woolgathering is a new journal established in 2021 and based in the Philippines.  Their goal is to publish new and established writers from around the world. They publish art, prose, and poetry. They prefer the prose to be under 1,000 words in length. They have no stated length preference for poetry.

woolgathering has a beautiful and satisfying website. It’s very easy to interact with. They’ve published three issues so far. You can read the most recent issue here.

They nominate work for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Please note that they are not interested in work with cliched language. They are much more interested in seeing different perspectives on the world. They also are not interested in work with racist, fascist, or misogynistic themes.

They are not interested in previously published work but they are open to simultaneous submissions as long as you notify them right away if your work is accepted elsewhere.

They try to respond to all submissions within two weeks. Submissions must be made via email and you must follow all of their guidelines in order for your work to be submitted. For the subject of the email, write your name and the type of literature you are submitting (prose or poetry).

They read all submissions blind.

To learn more, or to submit please go to their website.

Escape Artists: PodCastle and Cast of Wonders
Apart from their CatsCast submission call (which closes in 2022), two magazines in the Escape Artists suite are open/will open submissions in November.
— PodCastle publishes fantasy short fiction on their website, and in an audio format. They are open to all sub-genres of fantasy, from magical realism to urban fantasy to slipstream to high fantasy. Fantastical or non-real content should be meaningful to the story. They also accept reprints.
Deadline: 30 November 2021
Length: Up to 6,000 words
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here.
— Cast of Wonders is a young adult (YA) fiction website and podcast. They want “Stories that evoke a sense of wonder, have deep emotional resonance, and have something unreal about them. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without gratuitous or explicit sex, violence or pervasive obscene language.” They want fantasy, science fiction, horror (not visceral), comedy, steampunk, age-appropriate paranormal romance, superheroes and many other genres – “All that matters is adherence to our core concept and that critical spark of wonder.” They do not exclusively define YA as stories featuring children or young adult characters, and would particularly like to receive more stories about older people having first experiences. They accept translations and reprints, as well.
Reading period: 15 November-20 December 2021 (see schedule)
Length: Up to 6,000 words
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here.
(Another speculative fiction market that’s open now is Scare Street’s Night Terrors anthology. Pay is $10/1,000 words for stories up to 7,000 words. The deadline is 30 November 2021.)

Matter Press: The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
They want compressed creative arts. “We accept fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, mixed media, visual arts, and even kitchen sinks, if they are compressed in some way.”
Deadline: 15 December 2021
Length: Up to 600 words (varies for Topical Thursdays and Triptych submissions)
Pay: $50
Details here.

Gumshoe Review
They publish short fiction mysteries and nonfiction articles about the mystery field.
Deadline: Ongoing
Length: Up to 1,000 words
Pay: $0.05/word, up to $50
Details here.

(Berkeley Fiction Review is another magazine that is open for submissions now, and accepts fiction, comics, art, and visuals. Pay is $25.)

Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She is the author of 182 Short Fiction Publishers. She can be reached here.

The story I’d been working on had gone through multiple evolutions, from a strictly factual account, to a blend of fact and fiction, until it had reached the point where I was calling it a novel. The story was loosely based on the lives of my grandparents, a two-piano four-hands team who performed onstage and on radio during the 1930s. While daydreaming, my mind would occasionally wander ahead to what I would do if I ever finished it? How would I go about getting it out into the world? My mind was vague on that point, so I put it out of my head and continued writing.

I had been on the Authors Publish email list for a while, and always enjoyed their articles and tips about submitting to literary journals. When I learned they were offering a Manuscript Publishing for Novelists course in the fall of 2019, I signed up.

I appreciated the convenience of working on the course at home (little did I realize how prevalent that would become) and how Emily Harstone took us step by step through the stages of getting a manuscript ready for publication. The course covered polishing the first twenty pages, writing a hook and a query letter, researching agents and publishers, and more, with weekly homework. She stressed the need to follow the agents’ and publishers’ guidelines exactly so as not to be disqualified right off the bat. I liked that we could read and comment on fellow students’ work as that helped me look at my own writing with new eyes.

Once I finished the course, I put the notes in a binder on my shelf for future reference, and continued revising my manuscript.

In February 2020, I travelled to London, England to explore the city so that I could add veracity to my characters’ movements, along with doing research at the British Library. I’d write up my notes in the evenings back at the hotel while listening to the BBC news.  COVID cases were increasing by the day and I was worried that by the end of the week the airports might close. I did get home safely, but two weeks later the province declared a state of emergency. When my work writing for magazines declined due to the drop in advertising revenue, and I faced free time at home, I decided to buckle down and finally finish the book, which I did, a few months later.

In June 2020 I pulled out my notes from the Manuscript Publishing course and got busy. I set a goal for myself of querying three to five agents and/or publishers per week. Each submission took at least an hour, sometimes more. Some asked for a synopsis, some just a paragraph description of the book, while others wanted the whole manuscript. Some requested that the material be sent by email as attachments, others wanted hard copies to be mailed. As per Emily’s advice, I followed each requirement to the letter. Then the rejections started flowing in. I was impressed with the eloquent, encouraging words I received and the suggestions to go elsewhere. I tried not to dwell on them, but the one that said I didn’t write like Michael Ondaatje seemed to sting the most, even though I had no delusions that I wrote like him at all.

Eight months later, at the end of February 2021, I tallied up the numbers – I’d submitted to 47 Canadian, American and British agents along with 16 publishers that didn’t require an agent, for a total of 63 submissions. I’d received 26 rejections, and the remainder said it could take up to six months for them to respond, or if I hadn’t heard from them within a certain period, to assume rejection. I was losing my motivation and my submissions dwindled down to one a week. I wondered if I should give up altogether.

Then on March 10, 2021, Tina Crossfield of Crossfield Publishing in St. Mary’s, Ontario, sent me an email saying that she was very drawn to my story and writing style, and that she was prepared to offer me a contract, as she believed in the importance of the book! I re-read the email several times, then started to cry. All that work had finally paid off.

Claudette on the Keys was launched on September 24, 2021 to much media attention in newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. I am still pinching myself and thankful that the email about the Manuscript Publishing for Novelists course landed in my inbox two years ago.

Bio: Joanne Culley’s novel Claudette on the Keys is available from Chapters-Indigo and www.crossfieldpublishing.com. For more information, please visit www.joanneculley.com, or like her book page at facebook.com/ClaudetteOnTheKeysNOVEL.

While their other fiction imprints open and close to unagented submissions, they are almost always open  to unagented Romance fiction for their Casablanca imprint. This includes Own Voices, marginalized voices, inclusive and diverse romances. They are looking for strong writers that are excited about marketing books and building communities of readers, and whose stories have something fresh to offer within the genre. They publish romances that fall within the following subgenres: paranormal romance, romantic suspense, contemporary romance, erotic romance, and historical romance (prior to 1900).

They try to respond to all submissions in 8 to 12 weeks. If they do not respond to you, please assume rejection.

Completed manuscripts must be between 85,000 and 100,000 words. They expect you to submit the completed manuscript as a word doc or docx. If your work has been published before please include a sales history, and mention what you are hoping for in terms of your long-term career.

Also include a query letter and the full synopsis.

To learn more, visit their website here.

You can view the full list of submission guidelines for all of their imprints here, so you can see which imprints are currently open to unagented submissions.

Here’s the link to the submission guidelines for the Casablanca imprint.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.