Submission Guidelines
Last updated 2/1/2021
Dread Imaginings is currently closed to submissions. I plan to re-open sometime in May. Please check back for updates in the spring. Thanks!
What I don’t want:
What I want:
How I want it:
What I plan to do with it:
Dread Imaginings is currently closed to submissions. I plan to re-open sometime in May. Please check back for updates in the spring. Thanks!
What I don’t want:
- Non-Fiction
- Poetry
- Artwork
- Multiple or simultaneous submissions
- Resubmissions of previously rejected MS (if I am interested in seeing a revision of something, I will specifically request it)
- Reprints
What I want:
- Stories up to 4000 words (firm), previously unpublished in any form or medium.
- Stories that are fast. Don’t bog the tale down with unneeded explication.
- Stories that succeed by using concrete detail to show what happens and convey why it is important, rather than trying to tell the reader why. Resist the urge to explain.
- Stories in which the action unfolds as part on a single, continuous scene rather than skimming along through the protagonist’s entire biography.
- Stories set in the contemporary world, rather than historical fiction or tales set in fantasy or science fiction landscapes
- Stories that vividly present your protagonist’s encounter with the horrific, disturbing, uncanny, weird, macabre, and/or grotesque.
- Stories that are built around character. That aforementioned encounter should have an impact upon your protagonist’s outlook and/or actions as the story unfolds.
- Stories that showcase your originality. Creature-features are welcome, but your own monsters will be an easier sell than vampires, zombies, werewolves, et. al.
How I want it:
- Please use standard MLA manuscript format, presented in twelve-point Calibri or Times New Roman
- Send your submission as an attachment in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format to dreadsubmissions@gmail.com. Documents sent in other formats will be deleted unread.
- The subject line of your submission email should be: SUBMISSION: Your Name, “ Story Title” (word count)
- In the body of your email, tell me a little about yourself and your publication history
What I plan to do with it:
- I pay a penny a word (US). Payment is upon publication and only via Paypal.
- With that payment, I am buying first electronic rights of your previously unpublished work. I ask that you not publish the piece elsewhere (in any form or medium) during the first six months it is published with me.
- I plan to publish one (and only one) story a month, each and every month.
- The plan is to keep each story available on the site for a year from its original publication date.
- Copyright and all other rights remain the property of the author.
- I have no intention at this time of archiving materials online past the one-year publication period. If that intention changes, this will be subject to author approval.
- If in the future there is interest in publishing a print anthology collecting material previously published on the site, I will contact authors to discuss the acquisition of additional rights.
- Generally speaking, my response times have been running approximately one month.
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