Easter Contest 2020

Guidelines

Theme: Rebirth

Submissions are currently

CLOSED

and will open on 1 February 2020

What we're looking for

We're looking for original and previously unpublished fantasy and horror short fiction of maximum 1500 words, written in English. While we don't officially have a minimum word count, we have found that shorter stories must work harder to convince us.

The theme, fitting for the season, is Rebirth. Send us your stories featuring vampires, revenants or zombies or anything else that maybe should have stayed below the ground.

We particularly love straight stories where someone is trying to get something and meets an obstacle, but we can also appreciate a story that touches us purely emotionally.

The legal stuff

The winner of the contest will receive £300 (payment currently made only through PayPal). This is for exclusive first world electronic rights (stories published on our website) and for nonexclusive reprint rights in our yearly anthologies containing stories from the previous 12 months (published on Amazon as paperback and ebook). We reserve the right to archive work on our website to keep it available to our readers.

We will also mention two shortlisted stories on our website, but we will not publish them. Hopefully, that will give those two something to add to their bio. It will definitely allow them to still submit their stories to other magazines.

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• All decisions regarding the winner are final

• No contest entry fees will be returned

• By submitting, you are agreeing to all contest rules

• Contest rules are subject to change

How to submit

Before you submit your story, please first use the Donate button at the bottom of the site to pay the submission fee:

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£7 for the first story

£5 for every additional story

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Please add the title of your story and your name to the Notes when making the payment.

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Please email your stories as attachments (.doc or .docx) to  (one attachment per story). Make sure you use the words "Easter Contest" in the subject line, so your email doesn't get lost in the regular submissions.

Please use the standard manuscript format  (you can download a template here).

Don't forget to include in the body of the email the genre and the approximate word count.

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We accept multiple submissions.

We don't accept simultaneous submissions.

What happens next

We will acknowledge submissions as fast as possible, usually within a day or two. If you haven't heard from us after five days, please send us a quick query per email.

We will announce a winner and two shortlisted stories on the 31th of March 2020 on our website and our Facebook page.

We understand that this is a long time to be waiting for a response, especially without being able to submit anywhere else. We will try our best to respond faster to stories we haven't picked.

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The winning story will be published as our monthly story on the 15th of April 2020.

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If you have any questions regarding the contest, please use the Contact Us page to get in touch.

Don't forget to check the website for upcoming stories or follow us on Facebook.