Apparition Lit

 Full details 

See the “How to Submit” drop down box in the categories below

Apparition Lit is a speculative fiction magazine that publishes themed issues four times a year.

We publish poems and stories between 1k-5k words in January, April, July, and October. We also hold monthly flash fiction contests between the 1st and 15th of each month. Flash stories must be under a 1000 words and be inspired or based on the chosen theme. Full details for submission guidelines are below.

Payment

Apparition is a semi-pro rate magazine, paying $0.05 per word, minimum of $50.00 dollars for short 

stories and a flat fee of $50 per poem. If we accept your story, we are purchasing the right to publish the 

story online and in the quarterly edition. Rights will revert back to the artist after one year.

Equity Initiative

As Apparition Lit works to create a more equitable publishing community, we recognize that our open 

submission period is concurrent with some other really great literary magazines where marginalized 

writers also like to submit. Voices should be heard and we want to help increase that opportunity.

Our submission window will remain open for an additional week each quarter for writers who identify 

as BIPOC and self-identify in their cover letter. 

We will also accept simultaneous submissions from writers who identify as BIPOC or LGBTQIA+. 

Please just note how you identify in your cover letter, that it is a simultaneous submission, and see 

further details in the menu below on how to submit for each category.

Past Contributors

Once you are published by Apparition Lit, you join our tiny but mighty family. We love our alumni and 

will always do what we can to support their publishing career.

We want to continually discover and champion new voices and different point-of-views. If we have 

published your work in any of the quarterly issues, please wait 3-4 submission periods before subbing a

gain.

What We’re Looking For

We are open to unpublished speculative fiction stories and spec fic poems!

Speculative fiction is weird, almost unclassifiable. It’s fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and literary. Send us your 

strange, misshapen stories with enough emotional heft to break a heart, with prose that’s as clear and 

delicious as broth. We love proactive characters and settings that feel lived in and real enough to touch. 

Stories with style, stories with emotion, stories with character. We want it all.

Please see “How to Submit” in each of the drop down categories below for formatting, subject line, and

 cover letter guidelines. Submissions that are sent outside of submission period or do not follow 

guidelines will be deleted unread.

If you want to better determine if your writing fits with our style, you can purchase past issues or check 

out our stories page.

What We Won’t Accept

We do not accept multiple or simultaneous submissions. Please send only one submission per category 

during each reading period. (See Equity Initiative for exceptions)

At this time, we do not accept nonfiction, reprints or resubmissions, excerpts from other works, or 

unsolicited interviews or reviews. We do not accept stories that have been published, whether in paper 

or on the internet. Do not send us stories we have rejected in the past. We currently do not accept

 translations. 

Hard Passes

• While we love dark stories with macabre elements, we will not accept stories with gratuitous and 

graphic violence or rape, this includes any type of child abuse including sexual abuse.

• We will not consider stories that have extreme, purposeless violence toward animals.
• We do not publish erotica or thinly-veiled fan fiction.
• Stories sent outside of the reading periods will be deleted unread.
• Stories or poems with attached/embedded images or graphics files will be deleted unread.