Calls for Submission

In order to connect LGBTQ writers with opportunities to publish, Lambda Literary has collected the following calls for submission and contest listings.

Listings with deadlines appear first; ongoing calls for work appear at the bottom of the list.

If you have an announcement you would like us to post, please email the information to info@lambdaliterary.org.

BEST LESBIAN ROMANCE 2011
Editor: Radclyffe
Publisher: Cleis Press
Deadline for Submissions: April 1, 2010
Guidelines for Submissions:

• Published or unpublished short stories or novel excerpts
• Previously published material acceptable if published between September 1, 2009 & December 31, 2010
• Word count: 1500 - 5000 words
• Electronic submissions only to: radclyffe.bsb@gmail.com,
• e-mail header: BLR 11_Author_Title (BLR 11_Your Name_Title).rtf attachment (story)
• e-mail body: story title, author name, pseudonym, address, phone/fax, e-mail address, word count, if story previously published: anthology title/publisher/Pub date, 50 word bio.
• Story Format: Arial; 12 pt, double-spaced; standard paragraphing; no HTML, file name: Author_Title (Your Name_Story Title)
• The anthology is scheduled for publication from Cleis Press Fall 2010.
• Submission decisions will be provided by e-mail summer 2010.
• Erotic content is welcome as long as the emotional/romantic elements are focal.
• Multiple submissions (no more than 3) accepted
• Payment: $50 and 2 contributor copies
• Please send questions to: radclyffe.bsb@gmail.com.
  

MEN OF COLOR EROTIC ANTHOLOGY

Deadline: December 15, 2009

Burrow Publishing is seeking submissions for the hottest and rawest erotica book compilation (gay and bisexual) to be released in 2010. Stories should prominently feature men of color (e.g. Brothas, Papis, Caribbean men, etc.) and the various types of men (e.g. Thugz, Bears, Bourgie, etc.) Stories should be fresh, unique, and sex-filled, but also have an engaging storyline and character development. We are open to various writing styles, content, and sub-genres. Only one requirement. You know what turns you on. Unleash what you got and show us your skills. Non-fiction stories will also be considered.

This erotica book compilation is an opportunity for new writers to gain national exposure and for established authors to expand their body of work. Stories must be between 3,500 and 6,000 words. Selected authors will be paid a one-time fee of $50.00 per story and receive 10 complimentary copies of the compilation. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2009. Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for a response to your submissions. Both hard-copy submissions and email submissions will be accepted. Email: submissions@burrowpublishing.com

Please note: Stories that have been previously published in any format (including postings on the Internet) will not be accepted. If you are interested in submitting a story, please write your best story and submit to submissions@burrowpublishing.com OR mail to:

Burrow Publishing, LLC
P.O. Box 7091
Princeton, New Jersey 08743

REQUIRED: Please include a brief biography, the word count, and your contact information. Your contact information should include your full name (and pseudonym, if used), current mailing address, phone number, and an email address. You must be 18 years or older.

HEADCASE: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, And Queer (LGBTQ) Writers and Artists on Mental Illness

Headcase will be an anthology comprised of 15-20 nonfiction pieces by writers and artists both established and new, exploring the theme of mental health, mental illness, and mental health care in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) community. The book is currently being considered for publication by a major queer press.

The anthology seeks essays, poetry, and comics by queer consumers of mental health services or queer individuals who have been diagnosed, but do not identify as patients, with mental illness. Works should explore the intersection of queerness and mental health and can include topics such as psychotropics; Gender Identity Disorder and its acceptance or rejection as a legitimate mental disorder; conventional v. holistic treatment; experiences in therapy, groups, and/or institutions; how race and ethnicity, class, sex, gender identity, age, and disability impact access to treatment; addiction, self-medicating, and recovery.

Modest compensation provided upon publication to contributors whose pieces are chosen.

Guidelines:

* Pieces should be between 750 and 1500 words (approximately 3 to 5 double-spaced pages).

* While the deadline for a 2010 publication date has not yet been established, submitting a description of a work in progress ASAP is recommended.

* Submissions should be sent as a Microsoft Word document, double-spaced, 12 pt. font, Times New Roman font.

* Please provide a brief (100 words or less) bio with your submission

Please send submissions/project descriptions to headcase_anthology@yahoo.com

And Then It Shifted: Women Open Up About Leaving Men for Women (Seal Press, 2010)
Deadline: December 1, 2009


Editors: Candace Walsh and Laura André. Candace Walsh is the editor of the recently released anthology Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On (www.askmeaboutmydivorce.com).

Deadline: December 1, 2009. That said, we strongly encourage you to send us a query well beforehand, so that we can review it, give you helpful feedback, and have a good sense of what will be coming our way that month. If you are able to submit the piece earlier, we prefer that you do.

Payment: Upon publication. Amount will vary, depending on experience and other variables ($50 and up). Please include a list of any previous publication credits with your query or submission. Contributors will also receive two copies of the published book.

As Dr. Lisa Diamond’s recent groundbreaking book Sexual Fluidity makes clear, women’s sexual desire and identity are capable of shifting. Cynthia Nixon, Carol Leifer, Wanda Sykes, Portia de Rossi, and countless others have left the fold of heterosexual identity to enter into or pursue same-sex relationships. Although this book will evolve as we receive submissions, we welcome first-person, literary non-fiction essays (2,000 to 4,000 words) from women

1) who were aware that they had always felt robust same-sex desires, but wanted to try to make it work in the straight world, and also

2) who identified as heterosexual at one time, but found that the situation they were in just naturally led to embarking on an intimate romantic relationship with a woman.

We seek a diversity of voices, and welcome submissions from a variety of perspectives. We also welcome essays from women who don’t fit precisely into the above descriptions.

Here are some questions that we’d like answered in your piece. It may be one of the questions, or you may touch on most of them, and throw in some extra, great stuff that didn’t even occur to us. Please don’t feel like this is an essay question test and that you have to cover them all—we want the format of your essay to feel organic and not be explicitly dictated by our questions.

How did you come to your moment of truth?

Did your perception of yourself change?

Do you feel that others’ perceptions of you changed? Did they surprise you with either an unexpected positive or negative reaction? How did this affect you? Did their reactions change over time?

Do you feel like you surrendered heterosexuality or elements of heterosexual privilege? Do you feel like your new life with a woman has yielded rewards? What were the rewards you expected and which ones were surprises?

What do you miss? What do you not miss? Everything from in the bedroom to out at dinner, at a wedding, as a parent, as a family member, at the gym, in the workplace, on a picnic—whatever comes up for you.

What is this journey like, in general and for you? How did you feel as you were setting out on it and how do you feel now? How do you mark your progress? Were there stages? Illustrative moments? Looking back, do you feel like you went through certain phases?

What is it like to shift your identity? What about you is the same and always will be? What about you has changed or altered?

How did you feel as you began your relationship with a woman? Did you get flak from individuals who second-guessed you? Did you feel like you had to prove yourself? How did you keep your internal balance?

How did your socialization as a straight woman prepare you (ill or well) for pursuing a woman or being in a relationship with a woman?

How did your cultural/religious/racial/ethnic background shape your experience?

Do you like, or are you attracted to certain things that your partner or girlfriend, or gay women do that are traditionally labeled as masculine? Feminine?

How do you define yourself? Do you feel like the current “labels” work for you or that what you are is not yet defined by a word or phrase? What paradigm do you imagine?

Are you still with the woman you left your previous relationship for? Was she just a catalyst, or a rebound, or something else, or “the one”?

As editors, we value specificity, detail, “showing, not telling,” honesty, epiphanies, clean, polished, yet real and un-prettied-up writing, and the sharing of insights.

Please send your submission (Word document, double-spaced), along with a short bio and full contact information to: andthenitshifted@gmail.com

ARKTOI BOOKS, AN IMPRINT OF RED HEN PRESS SEEKING POETRY FROM LESBIAN AUTHORS

Deadline: August - November 2009

Book-length manuscripts of between 50 and 80 pages will be accepted for its annual publication. There is no fee for submitting. Please go to www.arktoi.com for more information and for profiles of current Arktoi authors.

NOWHERE 2 BE FOUND MAGAZINE

Nowhere 2 Be Found focuses on diverse views & culture from a glbtq perspective. We are currently seeking the following submissions for our first issue to be released in January 2010. We are looking for the following: Stories about your relationships; stories about living with health, mental health, physical difficulities & substance abuse issues. We are looking for stories with science fiction, horror, & fantasy themes. All submissions for the first issue must be in no later then December 5, 2009. We will be continuing to collect submissions for future issues. Please send all inquiries to nowheretwobefound@gmail.com or mail them to:
Nowhere 2 Be Found Magazine
attn: Jeff Flaster
72 Sarah Lane
Middletown NY 10941
.
You can check out my Youtube vlog that wiil be a extension of the paper magazine http://www.youtube.com/user/nowheretwobefound.
You can also follow us on Twitter- http://twitter.com/nowhere2befound,
on Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000146201187&ref=profile
on Myspace- http://www.myspace.com/nowheretwobefound

First Annual Saints and Sinners GLBT
Literary Festival Short Fiction Contest

The Saints and Sinners GLBT Literary Festival’s First Annual Short Fiction Contest is soliciting original, unpublished short stories between 5,000 and 7,000 words with GLBT content on the broad theme of “Saints and Sinners.” The contest is open to authors at all stages of their careers and to stories in all genres. The entry fee is $10 per story with a 3 story limit per author. One grand prize of $250 and two second place prizes of $50 will be awarded. In addition, the top stories will be published in an anthology from QueerMojo, an imprint of Rebel Satori Press. There will also be a book release party held during the 8th annual Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans May 13-16, 2010. The deadline for the receipt of manuscripts is January 2, 2010.

Contest details at a glance:
Theme: Saints and Sinners
Entry Fee: $10 US per story. Limit three stories per author.
Deadline: January 2, 2010
Word Count: 5,000 to 7,000

Send 2 copies of each story with a completed entry form. Submissions should be in standard manuscript format. Your name and contact information should NOT appear on the manuscript.

Entry forms available at www.sasfest.com.

Gay Latino Fiction Anthology

Lethe Press’ new imprint for LGBT writers of color, Tincture, has announced a call for a gay Latino fiction anthology, edited by Charles Rice-Gonzalez. The anthology is seeking unpublished fiction (short stories, novel excerpts, short-short stories and flash fiction) by queer Latino writers to take the pulse of contemporary gay Latino literature, stories, experiences and perspectives. It will present a who’s who of queer Latino men writing fiction today.  Authors of selected stories will be modestly compensated.

The collection is slated for publication in September 2010 and the submissions are due by January 11, 2010.

Guidelines

• Unpublished short story or novel excerpt of up to 7500 words (No multiple submissions in these categories)
• Unpublished Flash Fiction or short-short stories (up to 3 stories no more than 1000 words per story in these two categories only)
• Non-genre-specific
• Gay centric theme or LGBT characters
• Written primarily in English (Stories translated into English from Spanish are acceptable)
• Thought-provoking and original

Submission procedure

• Submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. EST on January 11, 2010.
• Please submit work to LatinoLethePress@gmail.com.
• Include a brief bio (no more than 200 words) of the author as a cover page. In the top left corner of the cover page, include: submission title, category, author’s name, address, phone, e-mail and (website, if available).
• Submissions should be sent as a Microsoft word or RTF document.
• Format: Single sided, dbl. spaced, 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins.
• Please submit unpublished, publication ready pieces only.
• All submissions will be reviewed by the editor.

MUSCLE MEN
Edited by Richard Labonte for Cleis Press

Were you the kind of scrawny queer kid who ogled Steve Reeves and
never missed a TV wrestling match, or the buff young man who
fantasized about entering strongman contests and cherished his first
weight bench? I’m looking for original, erotic stories or web-only
reprints of up to 7,500 words for an anthology of fiction and memoir
based on muscle and desire. Consider: built Daddies, burly bears, body
worship, bodybuilding, wrestling from backyard and collegiate to motel
and TV pro, mixed martial arts, weightlifting, arm wrestling, colt
model porn fantasies, muscle voyeurism, big guys attracted to the
twinklike … “muscle” in all its forms, big and beefy or lean and wiry,
as a starting point for *authentic*, well-crafted stories by, for or
about men and muscle - writing with a solid narrative arc in which
characters connect emotionally as much as physically.

Deadline is Oct. 1, 2009
Publication date is Spring, 2010; payment is $50-$75, depending on length, plus two copies; submissions in .doc or .rtf format to <cleismuscles@gmail.com>.

Tennessee Williams Literary Festival Announces Two Contests

The One-Act Play Contest
Since 1988 the Festival has been scouting out new playwriting talent with its One-Act Play Contest. Past winners include David Lindsay-Abaire who went on to win the Pulitzer for Drama in 2007!

Creative writing and theater graduate students from the University of New Orleans get a chance to flex their creative muscles, helping to judge the contest and turning the winning script into a full production.

The grand prize includes:

* $1,500 (raised from $1,000 in previous years)
* Staged reading at the 24th annual Festival (March 24-28, 2010)
* Full production at the 25th anniversary Festival (March 30-April 3, 2011)
* VIP All-Access Pass for 2010 and 2011 Festivals ($1,000 value)
* Publication in Bayou literary magazine

Deadline: November 1, 2009

The Fiction Writing Contest
Last year, the Festival began honoring great unpublished short stories, holding its first annual Fiction Writing Contest; the final round was judged by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford. Winner Robin Martin of Brooklyn, New York had two stories place in the top ten and took home the first place prize for her richly textured story, "1969."

Just announced: this year's Fiction Writing Contest judge is novelist and short story writer Jill McCorkle whose work has been chosen four times by the New York Times Book Review for its Notable Books of the Year list. McCorkle is the author of the novels The Cheer Leader, July 7th, Tending to Virginia, Ferris Beach, and Carolina Moon, and the short story collections Crash Diet and Final Vinyl Days.

The grand prize includes:

* $1,500 cash
* Publication in the New Orleans Review
* Domestic airfare and French Quarter hotel accommodations to attend the 2010 Festival in New Orleans
* A public reading at the 2010 Festival
* A VIP All Access Pass ($500 value).

Deadline: November 16, 2009

To enter: If you would like to enter either of our contests, you can do so either by mail or online. Visit www.tennesseewilliams.net/contest for guidelines.

Blood Sacraments

Editor: Todd Gregory
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Publication Date: October 2010

Length: 2500-10,000 words
Payment: $50, on publication
Deadline: October 1, 2009

LOOKING FOR: Gay erotic tales of the vampire, by new or established writers. Think sensuality and eroticism, rather than hard-core porn. Don’t be afraid to step outside of the box and create a new mythos for your story. Strong writing, plot, and character development is more important than the erotic content; we are looking for stories to engage the mind as well as the nether bits. Reprints are okay, but original stories will be given priority.

GUIDELINES: Stories must all be double-spaced in either Times, Times New Roman, or Courier 12 point fonts. Each page must be consecutively numbered in the lower right hand corner. Header line must appear on each page with the name of the story, the author’s name, and an email address. First page of story must also have all contact information for author: name, address, email address, and phone number. Submissions must be mailed to: Todd Gregory, c/o Greg Herren, 5500 Prytania Street #215, New Orleans, LA 70115. Questions can be emailed to gregwrites@gmail.com. Electronic submissions will not be accepted. All submissions will be recycled unless return envelope with adequate postage is provided.

Launch of a new imprint Queer Mojo

The dirty little bastard child of Rebel Satori Press, Queer Mojo (QM) is the publishing home of rebellious queer writers, faery freaks, riot grrrls, surrealist outpunks, neo-queer skinheads... the whole Salem's lot of double-fisted revolutionary same-sex loving hellspawn.

Website: http://www.queermojo.net
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/queermojo

Desperately Seeking: Punks, urban outcasts and the just plain morally unfit for a Queer Male Erotic Anthology. Queer Mojo is looking for quality erotic, short fiction for an upcoming anthology. Stories should be creative, revolutionary, queer and... well, pieces gotta be good reads and they gotta be hot. They may be as explicit as you like, but should have some redeeming literary value (whatever you take that to mean).

QM seeks characters out of the mainstream: punks, outcasts, skaters, urban anarchists and secretly rebellious farmboys. Whether you draw inspiration from Bill Burroughs or are a latter-day Loveraft in creepy crawly tentacular stimulation, all genres are welcome.

Previously published material considered on a case-by-case basis depending on original exposure. Please indicate place and date of previous publication in email.

Stories should be no longer than 7,000 words. Email submissions as a Word doc attachment to info@queermojo.net

Open Call: LGBT Full-length Fiction

Got your mojo working? QM is actively seeking daring new works of LGBT full-length fiction! We are looking for edgy erotic writing, poetry, literary anothologies and boundary-pushing fiction. Rebelious, revolutionary, experimental and unsolicited manuscripts welcomed!

Visit www.queermojo.net for full submission guidelines.

Announcing the launch of COLLECTIVE FALLOUT: A Literary Magazine of Queer Genre Fiction & Poetry

Collective Fallout is a literary magazine dedicated to queer-themed sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and mystery fiction and poetry. It will be a print journal published 2 or 3 times a year. The Collective Fallout blog is where readers will find reviews, interviews, and other editorial content, and is where readers are encouraged to comment on and reply to the forthcoming print journal.

Short Story submissions must be queer-related, and fall into one or more of the the science fiction, fantasy, horror, or mystery genres. Stories may not be longer than 10,000 words. Poetry submissions must be queer-related, both form and free verse, and of a surreal, metaphysical, or similar nature. Up to 5 poems per submission, no more than 450 total lines. Simultaneous submissions accepted. We will not accept submissions of blatant erotica or pornography.

Contributors will receive one contributor copy of the magazine. Collective Fallout acquires and retains First North American Serial Rights. Submit content for the print magazine electronically to collectivefallout@gmail.com. Please attach files in DOC, RTF, or PDF formats.


ONGOING - BELLA BOOKS

Call for Novel-Length Lesbian Fiction Submissions
Claiming our Past, Present and Future through Lesbian Literature

Karin Kallmaker, Editorial Director
editorialdirector@bellabooks.com

At Bella Books, we believe stories about lesbians are an essential of life -- and so do our readers. If you are an author with a great story about gay women to tell, we want to hear from you.

We're looking for imaginative and entertaining stories that illuminate and celebrate possibilities, fantasies and realities in lesbian lives. Novels that celebrate the girl-next-door, the best friend, the love of our life and the superwoman that exists in all of us.

Our readers have high standards for exciting, fresh plots, and they relish hours spent with engaging characters. They want books they can't put down, stories they think about for days afterward, and characters so compelling they wish they were real.

To provide our readers with the kinds of stories they demand and deserve, we publish general lesbian fiction, romance, mystery, action/thriller, science-fiction, fantasy, and erotica. If you believe your manuscript will meet our needs, we welcome your submission.

Learn more about our Guidelines for Submission and Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.bellabooks.com/submissions.htm

As the largest lesbian-owned publisher of lesbian fiction, with over 250 titles in print, Bella Books' editorial and production expertise is completely focused on books for lesbians. Bella authors reap the benefits of accumulated decades of experience, with editorial mentoring and support. Behind each of our writers stands a team of editors, typesetters and proofreaders working together to produce wonderful, absorbing reading.

Penthouse Variations

Penthouse Media Group
2 Penn Plaza, Suite 1125
New York, NY 10121

Penthouse Variations is a digest-sized magazine, which is published twelve times a year. Editorial content, which varies per month, consists of erotic feature stories and reader letters in some of the following categories:

Anal Sex, Bisexuality, Bondage, Casual Encounters, Dominant Sexplay, Exhibitionism, Erotic Fantasy, Exotic Vacations, Female Domination, Fetishism, Group Sex, Lesbianism, Masturbation, May/December Affairs, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, Role-Playing, Sex Toys, S&M, Spanking, Swinging, Threesomes, Tickling, Transvestism, Video Sex, Voyeurism, Watching My Wife.

Submissions to Penthouse Variations should be double-spaced and on white paper. If you are making a professional freelance submission to be published as one of our feature stories, be sure to clearly indicate this in a cover letter to the editor.

Penthouse Variations publishes first-person narratives in the 3,000 to 3,500 word range, containing explicit sex scenes set within a specific category and placed within the context of a realistic plot with well-developed characters. Stories should be written in past tense. Submissions written in present tense will not be considered. We do not publish poetry of any kind or purchase unsolicited illustrations or photographs.

Penthouse Variations does not accept unsolicited electronic story
submissions or pay for material sent to the editorial office via e-mail. For
your material to be considered for publication as a feature story, you must send a manuscript to the editorial office with your legal name and mailing address printed on the first page. Please include an SASE or a working e-mail address for a reply.

Penthouse Variations will not consider unsolicited material that has been
previously published in print, online or in any other format. Penthouse
Variations purchases all rights to contracted material. Payment for an
accepted, fully revised manuscript is up to $400.00. Two contributor's
copies of the magazine are mailed to each author of a feature story upon
publication.

Manuscripts usually take six to eight weeks to be read. They may be rejected because of the quality of the writing, a lack of category focus or because the category described is unsuitable or oversold to us. We strongly recommend that writers read several issues of the magazine to become familiar with our categories, style and vocabulary. Adults interested in viewing sample stories and letters may find them at¹ web site: www.variations.com.

Penthouse Variations is proud of its reader-generated letter sections and
less experienced writers should feel free to make submissions to the editor on this basis. Reader letters may be of any length or subject matter and may be typed or handwritten. Letters may be sent to the editorial office via surface mail or e-mail at: variations@pmgi.com. Letters to Penthouse Variations magazine are assumed intended for publication and republication in all media, in whole or in part, edited or unedited. All letters become the property of Penthouse Variations. We do not make payments for letter material.

To submit a letter or a professional freelance submission to Penthouse
Variations, you must be an adult who is eighteen years of age or older. By submitting material to Penthouse Variations, you confirm that you are eighteen years of age or older.

Penthouse Variations guarantees confidentiality of all material, both
letters and stories. In fact, the editors choose pseudonyms in order to
avoid writers inadvertently revealing their identities in choosing their
own.

GAYLIFESTYLEMONTHLY.COM (ongoing call)
Fiction: Queries welcome, but not required. Your piece should be about 1000 words. Often, shorter is better. Vignettes are always welcome. Features: Instruct, enlighten or motivate your reader in about 500 to 800 words. More are okay, if the subject and quality warrants it. The piece must be topical. Commentaries welcome. Articles about events must be dated. We encourage art in support of these pieces! News: 250 to 500 words. The story should consist of your original copy, not submissions from news outlets. All news must be dated. Art: Photos, drawings, etc., are highly encouraged. Please submit as .jpg files. Include information about the piece, such as subject, commentary, etc.

By making a submission, you are certifying you own the rights to the material and are authorized to submit it for publication. The editors reserve the right to make necessary changes for punctuation, spelling and grammar, and insertion of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) key words. Language appropriate to the topic is required. Since we have so many titles, it's difficult to set any strict rules, but keep your readership in mind when you write. We believe in free speech, but reasonable limits should be considered.

Copy will be in either 10- or 12-point Times New Roman with standard formatting. Extravagant formatting, colors, art within the body of the copy, etc. is not acceptable. Submit only as .doc or .txt files. IMPORTANT: At the top of the first page, place your name, address, phone number, email address and, if you are submitting work for pay, your Tax ID number (see below). No work will be accepted without this. Author retains rights. We pay upon acceptance. Payment will be based on published word count. Depending on the article, we will pay $.01 - $.015 per word, with a $5.00 minimum. We will let you know if we have accepted your piece for publication in less than 60 days.

All submissions will be via email. No paper, "hard copy" submissions will not be considered. Email stories formatted as discussed to ellen@gaylifestylemonthly.com or Ellen_gaylifestylemonthly@yahoo.com.