Themed calls for submissions

Three interesting markets to make note of on this Thursday. Three markets that are riddles to me -- ones I hope you can solve by finding work to send them even if I can't.

Mistress of the Macabre, to be published by Dark Moon Books, is looking for horror stories -- the kind that actually scare you -- written by women for an all-female authored anthology. 1500-6000 words. Pays $20 + contributor's copy. Deadline: June 30. More info. 

I absolutely love the title Mistress of the Macabre -- say it aloud a few times and I'm sure you'll soon be agreeing with me. You just can't say it more than once without an attitude. So much fun.

While I write a lot of creepy little stories, I can't say I've got anything that I'd call truly scary -- mostly scary how bad the writing is. . . . But then again, how scary can I be if I'm quoting Love Actually to prove my chill factor?

Bibliotheca Fantastica, themed anthology from Dagan Books wants "stories having to do with lost, rare, weird, or imaginary books, or any aspect of book history or book culture, past, present, future, or uchronic. Any genre. Although the fantastical is not essential per se, stories should evoke a sense of the fantastic, the unknown, the weird, wonder, terror, mystery, pulp, and/or adventure, etc." Under 10,000 words. Pays $0.02/word. Deadline: March 31. More info.

Every time I look at the Bibliotheca Fantastica call for submissions I kick myself; I have a fabulous premise that fits in these guidelines but no plot with which to make it a story!

Fairy Tale Review, Yellow Issue. Fairy Tale Review is a magazine producing one issue per year featuring work which entangles itself in the folkloric. Of recent, they've been working with guest editors who shape the issue and theme of the single issue that they work on. The last issue's theme was "lost children. This year the theme and the issue title are the same thing: yellow. Poetry, fiction, essays, drama, creative nonfiction, comics, illustration. I believe this market is non-paying but I could be wrong. Deadline: May 31. More info and the editor's take on how "yellow" is a theme.

I'm completely stumped on how to take that from the abstract to fiction or poetry that relates to the folkloric. The editor's description that she's interested in writing that worships and dements yellow. We would like you to knock on yellow’s door and invite her out to play, somehow did not make a light bulb or even a pen light go on over my head.

Grab bag of life presents this week's findings ...

Catherynne M. Valente demands better vampires.  Vampires that have actual angst, not black pudding enthusiasts.

Two lesbians raised a baby and this is what they got.

Writer Zoe Winters and the theory of the 10,000 word day.  Winters says she started writing fanfic before she started writing her own worlds -- and that writes faster and easier because you eliminate the time spent on invention. But then she did it: she set out to have a 10,000 word day, and eight hours later accomplished it.

This chick in Manhattan made $1200 a month in free food off of Match.com.  It's pretty amazing, but the through of doing that is utterly exhausting. I think that sooner rather than later I'd be like screw it, I'm not putting on another pair of heels, I'm just going to eat ramen.

A really fabulous (and interestingly difficult) holiday writing prompt from Professor Ogden -- open to students and non-students alike.

This week provided my area of the country with some crazy-pants weather. Warm rain, then ice, then ten inches of snow all within 48 hours. Now, pay mind that the ten inches of snow did not fall where I live, or where I work ... it fell on the city I must drive through to get from where I live to where I work. Crazy-pants snow fell all Tuesday afternoon. It fell all evening. It fell during my drive home. It fell during the time I gratefully drove twenty miles per hour down a major highway just to stay behind the safety of the plow. Crazy-pants snow fell as the plow decided it had gone far enough in my direction, made a quick U-turn and started plowing the other of the highway. Crazy-pants snow fell as I blindly groped to stay in my lane and praised whomever came up with the concept of rumble strips. It fell as I neared the bright road-illuminating lights of civilization ... then left civilization and plunged back into the dark. Crazy-pants snow fell as I contemplated what it would be like to spend the night in a hotel, at a roadside rest stop, in the ditch. Crazy-pants snow fell as I finally reached town, got off an exit early and discovered that the city streets were pristine -- it was just the highway that was a death-trap-waiting-to-be-sprung.  Just pants. Lots and lots of pants.

But I survived. And as this fabulous Oscar the Grouch (non-disney endorsed) image tells us: Shit could be worse.

"Eulogy," a writing prompt

I was asked to "write a eulogy" for a class on lyricism. There was no instruction or restriction as to who or what we eulogized and after tossing around serious ideas and funny ideas and, well, all other ideas, I ended up writing the following:

Before we go any further, I would like to raise my glass and pay my respects to our dearly departed friend.

He was a good soul. Kind to strangers and patient to a fault. I’ve spent countless hours with him, and on our many adventures he never failed to entertain. He will always live on in our memoires: his pale pink complexion and upturned nose, his bow tie and tiny blue jacket, his unforgettable way of stuttering “th-th-that’s all folks.”

Let that stutter be a lesson to us all. Our dear friend’s condition never got better and yet he persevered. He didn’t let his speech impediment get him down; he was never upset by his trouble pronouncing even the most common of words or phrases. If he was smiling when he stuttered he continued smiling, and if he was beet-faced and livid as hell he didn’t let the stutter stop him from delivering one scathing retort.

That crazy duck and that conniving rabbit laid into our friend from time to time. Occasionally, he was even bested by a hound dog, but our rotund friend always recovered. The next time we saw him he was right as rain, ready to embark on a relaxing vacation. And, oh, what vacation stories he had!

Please bow your heads and take a moment to pray for the soul of our dear friend, Porky. And as we invoke the Lord’s name, to ask Him: O Lord, bless this, your bounty, which we are about to receive. It has been lovingly prepared and beautifully arranged. And, I must agree with Elmer when I say that I have never seen a pork supper to rival the one now before us.