Sex and Murder Magazine

Call for Submissions

Sex and Murder is a magazine for the darker side of fiction. We want your most disturbing tales. We want you to peel back the thin veil of humanity to reveal the monstrous, give us the truly horrific, and scare us silly. The genre isn't necessarily important, if your tale is set in the old west, so be it; if it's a tale of dark fantasy, that's great as well. What is really important is that it is well written, tight prose that pushes the boundaries of whatever genre it is set in.

We accept short fiction, flash fiction, novel excerpts, art, and poetry.

Short fiction should run between 2,000 and 8,000 words. Flash should be less than 1,000 words.

Short fiction should be sent attached as either a .doc or .txt document in standard manuscript format. Include your name, address, email address, and approximate word count in the left corner of the first page and at the top of your submission email's body.

We accept simultaneous submissions, but let us know in the body of your email. Also, unlike many markets, we accept reprints. Please send no more than one piece of short fiction or flash fiction per submission.

With that said, let's deal with some specifics. First off, blood and gore are great, we want blood and gore, but blood and gore, no matter how extreme, must be intrinsic to the plot, not simply thrown in for violence's sake. The same goes for sex, if it's in there it better have a purpose. At the same time, the absolute lack of either or both doesn't mean we don't want your story. There are plenty of ways to be truly terrifying without the slightest trace of either.

We don't want rambling diatribes or thinly veiled hate speech, neither one is interesting.

Fiction submissions should be sent via email to fictioneditor (at) sexandmurder.com.

If you would like an excerpt of your novel to appear in Sex and Murder Magazine, it should be no longer than 10,000 words, have a definite arc that stands up outside of the larger narrative, and be in proper format for the magazine. As a general rule, we will not run excerpts from novels that are self-published or have been published via a vanity press.

Excerpt submissions should be sent via email to editor (at) sexandmurder.com.

We don't have a preference in style, form or subject matter. Send us your free verse, your sonnets, and experimental work. We want edge. We want darkness. Make us unsettled, or excited. Mostly, we want craft. If gore, and not language, is your passion, save it. Of course extreme violence and sex is welcome, but if it's clichéd, save it. We suggest going back and looking at some of the poetry in past issues, if you haven't (a serious poet would have already). Some of the best poetry in Sex and Murder Magazine is subtle, likewise some of the best poetry is extreme. If Baudelaire is your inspiration, send us your rhyming stanzas, but if you can't pull off rhyme and meaning, save it. You'd be surprised at what we will and won't publish. Save your rough drafts.

Send 1-5 poems in the body of the email to poetryeditor (at) sexandmurder.com. If you send poems as attachments, they will be discarded. If the form of your piece requires an attachment, query first (without the attachment!). We welcome simultaneous submissions, we are writers after all. But be ethical and tell us ASAP if your stuff is going elsewhere. Right now we do take reprints. Again, be ethical and tell us where it's been before-it likely won't affect our decision, but you owe the other guy. We respond as soon as we can, but comments are not always guaranteed.

Art must be sent as wither a .jpg file, or with the website address where it is displayed.

One piece of art, per issue, will be chosen for the cover.

Submissions that are chosen for publication will be published on the website, in a variety of downloadable formats, including pdf, lrf, epub, and prc formats, and in a print publication. We are a non-paying market. Hopefully that will change in the future. Author grants first electronic and print publication rights on first run stories, as well as the right to electronically archive the piece for one year. At the end of that year, the author may request that the piece be removed from the website.

All work must be original.

Finally, do not submit more than once per month.



Updated June 3, 2010