Midnight Echo magazine

Midnight Echo Issue 8, edited by Amanda J Spedding, Mark Farrugia, and Marty Young, is open to submissions from March 1 to June 30, 2012.

Below are the guidelines for Issue 8.

The theme of Midnight Echo Issue 8 is knock our socks off with a damn good horror story! What do we mean by that? Well, we’re looking for stories that we might have trouble digesting. Stories that leave us feeling scared and excited about what’s in store… Scare us, shock us, freak us out, get up-close and personal with your imagination and startle us with the end result. We’re open to everything, but only the best will survive.

Marty: “I want people to really stretch their imaginations. Take us into space, into hell, or into beyond—and leave us there if you need to, but don’t take us into wacky, weird, gonzo style stories. If you need to be explicit to do this, then fine, but there’s nothing wrong with the old quiet school of horror, where what you don’t see is what does the damage.”

Mark: “I want to publish stories that challenge the way I think about traditional values—faith, love, desire, religion—stories that blur the line between right and wrong, fantasy and fact. Stories intertwined with emotion. Content is not an issue with me but the more adult the theme, the better the writing has to be. Don’t be frightened to sub the ol’ tropes (vampire, zombie, werewolf) but make it something special.  Surprise me. Shock me. Entertain. I am not adverse to poetry but it has to engage me in some way, the things I have highlighted above would be a good place for poets to start.”

Amanda:”Scare us. I’m looking for character-driven stories that push the limits of horror versus hope—I want to see the internal and external battle between predator and prey. Delve into the darkness of the mind, or the formless abyss where monsters live and inflict your worst, but make it war. I’m after content and combat in context, though, so any splatter-porn should be backed up by a damn fine story.”

About the editors:

Marty Young is a Bram Stoker nominated editor and writer and sometimes ghost hunter. He was the founding President of the Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) from 2005-2010, and one of the creative minds behind the internationally acclaimed Midnight Echo magazine.

His horror fiction has been reprinted in Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror (‘the best of 2008’), repeatedly included in Ellen Datlow’s year’s best recommended reading list, and nominated for both the Australian Shadows and Ditmar awards. Marty’s essays on horror literature have been published in journals and university textbooks in Australia and India, and he is also co-editor of the Australian Shadows Award-winning Macabre; a Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, a landmark anthology showcasing some of the best Australian horror stories from 1836 to 2010.

As of October 2011, he is the Executive Editor of Midnight Echo magazine (again), and is also the Associate Editor of the HWA’s Dark Whispers blog. Marty can be contacted at marty@martyyoung.com.

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Amanda J Spedding’s stories explore the darkness of the human soul. Her fiction has been published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM), Shades of Sentience, Award Winning Australian Writing, Tasmaniac Publications and Pill Hill Press, and she has a post-apocalyptic short due out early this year with Dark Prints Press. Amanda’s dark fantasy story, ‘The Whims of my Enemy’, received an honourable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best of Horror Volume 3, and made Horrorscope’s 2010 Recommended Reads.

She is a freelance editor, proofreader and copywriter, Committee Member for the Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA), and Field Correspondent for Innsmouth Free Press. Amanda lives in Sydney with her gorgeous husband and two very cool kids.

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Mark Farrugia is the author of the vampire comic series Allure of the Ancients: The Key to His Kingdom (to be published in Midnight Echo volumes 7-10) and the short story series Seeds, set in a dystopian version of Melbourne. Mark’s other writing credits include the blood n’guts dragon fantasy A Bag Full of Arrows, (honorably mentioned by Ellen Datlow) and the horror short story Single Mother of None. His fiction has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM), Midnight Echo, Borderlands, Eclecticism and AntiopdeanSF. BestScienceFictionStories.com declared Mark’s flash fiction amongst its favorites of 2009 and 2010.

Mark edited ASIM issue 46 and co-edited ASIM Best of Horror Volume 2. Mark is the Australia Horror Writers Association’s Critique Group Manager and can be contacted at mark_farrugia@ymail.com

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Amanda, Mark, and Marty run a joint blog called Screaming Ink (along with two other mad hatters), so don’t be afraid to check that out.

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Below are the general submission details for fiction, poetry, cover and interior artwork, and comic strips.

We also accept Letters to the Editor, so if you want to contact us to say how great we are, to complain about something, or just to chew the fat (translated = talk horror), please do. We won’t be able to publish all Letters, but we will be able to publish some. Send Letters to us at midnightecho@australianhorror.com

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FICTION

The maximum word length for short stories is 5000 words. However, the editors may accept one novelette up to 10,000 word per issue (please send us a brief synopsis of your novelette first, and only send the novelette if/when we ask for it).

PLEASE NOTE: if your story exceeds our word limit and you haven’t contacted us first to check that this is okay, we will feed it to our goblins without reading it.

Submissions should be in standard manuscript format (eg, 12 point Courier or Times New Roman font, 1.5 line spacing) and sent as an attachment via email as either an MS Word document or an RTF file.

Write MIDNIGHT ECHO: “Submission Title” in the subject line of the email.

Please include your full contact details (postal address, e-mail, phone number) as well as word count in the body of your email, and send your submission to:

midnightecho@australianhorror.com

Midnight Echo buys Exclusive Worldwide English Language Rights (no reprints), with 6 month exclusivity after first publication, and pays 3c per word to a maximum of $150 for short stories, and up to $300 for a novella. No simultaneous or multiple submissions please, and no reprints. While we will seek to emphasise the work of Australian writers, Midnight Echo is open to submissions from anyone, anywhere. You do not need to a member of the AHWA to submit your work.

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NON-FICTION

Midnight Echo accepts non-fiction articles on any aspect of writing and/or the horror/dark fiction genre, and pays $100 for up to 3000 words.

Please contact us via email to discuss your proposal first.

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POETRY

As each issue of Midnight Echo has different editor/editors, poetry will not always be accepted. It all depends on editorial preferences for that particular issue.

Poetry is being accepted for Issue 8, so long as it fits the overall theme of the issue. Submissions should follow the same guidelines as per fiction (above).

Note: Payment rates for poetry is $15 for up to 50 lines, and $25 for poems up to 100 lines.

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COVER AND INTERIOR ART

Midnight Echo is also open to submissions for Full Colour cover and Black & White internal illustrations. We are seeking all forms of artistic expression – your art form, your medium, your way – as long the submission is a finished piece. No rough sketches or outlines of ideas, just your best and finest work!

All in all, your art should have a voice. It doesn’t have to be prominent, but it needs to be there. We will be asking each piece the same question: ‘Why do you exist?’ Your aim as the Artist, is to allow your piece to answer that question.

The editor of each issue will be responsible for selecting artwork.

If you are interested in submitting Art Work to Midnight Echo, please follow these directions:

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS:

For first round submissions, please email a 72dpi review image of your work.
Image must be under 3 MB.
Please compress using ZIP compression only.
Only send us one email, containing no more than two images. Make them your best ones, or the ones you think best suit the issue. Do not send further emails until you hear back from us. If you have an online portfolio, send us the URL so we may view your work. This makes our submission goblins far happier than receiving multiple emails from the same artist, each with new images.

Please send your submissions to: midnightecho@australianhorror.com

Accepted artists will be notified of the proceedings to supply their final piece for publication.

Please, no lengthy write-ups about your piece. The submission needs to speak on its own.

Payment: Full colour cover art will receive AU$80. Interior art will be paid AU$30 per piece.

All artists will be notified of their acceptance or otherwise via email. The decision of the Current Editor is final.

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COMICS

Midnight Echo is also sourcing black and white horror comic stories (colour is acceptable, as long as a black and white version is available). Submissions can be as dark, hard, or as subtle as the story dictates.

The length should be no longer than 10 A4 pages. Please email us with your proposal first (midnightecho@australianhorror.com). If we like where you’re headed, we’ll ask for the comic to be submitted in PDF format for final approval. Please ensure that the file size is no larger than 3MB. Query first if larger!

We offer $60 for accepted stories.