Welcome to All Worlds Wayfarer
Anthology submissions are currently CLOSED.
Submissions for a dark fantasy anthology will likely open sometime in 2024.
Please note that we don't accept AI-generated stories (see below for AI policy details).
Submission Guidelines
We love stories that take us on tours through the fantastic—whether in other dimensions or in the hidden spaces of our own world. We're looking to highlight an often unseen side of speculative fiction: we want to encounter characters so vivid that our souls slip into their bodies, themes that challenge and move us, and language that makes us swoon. Immersive world-building and twisting plots are awesome aspects of our genres, but we're looking for stories where these factors are shaped around the characters and themes, instead of the other way around. So often speculative stories are seen as escapist romps or slow, encyclopedic affairs—while there’s nothing wrong with these styles, we know the possibilities are infinite!
Rekindle the wonder and horror we all experienced as children. Make our eyes stretch wide as we read. Make our pulses pound faster. Raise our spirits. Break our hearts. Haunt us. Make us look at our own world just a little differently after we reach "the end."
Help our readers escape reality and experience it more deeply all at once in the way that only stories—especially speculative stories—can.
What We're Seeking
Show us your best work in any of the speculative genres or their sub-genres:
- Fantasy
- Science Fiction
- Horror
- Magical Realism
- Fabulism
- Slipstream
- Paranormal, Surrealism, Weird Fiction, or any other style with speculative elements.
As long as your story emphasizes characters, themes, or craft, it may be a fit for us.
We're especially fond of: High fantasy without traditional genre races or creatures; fantasy or science fiction that crosses over with horror; unusual takes on common sub-genres (such as post-apocalyptic); rare sub-genres (such as biopunk, solarpunk, cosmic horror, or Gothic fantasy); themes exploring identity, purpose, or existence; stories centering platonic relationships; diverse and LGBTQIA+ characters; #OwnVoices; genre-blending stories. What we crave most, however, is sincerity, meaning, and intensity.
Hard sells: Stories heavily reliant on genre tropes; stories with traditional fantasy races and creatures (elves, dragons, etc); superheroes; stories with real-world religious elements; paranormal romance; horror without supernatural and psychological elements. While we love stories that subvert or twist tropes and archetypes, we are likely not a fit for satire, parody, or straightforward deconstructions.
If you'd like more insight into what we're about and what we usually like and don't like, check out the editors' interview at the Six Questions blog.
We publish in the adult, new adult, and young adult age ranges.
We don't publish poetry, non-fiction, or excerpts from longer works at this time.
Submission Rules
To ensure that your story is considered, please adhere to our guidelines.
Word Count
For anthologies, we consider short stories between 1,500 to 5,000 words.
(Note that, unlike in our magazine issues, we don't include flash fiction in our anthologies).
Content Rules
Please provide any content warnings that readers may wish to be aware of before reading (if your story is accepted for publication, we reserve the right to add or remove content warnings as we feel appropriate).
- You must own the rights to your submitted work.
- AI-generated content is not allowed. (See below for more details about our AI policy).
- No sex scenes. Suggestive themes, sexual references, and black screens are fine; explicit sexual content and erotica aren’t the right fit for All World’s Wayfarer.
- Violence is fine as long as it serves the story and isn't gratuitous.
- Coarse language is fine as long as it serves the story and isn't gratuitous.
- Alcohol and drug references are fine as long as they serve the story and aren't gratuitous.
- No hate speech or messaging against any real-world demographic based on race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sex, sexuality, age, neurodivergence, physical or mental illness or disability, size, class, religion, or belief system. (Characters may be prejudiced, but your story's themes should not be prejudiced.)
- No fan fiction. (We can't publish it for legal reasons.)
- No first drafts. (While an occasional typo is expected, please only submit polished work that has gone through at least a round or two of self-editing.)
- Stories dealing with challenging themes can be powerful, but if you do address any such topics (prejudice, abuse, mental illness, etc) please do so with sensitivity and empathy.
Manuscript Formatting
Please use these formatting guidelines:
- 12 point Times New Roman or Courier New font
- Double spacing
- 1" margins
- Scene breaks demarcated by *** or # symbols
- Auto characters (e.g. auto indents instead of tabs, curly quotes instead of straight quotes, alt 0151 em dashes without spaces, and alt 0133 ellipses)
The readability helps the editors respond to submissions faster and makes formatting for publication easier if we accept your work. We won't auto-reject if your formatting doesn't match the guidelines exactly, so don't stress. However, if the formatting is so far enough off that it would require us to re-format the story before reading it (e.g. the fonts are much too large or too small or too decorative, parts of the text are cut off, etc), then the editors may reject for formatting issues at their discretion.
AI-Generated Submissions (Not Allowed) and Other Rights Issues
We do not accept AI-generated submissions. All submitted stories must be directly authored by you (or another author who has explicitly and legally offered you submission rights, as in some cases of translated or agented stories). By submitting a story to All Worlds Wayfarer, you are declaring that it is not an AI-generated story and that you hold all necessary rights. If we discover that a submission has been AI-generated, plagiarized, or stolen, we will not consider the submission and may choose to blacklist the submitter. Should a story be found to be AI-generated, plagiarized, or stolen after publication, it will be removed from future editions of the book and the author will be found in breach of contract, with all that entails.
Translated Submissions
Translators are welcome to submit translated stories, but please include proof that you have permission to publish the story (e.g. a contract with the author) in the submissions email.
Simultaneous, Previously Published, and Multiple Submissions
We accept simultaneous submissions, but please let us know if your story is accepted for publication elsewhere. We will consider previously published submissions as long as you currently own all the rights and can offer six months of digital exclusivity for your story should it be accepted, but we prioritize unpublished content. Note that digital exclusivity means that the story cannot be available as an ebook (including as a Kindle or Nook book) or in any other digital format during the six-month time period. Please submit only one story at a time to All Worlds Wayfarer and wait for a response before submitting another story. We aim to respond to all submissions within one month.
Publishing with Us
Selection goes both ways: Please make sure we're right for your goals before you submit.
Rights
If your story is published in an issue of All Worlds Wayfarer, we retain exclusive digital publishing rights for six months (starting at the ebook edition's publication). Afterward, we will keep the story available in our archives, but all rights revert to you. Note that your story will then be considered previously published, which may affect future submission opportunities with other markets, as not all markets accept previously published work.
Editing
We proofread accepted stories prior to their publication. We may also perform light copyediting. In either case, you will have the opportunity to approve or decline the changes. We will not perform any developmental edits. Note that, as a US-based publisher, we change all alternative spellings to US English spellings as part of formatting.
Format
Our anthologies are published digitally and physically (in ebook and hardcover format upon release, and in a paperback edition roughly a month later). As part of the standard IngramSpark catalog, they will be available at most major online booksellers (including Amazon and Amazon Kindle, B&N.com, Kobo, Apple Books, and Walmart.com) as well as available for independent bookstores and libraries to stock at their discretion.
All included authors will also receive a free .pdf digital edition prior to release.
Payment
Writing is challenging work—mentally and emotionally—and we passionately believe in paying writers for their labor. At this time, we can offer token payments of $20 to published submissions. In the future, we would love to be able to provide our authors with the larger payments they deserve.
Publication Schedule
We publish magazine issues quarterly on every equinox and solstice. In 2023, our publication dates will be:
- Vernal Equinox: March 20th (Issue 14)
- Summer Solstice: June 21st (Issue 15)
- Autumnal Equinox: September 22nd (Issue 16)
- Winter Solstice: December 21st (Issue 17)
We are aiming to publish our next anthology in late 2023 or early 2024, but no date is set yet.
Please register for our newsletter if you would like notifications when new submission calls and issues launch.
How to Submit
Anthology submissions are currently CLOSED.
- Please email [email protected].
- Include SUBMISSION in your subject line, along with your story's title.
- Include your story's word count and any relevant content warnings in your email.
- Include a short third-person bio (200-word maximum) that you would like posted with your story in the event that it is published. Your bio may include links to your website, blog, newsletter, or social media accounts.
- Attach your story file to the email (.docx preferred, .doc or .rtf okay) or include a link to a Google Docs file.
- Send it our way!
We’ll do our best to get back to you within one month. If you have not heard from us by then, or if you have other questions related to the submissions process, feel free to contact us at [email protected].
We welcome submissions from experienced and emerging writers in every demographic. Reading stories written by so many unique voices makes this journey worth taking. Don't self-reject! Whether or not we select your submission as a fit for All World’s Wayfarer, we respect every author who shares their hard work with us.
We look forward to reading your tales!
