CALLIHOO Newsletter Market News for Writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Julia West, Editor Vol. 9, No. 8 18 December 2001 Website: http://www.sff.net/people/julia.west/CALLIHOO/index.htm HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ----------------------------------------------------------------- IN THIS ISSUE News Publication Notes Deadlines Anthology Beyond the Last Star (gls) Market Information Strange Horizons ----------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS PUBLICATION NOTES Julia West's story, "An Old-Fashioned Christmas Tree," can be read in the December 2001 issue of =Dragons, Knights, and Angels= magazine at http://home.quixnet.net/~dshelley/issue9/tree.htm Merry Christmas! ----------------------------------------------------------------- DEADLINES Check out the CALLIHOO website, listed above, for more information on these contests, magazine issues, and anthologies. (Where it says "GLs in Vol. X No. Y," these are volume and issue of the CALLIHOO newsletter.) Writers of the Future, 1st quarter 2002 Deadline 31 December 2001 [$1000 first, $750 2nd, $500 3rd place. No entry fee. L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, P.O. Box 1630-JBW, Los Angeles, CA 90078. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 1)] Deathlings.com "Technology Run Amuck" contest Deadline 1 Jan 2002 [Use contests to submit to magazines. H/DF to 4,000 wds. Pays 3 cents/wd. E-mail subs only. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 6)] High Fantasy Contest Deadline 15 January 2002 [F (high, S&S), 1,000 to 20,000 wds. 1st $100 +pub, 2nd $50 +pub, 3rd $25 +pub. Entry fee $5, plus $2 for each addit'l entry. No reprints. E-mail subm only. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 6)] ByLine Children's Story or Picture Book Contest Deadline 25 January 2002 [Short story or picture book for kids from 2-12. Pre-school; 5 to 8; or 9 to 12. Entry fee $4. Prizes: $60, $35, $20. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 5)] ByLine Short Story Contest Deadline 5 February 2002 [General fiction up to 5,000 words. Entry fee $5. Prizes: $70, $40, $25. (Gls in Vol. 9 No. 5)] Beyond the Last Star Open 1 December 2001 to 1 March 2002 [Print anthology, SF/F/H, pays 5-10 cents/wd ($25 min, $300 max) on accept. No sim or mult subm, no reprints, E-mail subm okay but snailmail preferred. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 8).] Deathlings.com "Family Secrets" contest Deadline 15 March 2002 [Use contests to submit to magazines. H/DF to 4,000 wds. Pays 3 cents/wd. E-mail subs only. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 6)] ByLine Flash Fiction Contest Deadline 5 April 2002 Flash fiction under 1000 words. Entry fee $5. Prizes: $60, $30, $20. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 5)] ByLine New-Talent Short Story Contest Deadline 4 May 2002 [Open to any writer who never has won a cash prize in any ByLine fiction category. Maximum 5,000 words. Entry fee $5. Prizes: $50, $35, $25, $15. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 5)] Deathlings.com "The 70s Were Hell and We Didn't Even Know It" contest Deadline 15 Jun 2002 [Use contests to submit to magazines. H/DF to 4,000 wds. Pays 3 cents/wd. E-mail subs only. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 6)] Imaginings Deadline 15 June 2002 [Print anthology, SF/F 8,000-15,000 wds, pays $950 per story + 10% royalties. No reprints or E-mail subm. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 4).] Downstate Story magazine Yearly Deadline 30 June 2002 [Annual literary printzine, genre fiction to 2,000 wds. Pays $50/story on accept. No reprints or E-mail subs. Buys 10 stories/year. (GLs in Vol. 9 No. 6)] Low Port Deadline July 2002 [Open antho, SF/F 3,000 to 10,000 wds, pays 5-8 cents/wd. on accept, reading between Sept 2001 and July 2002. No electronic subm. Low Port, Lee and Miller, P.O. Box 179, Unity, Maine 04988-0179. (GLs in Vol. 9, No. 1)] ----------------------------------------------------------------- ANTHOLOGY BEYOND THE LAST STAR [Print antho, SF/F/H, pays 5-10 cents/wd ($25 min, $300 max) on accept. No sim or mult subm, no reprints, E-mail subm okay but snailmail preferred. Open 1 Dec 2001 to 1 Mar 2002 (but may fill up sooner).] Submission Guidelines for =Beyond the Last Star=, Edited by Sherwood Smith Volume V in the Darkfire Anthology Series Important Note: =Beyond the Last Star= is the last volume in the Darkfire anthology series. We currently have no plans for another series. Guidelines These guidelines may be distributed freely to any venue. However, if you are reading these guidelines somewhere other than at http://www.sff.net/books/guidelines.html, you should check there before continuing. We reserve the right to make changes in the guidelines from time to time, and the official version will always be at http://www.sff.net/books/guidelines.html. In particular, we will post a note there when the anthology is full (which will probably happen long before the official closing date). General No simultaneous submissions, and only one submission at a time. No reprints. No fan fiction. Must be original stories. Dates Open submission starting December 1, 2001 and continuing until March 1, 2002, or until the anthology is full. Payment Payment is 5-10 cents per word ($25 minimum, $300 maximum per story) on acceptance for First World Anthology Rights. Regular Mail Submissions Please mail your story to the address below. Include a Self-Addressed and Stamped Envelope (SASE) if you want a reply! Beyond the Last Star C/O Lowentrout 5225 St. George Rd Westminster CA 92683 Email Submissions Email submissions to darkfire@sff.net (plain ASCII text only). READ THIS BEFORE YOU SEND A STORY VIA EMAIL: I do not like reading on screen, and my computer time is very limited. Also, printing out hundreds of stories gets expensive. Therefore, e-subs from continental US and Canada will be gotten to only if and when there is a lull in the snail subs. Exception: Submissions from writers outside North America may be sent via email (because postage is expensive and events seem to make snail delivery lag.) Email subs from overseas will be printed out and slid in with snail subs, which will be read in order of arrival. Format Please format your manuscript using Courier or a similar typeface, double-spaced, with large margins. Include your email address on the first page. If your story is selected for the anthology, we will ask you to provide it electronically in MS Word or RTF. Description Stories for this volume should be set in the far far distant future--so far distant that there is little connection with our present world. Therefore, almost anything goes in terms of setting and genre: =Beyond the Last Star= is for stories that take place in the universe after ours--either metaphorically or literally--on new worlds after the next Big Bang, in a fairytale universe, in a spiritual afterlife, or in new sort of life here. Recent volumes in the series dealt with technological advances we might expect to see in the near or distant future rising from humanity's current situation. Think beyond that to what comes next--changes of kind rather than changes of degree. Characters may be human, alien, machine, sentient suns (but be sure to explain how that works), or something entirely new. If your story is SF, it should not focus on gadgetry directly, or be derived from any of the standard tropes. If you do the next-step- in-evolution-is-psychic thing, avoid having your characters "blesh" or do "stardances" ... be original, be wildly creative, be brave. If your story is fantasy and has damsels in distress, dragons, evil wizards, or otherwise goes back in time to a real or imagined milieu on Earth, make a nod toward the circumstances that allowed the same culture to rise again on a new world. If magic works, it had better have a mechanism and discernable rules. If your story is horror, emulate King's =Apt Pupil= or =Delores Claibourne= rather than his =Christine= or =Carrie=. That is, go for drama and psychological horror rather than magic and unexplained (and unexplainable) things that just happen. The successful submission will have strong characters, realistic challenges, and solutions that come from clear thinking or depth of insight. Tone and genre are open, but dystopian visions will be a tough sell for this book. Stories don't have to [be] suitable for =Reader's Digest=, but should have an element of hope: characters should show growth, and challenges should be resolved. [http:// www.sff.net/books/guidelines.html] ----------------------------------------------------------------- MARKET INFORMATION STRANGE HORIZONS Jed Hartman, fiction editor for =Strange Horizons=, says, "Wanted to let everyone know that =Strange Horizons= is temporarily closing to fiction submissions during December, from 12/1/2001 through 12/31/2001. We're a bit overstocked on fiction right now, and it wouldn't be fair to keep looking at new submissions that we can't accept. "We will be reopening to submissions on January 1, 2002. "Feel free to pass this information along, but if you do, please be sure to mention that this is a temporary closure only. (Probably not worth telling the print market listings; we'll be taking subs again before the next issues of most of the print listings come out.) All submissions that we haven't yet responded to are still under consideration. We will respond to those previously submitted items as we make decisions about them. "Note that submissions in other departments are unaffected; this applies only to fiction." [sff.publishing.strangehorizons, 1 Dec 2001]