On June 1st, Flash Fiction Online will be open for submissions for a “Winter Folklore” issue, scheduled for January 2025. Guest editor for this issue is Carina Bissett.
Image: The Snow Queen by Charles Robinson
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:
The darkest nights of the year have always held special appeal for storytellers. The winter season and storytelling are intrinsically linked, especially when it comes to oral traditions. This has been true in cultures worldwide ranging from animal stories of creation told by Indigenous peoples around the world to the Christmas ghost stories beloved by the Victorians.
For this call, we are looking for original stories that offer a unique take on traditional fairy tales and folklore as well as bespoke tales that evoke the sensations connected to the cold quietude of winter. We are seeking stories that haunt the liminal spaces, creatures that thrive when the days are short and the nights are long. Send us tales of Frau Perchta, Frozen Charlotte, and Mother Holle. Give us new takes on familiar fairy tales such as “The Snow Queen,” “The Little Match Girl,” and “The Elves and the Shoemaker.” Regale us with stories of the Mari Lwyd, the Yule Cat, the Wendigo, Krampus, and other figures walking the menacing landscapes shaped by snow and ice.
Remember: at FFO, we prefer complete stories, complex characters who undergo transformation, worldbuilding that blends seamlessly into the narrative, and for the action to start happening right away. And, while we are not adverse to stories of hope, this issue is more likely to be aligned with Shakespeare’s sentiment in A Winter’s Tale: “A sad tale’s best for winter.”
Certain stories, however well done, are unlikely to be selected in this call. They include:
- Cozy stories relying on mood over plot
- Retellings without a unique twist or point-of-view
- Moralistic stories written for a young audience
- Werewolves, vampires, or zombies
The following stories include different aspects of what we’re looking for:
- “The Green Knight’s Wife” by Kat Howard (Uncanny)
- “The Rapid Advance of Sorrow” by Theodora Goss (Apex Magazine)
- “The Winter Princess” by Amanda C. Davis (Daily Science Fiction)
- “Child of Snow” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Daily Science Fiction)
- “En la Casa de Fantasmas” by Brian Holguin (Shimmer)
- “Travels with the Snow Queen” by Kelly Link (Uncanny)
- “Milkteeth” by Kristi DeMeester (Shimmer)
- “The Snow Globe” by Kate Hall (Flash Fiction Online)
All stories submitted through this page must fit the theme! If you have a story that doesn’t fit this theme, please submit during one of our regular submission calls.
GUEST EDITOR: Carina Bissett is a writer and poet working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. She is the author of numerous shorts stories, many of which are featured in her debut collection Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations (2024), and she is also a co-editor of the award-winning anthology Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas. Her poetry has been nominated for the Rhysling Award, the Pushcart Prize, and Sundress Publications Best of the Net. Her nonfiction has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award®. Links to her work can be found at http://carinabissett.com.
GENERAL GUIDELINES:
WORD COUNT: 500-1,000 words. Because we are focused on flash fiction, this word count is firm.
ANONYMOUS SUBMISSIONS: Do NOT include your name, address, email, or other identifying information on your manuscript (header, byline, file name, etc). This allows our First Readers to evaluate your story based on the work alone.
MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: Multiple submissions are NOT allowed for this special call. Only one story per author. Please do NOT submit stories that have been previously rejected by Flash Fiction Online; they will be rejected unread. If you have a story currently pending under one of our other calls, you may still submit to this call for Winter Folklore, but it must be a new story we have never read before.
SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: We will accept simultaneous submissions for this special call, meaning you can send the story to other magazines while it is with us. We ask that you withdraw the submission as soon as you learn that it has been accepted elsewhere.
AI-GENERATED SUBMISSIONS: We are committed to publishing stories written and edited by humans. We reserve the right to reject any submission that we suspect to be primarily generated or created by language modeling software, Chat GPT, chat bots, or any other AI apps, bots, or software. We reserve the right to ban submissions from accounts, emails, or users who we believe or suspect have submitted AI-generated content.
SCHEDULE:
Submissions will be open from June 1st through June 30th. The submission window will close early if we reach our cap of 500 submissions.
Submissions will be evaluated concurrent with other open submission calls. FFO reviews stories in two stages – a slush stage and a winnowing stage. In the slush round, first readers vote on stories to be passed forward. These top-tier stories are reviewed once a month in our Winnowing round. Final decisions on these second-round stories are generally made within 8 weeks from the date of submission. The guest editor will also read all submissions for this special call.
PAYMENT & RIGHTS FOR ORIGINAL FICTION: For original (previously unpublished) fiction, Flash Fiction Online pays $100 per story for first electronic rights, with six months exclusivity, as well as a non-exclusive one-time right to publish the stories in an anthology. The author retains all other rights. Original stories must not have been previously published anywhere, including a blog or on Patreon. Payment is made via PayPal (preferred) or mailed as a check.
QUERIES: You can check on the status of your submission at any time via your Submittable account. If, after 10 weeks, your submission is still marked as “in-progress,” you may email editor@flashfictiononline.com with QUERY in the subject line for an update on its status. (Submissions sent to this address will be deleted unread.)
COMPENSATION: Our 2024 rate is $100 for each original story.
We are unable to provide personal feedback or critiques.
We do NOT accept resubmissions of stories previously rejected by Flash Fiction Online, unless requested by the editorial team.
We will NOT consider stories that promote or affirm hatred, prejudice, or violence toward any group of people based on age, race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, political affiliation, disability, neurodiversity, or other social identity.
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