We're delighted to let you know this new call for submissions is open! Please read through the submission details carefully, as we’ve changed some of our guidelines, and it could result in your submission not being acknowledged if you do not follow the new terms.
Black Horror, Then & Next
We Have Always Dreamed in Darkness
A New Collection of Short Stories
Part of our Beyond & Within series, this exciting new title will complement our Gothic Fantasy-series titles Black Sci-Fi, Afrofuturism and the upcoming Africanfuturism. Edited by award-winning writer, community organizer and educator Maurice Broaddus and scholar, professor and award-winning author Dr. Chesya Burke, with an introduction by Dr. Burke, 2 stories will be selected from these open submissions to be included in the book.
Black Horror, Then & Next: Short Stories (title TBC) will be a landmark anthology surveying the evolution of Black (American) literary horror while boldly imagining its future. We seek stories that recognize the legacy of Black horror, its literary milestones, cultural roots, and innovative voices, while pushing the genre into new, daring territory.
We welcome submissions from Black authors who are engaged with the genre’s history and also eager to reimagine it. Stories should resonate with, challenge, or build upon the foundations laid by writers such as Tananarive Due, Victor LaValle, Dr. Chesya Burke, Maurice Broaddus, and Justina Ireland, while expanding the vision of what Black horror can become.
We are especially excited by fiction that:
• Embraces the power of horror to unsettle, illuminate, or transform
• Draws from Black American cultural histories, mythologies, or lived experiences or forges new ones
• Experiments with form, perspective, or speculative possibility
• Surprises us with fresh nightmares, folklore, or futures
• Honors the past while writing fearlessly toward tomorrow
A librarian, editor, and community Afrofuturist, Maurice Broaddus has over a dozen novels and over 100 short stories in print. As an editor, he’s worked on the Dark Faith series, Streets of Shadows, the 'People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror' issue of Nightmare Magazine, and special issues of Apex Magazine and Fireside Magazine. Currently, he’s the special editor at Apex Magazine.
Dr. Chesya Burke has been called brilliant, diabolical, and relentlessly steadfast when it comes to social issues. She admits, not-so-reluctantly, that she can be one, or all, of these things depending on the circumstances. Full of Kentucky grit and ambition, she holds four degrees, including a Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Her most recent publications can be found in Out There Screaming, edited by the horror juggernaut, Jordan Peele; the Amazon Original Podcast, I Hear Fear; and on the scholarly front, her monograph, Hero Me Not, was published by Rutgers University Press.
Submit to: anthologies@flametreepublishing.com
Terms:
- Multiple submissions are fine but must be in separate emails.
- Simultaneous submissions are fine, but you must have the right to license your story in an anthology.
- Stories using AI-generated text will not be accepted.
- Please only submit unpublished/original/new stories for consideration. Reprints will not be accepted for consideration.
- Please include a short author biography in your submission email to introduce yourself and indicate your indigenous heritage.
- For accepted stories, we pay Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) rates of 8 cents/6 pence per word.
- We will aim to read each story and confirm its status within 4 months of the submission deadline.
- Payment for the chosen stories will be made within 30 days of the final advertised publication date (see our website flametreepublishing.com for details), although some may be paid earlier than that.
- Submission does not imply the right to publication. Each story will be read and assessed by the selection panel.
Important Notice about Submissions and Guidelines
We're always looking for better ways of working, so we've tweaked our submission process to allow us to read more stories and spend more time assessing the balance of our books.
- Submissions must use the dedicated email address.
- The subject line of the email must be the story title.
- The body of the email should state which anthology your story is being submitted to.
- The file with the story must be attached to the email (.docx, .doc or .rtf format).
- The name of the file must match the name in the subject line.
- If submitting more than one story, please submit one story per email.
Other useful tips for a more successful submission:
- The file name of the submission must be the story name only.
- Please just use spaces between words in the title (not _ or - ).
- If the story name starts with A or The, please use it at the beginning of the file name.
- Story length is most likely to be successful at 2000–4000 words, but we will still read stories slightly outside this range.
- If submitting a story that has recently been submitted to us for consideration to another anthology, please state this in the submission email.
- Deadline for submissions is 14th January 2025.
Thank you, and good luck!
