Call for Submissions
NECRONOMICUM will be a triannual electronic magazine publication, available in multiple formats (ebooks and occasionally print) from Martian Migraine Press. NECRONOMICUM will feature weird and erotic fiction, poetry and essays. Each issue will carry 4 stories, some poetry, and 1 essay. Editors: Justine Geoffrey (Blackstone Erotica) and Scott R Jones (When The Stars Are Right).
What we’re looking for in fiction: stylish, horrific, transgressive erotica with a more-than-liberal seasoning of weird. We want to see explorations of human (and non-human) sexuality with a wide emotional range. We want to be exposed to a literature of desire as seen through the distorting angles of a dangerous mystic gemstone; tales of transcendence, of transforming lust, of the joys (and costs) that come from dabbling with demons and the dark arts, of getting it on with grim god-things. Stories with a Lovecraftian inspiration are of course very welcome, but try to go beyond mere “tentacle sex” and really get down to the throbbing multi-dimensional heart of Mythos fiction: that there are things humans are not meant to know, and knowing them can be deadly. Or, in the case ofNECRONOMICUM, deadly sexy. If you’d like an idea of what Martian Migraine Press editors enjoy, you could do worse than the stories found in our latest anthology, Conqueror Womb: Lusty Tales of Shub-Niggurath, or any of the books in the Blackstone Erotica series. Other great weird erotica anthologies are Cthulhurotica (Dagan Books) and Whispers In Darkness (Circlet Press).
Sub-genres of erotica we’re more than happy to look at: BDSM, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Suspense, Gothic… obviously, all of these will need to be heavily influenced and informed by the Weird fiction and New Weird fiction schools.
What we’re not looking for:
- Vampires, werewolves, werecats, wereanything, fairies … if there’s even a whiff of Sookie Stackhouse coming off the page, we’re not interested. This means anything that could popularly be termed paranormal erotica … “you can’t spell paranormal without normal!” and we’re not interested in normal.
- anything with rape or underage physical or sexual abuse as the central motif.
- Submissions are open continuously. However, if we close to submissions (due to volume or other concerns), it will be noted immediately here on this page, on our Duotrope listing, and on our Facebook page and Twitter feed.
- For stories, word count should come to no more than 3K. This is a firm upper limit. We’d also be interested in seeing flash fiction (under 1000 words). No epic poetry: 50 lines seems reasonable to us, but of course this can be fudged a little if the piece is acceptable. Essays can run longer than 5K, but we’d prefer it if they didn’t: length there will depend on the subject and the execution.
- All submissions must be in Standard Manuscript Format: double-spaced, no space between paragraphs, 12pt Courier New or Times New Roman, header on first page with your name, address, and contact information as well as word count, header on every other page with your last name / name of story / page number
- We prefer RTF or DOC files
- We are interested in both original work and reprints
- Simultaneous submissions are OK, but please let us know in your cover letter if this is the case, and definitelylet us know if your piece sells elsewhere first.
- to submit a story to NECRONOMICUM: The Magazine of Weird Erotica send an e-mail (with the story file attached, not in the body of the email) to: submissions@martianmigrainepress.com, with subject line: NECRO,title of your story, and your name.
For original work, we are purchasing First English Rights with an exclusivity period of 4 months, after which all rights revert to the author. All accepted submissions will be paid a token payment of $10CDN, as well as copies of the issue in all electronic formats (mobi, EPUB, and PDF) and copies of three additional Martian Migraine Press titles of the authors choosing. If there is a print edition of the issue (something we won’t be doing right away, but have plans to) then the author will receive all of the above and two copies of the print edition in which their piece appears.
REPLIES and QUERIES
We will try to acknowledge receipt of your submission within a week of its arrival in our inbox.
