Fangoria: Weird Words Contest
Deadline: October 1, 2012
TOP 3 STORIES WILL BE PUBLISHED IN THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE!
The legendary horror movie magazine Fangoria is running a short story contest! We list writing contests all the time, but this one is truly unique, and an outstanding opportunity for any of you looking to get national exposure for your writing.
I have been a fan of this magazine for over 25 years. It is a fantastic and intelligent look into the world of horror. For a young and unknown writer to have his or her work published in the pages of this magazine would be an amazing step up.
The WEIRD WORDS contest is now open for submissions. Editor Chris Alexander was kind enough to send us some words about the contest and what excites him about horror fiction:
WEIRD WORDS is my baby and its part of my mandate to create a horror magazine that I as a consumer would love to read. The last round of WEIRD WORDS saw literally hundreds of submissions, many of which to be frank were unimaginative, derivative or childishly scatological. But then the heavens would open and I’d get a piece of thoughtful, stylish, even dangerous work that did what my favorite short fiction does – that is suck you into a world and give you an ambiguous slice of life within it…I also applaud writers that don’t OVER use profanity…I love profanity, but like gore and sex, they are stings and tools that need to be used by masters sparingly and with purpose. So to read writers who can balance these essential guttural elements of shock is very exciting.
For over 30 years this magazine has thrilled horror fans. Now you can have a hand in terrifying readers on a national level. Alexander told us what he hoped to accomplish by publishing fiction in the pages of Fangoria:
The first is to be able to give a kind of gift to struggling, unpublished writers….a spotlight in a legendary, internationally distributed magazine. We also pay standard freelance rates for the story so the reward is twofold. This round there is a submission fee so I can weed out the less serious writers and hopefully get the best of the best and I’m publishing over the span of a year THREE winning stories so the odds of getting published this round are much stronger.
As a small child my parents took me to Ulli Lommel’s The Boogeyman. Even though I was terrified beyond all comprehension, I was immediately addicted to the feeling. A few years later, I found this magazine as my fix for all things horror. Now not only are they supporting the world or horror, they are also supporting writers by giving them this outstanding opportunity.
The contest runs a $10 fee which is a small price for the chance for national exposure. It also will help keep this awesome magazine going, so think of it as a donation, and submit your work!
It was a pleasure reading your essay. To my mind, this is an excellent document. I will be returning to this site to peruse fresh postings.