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Closed. Next periods:

General - Nov 1 - Nov 30, 2023

Guidelines
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Closed for submissions

Upcoming reading periods

General

Nov 1, 2023 - Nov 30, 2023

Guidelines

"PodCastle is a weekly fantasy podcast producing audio performances of fantasy short fiction, including all the sub-genres of fantasy, such as magical realism, urban fantasy, slipstream, high fantasy, and dark fantasy."

"PodCastle is a weekly fantasy podcast producing audio performances of fantasy short fiction, including all the sub-genres of fantasy, such as magical realism, urban fantasy, slipstream, high fantasy, and dark fantasy."

Vibe

Send us your best but less intimidating

Response Time

3 months / 22 days

Acceptance Rate

17.65%

  • Payment

    Yes: $0.08 per word

  • Fee

    No

  • Simultaneous submissions

    Yes

  • Previously published

    Yes

  • Expedited response

    No

  • Available in print

    No

  • Provides contributor copies

    No

  • Examples online

    Yes

  • Active on social media

    Yes

Accepted genres

3 genres

Fiction

Max words: 6000

Max pieces: 2

Short fiction. Our “sweet spot” for story length is between 3,000 and 4,000 words.

Fiction

Max words: 1500

Flash fiction

Translation

Max words: 6000

Max pieces: 2

Translations of stories into English are welcome.

Fiction

Max words: 6000

Max pieces: 2

Short fiction. Our “sweet spot” for story length is between 3,000 and 4,000 words.

Fiction

Max words: 1500

Flash fiction

Translation

Max words: 6000

Max pieces: 2

Translations of stories into English are welcome.

Statistics

We're able to provide them because you use our tracker!
You're the best!

Track submission

35

Total submissions tracked

22 days

Average response time

17.65%

Average acceptance rate

0 days

Fastest response time

63 days

Slowest response time

*Weird response times we excluded from calculations: 3040 days, 3183 days, 3296 days, 3748 days, 4818 days

How to submit

Process

Submit online via our Moksha submissions portal.

Cover letters

Standard Manuscript Format, with the exception that we do not require your home address or telephone number on the document.

Eligibility

No specific eligibility requirements

Formatting

We use the Standard Manuscript Format, with the exception that we do not require your home address or telephone number on the document. We accept files in .rtf, .docx, or .doc format.

Rights for published work

PodCastle publishes stories in both text and audio. You indicating both are available when you submit your story. We ask for 4 months exclusivity for text and audio for original stories, and 4 months audio exclusivity for reprints. We are happy to receive previously-podcasted stories; this just means don’t re-pod the story until 4 months after publication with PodCastle. We distribute under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. Briefly, this means that the entire world has permission to distribute the audio files for free, provided they give credit for it, don’t try to make money off of it, and don’t change it in any way. Transcribing it, extracting portions from it beyond fair use, and mashing it up are all prohibited. This license applies only to our audio performance of your work, for which we’ve contracted and paid you. It does not apply to your story itself; you retain your copyright and all rights to any other use of the story.

Additional info

PodCastle is looking for fantasy stories. We’re open to all the sub-genres of fantasy, from magical realism to urban fantasy to slipstream to high fantasy, and everything in between. Fantastical or non-real content should be meaningful to the story. We are especially interested in seeing more submissions from people of backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented or excluded from traditional publishing, including, but not limited to, women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ and non-binary gender people, persons with disabilities, members of religious minorities, and people from outside the United States. Reprints are welcome and encouraged. Submissions: you are permitted to submit one (1) original story and one (1) reprint at any given time, thus you may have two (2) stories under active consideration at a time.

About the Magazine

Founded in 2008 | United States

PodCastle has released hundreds of stories, whose authors include Peter S. Beagle, Natalia Theodoridou, Jeff VanderMeer, N.K. Jemisin, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, Scott Lynch and Ken Liu. We pay our authors and narrators, but we will always be 100% free for you. We are supported through listener donations and sponsorship, so if you like what you hear, please consider sponsoring us via Patreon or PayPal!

Masthead

We currently list only main editors, more will be added later! If you are an editor, you can edit your masthead in our admin panel :)

Shingai Njeri Kagunda

Editor-in-Chief

Eleanor R. Wood

Co-Editor

Examples

0 pieces from Chill Subs people