They say they offer above-standard royalties, but do not state what those rates are, or if they are off gross or net. They do not offer advances. They do not disclose having a distributor.

According to their website these are the writers they love best, and who inspire their work:

Our favorite artists are the ones who defy definition. If you aspire to sophistication of Gene Wolfe and sensuality of Samuel Delany, if the fearless imagination of Octavia Butler and uncompromising integrity of Ursula Le Guin inspire you, if the compassionate realism of Jim Sheppard and heartbreaking lyricism of Michel Faber touch your heart, and, finally, if your favorite music is by David Bowie—we want to read your book.

A speculative element is a requirement. Speculative fiction is an umbrella term that broadly covers fantasy, science fiction, slipstream and weird fiction, while also including magical realism. You can get a good feel for what they’ve previously published here.

They are open to novels or short story collections between 80,000 and 110,000 words in length and are not interested in novellas. In the subject line of the email write QUERY and the title of your novel.

Queries should be addressed to Cate Hendrikson, the acquisitions editor. In the body of the email include a one page synopsis and the first three chapters or first 50 pages, whichever is longer. Do not include any attachments. They will remain unopened.

Simultaneous submissions are fine. They respond to every query, but it takes time, they don’t start responding to queries till they close to submissions for the year.

To learn more, visit their submission guidelines here.

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.

The Coachella Review is an online literary journal produced by the University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts program. They’re an established online publisher of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and they also have a special interest in publishing screenplays and one-act plays. Located near Los Angeles, they have a close relationship with the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

The Coachella Review publishes emerging and debut authors, alongside established voices. They’ve published well-known authors such as Kim Addonizio, Billy Collins, and Wendy Ortiz. In general, they’re seeking writing that is, “vibrant, thoughtful, and precise.”

Each biannual online edition of The Coachella Review contains work from around 20 contributors. They publish in June and December, and they hold an open submission window for each issue. Right now through September 5 they’re accepting work for their Winter 2022 edition.

The Coachella Review also frequently publishes writing on their blog, TCR Daily. Right now they’re open to blog pitches for reviews and interviews.

For the biannual journal, poets may submit up to three poems of any length. Authors of fiction and nonfiction may submit up to 6,000 words.

They accept creative nonfiction of all kinds, and for fiction they welcome both literary and genre style short stories, novel excerpts, and experimental work. They accept all forms of poetry, and they publish both traditional and experimental styles in all genres. Submitting authors can expect a response within one to three months.

The Coachella Review accepts submissions 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.

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

If you’d like to learn more or submit to The Coachella Review, 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.

The short fiction market is constantly in a state of flux and public tastes are always shifting and changing. However, one little corner of this rich and diverse landscape has remained consistently strong. For our purposes we’ll call it ‘dark fiction.’ Beneath this rather expansive umbrella you will find numerous categories and sub-categories, with each publication having their own set of guidelines which of course must be adhered to if you want even the smallest sliver of success. But the one thing they all have in common is that, true to the moniker, they all shine a light on the darker side of life.

The Deadlands

Pays $0.10 per word ($0.01 for reprints) for speculative fiction up to 5,000 words in length that concerns itself with death, but also everything death may involve. Publishes short stories, poems, and essays about the “other realms, of the ends we face here, and the beginnings we find elsewhere.”

Details here.

Apex

Specialising in ‘horror, fantasy and SF with an edge’, publishes a bi-monthly mix of original fiction, classic fiction, non-fiction, interviews and reviews. Pays $0.08 a word for new fiction up to 7,500 with a minimum payment of $50. If your story is used in their podcast, they pay an additional $0.01 per word.

Details here.

Three-lobed Burning Eye (3LBE)

Ezine published three times a year seeking original speculative fiction, pays $30 for flash fiction and $100 for longer pieces. “We’re looking for short stories from across the big classifications and those shadowy places between: magical realism, fantastique, slipstream, interstitial, and the weird tale. We will consider suspense or western, though we prefer it contain some speculative element.”

Details here.

The Arcanist

A digital literary magazine focusing on fantasy, sci-fi, and horror flash fiction. Pays $0.10 per word for original stories up to 1,000 words. Reprints or longer works not considered. They say “We strongly believe that fantasy and sci-fi are two of the most important genres in the literary world, helping us escape to distant lands, reflect on our shared humanity, and gaze into the future.”

Details here.

The Dark

Monthly online horror and dark fantasy magazine paying $0.06 per word for short fiction up to 6,000 words that encourages prospective contributors not to, “Be afraid to experiment or to deviate from the ordinary. Be different – try us with fiction that may fall out of ‘regular’ categories.”

Details here.

Vastarien

Literary journal designed to be a source of critical study and creative response to the work of contemporary American horror writer Thomas Ligotti and associated authors and ideas. Pays $0.05 per word for fiction (750-6,000 words), poetry (no more than 50 lines), and scholarly nonfiction articles (2,000-7,500 words).

Details here.

The New Gothic Review

Bi-annual online literary magazine looking for previously unpublished short stories that reimagine Gothic fiction for the 21^st century. “We want stories that are beautifully written, heavily atmospheric, and psychologically chilling. Pays a flat fee of $65 per successful submission of 1,500-5,000 words.

Details here.

The Dread Machine

Digital magazine publishing futuristic dark fiction, speculative fiction, cyberpunk, slipstream, and science fiction under the tag line “Where nightmares are manufactured.” Pays $0.05 per word up to 5,500 words for original fiction and $0.01 per word for reprints. Operates a ‘blind’ submission system.

Details here.

Electric Spec

Pays $20 per acceptance for ‘Shockingly good short works of science fiction, fantasy, and the macabre’ between 250-7000 words in length. Publishes four issues a year and has reading periods for each issue, but never closes to submissions.

Details here.

Bio: Chris Saunders has written over a dozen books and currently writes for a special interest magazine in the UK. Find out more here: https://cmsaunders.wordpress.com/

Reality is the basis of all fiction. No matter how bizarre or fantastical your story may be, its foundation is built on and around the rules of the real world. This may seem like a limitation at first glance (why write fantasy at all if it needs to be reined in by what’s realistic?), but it’s actually a valuable tool. Reality helps you ground your story and make it believable, giving you more room to distort and explore within the setting.

Your story doesn’t need to be realistic in order to be believable. Readers are less concerned with realism than plausibility — you just need to create a world that readers can believe in, even with the fantastical elements. Suspension of disbelief goes a long way, but it’s up to you to do the legwork that allows readers to feel at home and comfortable in your story without questioning its logic at every turn.

There are a lot of different ways to do this, but the key is simply making things make sense within the world you establish. Here are a few tips on how to write realism into unrealistic settings.

1) Establish grounding details.

There are certain universal concepts that will root readers firmly in the reality of your world. Most fundamental laws of physics and biology will carry over unless otherwise indicated — gravity exists, for example, and people need to breathe.

Spend time establishing details that readers will recognize, and they’ll be more accepting of the details they don’t. As long as gravity exists for the majority of the world, readers will be okay with the occasional character that can fly. As long as people need to breathe, readers will allow them to breathe underwater or in alien environments.

Just be sure to hit the ground running — the longer you spend trying to convince the reader that your world exists, the less time you spend actually immersing them in the story.

2) Be consistent with your rules.

Once you’ve created the rules of your world, stick to them. Those aforementioned laws of physics may be different than in the real world, but they likely don’t change rapidly and erratically. The reader’s suspension of disbelief is immediately ruined if they’re asked to extend or shorten it at a moment’s notice.

It’s not just your setting that’s affected by inconsistency, either — the story itself will suffer if you don’t follow your own rules. In her essay “Engineering Impossible Architectures,” Karen Russell discusses how creating “a world without consequences” results in readers simply not caring about the story. Constantly changing the way your world works eliminates any sense of urgency or stakes — if the rules don’t matter, neither does anything else.

Be creative with your words and worlds, but make sure to stick within the confines of what you yourself have established as fact. Otherwise, your story becomes detached from a world that already lacks consistency.

3) Focus on character.

Fantasy worlds are a lot easier to understand when viewed through the eyes of someone who lives there. Emphasizing the human element of your story (even if the characters aren’t technically human) goes a long way to making your world more palatable.

Realistic characters can carry an unrealistic setting. If your characters make sense within the world you’ve created, then the world itself will make more sense as a result. Focus on characterization — let the world inform who your characters are, and let your characters’ experiences inform their perspectives on the world around them. By doing so, your characters become a grounding detail that readers can use to better connect to the setting and story.

Make sure your characters are relatable and well-rooted in your world, and they’ll serve as an effective anchor point that you can build your story around.

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It doesn’t take much to make unrealistic settings feel real. Establishing important ground rules and sticking to them goes a long way toward immersing readers in your story, and giving readers believable characters to follow makes even the most fantastical worlds feel alive and lived-in.

Bio: Having spent all her life in the rainy PNW, Ashley knows the value of spending time inside with a good book. She turned her passion for stories into a career as a freelance fiction editor, sharing her expertise and enthusiasm with her fellow writers.