Haven Speculative
They publish science fiction and fantasy – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art. They accept submissions through the year; they alternate submissions every month – from all writers, and from underrepresented writers. The publish climate-crisis focused work twice a year, in their Dry (published in March) and Wet (published in September) issues. They have extensive guidelines, including on the special issues. During February, they will accept submissions from all writers.
Deadline: 28 February 2024 for general submissions
Length: Up to 6,000 words for fiction, up to 1,000 words for nonfiction, up to 5 poems
Pay: $0.08/word for prose, and $20 for poetry
Details here.

Southword
This well-regarded print magazine, from the Munster Literature Centre, accepts poetry and fiction from writers around the world. They are reading now for their Winter 2024 issue. They also accept works in translation.
Deadline: 29 February for poetry; 31 March 2024 for fiction
Length: Up to 4 poems; up to 5,000 words for fiction
Pay: €50 per poem, €300 per short story
Details here and here.

Fusion Fragment
This Canadian magazine is open to submissions from writers globally. They want “Science fiction or SF-tinged literary fiction stories and novelettes…Although any science fiction subgenre is fair game, our tastes lean towards slipstream, cyberpunk, post-apocalypse, and anything with a little taste of the bizarre. FF prefers character-driven stories, and often skews towards quiet, reflective pieces. If the primary tone of your story is one of high adventure or humour, it’s probably not the right fit for FF. That said, quality always outstrips genre preference in terms of importance, so feel free to send us anything that even vaguely resembles science fiction.” They will publish one reprint story per issue, as well. They opened for submissions on 29^th January; regarding their deadline, they say, “No deadline! We’re making an attempt to stay open permanently. Will see how that goes, but if I do need to close it’ll be announced here and on our submissions page” – see their X (formerly Twitter) thread here.
Deadline: See above
Length: 2,000-15,000 words
Pay: CAD0.04/word, up to CAD400
Details here.

(– And, Schi Phi Journal publishes Campbellian hard SF, fictional non-fiction, and speculative philosophy, of up to 2,000 words, as well as translations; they pay €0.03 per word for original fiction and €0.01 per word for translations; deadline 4 February 2024. Details here.
— Also, Abyss & Apex is open for speculative fiction submissions for the first week of February, and pays $0.08/word for the first 1,000 words, and a flat rate of $80 for longer stories. Details here.)

Palette Poetry
Their website says, “Submissions for our Featured Poetry category are open year-round to poets at any stage of their careers. Featured poems are published online only and will spotlight a number of poems from new authors each month. We highly encourage emerging authors to submit.”
Deadline: Ongoing
Length: Up to 5 poems
Pay: $50/poem, up to $150
Details here and here.

Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.

Sunhouse is still curating their first issue, but they plan to publish a new edition once a month. Each issue will contain a small number of pieces to allow each poem or flash to receive the attention and appreciation it deserves. Sunhouse also plans to interview each author published in the journal to gain a glimpse into their writing process.

Poets may submit up to five poems, 10 pages or fewer total. Authors of flash prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) may submit up to two pieces, 1,000 words or fewer each. Authors submitting micros under 400 words may submit up to three pieces. Sunhouse welcomes very short micros.

Authors of hybrid writing may submit any number of pieces, totaling 2,000 words or fewer. Sunhouse accepts a wide range of hybrid writing, and they love experimentation in general: “We love pieces that blur genre and use symbols, emoticons, white space, etc. creatively; poems with whole paragraphs of dialogue, writing that rides the line between prose poem and micro, liberal use of footnotes, pieces with theatrical elements, mixed media, and more.”

Although Sunhouse is unable to pay contributors, they do plan to nominate authors published in the journal for awards such as The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best New Microfictions, and Best New Poets. They also plan to provide an option for readers to “tip the author,” and to showcase the ongoing achievements of past contributors on their blog.

Sunhouse accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions but ask that authors inform the editors when submitted pieces are published elsewhere. It’s also worth noting that they encourage submissions of previously published writing.

Sunhouse only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting. The editors have also included examples of writing they love in the submission guidelines. It’s a good idea to read these examples to get a sense of what they like.

If you would like to learn more or submit to Sunhouse, please visit their website here. 

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

For most authors, writing a novel – or many novels – is the ultimate aim of a writing career. It’s fair to say that most people read only novels and it’s certainly true that most publishing houses and agents are interested only in novel manuscripts – although there are exceptions. By and large, it’s novels that get onto best-seller lists and win big awards.

So, why write short stories or flash stories? I think there are lots of good reasons. Here are ten of them:

1. Writing a novel can take a long time. Some authors can create one in a few months, but it can be a commitment of one or more years. But you can write and see a short story published in a fraction of that time. I know from experience that a flash story can be written, polished and submitted all on the same day. So you get invaluable encouragement – or, failing that, perhaps some feedback. You certainly get a sense of achievement. I wonder how many novels are abandoned part-way through because the creation process feels endless. Setting a book aside for a time and writing a complete short piece can give you the encouragement you need that you can complete a story.
2. Some stories just are short. That’s the length they need to be. It’s hard to imagine Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper or Asimov’s Nightfall, say, as being any longer than they are. Short story magazines are full of pieces that are perfectly formed in a couple of thousand words. They have their believable world; their beginning, middle and end; their character arc and their satisfying conclusion. For the writer, learning to craft a satisfying story in a relatively small word count is good practice, a way of learning to only set down the words that need to be set down. There is little scope for repetition or flannel in a short story.
3. A portfolio of short story writing credits is a way to establish your name, build your platform, find a readership – and also hone your own voice. For many writers (I include myself in this), one of the obstacles to building a writing career is overcoming the imposter syndrome. The sense of “I’m not a real writer”. Having some short stories published is a way of proving to the world – but more importantly to yourself – that you are, indeed, a writer and that you can do this.
4. Life is too short. The other day I skimmed through my story idea jottings. There are hundreds of them. I may not get round to writing a hundred novels before time taps me on the shoulder, but I could certainly write a hundred short stories. And maybe doing so would tell me which stories could be developed into something longer. Speaking of which…
5. Novels can grow out of short stories. I’ve already mention Nightfall, which was turned into a full-length novel many years after the original short story was published. I’ve written at least one novel that started life as a piece of short fiction. Which is not to say that I simply took the old story and added extra descriptions and sub-plots. Rather, I took the world I’d created in the short story, along with some of the characters, and wrote a different (but related) story. Once I’d finished the short piece, I found that there was a much larger tale to tell. Writing a short story can open up a whole world of possibilities you weren’t aware of, like a sketch made before a painting.
6. By the same token, if you’re mid-way through a novel, and there’s a character or a situation you want to know more about, writing them a separate side story can be a useful way of fleshing them out, bringing them to life. It also means you have a short story that can act as a taster for your novel’s world for readers to try out. This leads me to the fact that…
7. You can write novels and short stories at the same time. Writing short stories is fun, a release, a distraction from your novel work-in-progress and that tricky plot twist 60,000 words in. Sometimes it’s best to let your subconscious work away on some sticking point: rather than stare at the blinking cursor, write something else completely. I find that if I try to force my mind to resolve a particular plot problem, it refuses and thinks about another story entirely. Maybe that’s just me. But, having a couple of pieces on the go means that you’re not stuck if one is bogged down. And, it’s strange how, when you suddenly see how one story needs to develop, ideas for another tale, something else you’re working on, come along too.
8. In some genres, the short story is very well-established and certainly an end in itself. The speculative fiction genres are the obvious ones to mention: here, short stories are read widely, there are prestigious awards and so on. That said, there are numerous short story magazines in just about every genre imaginable. Authors such as Raymond Carver, writing in a more realist mode, have been able to make their name as “a short story writer”. Speaking of short story magazines…
9. There are a lot more openings for short fiction than for novels. There are many, many short fiction markets looking for submissions – and who will take your work without requiring an agent to act as an intermediary. These days, even finding these markets is pretty straightforward: there are several web sites that collect and publish the guidelines from short story magazines, allowing you to search for the perfect outlet for your story.
10. Finally, it’s worth mentioning money. Selling short stories can provide a steadier stream of income as compared to writing novels. It all depends upon the success your creations enjoy, of course, but selling some short stories can provide an income while the end of a novel is nowhere in sight. It may or may not be enough to live off (let’s be honest, probably not), but being paid for your writing always feel great. What’s more, there are numerous markets that accept reprints of short stories, as well as some that will pay you again for audio rights or foreign translation rights. With luck, a short story can earn its keep in multiple ways while you get on with that novel.

Bio: Simon Kewin is the author of over 100 published short and flash stories. His works have appeared in Analog, Nature, Daily Science Fiction and many more. He’s also the author of the Cloven Land fantasy trilogy, cyberpunk thriller The Genehunter, steampunk Gormenghast saga Engn, the Triple Stars sci/fi trilogy and the Office of the Witchfinder General books, published by Elsewhen Press. In 2022, he was an SPSFC semi-finalist, had a short story shortlisted for a Utopia award and won the Tales by Moonlight Editor’s Prize for his fantasy novella The Clockwork King. He lives deep in the English countryside. Find him at simonkewin.co.uk and at @SimonKewin on Twitter.