The Theatre Phantasmagoria, November Window—Open for Submissions!

Greetings boils, ghouls, and other creatures of the night!

Starting in December, 2021, we are open for submissions of flash fiction horror stories on a different theme each month. We will be seeking horror fiction of all forms and flavours to be published as part of a new and ongoing series from Night Terror Novels Publishing, titled The Theatre Phantasmagoria.

If this has piqued your interest, please scroll down for the full details!

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The Theatre Phantasmagoria, Volume I (2023) front & back covers (WIP), artist to be confirmed and design will be decided upon shortly.

What are We Looking For?

Each month, a new theme will be announced, and we will be accepting flash fiction submissions based around this theme. From these submissions, four stories will be chosen to be published each Friday of the subsequent month, and at the end of the year, these forty-eight (or more) pieces will appear in a similarly titled anthology. As always, if your story is blatantly racist or homophobic it will be instantly rejected. We also encourage submissions from female, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors, as we’re striving to offer a range of experiences and perspectives in this series.

Our current lineup for The Theatre Phantasmagoria, January to August, includes Mia Dalia, Paul Wilson, Angela Sylvaine, Yvonne Lang, Mark Robinson, James Van Pelt, D. Matthew Urban, Ali Seay, Alex Ebenstein, Nikki R. Leigh, Andrew Jackson, Safia Mlani, Michael H. Hanson, Matt Bliss, Megan Kiekel Anderson, Andrew Gehlsen, Samuel M. Hallam, J. L. Royce, Zary Fekete, David Burchell, Brandon Applegate, Darren Todd, Cormack Baldwin, Hadassah Shiradski, Monte Lin, Kacey Rayburn, Elle Vigilante, Brett Tharp, Sean Cahillane, A. R. Frederiksen, Lucy Zhang, Christopher Robertson, Eric Farrell, Miguel Gonçalves, Drew Huff, Marisca Pichette, Nat Reiher, and Alexander Hay. If you want to see your name alongside these terrific writers, then send a piece our way!

The anthology will be edited, and the stories selected, by J.D. Keown. He can be found on both Instagram and Twitter @JDKAuthor, and we can be found on Instagram @nightterrornovels. All updates and announcements regarding this project will be posted on each of those accounts, so give us a follow if you want to get the latest news.

The sixth window to submit will run from the 1st October, 2022 (1/10/2022) to the 31st October, 2022 (31/10/2022), with the selected stories debuting on our website throughout October.

NOVEMBER’S THEME: THANKSKILLING FEASTS.

This month, the Theatre Phantasmagoria is seeking stories centered around food and feasts, gluttony and greed. Think stories of wanton excess, of cannibalistic gruesomeness, of genetically-modified killer tomatoes out for blood, or of anything else in between. We’d also be especially keen to read some extreme horror or Splatterpunk-style stories during this window, so please don’t hold back on the heapings of grisly gristle! Whilst Thanksgiving has served as the inspiration for this month’s title, your story does not have to relate to this holiday in any way to be considered, it merely needs to fit the general theme of food-related horror. With that said, if you do want to have a punt at a bona fide thanksgiving-themed piece, we’d certainly be keen to read it! We here at Night Terror Novels have a slight soft spot for the trashy ridiculousness of the ThanksKilling film series, as this month’s title might suggest … 🦃

For inspiration, we’d recommend checking out novels such as Off Season by Jack Ketchum, Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, or We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson. For films, check out Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978), The Stuff (1985) or The Platform (2019).

Each month, four (or more!) flash fiction pieces will be selected, making a total of forty-eight (again, or more!) stories to be featured in the final The Theatre Phatasmagoria anthology at the end of the year. See below for all relevant guidelines and details, and please read them carefully before submitting.

Title: The Theatre Phantasmagoria

Payment: Flat rate of £10 via PayPal upon acceptance, and a digital e-Book contributor copy upon release of the anthology.

Guidelines (please read carefully):

• .doc, .docx or .odt formats preferred. No .pdfs, please. See Shunn’s guidelines for reference on how your manuscript should look.
• Original work only, please. No reprints, no stories published elsewhere (such as on personal blogs, social medias, or other websites). Simultaneous submissions are more than welcome, but please inform us as soon as possible if your story is accepted elsewhere.
• The only rights Night Terror Novels Publishing are seeking is first print rights for our website, and the non-exclusive right to collect the stories into an anthology, published in 2023, and sold thereafter. No exclusivity is sought. Authors retain all rights to their works after publication.

Word Count: Anything up to 2,000 words.

Submissions Open: From 1st October, 2022 (1/10/2022).

Submissions Close: 31st October, 2022 (31/10/2022). We send out notifications of acceptance or rejection on a rolling basis throughout the window. The absolute latest you should receive a response by is the 20th of the next month. If you have not heard from us by then, please feel free to chase us up via the email address below.

Anticipated Release Date: Stories will be published on the first, second, third, and fourth Fridays of the subsequent month. The compiled anthology will be aiming for a January, 2023 release.

Please send all submissions in an attached document to our email address, ntnflashfiction@gmail.com, with the following subject line:

[your name] – [story title] – [approx. word count]

(an example email: FF Submission: My Name – My Story – 1,000 words)

In the body of the email, please also include a brief third-person author bio, ideally three to four sentences long, which may include up to two links to either your social media accounts or personal websites.

And that’s pretty much it. We cannot wait to read your submissions, and best of luck to you all!

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