WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
Mysterical-E is an online literary magazine featuring mystery stories and more including serials and book excerpts; as well as interviews, reviews, and articles. Mysterical-E is dedicated to presenting quality material and to providing a showcase for talent old and new.
The mystery field has undergone a change in recent years. According to the December 2004 MWA letter:
"Now it is time to recognize that the field has broadened and diversified since its inception. We are all over the map - from darkest noir to softest cozy; from-just-the-facts-ma'am to fantasy and science fiction; from historical romance to futuristic techno-thriller."
This newly defined mystery story is our priority. All kinds - softboiled, hardboiled, not boiled at all; the traditional P.I. as well as unorthodox finders, amateur sleuths, police detectives, and others; and we seek tales with a supernatural or speculative fiction touch.
We're wide open -- there's room in Mystery for cross genre material -- speculative fiction, horror, fantasy. Who says a werewolf can't be a P.I.? Or, something completely different.
Since its founding, Mysteical-E has been interested in mystery and the "mysterious" in general -- so your stories, articles, and ideas in this vein are welcome.
Stretch your imagination, send us something startlingly good.
Not sure if a story you've written fits?
-- Send it anyway or send a query: joede AT mystericale.com
Reprints -- with proper permissions and citations -- are welcome.
FICTION:
These are the word-length categories in which we will accept stories:
Flash -- up to 500 words
Short-Short -- 501 to 1000 words
Short Story -- 1001 to 7500 words
Long Short Story -- 7501 to 15000 words
Novella -- 15001 to 40000 words
Serialized Longer works -- >40001 words
We might accept Drabble (100 words or less) if it's really good. Even Hemingway is said to have created at least one of these.
Book excerpts - either from books with FIRM publication dates OR books published within the past twelve to twenty-four months. Excerpts should be a tempting taste of the book from which they're drawn.
Keep excerpts to around 8000 to 10,000 wds. INTERVIEWS:
Chats with people in the Mystery business -- authors, agents, publishers, convention organizers -- the entire range. A simple Q&A format will suffice but a good, solid profile type of interview is appreciated.
Query with ideas to joede AT mystericale.com
ARTICLES:
We are looking for articles dealing with aspects of the mystery, character studies and analyses, retrospective reviews of the works/styles/characters of great names in Mystery, news of what's going on in the field, spotlights on publishers and markets, be creative, come up with ideas and ask.
We are always open to introducing new columns to our readers.
Query with ideas to joede AT mystericale.com
REVIEWS:
Books, movies, websites, etc. -- as long as it's a mystery or something mysterious, we're interested.
Queries to: joede AT mystericale.com
OTHER:
You have an idea? We want to hear about it.
Maybe it will pan out, maybe not. You won't know unless you ask.
Query with ideas to joede AT mystericale.com
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
submissions AT mystericale.com
Guidelines sometimes change. Please refer to them each time you submit a piece of work.
Writers are invited to submit quality work, which will be featured on the website for the life of an issue (right now that means about three months) as well as in our Archives. Being featured in Mysterical-E means you're a published writer and as such have rights to your work. We ask first-time electronic rights and archival rights (think of it as back issues in a library. It doesn't mean you can't submit the story elsewhere); all other rights revert to the author.
We welcome submissions from anywhere in the world.
Payment
Right now Mysterical-E is not a paying market. Our contest does have a cash prize, however.
As we explore the financial side of things, we hope to find ways of paying our writers and artists.
Simultaneous submissions are not being accepted at this time.
Reprints are being accepted.
Submissions should be sent via e-mail to submissions AT mystericale.com
Put the word SUBMISSION - Title of Your Story in the subject line
Send ONLY MSWord or .rtf attachments.
Please follow this style format:
Single space your story/article/etc. After singlespacing please THEN double space Between paragraphs (even one line graphs) and double space between lines of dialogue.
Do not indent at the beginning of paragraphs.
Use: Times New Roman (only) 12 point
At the top of your submission please include the following:
Your Name
Your Street Address
Your Telephone number(s)
Your e-mail address
(stipulate whether or not you want your e-mail address listed with your by-line. If we receive no information from you regarding this we will consider that you wish to have your e-mail address listed with your article and may do so)
The name you wish us to use on the piece if it is accepted.
List category: story, interview, article, review, other
Title of your story
Word Count
At the end of your piece please write END
After that please append a SHORT (75-100 word) bio
Please check your manuscript for errors in spelling (don't rely on SpellCheck);
fix any grammar or punctuation errors.
Response time should be 6 to 8 weeks or less. If you do not hear from us within 8 weeks, please send an e-mail to be certain your submission has actually been received.
Since we are looking for quality, we will probably ask authors of promising pieces for revisions based on a critique we send. Each piece is eligible for two (2) resubmissions after revisions suggested by us. After this, if your piece is still unacceptable, we have the right to reject it.
Please Note
The editors reserve the right to reject any submission.
If your work is rejected, we are not rejecting you personally - there are lots of reasons a piece might not be right at the time it is received. Submit another piece - perhaps the next story will be the one that we accept.
ART WORK
Please query Art Director Gin Fenton gin@ginelf.com
She coordinates all artists worknig with us.
Submissions that do not follow these guidelines
may be deleted unread and no reply will be sent to the writer.
If your work is accepted, you may be asked to respond to an e-mail containing a standard release and your acceptance of its terms. Below is an example of such a release:
I (your name & pseudonym, if applicable) certify that I am the writer/artist of the work being submitted to Mysterical E. Work being submitted has not been published previously online or in print. I also agree that Mysterical E may archive my work after initial publication. I further agree that Mysterical E may consider my work for print/electronic publication in a "best of" anthology at some point. I retain all rights to my work except First North American Rights and anthology rights. My copyright remains mine throughout the process. If my work should appear elsewhere after having been selected for publication, it will be noted that it first appeared in Mysterical E located at http://www.mystericale.com
Disclaimers:
All submissions must be your original work.
The author is responsible for the work featured at the site and Mysterical-E accepts no liability for misuse of any kind.
In addition, we cannot be responsible for someone stealing your material from this site. |
