As a writer of genre fiction, I’m often asked advice on where best to submit work. The following list has been cobbled together using information posted on the websites for the several magazines. Special thanks are due to Austin Hackney of writingcooperative.com for providing the initial inspiration, as well as a few tips I would have missed otherwise.

The following list begins with sci-fi and fantasy, has a block of flash-only, horror and New Weird, two mystery mags, and closes with kids and literary publications. NO NEWS OR OP-ED PUBLICATIONS ARE INCLUDED. Only those publications that pay in cash rather than prestige made the list, since prestige contains zero nutritional value.

• The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. F&SF is the godfather, the brass ring. They pay up to 12 CPW, up to 25,000 words. Sweet spot is between 3,000 and 7,500 wds. Slow turnaround.
• Analog Science Fiction and Fact. “The world’s leading science fiction and fact”, Analog has been around forever. Hard sci-fi and factual articles only. They pay between 8 and 10 CPW for short stories up to 20,000 words. They also consider serialized novels up to 80,000 words.
• Asimov’s Science Fiction. They pay between 8 and 10 CPW for short fiction up to 7,500, and then 8 CPW for anything over that length. Fast turnaround.
• Clarkesworld Magazine. They get 1200 submissions per month and accept less than a dozen. They pay 10 CPW for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or whatever. Times New Roman preferred. Fast turnaround for rejections; one-week cooldown after a rejection.
• Apex Magazine. Apex pays 8 CPW for stories up to 7,500 – fantasy, sci-fi, and anything in between. Anonymized submissions in Shunn format. They also hold a monthly flash contest.
• Uncharted Magazine. Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller, Crime, Mystery — Uncharted buys it all, $200 per story. 1000-5000 words; one-month cooldown between submissions. Reprints considered.
• Uncanny Magazine. Rarely open for submissions, they pay 10 CPW, 750 words on up, genre-fluid.
• Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores. Now paying 8 CPW, it’s well worth the effort. They want intelligent (but absolutely vegetarian) stories in the science fiction, fantasy, myth, fairy tale, and ‘eldritch’ sub-genres. 1st and 2nd of any given month. NOTE: Though the page doesn’t say this, they will autoreject a second submission even if the first gets sent back early enough.
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies. “Literary adventure fantasy”, character-driven and fantasy only. Pay is 8 CPW; shorter is better, but up to 15000 words.
• Old Moon. Dark fantasy, preferably eldritch. 8CPW, 1000-6000 words, two issues annually.
• Lightspeed is prestigious with a broad remit (different calls on the first week of every month, including flash). Fantasy Magazine (CLOSING! rarely open except to BIPOC) and Nightmare (after September) can be reached from the top banner, making this a three-fer.
• Escapepod. Both print and audio. They accept original stories and reprints. Originals pay 8 CPW, 1500-6000 for short stories. Reprints pay $100, 1500-7500 / 7500-18000. There’s a link to submission guidelines at the top of the home page. Closed until 01 September 23. Also available are PseudoPod (horror – 11-21 Aug 23), Cast of Wonders (YA), PodCastle (Fantasy – 01 July 23), and CatsCast (Cats, obviously).
• Cast of Wonders. YA short stories and flash fiction, 8 CPW.
• Strange Horizons. SH considers fantasy stories, SF, and weird tales of every kind. While there’s an official word limit of up to 10,000, they prefer stories under 5,000 words. They pay 10 CPW. Closed submissions through 2023.
• Diabolical Plots. Run by David Steffen of Submission Grinder fame, they pay 10 CPW with a firm 3500-word max for horror, fantasy, or sci-fi. Their submissions windows are not often open. Publication is largely online, with periodic anthology print edition releases.
• Zooscape. All things Furry, whether fantasy or sci-fi. 8CPW.
• Short Editions. Short Édition has an online magazine but primarily distributes short fiction by means of dispensers, located in transit hubs and waiting rooms around the world. Payment is by annual royalty, with a 100 Euro advance due upon acceptance. 7500 character maximum for fiction, which equates to about 1350 words.
• CRAFT Literary. Flash is $100, short fiction $200, creative NF, essays on the craft of writing $50-100, occasional contests. Broad remit, including speculative and slipstream, but pure horror, mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi are probably not their ideal. Long submission.
• Small Wonders. They’re new, but they pay ten cents a word (or one cent for reprints). 1000 words; fantasy or sci-fi. Submissions link is in the top menu bar.
• Factor Four Magazine. Fantasy, sci-fi, superhero, supernatural, speculative. Shorts, max 1000 words. Pay is 11 CPW, plus royalties from anthologies.
• Orion’s Belt. New outlet; 8 CPW up to 1200 words. Fast response time; almost no production content.
• SmokeLong Quarterly. Pay is $100 for flash. Literary and strange is their remit.
• Fractured Lit. Pay is $50 for micro (400) and $75 for flash (1000). They also run for-pay contests.
• Flash Fiction Online. Name says it all. 1st-21st of each month; $80 for a 500-1000 word piece. Cross-genre or plain literary fiction. Closed every June.
• Frozen Wavelets. Speculative flash fiction, including reprints; pro rates. 750 words or less for original (no minimum) and 500-1500 for reprints. Irregular acceptance periods; seasonal release. Still waiting for them to get going.
• Nature. Believe it or not, Nature is a market for flash sci-fi in their Futures section. $130 for a 850-950 word story. Generally, near-future hard sci-fi.
• Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. $50 per acceptance, 600 words. Loose definition of “compressed” and puns on “matter”. Biannual submissions period, spring and fall. Option for paid editorial response.
• Tree and Stone. All genres, including soft speculative. Flash, $20; otherwise, 2 CPW. Solid pay for art. Soft warm-fuzzy preferred, with a heavy leaning toward Queer and BIPOC.
• The Fabulist. Broad remit for short fiction, but only a $25 honorarium. However, in Nov 23, they launched the Fabulist Flash at $100 per story.
• Sci-Fi Shorts. This outlet for sci-fi flash fiction provides one new story per day weekday, target: 1000 words. They operate on a shares basis, with writers splitting the take with the magazine and dividing it between themselves on a percentage contribution basis. They pay $10 per story, with a monthly contest for $100.
• Abyss & Apex. 8CPW up to $80, 10k words max. Anything speculative. Closed submissions until mid-2024.
• Zombies Need Brains. An anthology imprint with multiple projects per year, and also a Patreon-based magazine with three submissions the first week of each July. Pro rates.
• Apparitions Literary Magazine. 5 cents per word. New Weird, which is somewhere between fantasy and horror, but they’re looking for beautiful prose. Each edition is themed and has a limited submissions window. They also do reprints and themed flash fiction.
• Three-Lobed Burning Eye. Fantasy, but also horror and SF. Publishes online every six months with a print anthology every second year. They pay a flat fee of $100.
• Taco Bell Quarterly. The Paris Review’s bastard stepchild, they take anything so long as it’s cool and contains a Taco Bell reference. Shoehorn a bean burrito in and they’re happy. Flat fee of $100, short pieces preferred, like 500-1500 words.
• The Deadlands. Ten cents per word up to 5000. They aren’t horror, exactly; their remit is all things deathly. A suicide fixation is definitely in their line.
• The No Sleep Podcast. Audio recording of your New Weird story; professionally read. They pay $100-125 (US) for short stories. Note that they have their own unique requirements, such as no tabs, Calibri 14, and so on.
• The Dark Magazine. Dark fantasy and borderline horror, but no explicit violence. They pay 6 5 CPW.
• Grimdark Magazine. Patreon-based publication, semi-irregular. They want grimdark in a medieval fantasy or sci-fi setting. 7CPW AUD for original (up to 4000 words), and 1CPW reprint (up to 10k). Dark characters, morally gray decisions.
• Translunar Travelers Lounge. Fun SF&F stories up to 5,000 words. They only pay 3 CPW. Calls are twice a year, beginning September and March 15th.
• OnSpec. The Canadian sci-fi mag. They like trendsetting stories, and will pay $100CAN for a short-short (2000 words max) or 5CPW for up to 6000.
• Dreamforge. Competitive rates, but only two issues per year. Next call is sometime in early 2014.
• Pulp Literature. Literary speculative fiction, not noir or The Shadow. Payment is 5 – 8 CPW. This is where you send experimental things that don’t fit elsewhere.
• Sci Phi Journal. 3 CPW (EU) for original work up to 2,000 words; idea-driven rather than character.
• Gothic. Classic horror plus reviews, news, and features. They pay a flat fee of $60.
• Third Flatiron. Does themed anthologies, between 1500-3000 words. Flash humor also accepted, 600-1000 words. 8 CPW.
• Little Blue Marble. “Speculative fiction that examines humanity’s possible futures living with anthropogenic climate change.” Positive outlooks and bright futures on Earth only. 11 CPW (CA).
• Metastellar. This is an online-only publication with periodic print anthologies that relies mainly on unpaid contributions. Twice a year (March and October) they open for a month for 1200wd Flash submissions, for which they pay 8 CPW.
• Interstellar Flight Press. Annual calls for flash in the fall; periodic seasonal other calls. 8CPW 1250 wds, 3 entries. Online mag plus anthology.
• Air and Nothingness Press. Anthology publisher that pays pro rates and has 4-5 calls per year.
• The Archive. Sans Press accepts submissions of short works of all genres, up to 2000 words, for occasional brief periods. They want “the weird, the unexpected, the completely new”, for which they pay a flat €50. In exchange they claim non-exclusive rights for two years. They also run periodic contests, for which they pay rather more.
• Dark Matter Magazine. STILL OPEN FOR ANTHOLOGIES. 8 cents a word for originals, 2 cents for reprints, 1000-5000 words. Dark sci-fi, horror, weird, and sci-fi horror. They do seven issues per year plus the occasional anthology; open call times strongly favor BIPOC/LGBTQ+ writers.
• Weird Tales. If they want your work, they’ll let you know. (They won’t.) Irregular publication; very rare submissions windows (which I’ve never actually seen open, but there are rumors). They favor big names.
• The Fairy Tale Magazine. Four issues per year, brief submissions windows usually in the spring. $50 flat compensation, 1000-5000 words.
• Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Short crime and mystery fiction only, with some weirdness permitted. They pay 5 to 8 CPW.
• Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Sister to Hitchcock’s, they do straightlaced button-down short crime and mystery fiction. They pay 5 to 8 CPW.
• The School Magazine. For children, fantasy stories under 1,500 words. Professional rates. To get to the submission guidelines, first click the ‘Contribute’ tab at the top of the homepage, then choose ‘Writers’.
• Cricket. For young readers. The website is a general hub for a dozen different Cricket Media publications, and you must click through again to the specific magazine for which you want to write. At 25 CPW, this is an excellent market.
• Yankee Magazine. The down side is, they buy all rights, so if you were ever planning to publish an anthology, write more. Submissions are by email; they accept pitches, informative writing, and so on. Essays about the New England Experience should be 600-800 words.
• Down East Magazine. Decent rates for reporting; My Maine section pays a flat $400 for 800-1500 words of non-fiction. No fiction is accepted; sentimentalism is preferred. Submissions emails are listed under the Contact Us menu item.
• The Threepenny Review. Short fiction up to 4,000 words. They prefer 2,500, and pay a flat fee of $400 (US).
• Baltimore Review. This publication styles itself as “a literary hub of diverse writing”. In addition to open submissions, they also run competitions from time to time. Low pay.
• The New Yorker. Look, it’s The New Yorker, what more do you need to know?
• Brevity. Nonfiction essays, 750 words max, $45.
• Dark Moon Digest. APPEARS DEFUNCT. Quarterly in eBook and print, traditional horror. They pay 3 CPW.

Most of these share a few basic principles: Don’t let A.I. write for you, use Shunn Format, submit only here, submit one at a time, and submit each story only once to their magazine EVER, so make sure it’s perfect before it goes out.

To learn more about how to use this list, read this.

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