Call for Submissions

I edit The Best Horror of the Year for (Night Shade Books) and am currently reading for the fourteenth volume, covering material published in 2021.

I am looking for stories and poetry from all branches of horror: supernatural, uncanny, sf horror, psychological, dark crime, terror tales, or anything else that might qualify. This is an all reprint anthology, so I’ll only consider material published in 2021. Deadline is December 1st 2021. Authors please confirm that your publishers are sending me review copies. If a book or magazine is coming out after my deadline, I’ll look at galleys or manuscripts. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. The only excuse is if you’re a foreign publisher and shipping everything at one time saves postage. If you want your work to get a fair read, do not do this. I do not have time to carefully read a year’s worth of magazine issues and 10-20 original anthologies in two weeks.

I’ll look at e-versions of anthos and collections only if they’re navigable and have running heads. Otherwise, they won’t be read. I always prefer print, if available.

Authors can query as to whether I have/need your collection or an anthology/magazine in which you have a story at datlow@yahoo.com

My summation of “the year in horror” in the front of every volume includes novels, anthologies, collections, chapbooks, nf, poetry, art books, and “odds and ends”– material that doesn’t fit elsewhere but that might interest horror readers. But I must be aware of this material in order to mention it.
Ellen Datlow
Best Horror of the Year Volume Fourteen
8 Stuyvesant Oval 9G
NY NY 10009

****I regularly cover many magazines/webzines that publish horror (Black Static, Cemetery Dance, F&SF, The Dark, Nightmare, crime digests, and webzines such as Horrorzine, Uncanny, Apex, etc.-when their publishers send me the material).

Please ask your publisher to send the entire magazine or book-unless the venue doesn’t regularly publish horror. In that case, you can send me a word file of your story. For online publications, email individual word doc files—not pdf files– including on the ms where the story has been published.

If I choose a story you will be informed. Otherwise, you will not hear back.
thank you
Ellen Datlow
www.datlow.com

Call for Submissions

I edit The Best Horror of the Year for (Night Shade Books) and am currently reading for the thirteenth volume, covering material published in 2020.

I am looking for stories and poetry from all branches of horror: supernatural, uncanny, sf horror, psychological, dark crime, terror tales, or anything else that might qualify. This is an all reprint anthology, so I’ll only consider material published in 2020. Deadline is December 1st 2020. Authors please confirm that your publishers are sending me review copies. If a book or magazine is coming out after my deadline, I’ll look at galleys or manuscripts. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. The only excuse is if you’re a foreign publisher and shipping everything at one time saves postage. If you want your work to get a fair read, do not do this. I do not have time to carefully read a year’s worth of magazine issues and 10-20 original anthologies in two weeks.

I’ll look at e-versions of anthos and collections only if they’re navigable and have running heads. Otherwise, they won’t be read. I always prefer print, if available.

Authors can query as to whether I have/need your collection or an anthology/magazine in which you have a story at datlow@yahoo.com

My summation of “the year in horror” in the front of every volume includes novels, anthologies, collections, chapbooks, nf, poetry, art books, and “odds and ends”– material that doesn’t fit elsewhere but that might interest horror readers. But I must be aware of this material in order to mention it.
Ellen Datlow
Best Horror of the Year Volume Thirteen
PMB 391
511 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011-8436

****I regularly cover many magazines/webzines that publish horror (Black Static, Cemetery Dance, F&SF, The Dark, Nightmare, crime digests, and webzines such as Horrorzine, Uncanny, Apex, etc.-when their publishers send me the material).

Please ask your publisher to send the entire magazine or book-unless the venue doesn’t regularly publish horror. In that case, you can send me a word file of your story. For online publications, email individual word doc files—not pdf files– including on the ms where the story has been published.

If I choose a story you will be informed. Otherwise, you will not hear back.
thank you
Ellen Datlow
www.datlow.com

Table of Contents of the Best Horror of the Year volume Twelve-it’ll be out early fall.

Summation: 2019

Ice Cold Lemonade 25ȼ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person by Paul Tremblay
A Song For Wounded Mouths by Kristi DeMeester
Birds of Passage by Gordon B. White
The Puppet Motel by Gemma Files
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team by Joe R. Lansdale
The Night Nurse by Sarah Langan
They Are Us (1964): An Oral History by Jack Lothian
As Dark As Hunger by S. Qiouyi Lu
I Say (I Say, I Say) by Robert Shearman
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter by Laura Mauro
The Hope Chest by Sarah Read
Nor Cease You Never Now by Ren Warom
Playscape by Diana Peterfreund
Adrenaline Junkies by Ray Cluley
Watching by Tim Lees
Mr. And Mrs. Kett by Sam Hicks
Below by Simon Bestwick
My Name is Ellie by Sam Rebelein
Slipper by Catriona Ward
How To Stay Afloat When Drowning by Daniel Braum
This Was Always Going to Happen by Stephen Graham Jones
The Butcher’s Table by Nathan Ballingrud
Honorable Mentions
About the Authors
Acknowledgment of Copyright
About the Editor

Rees, Gareth E. “We Are the Disease,” Tales from the Shadow Booth vol. 2.

Rennie, S. A. “Sailing to Trebizond,” A Book of the Sea.

Rennie, S.A. “Out of the Water, out of the Ground,”A Ghosts & Scholars book ofFolk.

Repetto, Giovanni, trans Amanda Blee “My Father’s Face,”Tales from the …vol.2.

Rhoades, Loren “Elle a vu un Loup,” Weirdbook #40.

Rickert, M. “True Crime,” Nightmare 72 September.

Robson, Kelly “What Gentlewomen Dare,” Uncanny #22.

Ronald, Margaret “In the Ground, Before the Freeze,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies Nov.

Rooney, Lindiwe “In Her Bones,” The Dark, January #32.

Royle, Nicholas “The Blink,” The Dummy.

Runge, Karen “Angeline,” Suspended in Dusk II.

Rust, Julia and Surface, David “TallDarkAnd,” Uncertainties Volume III.

Rustad, A. Merc “If We Die Unjustified,” Uncanny #22.

Rustad, A. Merc “Mr. Try Again,” Nightmare 66 March.

Rutledge, Charles R. “Bleeding Through,” Clickers Forever.

Ryman, Geoff “This Constant Narrowing,” F&SF November/December.

Sabourin, Michel “Not This Girl,” Ghosts, Goblins, Murder, & Madness.

Sandison, George “Blocks,” BFS Horizons #8.

Sandison, George C. “Keel,” Tales from the Shadow Booth vol. 2.

SanGiovanni, Mary “We Sang in Darkness,” Welcome to the Show.

Schaefer, C.A. “Last Rites,” MAR XXXVIII, Number 1.

Scheuerman, Ashlee “ The Mantle of Flesh,” A World of Horror.

Scheuerman, Ashlee “Teeth and Teeth and Teeth,” Lost Films.

Schneider, Charles “The Damnation of Captain MQuhae,” A Book of the Sea.

Schwader, Ann K. “Inheritance,” What October Brings.

Schwader, Ann K. “The Dark Reclaims Us,” (poem) Spectral Realms No. 9.

Schweitzer, Darrell “Uncle’s in the Treetops,” What October Brings.

Seidel, Alexandra “The House Beneath,” (poem) Not One of Us #59.

Selke, Lori “A Head in a Box…,” Nightmare 64 January.

Sharma, Priya “A Son of the Sea,” All the Fabulous Beasts.

Sharma, Priya “Maw,” New Fears 2.

Shaw, Vivian “The Utmost Bound,” Uncanny 20.

Shearman, Robert “Pumpkin Kids,” The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories.

Shearman, Robert “TheCocktailPartyinKensingtonGetsOutofHand,”TheDreamingIsle.

Shearman, Robert “Tom Is In the Attic,” Phantoms.

Sheil, Steven “Cora,” Black Static 66 November/December.

Sheldon, Deborah “Hair and Teeth,” Aurealis #113.

Sheppard, Oliver “Nocturne No. 13,” (poem) Thirteen Nocturnes.

Sheppard, Oliver “Nocturne No. 5,” (poem) Thirteen Nocturnes.

Sheppard, Oliver “Plate XIII: Demons,” (poem) Thirteen Nocturnes.

Sheppard, Oliver “The Trees That Make the Gallows,” (poem) Thirteen Nocturnes.

Shirley, John “Flesh Flowers,” (poem) Spectral Realms No. 9.

Shirley, John “Hum-Hurt You.Hum-Hurt You. Hum-Hurt You,”What October Brings.

Slatter, Angela “A Matter of Light,” Gaslight Gothic.

Slatter, Angela “Honor Thy Mother,” Hark! The Herald Angels Scream.

Slatter, Angela “Swan Girls,” Corpselight (paperback edition).

Slatter, Angela “When We Fall, We Forget,” Phantoms.

Smeltzer, Ross ”The Strigoaica” Nightscript IV

Smith, J. Ashley “The Further Shore,” Bourbon Penn 15.

Smith, Michael Marshall “The Scariest Thing in the World,” TheMamBkofHalloween.

Smith, Michael Marshall “The Window of Erich Zann,” The Lovecraft Squad.

Smith, Scott “Christmas in Barcelona,” Hark! The Herald Angels Scream.

Snell, Matt “Ars Moriendi,” Bourbon Penn 16.

Sng, Christina “Memoirs in the Dark,” Spectral Realms No. 8.

Sng, Christina “The Girl and Her Wolf Dog,” Spectral Realms No. 8.

Sng, Christina “The Joy of Sewing,” (poem) HWA Poetry Showcase Volume V.

Sng, Christina “The Mermaid,” (poem) Spectral Realms No. 9.

Snyder, Lucy A. “Cosmic Cola,” What October Brings.

Speegle, Darren “Three Towns, One Migrant,” Cries From the Static.

Steadman, Ian “Feather and Twine,” Night Light.

Sternbergh, Adam “Loophole,” Tiny Crimes.

Stevenson, Jeff C. “The Insects of Seneca Village,” A New York State of Fright.

Storey, Josh “Clean Up Aisle Four,” Corporate Cthulhu.

Strantzas, Simon “Our Town’s Talent,” Nothing Is Everything.

Stufflebeam, Bonnie Jo “The Men Who Come from Flowers,” F&SF Sept/Oct.

Sunnen, Florence “The Hook,” A Nightjar chapbook.

Sutton, David A. “The Dew-Shadows,” A Ghosts & Scholars book of Folk Horror.

Taaffe, Sonya “Kot Apebhee N Henphkochobehhoe xhbothoe,”(poem)Animal Day II.

Taaffe, Sonya “Nostalgia,” (poem) Not One Of Us #60.

Taaffe, Sonya “The Women Around Achilles,” (poem) Not One of Us #59.

Taff, John F. D. “A Winter’s Tale,” Little Black Spots.

Taff, John F. D. “The Bunny Suit,” Ibid.Taff, John F. D. “The Coriolis Effect,” Ibid.

Taff, John F. D. “Their Hands,” ibid.

Taloni, John “Career Zombie,” Corporate Cthulhu.

Tambour, Anna “Care and Sensibility,” The Road to Neozon.

Tanquary, Nicole “A Last Meal,” Not One of Us #59.

Tantlinger, Sara “Amalgamation,”(poem) Poetry Showcase volume V.

Tanzer, Molly “Le Cygne Baiseur,” Mechanical Animals.

Taylor, Lucy “Sucklings,” Monsters of Any Kind.

Taylor, Lucy “Umbilicus,” Tales From the Lake Volume 5.

Tem, Steve Rasnic “For All His Eyes Can See,” The Dark, #39 August.

Tem, Steve Rasnic “The Parts Man,” The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories Vol. 3.

Thomas, Lee “Fodder’s Jig,” The Devil and the Deep.

Thompson, Matt “Bones of Flightless Birds,” Black Static 63, May-June.

Thompson, Matt “The Gramophone Man,” Black Static #65, Sept-Oct.

Thompson, Sean M. “The Blind Opera,” Vastarien 3.

Thompson, Tade “Kaseem’s Way,” (novella) Creatures: The Legacy of Frankenstein.

Thompson, Tade “Yard Dog,” Fiyah #7.

Thomson, Sam “The Monstrosity in Love,” Black Static 64, July/August.

Toase, Steve “Dirt Upon My Skin,” Animal Day II.

Toase, Steve “Verwelktag,” Lackington’s October 30.

Tobler, E. Catherine “Sanguinary Scar,” Black Static #62.T

odd, Darren “Apotheosis,” Corporate Cthulhu.

Travis, Julie “Trigger,” Vastarien 2.

Tredwell, Lela “My Eye, Eye,” The Pinch.

Trent, Letitia “The Hopeless in the Uninhabitable Places,” Suspended in Dusk II.

Unger, Lisa “The Sleep Tight Motel,” Dark Corners Collection.

Valentine, Mark “The Forwarding Agent,” Supernatural Tales 37.

Van Den Berg, Laura “Friends,” Tiny Crimes.

Van Young, Adrian “the Rhetorician,” Tiny Crimes.

Vaughn, Carrie “The Island of Beasts,” Nightmare 75 Dec.

Vincent, Bev “Aeliana,” Shining the Dark.

Volk, Stephen “Cold Ashton,” This Dreaming Isle.

Volk, Stephen “Father of the Man,” Gaslight Gothic.

Volk, Stephen “The Airport Gorilla,” New Fears 2.

Waggoner, Tim “The Gray Room,” Ashes and Entropy.

Walters, Damien Angelica “The Last Wintergirl,” Monsters of Any Kind.

Ward, Catriona “Lula-Belle,” Phantoms.

Ward, Catriona “The Pier at Ardentinny,” This Dreaming Isle.

Ward, Kyla Lee “And in Her Eyes the City Drowned,” Weirdbook #39.

Warra, Brooke “I Feel Better Now,” Vastarien 3.

Warren, Kaaron “Love Thee Better,” Creatures: The Legacy of Frankenstein.

Warren, Kaaron “Sick Cats in Small Places,” A World of Horror.

Warren, Kaaron “The Revivalist,” Mother of Invention.

Waxhead, Rayna “The Glow at Home,” Vastarien 3.

Webb, M. F. “Forty Years in Innsmouth,” (poem) Spectral Realms No. 9.

Wehunt, Michael “Caring for a Stray Dog (Metaphors),” Black Static #62.

Wehunt, Michael “The Pine Arch Collection,” The Dark, May #36.

Weighell, Ron “The Palace of Force and Fire,” The Silent Garden.

West, Mark “Brooks Pond,” The Black Room Manuscripts Volume IV.

West, Melanie “What You Pass For,” F&SF May/June.

Westlake, Jack “Bury Me with Broken Light Bulbs, Bury Me in…,” Black Static #62.

Westlake, Jack “The Blockage,” Black Static 64, July/August.

Whiteley, Aliya “Pack Your Coat,” New Fears 2.

Whiteley, Aliya “Territory: Blank,” Interzone 277, Sept/October.

Wilde, Fran “Disconnect,” Uncanny #24.

Wilde, Fran “Ruby, Singing,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies #261.

Wilkinson, Charles “The November House,” Vastarien 2.

Williams, Takim “The Sower,” Fiyah #6.

Williamson, Chet “Hell Among the Yearlings,” What October Brings.

Wilson, Mary Krawczak “The Unseen,” (poem) Spectral Realms No. 9.

Wise, A. C. “In the End, it Always Turns Out the Same,” The Dark 37.

Wiseman, Laura M. & Blythe, Andrea “Stone Clutched..,” (poem) Star*Line spring.

Wong, Alyssa “What My Mother Left Me,” The Devil and the Deep.

Worth, Aaron “The Theatre of Ovid,” Vastarien 1.

Wreford, Amelia “Worm,” BFS Horizons #8.

Yates, David “Others’ Tears,” (poem)