Two markets

Ghostlight is the magazine of the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers. Their current reading period ends December 31st, and next year they'll be cutting back on their issues as well as eliminating poetry, so now is a good time to submit. The magazine pays $5 per story or $4 per poem, and their listed response time is one month. (Click on the "Ghostlight guidelines" link to view the guidelines in PDF form.)

Daily Science Fiction doesn't publish horror, but they will consider dark fantasy. They pay 8¢ per word for stories anywhere from 100 to 10,000 words long, and there's a chance they could choose to reprint your story at some time in the future, in which case you'd get paid more. They typically respond in under a month.

Some open markets

Writer and editor Mark Crittenden is currently reading for a vampire fiction anthology titled Their Dark Masters. Submissions are open until January 15th for stories 4000-7000 words long, and all contributors will receive a copy of the book.

Ghostlight will be closing to submissions August 31st, so if you plan on submitting anything to that one, hurry. Ghostlight pays $5 per story and $4 per poem.

Basement Stories is currently open and looking for submissions. They pay a penny a word for fiction and $10 per poem, and they'll accept both simultaneous submissions and reprints.

If you need to buy anything from the Writer's Digest online store, you can get free shipping on your order until August 31st. Use the coupon code WDS161 when you check out.

some markets & stuff to read

Ghostlight, the journal of the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers, opens for its next reading period on December 1st. This is a good market for writers of horror or dark fiction -- response time is only one month, and they accept reprints. Payment rates are $5/story or $4/poem. There is also an Editor's Choice award given for each issue, which comes with $10 and a year's membership to the GLAHW. Stories should be 500-6000 words.

Emerald Tales is a fiction and poetry journal out of Florida. The editors will accept both snail mail and email submissions, and they pay $40/story or $20/poem. Each issue has a theme; the "Winter Solstice" issue has a deadline of November 1st, and the "Carnivale" issue is open until January 1st.

For Horror Writers Association members, writer and publisher J. Bruce Fuller had a well-written and intriguing article in the September issue of the HWA newsletter (available in the newsletter archives) on "Imagination and Persona in Horror Poetry." I had the unfortunate luck to follow him with my article in the October newsletter, "Trick or Treat: Haiku and Its Place in Dark Poetry." (Marge Simon came up with the title -- thanks Marge!)

Here are a couple of good haiku, courtesy of tinywords (which is hopefully making a comeback) -- one by Ed Markwoski and one by Helga Härle.