Guernica is a leading Canadian publisher with good worldwide distribution, and excellent distribution in Canada. Established in 1978, they publish Canadian and international authors works of literary fiction and nonfiction. They are highly respected. You can get a good feel for what they publish by going here.

Guernica’s annual reading period runs from January 1 to April 30. It is open for the same time period every year. Submissions are only allowed during this window.

During this time they are also open to submissions for their MiroLand imprint. For this imprint they “accept queries in the areas of memoir, how-to, self-help, graphic novels, art books, cookbooks and children’s literature, as well as genre literature”. When querying to the MiroLand imprint, please indicate as much. Before querying get a feel for what MiroLand publishes by visiting their website here.

They accept queries via their submissions form (on the right of their web page), and manuscripts via email (with the manuscript attached).

Do not query or submit unless you feel like your work is a good fit.

To learn more, go to their website here.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2020 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.

She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

All writing published in Mojo is also considered for Wichita State’s annual print journal, Mikrokosmos, a publication that’s been around for over fifty years. They’ve published literary giants like William S. Burroughs and William Stafford, alongside brand-new authors.

Mojo is published twice a year online, in the fall and spring, and Mikrokosmos is published once a year in print. Each online edition contains work from around a dozen contributors. Mojo pays authors $15 per piece.

Right now, Mojo is open to submissions through April 1. Poets may submit up to four poems, totaling eight pages or fewer. Alternatively, poets may submit one long poem, even if it exceeds eight pages. Authors of fiction and nonfiction may submit up to 6,000 words. Mojo also accepts flash writing. Flash authors may submit up to the three pieces, totaling 6,000 words or fewer.

The editors of Mojo have written guidelines for each genre to help submitting writers understand the aesthetic of the journal. You can read these guidelines by following the link at the end of this article. Before submitting, it’s also a good idea to read the online journal to get a sense of Mojo’s style.

Mojo accepts submissions through Submittable, not via email or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions but ask that authors withdraw work published elsewhere. They do not accept previously published work.

Mojo only accepts submissions that adhere to the guidelines they’ve posted on their website. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting. If you’d like to learn more or submit to Mojo, 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.

Wildside Press: Black Cat Mystery Magazine – Cozies
They are open for fiction submission on the Cozies theme. Their guidelines say, “Cozies are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur off stage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.” For this submission window, they only want cozies. They like stories with characters who feel real, in situations that are possible (and plausible). Also, there should be a crime in the story. They want stories of 1,000-8,000 words (will look at stories up to 15,000 words). Pay is $0.03/word (up to $250). The deadline is 31 March 2021 the Cozies theme. Details here (scroll down). Wildside Press is also the publisher of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine.

Strand Magazine
They are temporarily open for submissions. They want “mysteries, detective stories, tales of terror and the supernatural as well as short stories. Stories can be set in any time or place, provided they are well written, the plots interesting and well thought. … Stories written in the tradition of Stanley Ellin, Agatha Christie, and Jeffery Deaver which contain a twist are among our favorites. We are not interested in stories with explicit sexual content or repeated foul language.” (An earlier version of this magazine published stories by a then-unknown physician, Arthur Conan Doyle, who created, arguably, the most famous detective in the world.) They prefer stories of 2,000-6,000 words, and may occasionally publish flash or novella-length work (see guidelines). Pay is $100-150. The deadline is unspecified. Details here.

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories: More Christmas Adventures
MX Publishing is a UK-based publisher of Sherlock Holmes books. Regarding the short fiction anthology, the editor wants stories for the Fall 2021 edition of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories: More Christmas Adventures, a companion to the 2016 volumes, Christmas Adventures. Length is unspecified (see the blog post). The deadline for this anthology is 30 June 2021. Details here.

The Dark City Mystery Magazine
The Dark City is dedicated to “the love of story, and in particular, the rough and tumble of the world of crime and violence. We are fans of story that has roots in reality but we do consider humorous situations and characters to be part of reality. We hope to acquire stories that leave readers thinking about the characters and their dilemma.” They want stories of 1,000-7,500 words. Pay is $25. Details here

All Due Respect
Their tagline is “Lowlife Literature” and they publish “hard-as-nails crime fiction.” They want stories of 1,500-5,000 words, and pay $25. They’re open now for submissions. Details here.

Flame Tree Publishing: Chilling Crime Anthology
They want chilling crime stories for their anthology. They want stories of “the cold cases, the grim murders, the desperate villains, and the race against time to solve the crime.” Submissions most likely to succeed are in the 2,000-4,000 words range. They also accept reprints. Pay is $0.08/word. Their deadline is soon, on 14 March 2021. Details here.

Gumshoe Review
This magazine publishes short fiction mysteries, and essays on topics of interest to readers, writers and students of the mystery genre. Their guidelines say, “We’re looking for stories where the investigator is the protagonist, or at least a significant character, and the focus is on solving a solving a crime, or getting someone out of a jam, or seeking some sort of justice.” Submissions should be up to 1,000 words. Pay is $0.05/word, up to $50. Details here.  

TTA Press: Crimewave
This is a respected UK-based crime and mystery magazine, and they publish stories of up to 10,000 words. Their sister publications are Interzone (science fiction and fantasy) and Black Static (horror). Pay is unspecified. Details here (for Crimewave).

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.

fanfiction: fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, film, etc.

Up until last year, I had completely dismissed fanfiction. From my limited exposure to the art form, I was under the impression that it was poorly written, a waste of time, and was exclusively for starstruck fangirls. Then a pandemic struck the world and we were all suddenly in need of content – and I found that I couldn’t have been more wrong. It took barely a week sorting through the multitude of work on Archive of Our Own before I was hooked, and only a month before I was trying my hand at my own fanfics. Nine months later, I’d written and published 500,000 words and learned more from that process than I could have imagined.

Here are five lessons I learned from fanfiction that are essential for every writer.

Audience:

If you open up Archive of Our Own, (or fanfiction.net, or Wattpad, but AO3 is the one I recommend), one of the first things you’ll notice is that a lot of the story concepts are weird. Yet, they still have views – every single one of them. Whatever characters writers pair up, or alternative universe they want to drop them in, or if they want to write a 100,000 word about the barista from the protagonist’s second-favorite cafe, those fics will find an audience.

When I started writing fanfiction, I wrote the scenarios I wanted to see. I didn’t expect other people to read, let alone enjoy them, and yet they did. As my stay in my fandom of choice continued, it was increasingly tempting to write for the characters or pairings that garnered the most hits and kudos (the AO3 version of ‘likes’). Every time this temptation came around, I reminded myself that fanfiction is supposed to be fun, and stuck to the fics I was actually excited to write, and was rewarded by not only a growing audience but a regular one. While ‘write the book you’d want to read’ is a common piece of writing advice, I got to see it in action here. Don’t play to what’s popular – play to what drives you.

Motivation:

The largest killer of the writing process, whether you’re new to the craft or a seasoned master, is motivation. While writing is hard, sitting down to write is harder, especially if you’re unsure if what you’re writing is ever going to get published. Even if it is, that milestone is hours of work and many months – maybe even years – in the future. Not so with fanfiction. While some writers upload works in one go, the most common method is posting chapter by chapter, which makes the motivation part of the writing process a lot easier in three ways.

Firstly, it’s much easier to approach writing and editing a 2000-5000 word chapter than an entire book. Secondly, there is a tangible audience awaiting your work. Having hundreds, maybe even thousands, of accountability partners works wonders for making your daily word count! Lastly, you are uploading work in exchange for praise. This is another unique aspect of fanfiction. The community is used to new and inexperienced writers, they already love the characters you’re writing about, and are very accomodating of all skillsets. Usually, when we share original work  we are looking for feedback, which means the dreaded critique and exposure of flaws. While we’re not writers to get pats on the back (if you are, you’re in the wrong business here), knowing that your work is going to be met with genuine enthusiasm and compliments makes sitting down to that keyboard a whole lot easier. 

Community: 

Writing can be lonely. We spend a lot of time in worlds of our creation with characters only we know, hoping the world we eventually introduce them to will treat them kindly. While having a writing group is great, everyone who turns up is usually look for something in return. They also usually consist of the writers you happened to know, or ones that were geographically convenient, as opposed to those with shared interests. With fanfiction, you’re in the unique position of having peers that are writing about the same characters as you. This means you can swap theories, tips and tricks, and gush over each other’s work. Associated fandom platforms such as Discord and Tumblr also mean you can connect with writers you enjoy outside of AO3 (which doesn’t offer a direct messaging service).

You are also sharing that community with not only other writers, but your favorite writers. We all have our literary idols, but few of us are going to get to strike up a conversation with Neil Gaiman or Sally Rooney any time soon, let alone get them to read and review our work in return. I still remember the first time one of my favorite fanfic writers left a comment on something I’d written – it was a confidence boost for the ages. Idols quickly became peers and later collaborators, and eventually close friends.

Marketing:

The best way to learn something is to do it. It’s also a fact that, in order to be a successful writer, you need an equally successful writer platform. I had absolutely no intention of building a writer platform on AO3, but the more time I spend posting and reading on the site, the more I learned and ended up building one anyway – mostly by accident. 

There’s a reason AO3 is considered the superior fanfiction platform. The layout is easy to read, and the tagging and search tools allow you to locate whichever combination of characters, fandoms, and tropes your heart desires. As I was searching for fics to read, I started to take note of what made me click on a fic and what made me skip over one. Then, what made me comment on a fic, what made me seek out other works that the writer had posted on, and so on. While some of these were obvious – like making sure your writing is of a certain quality and typo-free – the more time passed, the better I learned to tag fics, write summaries that caught readers’ attention, and how to direct readers to other things I had written. I learned not only what my brand was, but how to build and leverage said brand. Finally, I found several fan-run writing challenges (e.g. Big Bangs, Whumptober) that grouped me together with some of the fandom’s most prominent and established writers, introducing my work to an audience who was looking for that content. 

Passion:

Lastly, fanfiction reignited my passion for writing. I’d never wanted to stop writing, but it had become a slog, a chore, the thing I made myself do and felt guilty when I didn’t. I couldn’t remember the last time I chose to sit down at the keyboard because I wanted to, let alone it being an activity I looked forward to engaging with. After I starting writing fanfiction, writing would be the first thing I’d want to do in the morning and the last thing I wanted to do before bed.

Part of this was because I was allowing myself to write what I wanted to write and, looping back to the first lesson, found an audience who confirmed that I was writing was good. Soon, that passion trickled back into my original work as I stopped writing what I thought was considered good, and settled back into the things I wanted to write instead. This passion led to a higher word count in a single year that I had had in my whole writing career to date. If I hadn’t completed my 10,000 hours of practice before I started on AO3, then I most certainly have now. Because I was writing so much, I could see my progress, and how much I was improving – and the increasing view counts and regular readers confirmed that. 

Takeaways:

To summarise, the five lessons writers can learn from fanfiction are: 

1. Write what you want to read; there’s a good chance others will want to read it too
2. Break down long-form writing into sizeable goals, such as chapters, and give yourself motivation and accountability for each milestone
3. Find a community of writers that share your passions and interests 
4. Pay attention to how other writers are marketing themselves, and to what your brand is 
5. Lastly, if writing has become a chore, find an outlet that makes it a passion once more. And who knows, maybe that outlet could be fanfiction!

Cat Sole is the co-host and producer of the film and writing podcast “Kill the Cat”. She is the screenwriter behind several shorts and series, including the web series “Codependent” and the award winning short films “The 11:59 to Washington Square” and “How to Write A Screenplay.”