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fairy willows

“Look, pussy willows.” I point out to my small person.

“What if they’re fairy eggs, and they’re going to hatch and make everything turn green soon?”

“Good one.” This is our game. Who can come up with the wildest ‘what if?’. The winner is our imagination. I consider my answer, sipping from my coffee. “What if the tree is a fairy nursery and the pussy willows are fairy babies swaddled up to stay warm? Shh. We don’t want to wake them up.”

“Wake up fairies!” My small person hollers. “It’s time to make everything grow again!”

There’s a rustle. A robin chirps. A crocus pokes through the leaf litter. Yellow coltsfoot blossoms dot the ditches. A rotten snowbank collapses and trickles into the water. My small person’s eyes grow wide.

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Submission Sundays: The Never Beyond

Welcome to this week’s edition of Submission Sundays. Every week I bring you a new call for submissions, and this week it’s a brand new magazine! Each call will contain a speculative element and will offer payment upon acceptance.

Where ever you are on your writing journey, calls can inspire creativity and lead you to new markets. If you’re starting out, getting used to submissions – and rejections – is important. Every established writer has a stack of rejections behind them. It takes guts and a willingness to fail.

Ready? Allons-y!

The Never Beyond

Eligibility: accepting horror, fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism stories up to 3500 words, including flash, which have not been previously published. Query anything over 3500 words.

Caveat: you must have a PayPal account to receive payment (note: if you’re new to submissions, this isn’t unusual).

What makes this call stand out: while there are no back issues to get a feel for The Never Beyond (I love this title), there is a unique thrill to being published in the inaugural issue of a magazine which has the potential to become quite successful.

Payment: $0.01 per word (currency unknown).

Submit by: no dates given, but as this is a magazine rather than an anthology, temporary closures and re-openings should be expected.

Click here to go to the original call for details.

Happy writing!

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the ghosts of old summers

The ghosts of old summers linger within the slumbering trees as they hold their naked vigil against the frigid length of winter. They haunt me from my window, whispering of a riot of green and a lullaby of peepers. Fireflies. Flowers. A slick of sweat above my lip. The scent of soil as I pull a carrot from the garden. The buzz of a bee. The shriek of cicada. The scurry of some small creature in the undergrowth.

A rush of bracing wind scatters my ghosts. The cold austerity of a winter morning holding fast. For now. But not for long.

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Submission Sundays: UFOs and Neil Gaiman

Welcome to this week’s edition of Submission Sundays. Each week, I bring you a unique call for submissions. Each call will contain a speculative element and will offer payment upon acceptance.

Where ever you are on your writing journey, calls can inspire creativity and lead you to new markets. If you’re starting out, getting used to submissions – and rejections – is important. Every established writer has a stack of rejections behind them. It takes guts and a willingness to fail.

Ready? This week’s call is a favorite of mine:

Unidentified Funny Objects 7

Eligibility: *humorous* speculative fiction from 500-5000 words. No reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.

Caveat: this is a tough market. According to Duotrope, less than 1% of submitted stories are accepted. Does this mean you shouldn’t submit? Heck no. It just means you shouldn’t be discouraged if you receive a rejection.

What makes this call stand out: Neil Gaiman, my favorite author, has headlined a previous issue of UFO. Do I want to be published in the same series as my hero? You bet!

Payment: $0.10 per word (American) plus a contributor copy

Submit by: April 30th, 2018

Click here to go the original call for more details.

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Submission Sundays: the Horror of Pizza

Welcome to this week’s edition of Submission Sundays. Each week, I’ll be bringing you a unique call for submission. Each call will contain a speculative element and will offer payment upon acceptance.

Where ever you are on your writing journey, calls can inspire creativity. Getting used to submissions – and rejections – is important. Every established writer has a stack of rejections behind them. It takes guts and a willingness to fail.

Ready? Here’s this week’s call:

Tales From the Crust: An Anthology of Pizza Horror

Eligibility: horror stories revolving around pizza, 1000 to 5000 words. Multiple and simultaneous submissions allowed, please query reprints first.

Photo from darkmoondigest.com

Caveat: the publishers want this call taken seriously. No humor. Scare them.

What makes this call stand out: How will writers pull the concept of pizza horror from silly to frightening? Is Soylent Green an available topping?Let the imagination games begin!

Payment: $0.03 per word (currency unknown)

Submit by: June 1, 2018

Click here to go to the original call for details.

Happy writing!

Posted on by JenniferShelby · 2 Comments

talisman of flight

The phoenix flew, disappearing into the azure skies forever. The sun glistened off his human lover’s fallen tears as waves crept up to steal them. He left her a feather, a talisman of flight. Angry, hurt, and unwilling to forgive him, she left it there.

The waves knew not to touch it.

The rocks held back. The sand shivered and lay still, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed.

A child toddled along, craving seaside treasure. Seeing the feather she grasped it and up and up she flew, soaring over islands, bays, and oceans, till she landed by the phoenix’s side.

The phoenix wondered what this could mean. Why had his human love sent a child in her stead? Could it be … his? But nay, such things aren’t possible. Are they?

“Bird,” said the child. “Fire.”

The phoenix nodded and sent the child home with fire. A fool’s gift to one too young to fear it.

Her village burned, till the waves came up and doused it, gathering the child and pulling her into the sea. Fascinated by the sky it could smell on her skin.

There it kept her, safe from flames. She walked the seabed a smouldering ember, her head above water. Not sky, not sea, not earth, not flame.

Not happy.

The embers of her skin cracked as she grew, dividing into plates. Toughening with endless callouses and turning green with algae. Her eyes brightened with inner flame and her pupils lengthened into slits. Webbing grew beneath her arms as the talisman of flight twisted them to wings.

She flapped the wings and left the sea, fire roiling in her belly. The dragon soared across the sky. She left the talisman behind, free.

Frightened waves hurried the feather to shore and dared not touch it again.

The rocks held back. The sand shivered and lay still, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed.

A child toddled along, looking for seaside treasure.

Posted on by JenniferShelby · 4 Comments

Submission Sundays: the Lantern and the Nature of Cities

Welcome to the inaugural post of a new writerly series called Submission Sundays. Each week, I’ll be bringing you a unique call for submission. Each call will contain a speculative element and will offer payment. As I want this to be an inclusive event, if the call is limited to a certain demographic I will offer a second call for submissions without those limitations.

2018-03-17 19.59.43.jpg

Where ever you are on your writing journey, calls can inspire creativity. Getting comfortable with submissions – and rejections – is important. Every established writer has a stack of rejections behind them. It takes guts and a willingness to fail.

Ready? Read on …

 

Engen Books/Kit Sora Flash Fiction Contest

Eligibility: open to unpublished works no greater than 250 words by Canadian writers (not Canadian? Don’t worry, there’s a second call below) in response to this photo by Kit Sora Photography:

kitsoracontest
photo by Kit Sora Photography

What makes this call stand out: visual photo prompts open up the imagination in new and unexpected ways.

Caveat: entrants are required to share the contest via social media.

Payment: $0.10 per word, Canadian.

Submit by: April 14th, 2018. No time is given, so err on the side of caution and submit early!!

Click here to head over to the original call for complete details and submission guidelines.

Stories of the Nature of Cities 2099 Prize for Urban Flash Fiction

Eligibility: unpublished work of fiction, one entry per writer, to the topic of a green city in 2099, under 1000 words. Unlimited demographic.

What makes this call stand out: speculative fiction has historically influenced our current technologies, which means your green city ideas now may have an effect on cities of the future.

Payment: one gold prize of $3000 (currency unknown), two silver prizes of $1500, and 3 bronze prizes of $500. Plus publication.

Submit by:  April 15th, 2018, 11:59 EDT

Click here to go to the original call for more details and submission guidelines.

Good luck to everyone  submitting stories and happy writing always,                                                                                                                                                                              Jennifer

 

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only wings remain

Water seeped in long ago, washing away the words. The stories disappeared but their mystery remained. The pages wrinkled as they dried, half-hearted hues clouding the once-bleached paper. Bloodstains of the stories killed in the flood, perhaps.

Glue dissolved, but the charcoal sketches held fast in the book’s embrace. Now they gather dots of mildew like age spots on the hands of couple growing old together.

The pain of losing them is gone now and the lost stories shift into myth. I think I like them best this way, though I’ve switched to waterproof ink.

Posted on by JenniferShelby · 4 Comments

hunting stories

I walk through the forest hunting stories in the fold of old bark, the twist of a leaf. That old beetled undergrowth. 

IMG_20180309_084019_633.jpgStumps rot away into miniature castles, old galls whisper of dark magics, and scars turn into doorways at the base of a tree. These doorways captivate me. Tucked away yet plentiful, turning entire forests into magic hidden villages.

If I knock, will someone answer? Who are they? How do they live their lives? Their stories weave themselves in and around my imagination.

If I don’t knock, if I just step inside, will I find myself outside of time? Will the world be changed around me? Will I be different when I return? Will you know me? Will you notice it in my eyes, in the way I wear my hair?

But then again, I couldn’t. I couldn’t walk inside without a knock, catching some poor dryad mid-shower, shocked and reaching for a towel.

Come on, then, knock. Let’s go.

I hesitate. If I don’t knock, the stories rule the day. If I do knock, then my imagination is limited to what it finds. My knuckles tingle. I shove them in my pocket and move on. My children need me. I need them. Mothers must tread careful with the risk of getting whisked away to other worlds.  I’m hunting stories, not adventure. For now.