Short stories

• Please only submit one piece if submitting a short story

• Short stories should be between 1000-5000 words

Flash fiction

• Please submit no more than three pieces if submitting flash fiction

• We would prefer flash fiction to be no more than 750 words, but please do not exceed 1000 words

Poetry

• Please submit no more than three pieces if submitting poetry

• Poetry should be no longer than two pages

Visual art

• Please submit no more than three pieces if submitting visual art

Cover Art

• Please submit no more than three pieces if submitting cover art

Our audience is middle grade (8-12) and young adult (12-18).

We want to publish works of the spooky, the dark, the peculiar, the strange, the magical. Give us romance, horror, mystery, adventure. any and all genres are accepted. We want all of it.

Email your submission to hauntedwordspress@gmail.com.

Include the name of the submission call, the title of your work, and your name or pen name in the subject line (example: ISSUE TEN: ROOTED - TITLE - AUTHOR/ARTIST NAME). If submitting cover art please also include this in the subject line (example: ISSUE TEN: ROOTED - COVER ART - ARTIST NAME).

In the body of your email, give us a short premise for your piece in no more than three words (example: YA | ROMANCE | DEATH), the word count of your piece (if a short story or flash fiction) and a short bio no more than 100 words about yourself. 

Please ensure that you put the audience (middle grade or young adult) in your submission email so that we can properly sort it when responding and deciding!

IMPORTANT: submit the work itself as an attachment, do not copy and paste it into the body of the email!

Short stories and flash fiction should be in times new roman with 12 pt. font and 1.5 line spacing. 

Use page numbers if your work is longer than one page. 

For short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, attach the piece(s) as a pdf.

For visual art, attach the piece(s) as either a jpg or png.

For cover art, please submit as portrait rather than landscape, as a piece of artwork to go on the cover, rather than the cover itself.

We welcome pieces that have been published elsewhere, and pieces that have been submitted elsewhere and are waiting on a response. 

Please just let us know when submitting if it is already submitted or published elsewhere, so that we can link to it if accepted! 

Please also ensure that it's okay with the publication the piece is currently published in!

You are absolutely welcome to submit if you submitted to a previous issue and were not accepted - we want to see your work, even if it wasn't quite right last time!

If you have had a piece published with us before, you're welcome to submit to another issue - but we ask that you please wait until the following year (i.e, if you had a piece published with us in 2023, you can submit to any 2024 issues. If you have a piece accepted in a 2024 issue, please wait until 2025 to submit again). This doesn't apply for the Pride collections - you are welcome to submit to the yearly pride collection as well as a digital issue!

Haunted Words Press is a free to submit publication.

You will not be paid for any pieces that are accepted - we make no money from it either, it’s in existence because we want it to be and because we hope others do too.

Acceptance into an issue will put you into that year's print anthology, of which you will receive a free copy. We do ask that you pay shipping costs for the copy - if this is absolutely impossible for you we do appreciate this, please get in contact with us to discuss other options. We'd love to be able to pay authors and artists for their work, but at the moment, any money from anthology orders goes to printing and maintenance costs.

For any special print-only issues, like We Will Not Stay Buried, you will receive a free copy of the collection. The same shipping costs as with the yearly anthologies is still applicable. 

Please include any content warnings that are relevant in your submission email.

It should go without saying, but we will not accept any works of intolerance or bigotry, and if you submit this you will be blocked.