word count: 2000–10,000 words
Payment: 1 Australian cent per word
Deadline: 1 June 2025
Find out more

Solarpunk
This well-established magazine specialises in fiction in which humanity has solved modern challenges such as climate change and, generally, in which society is more positive.
Word count: 1500–7500 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1–14 April 2025
Find out more

Last Girls Club
The fiction in this established PDF zine features ‘genre/gender bending powerful women facing terrors using their abilities to overcome them or succumb to them’.
Word count: Up to 2500 words
Payment: 1.5 cents per word
Deadline: 1–15 April 2025
Find out more

It Was Paradise
This special edition of Reckoning Magazine edited by Sonia Sulaiman will feature stories about war, extinction, genocide and climate crisis. Fiction by people with lived experience of war and conflict will be prioritised.
Word count: Up to 20,000 words
Payment: 15 cents per word
Deadline: 22 June 2025
Find out more

Women of the Weird West
Have you written a pulpy, weird western tale featuring a female main character? Then send it to the editors at Brigids Gate Press.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 10 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1–30 April 2025
Find out more

Monstrous Angels
This anthology with the subtitle ‘An Anthology of Religious Horror’ will contain stories of literal angels from any culture.
Word count: Up to 8000 words
Payment: $20
Deadline: 25 May 2025
Find out more

Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1889 & 1890
There are several Sherlock Holmes anthologies listed on the Belanger Books website. These ones will feature stories that fill in the canonical gaps in 1889 and 1890. The process is to send a proposal to be approved before you write your story.
Word count: 5000–10,000 words
Payment: $125
Deadline: 30 April 2025 (for proposals)
Find out more

Home Constellations
Stories submitted to this anthology must be set in the future and also feature non-traditional families.
Word count: No limit specified
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 30 September 2025
Find out more

Kinpaurak
This online zine specialises in the esoteric, the absurd and the sublime, and references Dadaism and absurdist philosophy in its guidelines.
Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: $5
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Some Thing Out There
I’m getting Spielberg and Stranger Things vibes from this anthology, which will feature alien-encounter horror stories set in the 1980s.
Word count: 2500–7000 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: 30 April 2025
Find out more

The Canadian Sepulchral
This new, terrifically titled online zine will feature horror fiction of all sorts.
Word count: 1000–5000 words
Payment: None
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Tales from the Crosstimbers
The title of this SFF magazine refers to a forest in Oklahoma, and while the editors hope local authors will send stories, submissions are open to all.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 15 April 2025
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Publication day! GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY

GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY is published today! Here I am, celebrating the only way I know how: with an awkward half-smile.

The collection contains 16 tales of robots and robot-like figures from history and myth, and many of the stories are quite weird and in unusual formats. Eleven were previously published in venues such as Interzone, Nightscript and Shoreline of Infinity, and ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2024. Six stories are new to this collection – so today’s also a milestone in terms of publication of the most new short fiction I’ve ever released at one time.

You can find out more about GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY here.

Open submission calls for writers: March 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Patterns
This theme might set your imagination going – can you come up with a piece of dark fiction involving patterns? Interestingly, the editors note that the pattern could relate to the structure of the piece, rather than the plot.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 31 May 2025
Find out more

Creature Feature
Inky Bones Press will be putting out this anthology of horror stories featuring earthbound or alien creatures.
Word count: 1500–3500 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 30 April 2025
Find out more

Planet Scumm
This well-established zine contains SF and weird fiction and slipstream fiction of all descriptions.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 7 May 2025
Find out more

Jupiter’s Eye
This print and digital zine from Hiraeth Books features science fiction stories about the exploration and settlement of other worlds.
Word count: 1000–5000 words
Payment: $30
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Foofaraw
This anthology isn’t genre-specific, but the editors are open to SFF and horror. The main requirement is that stories relate to ‘foofaraw’, meaning ‘a great fuss or disturbance’.
Word count: 500–5000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 31 March 2025
Find out more

Consumed
Horror stories about food – sounds fun! Examples include cannibals, zombies, cursed birthday cakes.
Word count: 1500–7500 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: 30 April 2025
Find out more

Horrific Scribes
This new online archive of dark fiction will feature ‘provocative, scary, and strange’ horror stories.
Word count: 1500–5000 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Bullet Points
Do you happen to write ‘speculative military fiction that is sensitive to the complexity, tragedy, and hope of warfare and violence in human (and nonhuman) society’? Then this is the place to send it.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: $30
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

This Exquisite Topology
This anthology will feature SFF and horror stories, though the requirements beyond that are a little opaque: stories should be ‘cast through the lens of joy, exploring deformations and reformations of new landscapes and environments…’
Word count: 1000–6000 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: Open until filled
Find out more

Wet Screams
Though the editors’ request for ‘monstrous romance with high spice’ is slightly coy, the anthology’s explicit subtitle ‘A Monsterf*cker Anthology’ clarifies their intentions somewhat.
Word count: 2000–6000 words
Payment: 10 Canadian cents per word
Deadline: 14 April 2025
Find out more

Jungle Scandals
This follow-up to Sword & Scandal will feature jungle tales featuring gratuitous nudity, sex, and gore.
Word count: 2000–7500 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 16 April 2025
Find out more

Sex Science Fiction
More sex-themed SFF! I’m not sure why this has turned out to be this month’s trend. This one’s for the authoritative-sounding Future of Sex website.
Word count: 800–1000 words
Payment: $70
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Supernatural Parables
This anthology, subtitled ‘Myth versus Reality’, will feature stories in which supernatural forces collide. A neat quirk is that the editors require two stories from each author, representing some sort of opposite elements.
Word count: 2000–6000 words
Payment: Royalties
Deadline: 1 April 2025
Find out more

The Gothic Gazette
This anthology from Pulp Cult will feature Gothic tales. Intriguingly, SF and fantasy stories are accepted.
Word count: Up to 8000 words
Payment: None
Deadline: 6 March 2025
Find out more

Circus of the Dead
As you might guess from the title, this anthology from Wicked Shadow Press will contain horror stories featuring a circus.
Word count: Up to 8000 words
Payment: None
Deadline: 14 March 2025
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: February 2025

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Hiding Under the Leaves
This new anthology from The Slab Press will contain folk horror stories. Editor Donna Scott is on the hunt for stories featuring ‘curses and cunning folk; superstitions and the old ways; twisted rural landscapes and dark, creeping woodlands.’
Word count: 2000–9000 words
Payment: 1 pence per word
Deadline: Open 9–23 February 2025
Find out more

Remains
This came out of nowhere! Erstwhile editor of Black Static and Interzone Andy Cox has returned with a new beautifully designed magazine. The submission guidelines are vague, but dark fiction seems to be the way to impress him.
Word count: Not stated
Payment: Not stated
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Ripples in Space
Samak Press are putting together an anthology of tales of first contact between intelligent species. That could relate to encounters between humans and aliens, or between two other races.
Word count: 1500–7500 words
Payment: $20
Deadline: 28 February 2025
Find out more

Myths Reborn
This anthology from October Nights Press is subtitled ‘Modern Tales of Cryptids & Dark Folklore’. That is to say, what’s required are new approaches to old tales.
Word count: 3000–5500 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 31 March 2025
Find out more

Wrath Month
The editors of this anthology are seeking SFF and horror short stories that embrace punk and queer rage. In the editors’ words, feel free to ‘crash mainframes, collapse empires, and break normativity’.
Word count: Up to 6000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 31 May 2025
Find out more

Modern Mummies
For clarity, we’re talking mummified corpses, not mothers. It could be a lot of fun to write a mummy story set in the modern world…
Word count: 1500–5000 words
Payment: 5 cents per word
Deadline: 28 February 2025
Find out more

Merganser
This new online magazine pledges to publish ‘writers and artists whose work transcends disciplines and genres’.
Word count: Up to 2000 words preferred
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Incensepunk
This new online zine is dedicated to its titular subgenre, which concerns a world (or perhaps other worlds) in which traditional faiths and churches play a major role in society.
Word count: 4000–6000 words
Payment: $100
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Elder Things Expeditions
This is the seventh volume of Hiraeth Publishing’s series of Lovecraftian anthologies. This one will feature Antarctic expeditions past, present and future, though presumably not ones that end well.
Word count: 3000–6000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word for first 3000 words, then 3 cents per word
Deadline: 31 March 2025
Find out more

Fahmidan
This magazine is open to dark fiction, whimsical fantasy, thought-provoking existentialism, hopes and dreams… pretty much everything, it seems.
Word count: 1000–2500 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: January 2025

Happy new year! For any writer, sending short stories to publishers is a great way to mark the start of a fresh new year. Here are the more interesting open calls I’ve found recently:

Witch Craft
This new volume in the ‘Beyond and Within’ series is again being put together by award-winning editors Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane. Most stories will be by invited contributors, but around four will be from open submissions.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 6 pence per word
Deadline: 19 January 2024
Find out more

Cottage Crimes
Stories submitted to this crime and mystery anthology from Unnerving must take place at a private vacation property, though pay close attention to the list of settings unwanted by the editor, such as ski chalets or timeshares.
Word count: 2000–6000 words
Payment: 1.5 Canadian cents per word
Deadline: 14 February 2025
Find out more

Seaside Gothic
I’ve had my eye on this British zine for a while now – seaside gothic is a genre that needs to be popularised! The brief word count is a tricky restriction, though.
Word count: Up to 1000 words
Payment: 1 pence per word
Deadline: Open 13–19 January 2025
Find out more

Carnival of Horror
This is another title that speaks for itself – the editors seek stories of abandoned amusement parks, travelling carnivals and haunted attractions.
Word count: 750–3000 words
Payment: $25
Deadline: 31 January 2024
Find out more

The Joining
Grotesque fun! The subtitle ‘Scenes of Wedding Terror’ tells you all you need to know about the theme, though some of the editors’ suggestions are wedding-adjacent: ‘proposals gone wrong, literal bride-zillas, unsettling in-laws, bachelor parties that end in bloodshed’.
Word count: 2500–5000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: 1 March 2025
Find out more

Meetinghouse
While not an SFF, horror or mystery magazine per se, the editors at Dartmouth College are open to stories that are ‘genre-bending & genre-blending’.
Word count: Up to 7500 words
Payment: $100
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Writing the Future We Need
This anthology of SF, fantasy and horror stories has the subtitle – and the theme for your interpretation – of ‘Surviving Humanity’.
Word count: Up to 8000 words
Payment: $45
Deadline: 31 January 2025
Find out more

Phantom Worlds
This issue of The Cellar Door will feature ‘horror stories that take place when alternate realities invade our own’.
Word count: 2000–8000 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: 31 January 2025
Find out more

Space Opera Stories
Residential Aliens is lining up four anthologies each focused on a single aspect of space opera: First Contact / Alien Invasion / Generation Ship / Colony World.
Word count: 6000–8000 words
Payment: $50
Deadline: 31 January 2024
Find out more

Exquisite Death
The editors of this new zine are seeking dark fantasy and horror stories – specifically, ‘the dark, the surreal, the atmospheric and macabre’.
Word count: Up to 3000 words
Payment: None
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Factor Four
This online zine publishes speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy, and also supernatural and superhero tales.
Word count: Up to 1000 words
Payment: 11 cents per word
Deadline: Ongoing
Find out more

Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Favourite books of 2024

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Of all the recently published books I read this year, Six Lives by Lavie Tidhar (2024) was the one I relished the most. Each of the six parts follows, as you’d expect, a single life (all members of a convoluted family tree), and there are pleasing links between the stories that reward attention. But it’s the style that most impresses – not only does each story move forward in time, which affects the tone, but each episode is essentially a different genre, including an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery and a Cold War espionage tale. The prolific Tidhar has form in this sort of genre-hopping novel, and I also enjoyed his 2023 novel The Circumference of the World, which concerns SF genre history and also contains a hard-SF sequence in its own right.

I was deeply impressed by Whalefall by Daniel Kraus (2023), a novel that sounds like either a Moby Dick ripoff or high-concept pulp (a man goes diving, finds himself trapped inside a whale, spends an entire novel trying to escape) but is actually thoughtful and considered, concerning the character’s troubled relationship with his father. There’s similar paternal territory covered in The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman (2018), a wonderful novel about an artist operating in the shadow of his much more celebrated father. Far more straightforward than Six Lives and Whalefall, this is probably my most satisfying read this year in terms of recent releases.

Two structurally experimental novels I enjoyed were Cuddy by Benjamin Myers (2023), which treads a line between his raw, ugly fiction like The Gallows Pole and his gentler contemporary fiction, and Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman (2022), which is decidedly cold but thought-provoking and surprisingly entertaining in its rambling discourse on environmental issues.

My biggest belated discovery was the Patrick Melrose sequence by Edward St. Aubyn: Bad News (1992), Some Hope (1994), Mother‘s Milk (2005), Never Mind (1992) and At Last (2011), which I rationed out over several months, not wanting the series to end. The first novel almost threw me off, as I’m no fan of tales of drug binges, but by the second novel Patrick has found a more even keel and his acidity is directed outwards. Sentence by sentence, the books are a joy to read, and the series is now up there with John Updike’s Rabbit sequence in my estimation.

I rarely get into series, but I did read another this year – the first Mortal Engines sequence by Philip Reeve: Mortal Engines (2001), Predator’s Gold (2003), Infernal Devices (2005) and A Darkling Plain (2006). I’d initially begun reading them as a sort of book-club read with my eldest son, but I was soon hooked. The shifts between novels and willingness to stray away from the initial protagonist are as satisfying as in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series – which I’ve also been rereading to my son this year, so I’ve absorbed a good deal of excellent YA fiction.

I finally read The Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith (1964), which was more dour than most of her thrillers, but relentlessly compelling. Having also managed a reread of The Talented Mr Ripley before the Ripley TV series began, my opinion of Highsmith remains sky-high.

Another genre novel that surpasses its pulpy context is Magic by William Goldman (1976), recommended to me by a writer friend (I wish I could remember who). The narrative trickery is great fun, but it was the close descriptions of magic tricks and the surprisingly detailed insights into the protagonist’s thoughts and the caustic humour that most impressed me.

The novel I raved about most often this year, and which made me curse myself at not having read it sooner, was Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson (1973). It’s bleak and snide and yet incredible fun throughout, with Pythonesque humour and a disregard for the rules of novel-writing. I love experimental fiction, but I haven’t read much recently, and this playful novel is likely to shift my 2025 reading tastes in that direction.

The short-story collections I read this year were all by friends – incredibly talented friends, I should add. Treatises on Dust by Timothy J. Jarvis (2023) takes its weirdness and its place within the weird-fiction canon seriously, and the tales-within-tales become ever more labyrinthine – like Nabokov’s short fiction, these are stories that revel in being fiction, so it’s no surprise that the collection is proving so popular with fellow writers. I suspect it will become a classic in the future.

More contemporary weirdness can be found in Hunting by the River by Daniel Carpenter (2024), which gazes into the dark corners of urban spaces and finds little that’s reassuring there, Umbilical by Teika Marija Smits (2023), which twists mythology into modern contexts to examine parental concerns, and Out of the Window, Into the Dark by Marian Womack (2024), which contains stories that (as I wrote in my blurb) evoke the wild worldbuilding of Ursula Le Guin and the unsettling domesticity of Shirley Jackson, with a meticulousness that’s highlighted by a Borgesian fascination with libraries. Commercial Book by Andrew Hook (2024) contains stories each of exactly 1000 words, each paired with one of the songs on Commercial Album by The Residents. While no familiarity with the album is required – the affecting stories which are immersed in dreams and steeped in film and music certainly stand alone – listening to each song before or after reading the story reveals even greater depths.

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Most of the non-fiction I read in 2024 related to writing projects, but I put time aside for I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (2007), a discourse on consciousness and self-reflexivity which will certainly end up inspiring more of my own stories and novels to come. I loved Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by Mark Fisher (2014), especially his analysis of albums by Burial. While I contributed an article to Writing the Murder: Essays on Crafting Crime Fiction, edited by Dan Coxon and Richard V. Hirst (2024), I thoroughly enjoyed the other contributors’ pieces, particular Tom Mead’s assessment of the locked-room genre, and Carole Johnstone’s very honest article about the pragmatism involved in selecting a writing project.

Favourite film, TV and videogames of 2024

Films

By far my favourite film released in cinemas this year was Civil War (Alex Garland, 2024). While it confused mainstream viewers who expected a postapocalyptic action adventure, the totally sober approach to a plausible breakdown of society pushed all my buttons. I loved the passivity of the journalist protagonists, I loved the non-specific, non-partisan background to the conflict. And I loved the soundtrack, particular the early double-whammy of ‘Lovefingers’ by Silver Apples and ‘Rocket USA’ by Suicide, and the abrupt introduction of De La Soul’s ‘Say No Go’ to undermine an atrocity was one of my favourite moments in any film this year.

Another recent film I adored was The Beasts (Rodrigo Sorogoyen, 2022), a very adult and considered drama about a French couple far out of their depth in the Galician countryside in Spain. The tension is taut throughout, and I loved every minute of its long running time.

I loved Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, 2024), a more garish film than Rose Glass’s previous one, Saint Maud, and a lot more fun, though equally squeamish. I really liked Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, 2024), which continues Luca Guadagnino’s stellar run of successes while maintaining arthouse complexity. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, 2023), also starring Challengers’ Josh O’Connor, is an oddball delight, and it’s the film I’ve recommended to others most often this year. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, 2023) may turn out to be less of a puzzle box than it appears to be, but Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are both excellent. Similarly fantasy-adjacent and reliant on a strong lead is The Five Devils (Léa Mysius, 2022), which is as watchable as it is due to the presence of the amazing Adèle Exarchopoulos. Hoard (Luna Carmoon, 2023) is the sort of straightforwardly excellent and downbeat British drama that people claim aren’t being made nowadays. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023) is as compelling as I’d hoped it would be, and likely to be more memorable than any other film listed here, but unlike Glazer’s other films I’m unlikely to watch it again.

Alongside Civil War, my favourite blockbusters were The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan (Martin Bourboulon, 2023) and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Wes Ball, 2024), particularly the early non-plot-related scenes of ape society.

As for slightly older 21st-century films, the one that’s stuck with me is Holiday (Isabella Eklöf, 2018) which I believe was quite controversial upon reliease, and it really is repellent, but constantly thought-provoking. I finally watched It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2015) on the recommendation of several writer friends, and I liked it very much, though like many modern horror films the final act doesn’t hold up too well. Another film I’ve been meaning to watch for years is La Antena (Esteban Sapir, 2007), which is far more wondrous and inventive than I’d imagined. I loved two films with similarly rambling, Twin Peaks-lite tone: Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018) and The Kid Detective (Evan Morgan, 2020). My favourite family film was Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Dean Fleischer Camp, 2021).

I’m a little ashamed that I haven’t delved very deeply into cinematic history this year. Boudu Saved from Drowning (Jean Renoir, 1932) was the most affecting and humanistic film I watched, and I’m certain I’ll watch it again before long. Another film I considered a known quantity and was surprised by was Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957), which is far more snide and funny than I’d anticipated.

Other films I ticked off the list included the bitter classics The Draughtsman’s Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982) and Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993. Kes (Ken Loach, 1969) was far less about a kestrel than I’d expected, and far more about the school system, and Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979) was a great deal less saccharine than I’d supposed, though it was undermined when my wife and I noticed that method actor Dustin Hoffman contrives to pick up and play with a prop in every scene. My most pleasing archive discovery this year was Full Circle: The Haunting of Julia (Richard Loncraine, 1977), an effective, low-budget ghost story starring Mia Farrow that deserves to be better known than it is.

TV

I adored Ripley, the adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley. While some elements were a little off (Andrew Scott’s age, Johnny Flynn’s lack of charisma), the show came into its own after the central murder, when screenwriter Steven Zaillian was able to increase the tension to an unbearable level. And the whole production looked gorgeous. It’s a real shame it’s unlikely to be recommissioned, as I’d love to have seen an adaptation of Ripley’s Game with the same cast and crew.

Another show that was bittersweet due to prompt cancellation was Kaos, which hewed far more faithfully to Greek mythology than I’d imagined, while stretching and humanising the stories to suit modern TV tastes. The fifth season of Fargo was the best since the first couple, with a simpler tale of a woman on the run which often had me genuinely on the edge of my seat. My guiltiest pleasure was watching both seasons of Outlast, a survival reality TV show which encouraged amoral behaviour in its contestants. My favourite comedy shows were both second seasons: How to With John Wilson and Colin From Accounts, both of which were almost as wonderful as their first seasons.

Videogames

My favourite videogame was one I played only at the very end of the year: Dragon‘s Dogma 2. It’s the most likeable open-world game I’ve played since Assassin‘s Creed: Odyssey, but the fact that it’s considerably less bloated gives it extra points. Travelling with a party of AI followers is jolly rather than frustrating, and the giant enemies and emergent gameplay are out of this world, with ogres and harpies and dragons wrestling and often ignoring the player entirely. The Gigantus sequence, in which you’re tasked with preventing a giant stone statue from trudging out of the sea and destroying a city, is like an interactive Ray Harryhausen film – which, now that I think about it, is exactly what I want out of a game like this.

The other games I particularly enjoyed this year were relatively small ones. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a cheerful Metroidvania that knows when to stop, with the result that I’ve played it three times over. Animal Well is similarly short, though markedly less sweet, and its pixel graphics are wonderfully eerie. I loved the quasi-retro minigame collection UFO 50, though actually I’ve only unlocked a handful of the games because I became obsessed with Party House and stopped there. I’m currently playing Rise of the Golden Idol, which is as good as the first game in the series and which features puzzles that make you feel insanely clever when you solve them.

Favourite albums of 2024

Drone / Jazz / Virtuosity

Mo Léan by Róis is one of the strangest and most affecting albums I heard this year, exploring the Irish tradition of keening in grief. Róis’s tremendous voice is like a falsetto PJ Harvey, and the album is steeped in wonky electronics, field recordings and spoken interludes.

Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes by Raphael Rogiński is similarly startling. I barely recognise any of the Coltrane compositions he adapts, and I know none of the Hughes; Rogiński’s meticulous, meditative hushed guitar style is all his own.

Then to four artists who seem to feature every year in my list of favourites. All Life Long by Kali Malone is as staggering as anything the pipe organ virtuoso has produced before. FAÇADISMS by Rafael Anton Irisarri contains signature washes of abstract sound that build to epiphanies. Violinist Laura Cannell’s series of EPs (Firelore, Witchlore, Harvestlore, Ghostlore, Mammothlore, Wolflore, Ravenlore, Mountainlore, Riverlore, Earthlore, Sealore) are immaculate early folk, pagan and mystical and often overwhelming. Ghosted II by Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin is perhaps a touch more mechanical than the first Ghosted album, and more so than Ambarchi’s earlier work, but the fragility of a live performance undermines the tightly locked grooves.

The Way Out of Easy by Jeff Parker and ETA Ivtet is similar in many ways to the Ambarchi record, featuring jazz-inflected motorik grooves. The echoes of Parker’s TNT-era Tortoise guitar licks is what makes it for me.

Spectral Evolution by Rafael Toral is a hypnotic combination of electronica and field recordings, and it’s no wonder it’s featured on so many artists’ own end-of-year lists.            

Rock / Post-rock

For me, You Never End by Moin is head and shoulders above all other rock albums this year. It sounds like a grungy, permanent-sunglasses mix of Sonic Youth and Slint, yet the revolving-door roster of guests vocalists makes it constantly varied. I love it.

The Jesus Lizard are a band that have always passed me by, but on the strength of Rack, I should remedy that. I don’t often listen to heads-down, hard-riffing rock and roll these days, but I’ve listened to this album a lot.

As It Happened: Horse Lords Live by Horse Lords is more my usual fare (that is, belligerently, maddeningly repetitive), and an obvious hit for me, as I desperately want to see Horse Lords live.

>>>> by Beak> is very much Portishead’s Geoff Barrow doing his motoric, kosmiche thing, but he’s earned the right. The Silver Apples tone of ‘The Seal’ is just perfect.

All kinds of days by Good Sad Happy Bad is another slightly indulgent side-project by a composer better known for their film soundtracks: Mica Levi. It’s very good-natured and whimsical, and loveably raw, rather like Mica Levi and Alpha Maid’s collaborations under the name Spresso.

Pop / Indie

I listened to a surprising amount of meticulously produced year-2000-vibe pop music this year. My favourite was blush by Mexican artist Girl Ultra, especially the absolutely nuts earworm ‘bruce willisss’. The fact that the EP is only 15 minutes long is irrelevant as I always listen to the whole thing on repeat.

I’m far from the intended listener of Young-Girl Forever by Sofie Royer, and it certainly doesn’t act as a rallying call for me, but it features some of the most infectious pop tunes I’ve heard this year, such as ‘Keep Running (Sebastian in Dreams)’.

SOPHIE, the posthumously released second album by SOPHIE, is outstanding, and the guests stars on each track make it come across like a very well-curated compilation. It ranges from Ibiza sunset anthems (‘My Forever’) and techno bangers (‘Berlin Nightmare’).

Affection by Bullion harnesses an early 2000s sound associated with Animal Collective, and it even features Panda Bear on one track. At its best, its down-to-earth lyrics are as well-observed as the best short stories.

Songs

Mayday by Myriam Gendron reinforces that she’s one of the most exciting folk singers to have emerged in recent years. Her voice is very like Karen Dalton’s, and the arrangements are gorgeous.

Tindersticks have always seemed to operate in the margins, overshadowed by other bands. Soft Tissue is unlikely to change that, with a smooth sound at the direct midpoint between Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (specifically, the album No More Shall We Part) and Lambchop (specifically, Nixon). But the songs! They’re lovely.

Similarly, Portishead’s Beth Gibbons creates no surprises on her first solo album, Lives Outgrown, but it’s rawer than you might expect, and her frailty is front and centre.

The entirety of Cellophane Memories by Chrystabell and David Lynch is an absolute swoon.

Electronic / Weird

Dawuna’s 2022 album Glass Lit Dream is still one of my favourite albums of recent years. This year he offered an EP, Southside Bottoms, and an album Naya, and thankfully both are wonderful, though they amend his lo-fi R&B/dark ambient sound. On both records his voice is lifted out of the murk – now his voice is recognisable as a mix of Prince and Sly Stone – but the scuzzy static interference of Naya undermines the sweetness effectively.

Folklore 1979 by Milkweed is intentionally a disturbing hauntological artifact, and knowingly folk-horror. Its combination of zithers and pipes underpinned by clumsy hip hop beats have earned the group the description ‘slacker-trad’.

Carrier produced two essential techno EPs: Neither Curve Nor Edge and In Spectra. No messing.

Compilations / Reissues

The Holy Grail: Bill Callahan’s “Smog” Dec. 10, 2001 Peel Session by Bill Callahan / Smog was one of my favourite listening experiences of the year, blasting the intense, raw live version of ‘Cold Discovery’ at full volume while driving in pitch darkness.

We Have Dozens of Titles by Gastr Del Sol is an almost two-hour indulgence of one of my favourite bands, featuring excellent live versions and deep cuts.      

Similarly long and generous is rpm by Philip Jeck, featuring spacey collaborations with amazing artists such as Gavin Bryars, Chris Watson, Fennesz, Rosy Parlane and David Sylvian.

The Peel Sessions by Aerial M is a far more sedate experience than the Smog record, but the wonderful version of ‘Skrag Theme’ makes it essential.              

Souvenirs by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is another revelation of a collection from the Ethiopian pianist who has only recently become appreciated.

The reissued 2019 EPs Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks and Sweet Princess by Dry Cleaning are as fantastic as the band’s recent output.

My favourite field-recording album of the year is Night Passage by Alan Lamb, a 1980s recording of Lamb’s ‘Faraway Wind Organ’: ten miles of telegraph wires played by the wind.

My writing year 2024

My Victorian murder mystery novel Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives was published in hardback by Titan Books in Oct 2024.

I also had 8 short stories published:

My essay ‘The Problem of the Faithful Pastiche’, about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and adaptations featuring well-known characters, was published in Writing the Murder: Essays on Crafting Crime Fiction, published by Dead Ink, Sep 2024.

I also won the Best Short Fiction Award at the British Fantasy Awards in October! The winning story, ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’, was first published in IZ Digital (Interzone), then reprinted in Best of British Science Fiction 2023 (NewCon Press).

2024 projects

This is what I wrote this year:

  • The final 20,000 words of a murder mystery novel begun last year
  • The first 20,000 words of a cosy crime novel
  • A full 100k draft, then structural edits of a commissioned novel yet to be announced
  • Three short stories

In total, I wrote 181,450 words and spent 331 hours writing or editing.

Looking ahead to 2025

Early next year I’ll be able to announce two new books, both of which I’m very excited about.

As for what I’ll actually be writing, for the first time in several years I’ll begin the year with a relatively blank slate, which is also very exciting. Who knows what I’ll be reporting having written, this time next year!

Open submission calls for writers: December 2024

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Silent Nightmares
This anthology of ‘dark holiday horrors’, which will be published this time next year, has a star name among its editorial lineup: Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club. Most of the contributions will be by invited writers, but there are few additional slots available.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 10 cents per word
Deadline Open 1–31 December 2024
Find out more

Book Worms
The upcoming issue of this horror e-zine will feature space and science fiction horror stories, with horror being a crucial element.
Word count: Up to 1500 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 25 December 2024
Find out more

Plott Hound
It’s important that new publications cover a specific niche, and this e-zine certainly does: speculative fiction featuring animals.
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1–15 December 2024
Find out more

The World of Vile Wonder
This anthology from historical-horror publisher The Scythian Wolf is subtitled ‘Horror Tales of the Scientific Revolution’. It may be a demanding theme (which is why I’m listing it now, well ahead of time), but I’d love to read the selected stories.
Word count: 5000–10,000 words
Payment: $75
Deadline: 1 January–28 February 2025
Find out more

Baffling
Throughout December, this magazine that specialises in ‘speculative fiction with a queer bent’ will be open to stories themed around ‘strange forms’ alongside unthemed submissions.
Word count: Up to 1200 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1–15 December 2024
Find out more

Dark Hearts
This anthology is the latest in the Triangulation series from Parsec Ink, and will contain speculative fiction about women who are anti-heroes. The editor’s preferences include ‘Women with a mastery of weapons or powers. Women in STEM or in disguise. Cyborgs. Hackers. Heists. Underdogs. Romance!’
Word count: Up to 5000 words
Payment: 3 cents per word
Deadline: 30 March 2024
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Relics
This first anthology from Memento Mori Ink will feature stories about ‘ancient objects or seemingly mundane items which have the power to whisper to those who possess them’.
Word count: 3000–5000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: 1 June 2024
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Ricochet
I don’t see many new venues specialising in Western stories, so if that’s your thing, the arrival of this new magazine will be most welcome.
Word count: Up to 3000 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: Ongoing
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Silk and Foxglove
Editor Z. K. Abraham will edit this anthology dedicated to another niche almost certainly not yet covered by any other venue: erotic eco-horror.
Word count: 1500–4000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 31 December 2024
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The Other Stories
This podcast of narrated horror, SF and thriller stories has more than 150,000 monthly listeners. Uncoming themes include heavy metal, tarot, Shakespeare, bleeding hearts and found footage.
Word count: Approx 2000 words
Payment: £15
Deadline: Ongoing
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Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn
The editors at Middle West Press are seeking micro-fiction about monsters in the 21st-century American Midwest.
Word count: Up to 300 words
Payment: None
Deadline: 3 March 2024
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The Welkin Mini
Can you create a compelling story in 100 words? Any genre is allowed, but still… only 100 words, yikes.
Word count: Up to 100 words
Payment: Various prizes from £10 to £50
Deadline: Open 1 December 2024–2 January 2025
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Just Keep Up
The editors of this rather blandly titled new publication are seeking science fiction and horror stories.
Word count: Up to 10,000 words
Payment: $10
Deadline: Ongoing
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Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Open submission calls for writers: November 2024

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Fever Dreams
The ABCs of Horror anthology series from respected author and editor Mark Morris is now up to its sixth volume. He’s seeking four horror stories from up-and-comers to be placed alongside commissioned stories from some of the greats of the genre.
Word count: 3000–5000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 14 November 2024
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Vivid Worlds
This anthology from Best of British Science Fiction editor Donna Scott will feature solar punk stories – that is, SF/F stories focusing on hope for the future.
Word count: 2000–9000 words
Payment: 1 pence per word
Deadline: Open 24 November–15 December 2024
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Hexagon
This beautifully designed Canadian SF magazine has been restricting its open submission periods recently, so this is a relatively rare chance to impress them with your work.
Word count: Up to 10,000 words
Payment: 1 cent (CAD) per word
Deadline: Open 1–30 November 2024
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Once Upon a Moonless Night
The subtitle of this anthology is ‘Tales of Betrayal, Revenge, and Redemption’, which doesn’t necessarily indicate horror, and apparently all genres are welcome.
Word count: 250–15,000 words
Payment: 5 cents per word
Deadline: 15 December 2024
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Aphrodite / Loki
Two more submission calls from ‘Myths, God and Immortals’ series from the prolific Flame Tree Press. Keen to write about Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, or Loki, the Norse trickster god? Get to it.
Word count: 3000–4000 words
Payment: 6 cents per word
Deadline: 24 November 2024
Find out more here and here

Spoon Knife
While this publication from Autonomous Press is a literary magazine, it describes itself as ‘genre-bending’, so there’s room for us genre writers. The theme for the upcoming issue is ‘polarities’.
Word count: Up to 10,000 words
Payment: $30 plus 1 cent per word
Deadline: 31 July 2025
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Glen Must Die!
This is unique-sounding anthology – stories about the member of a group who, in the editor’s words: are ‘good people, we like them, we’re friends, and the way we communicate our love is by endlessly tormenting them’. And in each story Glen must die, of course.
Word count: 2000–5000 words
Payment: 3 cents per word
Deadline: 1 January 2025
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Springtime Fair
The editors of this anthology from Hearth Stories are seeking stories centred around a craft, recipe, or ritual – examples include crochet, cooking, yoga. Furthermore, each story should be accompanied by a tutorial, lesson, pattern or recipe.
Word count: 1000–5000 words
Payment: 2 cents per word
Deadline: 20 January 2024
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Latin American Shared Stories
Another call from Flame Tree Press, this time in their Beyond & Within series. This anthology of speculative stories by authors from Latin American countries or writing in the traditions of the Latin American diaspora will be edited by V. Castro.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 15 December 2024
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Our Dust Earth
There’s some complexity to this submission call from Air and Nothingness Press, as stories must be themed around a mini-RPG which is explained at length on the website.
Word count: 1000–3000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 1 November – 31 December 2024
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JayHenge Publishing
There are a couple of ongoing open calls from this publisher at the moment: The Apparatus Almanac, featuring stories of ‘Gizmology & Technomancy’, and Masque & Maelstrom, which has the subtitle ‘The Reluctant Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe’.
Word count: Up to 12,000 words
Payment: $5 per 1000 words
Deadline: Open until filled
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Liminal Tales
This podcast run by Three Coin Theatre will feature readings of subtle horror stories, performed either by actors or the author themselves.
Word count: Up to 2500 words
Payment: £10
Deadline: Unclear, but the show will be recorded in January 2025
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Good luck if you submit a story to any of these venues! And remember, you can sign up for my email newsletter for monthly open submission calls direct to your inbox.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.