Open Call for Submissions

The call for submissions for the 2023 Western Colorado University & WordFire Press anthology is open… the theme revealed. So, put on your author caps and break out the keyboards, and submit your story today. Professional rates paid. Read full guidelines here: https://wordfirewestern.moksha.io/publication/merciless-mermaids-tails-from-the-deep/guidelines

MERCILESS MERMAIDS: Tails from the Deep 

Think deep—the deep of the sea, the deep of space, the deep of our souls, our fears, ourselves. Here, it’s not the monsters under your bed; it’s the mermaids under your boat.

Can you see the shapes in the waters that watch you? Can you hear the mermaid’s call?

Old sailors tried to warn us. You can find their stories in water-stained journals and letters throughout histories and cultures. People of the land laughed at them, calling their stories mere legends and fairy tales. Now it’s your turn to tell the real stories behind these tails found in the deep, the dangers in dark waters.

Will the merfolk prey on humans once the land-bound civilizations fall? Do they snatch men for research? What of the siren who is wildly tone deaf? Does your merman surface on some faraway planet, stare through mists at the newcomers and think Never. Again.

We’re sounding the ship’s bell for stories about malevolent and merciless merfolk of all kinds. Give us your mermaids who fought for the wrong reasons, made tough by their circumstances or by their own choices. Show us their schemes and villainous wiles, the fairytales that end in blood. Or laughter. Tempt us with their twisted workings across time and space, colors and creeds.

Deep down you know that the darkness has a tail.

Edited by Kevin J. Anderson and Allyson Longueira with an editorial team provided by Western Colorado University Graduate Program in Creative Writing, Publishing MA students. Anthology made possible by a generous contribution from Draft2Digital.

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