(– And One Story is also open for literary fiction submissions of 3,000-8,000 words. Their submission portal will close when they hit a submission cap. They pay $500, and 25 contributor copies. Details here and here.)

Escape Artists: PodCastle
This is a fantasy podcast and online magazine. They accept all the sub-genres of fantasy, from magical realism to urban fantasy to slipstream to high fantasy. “Above all, we’re looking for stories that are fun to listen to. Humor is encouraged. … We’d particularly like to see more stories set outside America, and stories that feature characters who represent a range of backgrounds and ethnicities.” They also accept translations, as well as reprints; writers can send one original story and one reprint at a time.Deadline: 30 November 2024
Length: Up to 6,000 words (longer for reprints – see guidelines)
Pay: $0.08/word for original short fiction, $20-100 for reprints
Details here and here.

(And, Weird Horror Magazine is open now; they publish horror and weird fiction, and also accept translations. “We are seeking horror and weird fiction from 500 to 5,000 words … We are a home for the strange, the macabre, the eerie, the esoteric, the fabulist, and the gothic. The darkly numinous. The odd.  We are not interested in extreme horror. Do not send science fiction or fantasy.” Submission is via a form on the website. Pay is $0.02/word, up to $100, and the deadline is 15^th November 2024; details here.)

Kaleidotrope
Their website says, “Kaleidotrope publishes predominantly speculative fiction and poetry—science fiction, fantasy, and horror, but also compelling work that blurs the lines between these and falls outside of neat genre categories. (Man does not live on space ships, elves, and ghostly ax murderers alone, after all.)” And, “We have no minimum or maximum word count for fiction but strongly prefer stories over 250 words and under 10,000.
We consider all forms of poetry, but individual haiku, or other very short poems, may be a tougher sell.”
Deadline: 30 November 2024
Length: See above
Pay: $0.01/word for fiction, $5 for poetry
Details here.

Eastover Press: Cutleaf Journal
Cutleaf is the literary journal of Eastover Press. They want literary nonfiction submissions. “We take a narrative, literary, and imaginative approach to nonfiction. We welcome traditional essay formats but we also welcome variations such as speculative essays, essays in verse, “hermit crab” essays, or essays that explore the use of language in imaginative ways.
We are open to any topic that moves a writer, but particularly invite work that addresses the ethics and practice of distinctive occupations. The nonfiction editor, a physician, takes special interest in reading work from physicians, dentists, nurses, social workers, scientists, technicians, and other clinicians and caregivers involved in health care and public health.”
Deadline: 30 November 2024
Length: Unspecified
Pay: $100 to $300 for published prose
Details here. 
(They are also open for other opportunities, including nonfiction manuscripts; please be sure to submit in the correct category.)

Matter Press: The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
They publish fiction and creative non-fiction, as well as fiction and creative non-fiction prose poetry, as long as it is compressed in some way.
Deadline: 15 December 2024
Length: Up to 600 words
Pay: $50
Details here and here. 

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

Portland Review aims to showcase a wide range of forms and styles of writing, and to foster experimentation. Writing published in Portland Review has been selected for awards and anthologies like Best of the Net and the Best American series. You can read the journal online to get a sense of what they like. 

Since 2020 Portland Review has been published online (previously it was published in print), and they publish new content frequently. Submitting authors can expect a response within six months.

Poets may submit up to three poems, totaling ten pages or fewer. Authors of fiction and nonfiction may submit one piece, up to 5,000 words. For fiction, they accept traditional, experimental, and genre-bending work, as well as flash. For nonfiction, they accept narrative nonfiction, personal essays, memoirs, and interviews, as well as flash.

Portland Review also accepts book reviews from September through April. Review should be 1,200 to 2,500 words, and should address forthcoming or recently published works of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction (including anthologies, graphic novels, and hybrid works). They are especially interested in reviews of books published by small presses.

Portland Review accepts submissions online using Submittable, not via email or by post.  They accept simultaneous submissions but ask that authors withdraw writing published elsewhere. They do not accept previously published work.

Portland Review only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

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

My goal then became to have that first book published by the time I turned seventy. How I would do that eluded me. I decided I would take short courses at Humber School for Writers. At their suggestion, I joined a writing group. But five years had passed and I was almost seventy. And although various submissions were made, the contract for that book hadn’t yet happened.

One evening in 2006, I went to the Toronto Women’s Bookstore to hear two authors read from their new books. At some point, I met Luciana Ricciutelli, the editor of Inanna Publications, the small press that had published them.

“I’m looking for a collection of short stories,” she said, inviting me to submit some. “Two or three.“

Inanna Publications, known best until then for a scholarly publication, Canadian Woman Studies, had recently started to publish trade books. I had purchased that feminist, academic journal for the crisis line library. It was a fine journal, but I could not imagine my stories fitting into such an erudite academic atmosphere. Nonetheless, I took her invitation seriously and considered how to submit my manuscript, then in the hands of the agent at the Humber School for Writers.

Before doing anything, I corresponded with Margaret Hart, the agent who had accepted me as a client after a workshop I participated in with Alistair McLeod as the mentor. He had previously published two of my stories in the University of Windsor Review and when we talked at Humber, recommended me to Margaret. Her reply was to go ahead and submit the manuscript with her offer of representation if it were accepted. So I sent off a query letter to Luciana with three stories.

Within twenty-four hours, I received a request to submit my complete manuscript. From my previous experience with publishers, I had expected to wait a long time. But around two weeks later, I opened an e-mail to find an acceptance for the short story collection. Such a speedy turnaround, almost unheard of in my knowledge or experience of the publishing world, astonished me. Not only that, but the publisher and editor, Luciana Ricciutelli, suggested publication the following spring. I wondered if I were dreaming, then felt as if my success had happened overnight. It was, of course, an illusion dispelled by the knowledge it had taken over forty years, time that spanned a lifetime of writing, revising, submitting, and waiting. And waiting.

I reread the words of the email − Inanna wants to publish your stories. All night, my heart pounded. As I lay there wondering if this were the precursor to a heart attack, I kept reminding myself this was good stress.

I managed to correspond with Luciana, receive a copy of a contract, buy the model contract provided by the Writers’ Union of Canada and ask Margaret Hart to represent me. 

Having the book appear just before my 70^th birthday was the best gift I could hope for. I began to think of answering questions for publicity. I had been told the way to do this was to create a story about my own life that would appeal to journalists and critics. “Well, I had thought I would deal with this decade with massive denial, but this book has outed me. So here I am, a writer with her first book at almost seventy. It sounds like a late start, but I’ve been writing since I was a child. And I intend to keep on going.” The publicity hook for my book and my life as an author was bound to be connected to my present age.

“This is what old looks like.” The way Gloria Steinem said, “This is what sixty looks like.”

This acceptance, my book that was finally published in 2007 with the rather ironic title, One Day It Happens, created a burst of energy. There were no blank pages in my life at that moment. And as I spread the good news, I witnessed broad smiles crossing faces, eyes lighting up.

How I felt about myself as a writer began to change subtly, giving me new confidence. And this good news led to new adventures. There was a book launch in downtown Toronto where friends and acquaintances gathered to celebrate with me. They listened as I read, the light shining through the stained-glass window behind me. To my surprise, almost everyone bought at least one copy.

And One Day It Happens received a much-coveted review in the Globe and Mail. That fall, my first book tour unfolded with readings in Vancouver and stops in Ste. Anne and Winnipeg, Manitoba.  I had crossed a metaphorical bridge to a new stage of my life. At 70 years of age, doors began to open onto new vistas.

Bio: Mary Lou Dickinson lives in a downtown condo in Toronto, Canada with a tree at her window as reminder of her roots in a northern Quebec frontier mining town. She enjoyed a varied career that ended with 15 years as a crisis telephone counsellor for assaulted women. Her first published piece, at age 6, was a poem in her grandmother’s food column in the Toronto Telegram. Able to devote her retirement to writing, she now has five published books in various genres – literary fiction, mystery, as well as a ready for publication memoir. At 87, she is still writing and has completed another collection of short stories and is working on a novel.