Tim Major's Blog

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Quest
In the words of its editors, ‘Quest is a new online magazine publishing literary, visual, and critical work that uses sci-fi and fantasy to reflect the world around us’ and emphasises experimentation. The first issue is themed around ‘Thresholds’.
Word count: Minimum 2000 words
Payment: $25–$100 depending on ...

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Bog Matter
This new SF magazine will be published in print and digital twice a year. As well as SF it welcomes all sorts: ‘horror, fantasy, magical realism, slipstream, New Weird, utopian, dystopian, satirical, cross-genre, experimental, or exuding a general air of oddness.’
Word count: Up to 3500 words
Payment: 2 ...

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Mmeory
I love this sound of this new anthology from air and nothingness press, with its theme of memory manipulation, which allows for my favourite trope: unreliable narrators.
Word count: Up to 2000 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: Open 7 July – 15 August 2025
Find out more

Romantic Fantasy
Flame Tree Pub...

How is it possible that we’ve reached the halfway point of the year? But as that’s the case, here are my favourite albums released in 2025 so far.

A new Richard Dawson album is always cause for celebration, and End of the Middle is as wonderfully as anything he’s delivered, and a great deal more accessible than his early work, palatable even to my family when played in the car. I’m particularly spoiled with a wonderful new album by Herman Dune, too – Odys...

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Dracula Beyond Stoker
I’ve featured this well-established magazine in previous round-ups, but it’s worth flagging again, as the current issue will feature stories about one of the most interesting characters in Dracula: Mina Harker.
Word count: 1500–5000 words
Payment: 5 cents per word
Deadline: 30 June 2025
Find out...

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Book Worms
Issue 8 of this online horror zine will feature cryptid horror based on monsters from folklore or your own imagination.
Word count: Up to 1500 words
Payment: 8 cents per word
Deadline: 31 May 2025
Find out more

Memento Mori Ink
The editors of this new anthology are seeking stories about ‘ancient objects ...

I’m delighted to find my collection GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY reviewed in the Financial Times today! Thanks so much to James Lovegrove for his very generous assessment.

Other very positive reviews of the collection have appeared in recent days, too.

Ginger Nuts of Horror concluded: “Whether fairytale, sci-fi, or Dennis Potter-shaded drama, there’s a lot of innovation here and the one overriding quality to Major’s prose is surely that it’s far from… robotic (ha!).”

Runalong the S...

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

The Morning After
This is a great theme! The editors of this anthology want stories about what happens after a sudden transformation. ‘This could be an individual person transforming into something new or a mass change that effects humanity as a whole. How does this person or society react to no longer being huma...

GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY is published today! Here I am, celebrating the only way I know how: with an awkward half-smile.

The collection contains 16 tales of robots and robot-like figures from history and myth, and many of the stories are quite weird and in unusual formats. Eleven were previously published in venues such as Interzone, Nightscript and Shoreline of Infinity, and ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2024. Six stories are new...

Here’s this month’s list of the most interesting open submissions calls for writers I’ve found!
Sign up for my email newsletter if you want advance notice of open calls like these.

Patterns
This theme might set your imagination going – can you come up with a piece of dark fiction involving patterns? Interestingly, the editors note that the pattern could relate to the structure of the piece, rather than the plot.
Word count: 2000–4000 words
Payment: 1 cent per word
Deadline: 31 May 2025
Find out...