Zehlreg Augustus Grindstone’s Spectacular Western Oddity Emporium
Step right up, ladies & gents, boys & girls, elves, orcs, dwarves, & every other languaged being, to Zehlreg Augustus Grindstone’s Spectacular Western Oddity Emporium! We are accepting short stories, flash fiction, and poetry submissions for publication in a magnificent anthology where the Wild West meets the vast worlds of Fantasy! There will be a crowdfunding campaign to enable us to pay all contributors, and selected pieces will appear in a print and digital anthology in October 2024.
Submissions are open January 6 – March 31, 2024. The editors will be evaluating pieces as they are submitted to enable rapid announcement of successful submissions shortly after submissions close. The crowdfunding campaign will go live in early-May.
Our theme is intentionally broad to allow would-be contributors to rustle the dogies of their imaginations as freely as possible. A few ideas we have had, purely as examples, are: What would it be like if there had been dwarves around for the California gold rush? What animals elves or orcs might drive and what antics might ensue? How would a saloon fight go if some folks in the saloon were magic users? For that matter, what would magic look like/be used for and how would the general populace use it? Show us Sitting Bull with magic that controls water! Show us ghost riders chasing the Devil’s herd! Show us Billy the Kid with a wand! Or on a dragon! Or both! Show us Annie Oakley, Magic Missile Sharp-shooter! The possibilities are endless.
Give us good stories and poems that people will want to read, with the many tropes and legends that the Wild West and Fantasy encompass as your building blocks. As long as you incorporate those elements, we’ll consider fantasy (obvs), horror, sci-fi, dystopian, (post-)apocalyptic, strange fiction, steampunk, alternate history, and speculative fiction. If you have a doubt about whether your idea fits, feel free to email us at EndoftheWorldPublishing@gmail.com or engage with us on Twitter/BlueSky/Threads/Insta, where Suzanna is SuzannaLundale on all platforms and Marc is MarcTizura on all but BlueSky, which he has abandoned like a collapsed mine shaft.
Short stories should be 5K-7K words long, flash fiction 300-1K words, and poems may span across up to two A5 (5.5″x8.5″) pages. From each author, we will consider one short story or up to three flash fiction pieces and/or poems. Content warnings are appreciated, but not required. Works containing explicit sexual assault, pedophilia, or intentionally exclusionary language or themes will not be considered. For this project, works with explicit sex scenes would not be a good fit. Submissions should be sent in Times New Roman 12-pt font, double-spaced. Successful contributors will be paid for their work after the [successful] crowdfunding campaign. Contributors will also receive a digital copy of the finished book. Submissions must be made through our submissions form by March 31, 2024.
This will be End of the World Publishing’s second anthology, the first being The Hyperion: Tales from Hell, published in October 2023 after a successful crowdfunding campaign. If you haven’t already, check it out!
End of the World Publishing presents... 