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, art, and poetry. Short fiction should run between 2,000 and 8,000 words. Flash should be less than 1,000 words. As for poetry, well, simply put, we don't want rhyming poetry, period. Art must be sent as a .jpg file. One piece of art, per issue, will be chosen for the cover. All submissions should be sent via email to editor (at) sexandmurder.com.

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.

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.

Submissions that are chosen for publication will be published on the website, in both .pdf and .prc (mobipocket) 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, 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.

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. Send no more than five poems per submission. All work must be original. Finally, do not submit more than once per month.