Call for Submissions: Songs from the Void

Cover mockup for Songs from the Void
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Closed to submissions

We have reached our tar­get page length and are now closed to addi­tion­al sub­mis­sions. Thank you for con­sid­er­ing out anthol­o­gy. We had a ton of great sto­ries come in, mak­ing it excru­ci­at­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to choose, but we man­aged. Thank you!

There’s noth­ing out here.

Out in the void. Just the infi­nite vac­u­ous expanse between stars, the dead zone. We were inter­stel­lar when the core died. Just shut off. Leav­ing us strand­ed. We try to name the stars, (That one’s Arc­turus, I think) but they all look the same out here. Iden­ti­fy­ing our own is point­less. It’s one pin­prick of light amongst thou­sands. There’s no one to call to.

Not that they could hear from out here anyway.

It’s just the three of us, me on my own sled. The repairs have not gone well. Jas­mine says she’s seen some­thing mov­ing out in that void. I’ve seen it too, slid­ing along in the black, always just with­in the periph­er­al. Tar, she says. More like black­ened blood, bub­bles coa­lesc­ing from the void. It wants to be seen, but just bare­ly. It’s just us … dear God, just us. I know it, and she knows it too.

There’s some­thing out here.

Songs from the Void is an upcom­ing anthol­o­gy of short hor­ror tales set in the bleak­ness of space. We are seek­ing sub­mis­sions for this anthol­o­gy, which will see its launch on Kick­starter mid-2025.

Send us your sci-fi ter­rors, your Love­craft­ian leviathans, your mon­sters lurk­ing through cor­ri­dors, your iso­la­tion fears. What­ev­er it is, if it’s in space and scary, we want to see it.

Please fol­low our guide­lines for what we don’t want to see, found at Sub­mis­sions.

Please be cer­tain your sto­ry is for­mat­ted with stan­dard short sto­ry for­mat­ting with your per­son­al details on the first page. We pre­fer Gara­mond or Ale­greya, 12 pt font.

Sto­ries must be at least 3,500 words long, and our loose upper lim­it is 12,000 words. Please, if you sub­mit a piece longer than this, be cer­tain every word is necessary.

Please sub­mit the sto­ry as a .doc or .docx document.

Keep the cov­er let­ter short and sim­ple. Noth­ing fan­cy required here. Please include a short bio told in the third per­son and include your pro­nouns. This is han­dled like such: Max Blood (he/him) loves his pro­nouns. This bio will be used in the anthol­o­gy at the end of your story.

Simul­ta­ne­ous sub­mis­sions are encour­age; how­ev­er, please noti­fy us prompt­ly if your sto­ry is accept­ed elsewhere.

This anthology pays professionalnal rates of $0.05 USD / word.

To sub­mit, click here:

Closed to submissions

We have reached our tar­get page length and are now closed to addi­tion­al sub­mis­sions. Thank you for con­sid­er­ing out anthol­o­gy. We had a ton of great sto­ries come in, mak­ing it excru­ci­at­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to choose, but we man­aged. Thank you!

What’s scarier than short horror fiction?

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Care­tak­er at  // mail@maxblood.pub // Author Web­page // Oth­er Sto­ries

When he’s not home­school­ing and par­ent­ing, Max Blood spends his days spin­ning hor­ror tales for online audi­ences. He spe­cial­izes in the weird, the cos­mic, and the mon­strous. With a pas­sion for turn­ing cryp­tid sto­ries into pos­i­tive­ly hor­rif­ic mon­sters, he has cre­at­ed many tales of mon­ster hor­ror. He has also dab­bled in ghost sto­ries and body horror.

He cur­rent­ly lives in Bak­ers­field, Cal­i­for­nia where he writes his nov­els and short sto­ries, and in 2023, he launched Max Blood­’s Mau­soleum, a mag­a­zine of orig­i­nal hor­ror stories.

This Post Has 10 Comments

  1. Steven M. Vance February 26, 2024 Reply

    When does the sub­mis­sion peri­od close?

    1. Max Blood February 26, 2024 Reply

      Hel­lo Steven,

      Thanks for the ques­tion! The sub­mis­sion peri­od does­n’t close until Jan­u­ary 1, 2025, so you’ve got some time.

  2. K. April 9, 2024 Reply

    Are you inter­est­ed in reprints?

    1. Max Blood April 10, 2024 Reply

      Hel­lo K,

      We are not doing reprints at this time. Thanks for asking!

  3. Aleksei April 21, 2024 Reply

    The Duo­suma link is only accept­ing flash fic­tion — although there are guide­lines for the short sto­ry sub­mis­sions, there is no place to sub­mit to. Where should we sub­mit our short sto­ry sub­mis­sions for Songs from the Void?

    1. Max Blood May 20, 2024 Reply

      Hel­lo Aleksei,

      Sor­ry for the delayed response. A bad case of COVID decid­ed to take us out of com­mis­sion for a while.

      We are cur­rent­ly full on short fic­tion for the anthol­o­gy, so we have stopped accept­ing sub­mis­sions. Thank you for inquiring.

      Kind­est regards,

      Max

  4. Sylvie Althoff May 8, 2024 Reply

    Are you still accept­ing short sto­ry sub­mis­sions? The Duo­suma link only has an option to sub­mit flash fiction.

    1. Max Blood May 20, 2024 Reply

      Hi Sylvie, We are cur­rent­ly full on short fic­tion for the anthol­o­gy and are no longer accept­ing sub­mis­sions for it. Thanks for inquiring.

      And sor­ry for the delayed response. The COVID decid­ed to show its ugly face around here and has tak­en a lot out of us these past cou­ple of weeks.

      Kind­est regards,

      Max

  5. Jay Caselberg July 9, 2024 Reply

    You are still list­ed on Duotrope as open. You should prob­a­bly address this.

    1. Max Blood August 26, 2024 Reply

      Hel­lo Jay,

      We are still open to nov­el sub­mis­sions and flash fic­tion sub­mis­sions, but have closed to short sto­ry sub­mis­sions. We are updat­ing that here on the site today.

      Kind­est regards,

      Max Blood

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