As we forge ahead into 2021: Part II, those inclined to versification may take interest in impending calls for submissions to paying journals and anthologies whose editors are seeking scif-fi, fantasy, and horror poetry written around preset topics. If you're an SFF poet on the lookout for writerly inspiration, one of the publisher-set prompts for this coming July, August, and September might give you that extra push you're searching for.
Here are some of the opportunities available in the third quarter of 2021 to contribute themed SFF poetry to upcoming publications, listed in order of nearness of submission deadline:
Enchanted Conversation ("Healers" Issue) Theme: Healers, Midwives and Cunning Folk Deadline: 3 July 2021 (submissions open 1 July) What they want: Poems "inspired by fairy tales" that revolve around the theme of "old fashioned herbal healers who served villages way back in the day," traditional midwives, and/or cunning folk "who used folk magic as well as potions, salves and poultices, etc." Poems should incorporate fantasy elements as well as characters identifiable as "regular herbalists, hedge witches, kitchen witches" or the like. NB: If you have a theme-appropriate submission in mind but you miss the July submission window, don't despair! A new window for submissions on the same theme opens briefly at the beginning of each month in 2021 through to November.
Inclusive Future Magazine (Issue #1) Theme: Visions from a Gender-Inclusive Future Deadline: 15 July 2021 (submissions open now!) What they want: Poems by trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer writers imagining a "gender-inclusive future" about "fifty years from now" in which "genders outside the binary [are] widely acknowledged and accepted" and "people of all genders are paid equally for equal work, have equal opportunity," etc. Pieces submitted should be written as if hailing from this speculative setting, as the issue will be published "in the guise of a pop culture magazine from the future." NB: This call is limited to "trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer people with other marginalized identities."
FIYAH (Issue #20) Theme: Love, Death, and Androids Deadline: 31 July 2021 (submissions open now!) What they want: Black writers' speculative poetry that features speculative technology set in "[f]antastical futures" or "mechanical pasts." The editors are "looking for work that gets weird, that examines the construct of humanity, the relationship between humans and their machines or which blurs the lines between them." NB: FIYAH only publishes work by "authors from the African diaspora and the African continent."
Haunted: A Ghostly Anthology Theme: Hauntings Deadline: 31 July 2021 (submissions open now!) What they want: Speculative poems "featuring haunted places, people and objects." Reprints welcome.
The Dead Inside Theme: Identity Horror Deadline: 2 Aug. 2021 (submissions open now!) What they want: Horror poetry that considers "what happens when our core identities are stripped, altered, suppressed, or denied to us, whether by choice or not."
Apparition Lit (Issue #16) Theme: Wonder Deadline: 31 Aug. 2021 (submissions open 15 Aug.) What they want: Poetry with "obvious fantasy or sci-fi elements" that addresses the theme of wonder. NB: The window for "BIPOC-only submissions" runs a week longer than the general window. Deadline "for BIPOC creators only" is Sep. 7.
Eye to the Telescope (Issue #42) Theme: The Sea Deadline: 15 Sep. 2021 (submissions open now!) What they want: Previously unpublished poems of any form classifiable as sci-fi, fantasy, or supernatural horror and centering on the seas of Earth or of other planets or moons. The editor especially encourages speculative pieces featuring the inhabitants of the sea, real or imagined.
Dead Stars and Stone Arches: A Collection of Utah Horror Theme: Cosmic Horror Deadline: 31 Oct. 2021 (submissions open now!) What they want: Previously unpublished horror poems that "have a Utah connection, either on the part of the author or the [work] itself." The editors are looking for writing along the lines of work by "Lucy A. Snyder, Laird Barron, Algernon Blackwood," etc. NB: Either the submitter or the contents of submitted poems must have some connection to the state of Utah.
Happy writing, everyone!